Posted on by crystal · 10 Comments

G-squared-W-B

One thing that amuses me about me is … well … actually, lots of things amuse me about me. So let’s just deal with the GI of the day. GI here would be Giggle-inducer. What. It’s Friday. And it’s really really hot.

Anyway, back to the GI of the day. What has me SOL-ing is the things that inspire posts for me. I just read a random rant about IT somewhere, the kind that I usually do, and it made me re-realise something. No, that’s not a typo.

Disclaimer: I might be a little high on solar. I’m just saying.

Anyway. I was saying. I have recently confirmed my [insisted] belief that undomesticity is an INFJ thing. I also consistently say that apart from, you know, the extra x, cuteness is my only feminine attribute.

Now for a lot of people, cuteness is a good thing. I mean who can resist a little girl, right? And if the little girl is a full grown woman, then  that’s even better. Coz … you know … that one.

Trouble is I like geeks. And geeks, for the most part, do not hazard little girls. It’s one thing to put on my little girl voice [well, actually, as Archer can tell you, my little girl voice is kind of intrinsic, I can’t really put it off!] Anyway, I can easily bat my non-existent eyelashes and purr squeak at some guy and get him to open a jar for me. Not that it works – apparently having dreads and climbing roofs to fix your own aerial kind of disqualifies you from damselship. Apparently.

My point is, while the little girl that I am can sometimes get guys to, you know, do my homework, drive me places or jpeg my PDF files, it is virtually useless when it comes to geeks.

Case in point. I am staring helplessly at my computer trying to get it to do something, anything really. But it just sits there blinking at me. I call resident twigget for help, but since he knows that I am not, you know, helpless, he doesn’t jump to my rescue.

When he finally does get here, rather than being a darling and fixing my mess for me like any standard boy-type hero would do, he stands about two feet away and  gives me instructions. That’s right. Instructions. He tells me what to do.

Now that would be fine if I needed to, say, reassemble a jig-saw puzzle. But when he says stuff like:

Check the drivers.

Drivers?

Yes, and you need to look into the cache.

Cache?

Is it emptied? You may have some cookies overloading your network.

Cookies?

Your machine is sending out packets but it’s not receiving any. Something must be clogging your bandwidth.

Packets?

Is there an echo in here?

Echo?

Good lord!! Of course each echo is greeted by a dramatic rolling of the eyes and an even more dramatic sigh.

It’s at that point that I decided it’s not enough to just love geeks, I need to go geek. I need to promote my fetish from a mere compulsive proximity to geeks and actually become one.

I am now an official Geek-Girl-Wanna-Be.

Besides, geeks are hot, geek girls are hotter. Just look at Leslie Winkle.

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Posted on by crystal · 15 Comments

All the above

I don’t particularly like Tpain. There’s something vaguely annoying about him and Lil Wayne and Lil Romeo and Lil Bow Wow and anyone with Lil initial in their stage name. Never mind that my own stage name is CB … and that this is a classic case of kettles and pots and lack of colour *grin* The point is, I don’t much like Tpain.

But when I heard this song some months back, I liked it. I didn’t know anything about it except that it had Tpain and there was a word in it that sounded like ‘love’. I was trying to tell my brother about it, since we share DNA and a mutual disaffection for Tpain.

I have Musical OCD. I get a song into my head and play it over and over and over until, well, until I don’t want to play it over and over and over. My song of the week is this one.

All the above by Maino ft Tpain

Released: February 17, 2009
Recorded: 2009
Genre: Hip hop
Length: 5:19
Label: Atlantic
Producer: Just Blaze and Nard & B

I haven’t been this excited since I discovered Rihanna’s Umbrella and Justin’s What goes around.

Being me, I played the song in the background about fifty times before I started to wonder exactly what it was about the song that made me like it so much. So I sat up and actually listened to it. I got lifted, literally, and I can’t stop smiling. This song is like 6 months old, I first heard it around May, and it’s getting lots of airplay here, so I’m wondering why nobody seems to know in +254.

There’s lots of things I like about it. One, it’s music, as in actual music, like Alicia keyes or Coldplay type music. When I say music, I mean notes and tunes and motifs.

Like, for example, if you listen to Alicia Keyes’ Kharma, you will hear that when she sings “what goes around comes around” the music actually does a round. You can almost see it spin.

And when she says “what goes up must come down”, the music follows. Listen and to it again and you’ll see what I mean. The effect is called … well I forget what’s it’s called … tonal painting, I think, that sounds vaguely familiar from all those lessons with Waks. Also there was a word like mellisma in there somewhere, but I forget.

Another example of ‘music’ is Swallowed in the Sea by Coldplay. I have no idea what that song is about, but it is so rich and evocative and layered that every time you listen to it, you hear something new. You will catch some new beat or sound or instrument that you hadn’t heard before. It’s haunting, absorbing, and utterly beautiful.

Anyway, this song has that same quality of music. It’s layered. It starts with this staccato violin theme for eight bars or so, then you hear a keyboard, possibly a clavinova or some kind of electric piano. Then you hear the same keyboard theme [hehehe tune] but an octave lower.

Then you get to the hook and the drums come in, beautifully syncopated and reminiscent of Timbaland. It’s at that point that I checked for the producer’s name. No, it’s not Timba.

As the song goes on, the layers are alternated so that sometimes you hear all four layers, sometimes only three or two, and every few bars you catch variations of the main motif or one-off mini-ideas.

There’s even an ornament somewhere in verse three. It’s like some kind of modern-day fugue! I’m guessing this Just Blaze guy is classically trained. It’s amazing!! I think this track [i.e the background music, not the lyrics themselves] is the kind of thing Mozart or Haydn would come up with if they were reincarnated at Atlantic Records and restricted to four minutes.

At the end it’s  got some electric guitar riff that gives the song an almost rockish feel, excuse for some air guitar if the air drums don’t already have you high. I notice a lot of hip hop artists are using this, right from Luda’s Rock Star to Lil Wayne & that Kevin guy’s Let it Rock. I’m thinking maybe rock is in now?

I also like the way they play around with the vocals, with these soulful chanty harmonies. I like chants. I’m actually partial to anything that lets me yodel along. Case in point:

  • Alanis [almost all her songs have a chanterlude]
  • Jewel [who will saa-aave your soul]
  • That Rihanna-TI song [live your life aaaay-aaaay-aaay]
  • Umbrella [-ella-ella-aay-aay-aay]
  • Bon Jovi [have a nice daa-aa-aay]
  • etc etc etc

The lyrics are pretty cool, with Tpain playing Mr Lenny, and some clever rhyming by Maino. It’s got those lines that I like so much and use so often –

When you look at me, what do you see?

I’m on a mission to fulfil my destiny [paraphrase]

There’s some accapella towards the end that is just whoa, if you like that kind of thing. The miracle baby line made me giggle, and the acca-mphasis on “When I think that I can’t, I envision Obama” made me smile. My favourite line is “the new benz is all white, call him John McCain.” Classic!

AND it’s all clean!!!

I can’t believe I’m writing so much about a song.

Oh well, next target, Deliverance by Bubba Sparxxxxxxxx [how many x-es is that name supposed to have?]

Twende kazi.

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Posted on by crystal · 5 Comments

I are blonde

… no relation to I R Baboon and I M Weasel. I do not like that cartoon. I would say hate, but my new … eh … mind-frame does not allow me to use the word ‘hate’.

Also, I may have joined I cult. With yoga.

I love reading Kenyan newspapers … when I’m far away from home. I buy the Nation every day, and don’t feel my day is complete until I have my copy. Never mind that they don’t arrive until at least 1.00 p.m. every day, and I don’t read them till after five when the news isn’t really news.

But lately I’ve fallen behind. I still buy my papers, but because I leave work so late, I usually pass by the Chemist [that’s where I buy them] once a week and collect the lot. Then I go home and pile them in a corner and tell myself I will read them … sometime. I now have about a month’s worth piled up.

I also love to watch CNN, Deutsche-Welle and the Beeb. Not so much Al-jazeera, but hey. About a year ago, Princess’ school bus used to come pick her up at 7.30, so our morning routine included sitting by the TV watching the 7.00 a.m. newsbriefing over breakfast.  These days, the bus comes at 6.45, so we wake up an hour earlier, shower, dress, breakfast, and once she’s safely on the bus, I proceed to work.

Consequently, I have no idea what’s in the news. Oh wait, also, when I am watching my Beeb and etc, I am generally watching Dockis and features. So if it doesn’t have a Click, I am probably not paying attention. As a result, I have no idea what is going on in the world.

I have, x number of times, made a conscious effort to read the news online. I have bookmarked Capital, the Beeb and even Nation Audio, and tried to train myself to at least skim them every morning.

FAIL.

So if it’s not on Hal Linday or MSN, I probably don’t know about it.

[I can’t believe Patrick Swayze is gone!!]

Today I asked a very silly question. I know that Kanye did something to Taylor Swift, and that Obama is really mad about it. So after three days of hearing attacks and bad knock knock jokes, I decided to bite the bullet and ask . What did Kanye do?

Note to self: Never ask what Kanye did. Really. Don’t.

As a certain Mrs Maina used to say, don’t expose your ignorance.

Well, at least now I know what he did.

A few minutes later I heard someone saying something about Kenyan parliament being on TV on all channels and I asked why.

Really, will I never learn?

I’m supposed to be an intellectual type chick. I should be smart about stuff like, you know, news. But then again, I am also a religious chick who rarely reads the Bible and does not like church.

I feel a little sad about it. I mean I know I’m living out my teen years. I am hyper…active, extremely moody, and my face is breaking out. I get giggly about jewellery and shoes, I have multiple crushes, and my hair is all pretty. For all intents and purposes, I am hormonally sweet sixteen.

I get my fix from bubblegum pop and have no appreciation for fusion, jazz, or neo soul. I would never read Fathers and Sons simply because it is called Fathers and Sons. I might buy The Devil wears Prada though. Yes, there’s a book. And no, I haven’t watched the movie. Speaking of which, I need to call my DVD guy.

Point is … well I don’t think there was a point. Except that I need to watch the news more. Actually, I need to watch the news period.

I hear Ted Muthusi and Steven Kanumba are on BBA4. And that they were all men, and now they are all women. Oh well, I never did get reality TV.

Now, about that cult.

Well, I am currently reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch.

What.

I like their ideas. They make a lot of sense to me. They answer all these questions that I have always had, questions about my goal in life, my purpose, my point in being here. I was always programmed to dismiss such stuff as mumbo-jumbo psychobabble, right up there with Freud and Narcissa and Oedipus complex and Anal fetishes. So I tried very hard not to believe what I was reading. Just like I tried very hard to hate Kill Bill.

But what can I say; Tarantino is gifted, Manga is awesome, and New Age makes sense. I am happy, I am at peace, which I haven’t been in a long time. So there.

Oh, and I need to watch the news.

The End.

PS: Is there nobody who likes All the above by Maino featuring Tpain? It is such an amazing song!!

PPS: I have just received a call on my cellphone from my boss. He has requested that I dress smartly to work tomorrow because we are getting visitors from Head Office and I may have to take minutes.

I suppose he meant dress formally, since I usually go by smart casual, complete with massive silver hoop earrings and a tiny gold stud in my nose. For tomorrow, I have been asked, as an elaboration of smartness, not to wear trousers.

WTF?

That is all.

And smile. I insist. *winking*

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