James’s Blog

I came across a blog entry that linked to the following video that ranked the top ten Mario-themed games. Brings back nice memories.

Then I found this huge archive of Mario related ringtones. The updated Fever from Dr. Mario is quite fun.

This Villiage Voice article analyses the hit song This Is Why I’m Hot by Mims. The song is, of course, available in Youtube, at least for now. The lyrics are available here.

The popularity of songs like this makes me have fleeting naughty, unpatriotic thoughts about America. I learned a few new words from it though, words like hyphy and guap. The article is a fun read; I particularly enjoyed the photo caption:

But its analysis of the refrain

I’m hot ’cause I’m fly/You ain’t ’cause you not

is way too complicated (see fig. 3). Note that we have

and

If a conditional statement and its inverse are both true, the two conditions must be equivalent, so being fly is the same thing as being hot.

I still can’t believe that I found one of my favorite pop songs back in the Taiwan days last night, in someone’s blog. It’s called 不懂的事 (Things I don’t understand), sung by the duo 知己二重唱. The song was released as part of the album 六個朋友 (Six friends), a collection of works from six artists, among whom was 張雨生, one of my childhood pop idols. Turns out that of course, he has a fan site and a Wikipedia entry. 張雨生’s life story is pretty tragic; a few years ago he died at the peak of his career at the age of 31 from an auto accident.

Anyway, back to the song. It’s a rare pop song talking about something other than love and relationship–it talks about enjoying one’s youth. This is a point made more poignant because the song is part of the memories I have from spending a carefree summer (’88? ‘89?) with my sister, and my consins Cody and Vincent. The song, the lyrics, and my attempt at the translation, after the jump.

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So Andrew Sullivan appears to have incited a furious debate about the merits of 80s pop music, a debate that my sister and I engage in sometimes. The responses are entertaining, but I never could have verbalized my feelings toward Coldplay as well as this guy did:

The horrors of 80’s music pale in comparison to the ennui-sodden banjo playing that has been foisted on us for the last 10 years. The moment I hear “Cold Play” I run screaming for the nearest bottle of antidepressants.

There’s now going to be a Youtube contest of the best and worst of 80s music.

This Scissor Sisters single has been playing in the clubs for the last couple of times I’ve gone out, and it’s growing on me.

Lyrics after the jump.

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Pluto is no longer considered a planet! It is now a dwarf planet, an object that “has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite.” Pluto’s orbit crosses Neptune’s occasionally, so Pluto doesn’t clear the neighborhood, so it’s a dwarf planet. Sounds reasonable.

Two other objects are now dwarf planets: Ceres and 2003 UB₃₁₃ (”Xena”). CNET.com has a picture list of some Kuiper Belt objects, some of which might eventually be classified as dwarf planets. All over the news they’re calling Pluto’s change of status as a “demotion.” I’m not sure about that characterization–they just created a whole new category in which Pluto is the prototype, which seems pretty special to me. Incidentally, this CBC article says that something like this has happened before: Ceres was also considered a planet when it was first discovered, and later the word “astroid” was coined for objects like it.

Hmm, we can now play Holst’s The Planets without that nagging feeling that we’re missing Pluto. Maybe someone ought to compose The Dwarf Planets now.

I wonder what the percentage of the vote is, whether there is enough dissent that this definition might change later again. But I can’t seem to find the detailed voting results in all the news articles. Here is the result of the vote; only resolutions 5A and 6A were passed.

Update: it was sort of a voice vote: people were asked to raise a yellow card if they agree with the resolution, and it was passed thusly.

Also, this NPR listener (click on “listen”) had the same thoughts as I did with Holst’s The Planets. Wikipedia reminded me that a few years ago someone did compose a movement for Pluto. I heard it once; I don’t remember it being very good.

Today I discovered the treasure trove that is classical music on YouTube. For example, I’ve heard plenty of versions of Paganini’s Carpice No. 1, but never seen anyone actually playing it.

That was 楊天媧 (Yang Tianwa). She supposedly recorded the clip at the age of 12. There seems to be a lot of criticism on the YouTube thread about how she plays too unemotionally, like a robot. First of all, she’s 12. Second of all, here an example the complete opposite, but not necessarily better.

Obviously Esther Kim is also a very good young violinist. But lady, calm down. It’s just Mozart; no need to be so spastic. It kinda distracts from the music. Here is a superb peformance of a more understated Ms. Kim playing one of my favorite solo violin pieces, Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 3 “Ballade.”

There are more clips at Ms. Kims website. What started all this was when I came across a thread in the violinist.com forum. The following exchange about Ms. Yang is typical violinists banter, but still amused me:

From Pieter Viljoen
Posted on April 16, 2006 at 11:50 AM (MST)
O my god…
It’s not the arpeggiando that floors me, it’s the descending thirds she does as if it’s twinkle twinkle little star…

From Stephen Mayhew
Posted on April 16, 2006 at 12:08 PM (MST)
What! You don’t play Twinkle Twinkle in descending thirds?

From Pieter Viljoen
Posted on April 16, 2006 at 12:39 PM (MST)
Fingered octaves, but whose keeping track.

From Amy F.
Posted on April 16, 2006 at 3:48 PM (MST)
i do it in fingered tenths

I heard on NPR that Gioacchino Rossini, of William Tell Overture [audio] [wiki article] fame, wrote a duet for cats, duetto buffo di due gatti. I can’t decide if it’s funny or incredibly annoying, but the cat/music people I know might like it. Here is a dramatic live performance with piano accompaniment [audio] [website], and a cleaner, more feline version with guitar accompaniment [audio] [website].

Oh, that Zidane and his headbutt. First the video game, now the summer smash hit. It’s pretty catchy actually.

La plage records made the song. There’s even a remix already. Lyrics of the song, after the jump.

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