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Entertainment Humor TV

HEINEKEN Walk-in Fridge commercial (the follow-up)

HEINEKEN Walk-in Fridge commercial

It’s Friday, time to get your beer on.

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Music

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

www.youtube.com/v/id4vnQE0ok4&feature=youtube_gdata" style="border: 1px solid rgb(223, 223, 223); background: transparent url(chrome://flashblock/content/flash.png) no-repeat scroll center center; overflow: hidden; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; min-width: 32px ! important; min-height: 32px ! important; width: 425px; height: 355px; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; visibility: visible ! important; -moz-box-sizing: border-box;" bgactive="url(chrome://flashblock/content/flashplay.png) no-repeat center" bginactive="url(chrome://flashblock/content/flash.png) no-repeat center">

An awesome rough-edged version of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ HOME. The foot-tapping contagious happiness emanating from this band is just amazing, leaving you whistling their tunes with a smile on your face for days after.

Also: Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros – 40 Day Dream
and Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros – Home, live @ kcrw

Categories
Entertainment Music

Vinyl Sales Up, Artists Making More Money Than Ever

DSC_6716
Image by Shaun Dewberry via Flickr

Two interesting news articles I came across over the weekend show exactly which direction the music industry is turning, and it’s a direction that I think is good, and long-time-coming.

Firstly, Nielsen SoundScan is reporting an increase in Vinyl record sales, up around 100 000 units over last year. (Yes, digital sales are up too, but that’s no news). Having recently purchase my first LP, I can testify to the satisfaction that throwing on a 33RPM can give you.

Secondly, the Times Online has stats showing that artists are making more money than ever from live concerts, despite the fall in record sales. Record labels are the only people that are actually losing money due to piracy. I think this is a very necessary shift in the power-balance away from talentless overpaid money-grubbing record execs back to the artist. I hope the trend continues. The clincher is this quote which pretty much sums things up:

“when the BPI releases its annual report claiming how much ‘the music industry’ has suffered from the growth in illegal file-sharing, what it perhaps should be saying is how much the record labels have suffered”.

Categories
Entertainment Humor Music

If I Didn’t Have You [Horrible Truth Edition]

Tim Minchin – If I Didn’t Have You
“I think you’re special, but you fall within a bell curve…”

Categories
Entertainment Humor politics Rants

Poor Quality German Vehicles Plague Cabinet Ministers

2006-2008 Mercedes-Benz ML350 photographed in USA.
Image via Wikipedia

Science and Technology minister Naledi Pandor is the latest victim of unreliable and aging German luxury automobiles, a condition known in car manufacturing circles as the “H1WAN12 (Have 1, Want A New 1 Too) Swine Fool Panic”. Recently she too was forced to order two Mercedes Benz ML350s to ferry her growing ass from meeting to meeting, following the apparent gearbox failure of the two previous cars designated for the Minister.

The cars were both running with the enormously high mileage of 141000km and 106 000km which explains their sudden calamitous failure. The new replacement cars include the latest in ministerial comforts aimed at improving leaders’ ability to make poor decisions in traffic – metallic paint, command navigation, media interface, DVD player, technical off-road package, heated front seats, Xenon active lights, sunroof, run flat tyres and private glass. A spokesperson for the manufacturer, Masipa Dense has expressed shock and horror that the minister did not take the heated rear-seat option. The new cars were purchased at a cost of 28 RDP houses.

2007 BMW X5 photographed in USA.
Image via Wikipedia

In a similar yet apparently unrelated incident, minister Nathi Mthethwa was also a victim of German engineering when the 2003 BMW X5 and 2006 Audi A8 he recently inherited turned out to be “mechanically unsound”. He replaced these with two “BMW ministerial-edition” X5s totalling the humble sum of R1.4 million, or 26 RDP houses. Audi has declined to comment, but industry insider Jeremy Clarkson has indicated that Audis are driven by cocks these days, a fact that goes a long way towards explaining Charles Nqakula – the minister who the vehicles were in fact inherited from.

Not to be outdone, Minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga dipped into the public treasury for a more sensible approach when considering the nature of the unreliable and trouble-plagued German vehicles. She chose instead to only take one R900 000 BMW 730D and rather replace her previous vehicle with a more reasonable and cheaper option manufactured by Indian mega-company Tata: Her Range Rover Sport TDV8 cost a rather sane R800 000. Reasons given for the choice state that the 4×4 ability of the vehicle will allow her to visit extreme rural areas to ensure the children in those remote regions are given their half-bowl of miele-pap every morning before walking barefoot to attend lessons with no equipment in the open veld beneath the trees.

Collins Spindokotela, minister for the evaluation of corruption, has defended the purchases as within the rules dictated in the ministerial handbook, and indicated he would rather see the frivolous spending being made on good Italian cars which are “…just as unreliable, but much prettier on the eye.”