happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Saturday Silliness: Not Second Life, but similarly Sim-y

A little New Pornographers music video gone Sims style.  Dorky, yes.  But that's kind of what makes me happy.  Thanks to Adam for uncovering this YouTube gem.  :)

YouTube gives me agua de beber

I have a ridiculous amount of love for a certain song - Agua De Beber (aka:  Water To Drink) - as sung by Astrud and Joao Gilberto.  There are few languages that have that kind of sex appeal like Portuguese and few rhythms as sultry as the Bossa Nova -- and this song showcases both perfectly.

So on that gushy note, I am beside myself to happen upon this cute little Spanish family (Los Foulkes) covering not only Ague De Beber in a most spectacular fashion, but also covering one of my fave Billie Holiday songs:  You're My Thrill.  Everyone with me now, LOVE YOU YOUTUBE!!

And in further YouTube awesomeness, I also managed to score a German guitar teacher's lesson on how to play Agua De Beber and the lyrics (which are in their entirety after the jump - LOVE!).

My 1927 player piano loves YouTube

It's no secret that I'm a music junkie, although I'm willing to bet that the majority of you have never heard me play anything.  It's been a number of years since my piano and violin has consumed my days, but it's something that just never goes away.

I watched Pride and Prejudice for the 40th time last night (the 2005 version, not my favorite but the scenery and empire waist dresses make me pine for a previous life of embroidery, ribbon shopping and genteel courtship I think) and as usual had the piano soundtrack play in my head for hours afterwards.

As any piano player too lazy to completely work out a song on their own would do (yah, it's in the key of C and it's not that hard... but still...), I hit the Internet for the possibility that someone would be posting free sheet music and some accompanying audio.  Bingo!  I love YouTube :)

Get your e-mosh on at Rock Me

A long time ago, I liked to go to punk rock shows.  The kind where sweaty people drank lots of beer, pumped their fists in the air (oi oi oi) and laid it down hard in the mosh pit. 

I don't hit the show circuit so much these days (uhm, obviously - it's a Saturday night and we're hanging on the orange couch playing on laptops) - but that energy, passion for music and heated human connection is still very much a part of me.

So here's something that jumped out at me today -- me.dium, a social widget that lets you surf the Internet with your friends, is hosting an online music festival called Rock Me.  Basically it's 5 days of online shows from bands like The Fiery Furnaces (yay!), interviews, chat sessions and something mysteriously dubbed an 'Online Mosh Pit'.

While I seriously doubt that cyber elbows can hurt nearly as much as in real life, it's still an interesting concept.  I love it when companies find non-lame ways to promote their product and grow their communities.  It's so 'Big Think'.

Hakia search engine finds meaning to rock out to

I hung out with Hakia search engine nerds today at Blogher and was most impressed with their chilled discussion of ontological semantics and love of all that is user search.  The fact that I could have a conversation in passing like that obviously tickled me beyond belief.

In a nutshell, Hakia is a new beta search engine that looks for meaning-based query results.  The kind of algorithms this involves moves far beyond typical search engine indexing and reacts more cognitively.  So yeah, I don't completely get it either but I do know that I like it.

An example they used - say you want to search the word 'kill'.  To an English speaking human this could mean:

• Murder (I'm going to kill that dude)
• Do really well at something (You totally killed that guitar solo)
• Shut off (Can you kill the lights?)
• Veto or cancel (The president killed that bill)

Most search engines would simply take you at your search and bring you results that matched the exact wording of your query.  The beauty behind Hakia is that it can tell what you mean by reading the rest of your search query.  Pretty snazzy huh?

Song of this rainy Thursday - a little Of Montreal love

You might vaguely recognize this tune from the Outback commercials (*commence sell out eye rolling here*), but man is it a good song.  Gotta' love those Of Montreal fellows.

Frivolous Friday: Modest Mouse rocketh out

Thanks to JayMac for blessing my office iTunes with the new Modest Mouse 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank'.

Giant Steps

Music visualization set to John Coltrane = heaven.

A Neko reminder that redheads rule

Downtown with Peaches

We like Peaches - she's got funky beats that make you want to pout and dance with someone pretty in a sketchy nightclub in some dark metropolis. 

This year at the SG Burlesque, Xiolita Suicide did a little hula hoop (Gypsyhoop?) number to Peaches' Downtown.  It was awesome - the rest of the show, meh.  Glow-in-the-dark hula hoops are the bomb.