Finally, I share

You know like when you have something you really like and enjoy, and you really want to share it with somebody else because you want to show them the cool thing that you found, yeah, like youtube stuff, that's what I many times feel but never got the chance to share this (you'll see later) here.

Let's start with a phenomenon that truly makes me go crazy (in a bad way).
Q: "What music do u listen to?"
A: "Good music!"

OK... so you know what I mean! - How THE HELL should I know what "good music" means to you??!! Seriously! I try to NEVER say this. "Good music"... That's just plain crap.
You can only talk like this to YOURSELF, because anybody else will have THEIR understanding of good music. You know what I mean? Please never say it like that, cause it's really nerve-wrecking.

I hope we're all clear with that matter, now let's proceed with I wanted to share with. Good music for me includes songs from basically all genres except probably... weird folk stuff, country, and death metal that my little brain simply doesn't get. But even in country I'm sure I can find a song that I would like...somehow. But that's not important. I mean the genre is not that important. I like songs that have powerful lyrics, a deep meaning and especially if I can relate to it. I like songs that are complex, both musically and lyrically. I like when things are unsuspected, shaking, soulful, rythmic(whatever that spells). I like when the melody is hard to redo, i mean that it's unique and hard to re-play, I don't know if I'm making myself something clear. A melody that inspires and that makes me want to move. So yeah..you can ignore what I said till now, it doesn't make any sense anyway :D

What, in my opinion, fits in very well in what I want from music is RnB. Sung by ladies. Aha, because I can relate to them obviously. But I'm, at the same time, a long-time fan of Linkin Park for example. I like Puddle of Mud, Greed Day, Everlast, SOAD and Nirvana. But I like Joss Stone. This is so opposite. Anyway, today we'll talk about Alicia Keys :D

She's (one of) my all-time favorite! Her picture must be in the dictionary at the word "talented". So many song-talent-music contests use her songs and her standards to prove who's got it. You must remember "Fallin'" :) This was the song that, at that time, showed me something so different and that I knew I loved so bad. I felt the song in all my nerves and veins. Today, I accept, the song isn't what it used to be to me, it's old an' worn, but I still love it nevertheless. I love Alicia for being so down-to-earth and natural with us and with herself; for never seeing her on cover pages of scandal papers; for keeping up with "mr time" and proving her talent until now; for giving me stuff to think about and bringing out lessons of life thru her songs... So, agreed or not with what I said, please take something I want to share with you. It is horribly hard to pick smth from Alicia Key's repertoire, but this song is worth anything good.

"Some people live for the fortune
Some people live just for the fame
Some people live for the power, yeah
Some people live just to play the game
Some people think that the physical things
Define what's within
And I've been there before
But that life's a bore
So full of the superficial

Some people want it all
But I don't want nothing at all
If it ain't you baby...
Some people want diamond rings
Some just want everything
But everything means nothing
If I ain't got you...

Some people search for a fountain
That promises forever young
Some people need three dozen roses
And that's the only way to prove you love them
Hand me the world on a silver platter
And what good would it be
With no one to share
With no one who truly cares for me..."
(If I Ain't Got You, Alicia Keys)

Before buying presents and flowers, before going on vacations and partying in clubs, please show the person beside you what you feel for him/her in your own words and gestures that don't include material things, superficial things. What good is it to have rings and fancy meals if there is no caring, respect or protection?... Before having ANYthing material, we need soulful things, pure love in our bodies and peace in our minds. I'm sure this song made a tone of people cry.

And please, people, if you read this blog share words with me, comments don't bite, they're always welcome! Sometimes I think of shutting this whole thing down, because it feels like nobody cares. But I'll push it anyhow. :)

PS: There is also a great version of this song, performed only by Alicia's voice and the piano here. Enjoy. read more...

Accidental genius theory

Just finished accidentally watching smth called "My Brilliant Brain" on Discovery. I haven't watched the entire show, but grabbed a good part of it. It was about these strange people that gathered savant-like aptitudes after going thru different medical disabilities. Also a twisted (judging by his hat) professor that tries to develop a machine that is able to activate the savant side in each one of us... All this really gave me some thinking on our human future...
Ok so there's this man, George Widener, who is an autistic, and he can tell what day of the week is any day is history or in future. They had his brain tested and it was revealed that when he does an activity (for ex naming objects that he sees on a screen) the parts of his brain that activate are different from a normal's person, when a normal person is asked to do the same thing. I mean, if we're asked to draw smth let's say our top right side of the brain activates, but when he's asked to draw, his bottom-left part of the brain activates. Which mean he has a totally different organization of the brain itself. Which is amazing... He also has an incredible sense of details, he drew objects with details of a technician.

Theoretically, the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for creativity and the right part is the opposite one. Ok I'm not a scientist, just want to put it in my own words. SO, the majority of people have left dominance over right. This suggests that we are thinking of everything as a total, entirety, not quite attentive to details. Savant people have left side supremacy.

Another man's story is this ex-convinct and former heroin addict, Tommy McHugh, who suffered a serious brain accident. He was sitting on the toilet when he tried too hard and felt one of his veins fill up going straight to his head and bursting inside there, and then suddenly started throwing up blood and everything, i know :))The doctors took care of him, but his life changed 180 degrees after this event. He started to feel very sentimental and feeling like he has to express himself. He started frenetically writing poems, letters, then painting. His whole house turned into an all-around painting exhibition, yes, even the ceiling (and he even redrew the walls, from lack of more space). Anyway... he became a different person, excessively passionate about art, his wife left him because she couldn't stand him anymore, couldn't live with him under the same roof.
He wrote hundreds of letters in rhymes to doctors around the globe and one of them luckily responded kindly. She, herself (the doctor), suffered a similar 'thing', when her twins died after a misscarriage. She then started to feel a crazy urge to write, anything that went thru her mind. She was writing on paper, napkins, toilet paper, sticky notes, anything that was available when she felt like writing. She is a neurologist and she was able to control her madness with the help of medicine.

Another story was about a Sydney professor, Allan Snyder, who was very interested in this phenomenon of genius people. He, like most scientist, believe that, even as a fetus, a person's brain is developing in a way that the left hemisphere dominates the right one. Certain cerebral 'accidents' or abnormal events trigger, in this early stage, that some people turn out with right dominance.
He designed a magnetic tool with which he is performing experiments on his students :) He places the magnet on the left side of the brain for 15 minutes and applies magnetic stuff (don't know exactly) so that he kind of disactivates this part of the brain and lets the right part to prevail, to take control.
So he tested a student before and after this experiment, using the same 'games'. The student had to read a common proverb written repeatedly on a screen. Sometimes there were 2 "the"s in the proverb, but because the brain got used to the proverb and knows it, he didn't bother paying attention to the details. Then the student had to draw a horse on a piece of paper, just an image from his mind. Then he was asked to say how many dots where on the screen.
After the 15 minutes of magnet influence or whatever, he drew the horse with more details, very different from the first horse (which was looking like a brick actually), almost with artist-like features. He interrupted his reading, when he saw the proverb that contained 2 "the"s and read again correctly, reading "the the" just like it was written on the screen, and he was able to say a better number for the dots scattered on the screen.

I wasn't able to find the video with this exact show online, except a little trailer. It appear that the show is consisted of three parts. You can search for "My Brilliant Brain" on the Internet.

What made me really think again, like I said at the beginning, was the fact that possibly, in the future, we'll be able to wear "brain hats" that will allow us to achieve for an amount of time a desired mind-power or ability that we weren't born with. Like it was in the Matrix movie, when the girl learned to drive a helicopter by transfer of data from the computer. Or how they learned different styles of martial arts.

Interesting, huh?
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Jungle in the subway

I'm doing my diploma project on unconventional marketing. I believe this is such a wide and enormously interesting area, and still not so widely used, e!specially in Bucharest. I say Bucharest, because usually unconventional mk plays with city 'tools' and city media in general. Very happy to announce that something great happened in this direction. Take a look at this Lenor little jungle corner established in Bucharest subway, Unirii2 station. If you still haven't got a chance to see it, it's worth checking out :)


Although there is no doubt that this IS unconventional mk, I can also admit that this 'thing' was derived from a poster ad, or billboard, whatever. As a matter of fact, the central piece of the jungle is a poster with the advertiser's logo and message, which btw is smth like "It is so easy to feel like on a tropical vacation right at home". Anyway, "Tropical Fresh" says it all actually. I even think they could have done it without the pretty long (!) tagline. My opinion.
Great job with creating the tropical feel, I was quite surprised. The leaves are so abundant and vivid green and real! At least they look vvvery real. Great job! Plus they have two palm trees on either side of the 'construction'.

On the floor, they had some kind of an interactive screen with fishies which was - wow - another, if not the most curious, thing. At least kids where all over it, and I guess that was at their 'level of sight'. When stepped on, the screen made waves around the feet. Watch someone's video capture of the whole 'miracle' :D

I know it's great, super-duper, sweet, nice and cool, but the question is: is it worth?!? Can you i-ma-gine what money all this costed, and costs? Cause the leaves are really - WOW-REAL!!! I mean, when I think of unconventional, I think of cost-effective, and I mean cheap :D ad campaigns. I mean crazily unique and simple ideas. I mean originality. And honestly, this was too much :| There are so many examples when almost costless ideas, involving city sights and objects, make millions of money and as much satisfied costumers. Why couldn't they think of something more original and less expensive? Maybe people think that everything that is VA-VA-VOOM! is great, no matter what. I don't know...
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Smart ad

I'm almost speechless, but let's just say this is great! Great commercial. I adore unexpected endings, for anything. Especially when they are rrrreally unexpected. And again, I'm thinking... what a simple idea, huh? I wish i can do things like this in the future :D

[credits to feeder] read more...

Congrats Ratatouille!

So yesterday the Oscars took place in Hollywood. I'm so happy Ratatouille won in their category, cause I loved that movie :D "No country for old men" won best picture and I am still to watch it. The thing is that Oscars are not as popular and exciting as it used to be. I remember the "Titanic" times, when everyone was really thrilled with who-the-hell-is-gonna-be-chosen-best. Or maybe I don't watch movies as often, I don't know. Check out the web for the complete list of winners, red carpet pics and what more...
I saw "Juno" has won Best Writing, and I was advised to watch that film as well, so can't wait to do so. As for the rest, I've heard good words for "Atonement", "La vie en rose", and "Elizabeth"... and really haven't watched anything from the list except the cute animation film "Ratatouille".

By the way! To prove my enormous not-caring about nowadays cinematography, I must say I have just started to watch Lost. Yes, Lost! It's on for what.. 3 years now, and I have never watched it. I guess I was busy spending evenings in front of the laptop, watching all seasons of Two and A Half Men. Yeah, that explains it. Although, "just started to watch" means we're at Episode 10 in S02, so... yeah, they already opened the hatch :D I AM obsessed with the series, I hardly slept last night, because all I could see in front of my closed eyes was people in the jungle doing stuff :)) Isn't that something... And one more thing, we started to watch it just a week ago :D

More fun stuff, of course, all in one post, check me out with different hairstyles on. Of course you can laugh at me, I laughed at myself too :)) You're welcome to recognize the stars that I'm "wearing", aha..that's right! [by the way, try it yourself here!]


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Vote for the Best Ad!

As a subscriber of IQads, I got a reminder today in my email box about BestAds, the only online advertising festival in Romania. I had actually a fun time spending on the competition pages of BestAds and choosing my favorite ad. This one right here is my fav in the Print category. A work by Leo Burnett adv agency, pretty huge here, in Bucharest. This piece is part of a larger campaign, that absolutely rules! The idea is that the refreshing drink gives you so much energy that even the characters off your clothes (and accessories :D) logos are wasted :D I remember first time seeing a big outdoor in Unirii area, it blew me away. You must also see these: Lacoste, Polo.

Of course, if you're not from Romania, it's probably unnecessary to vote for the best ads (because you're just not familiar enough with them), but I just think it's worth watching this year's collection, I consider it a pretty decent one ;) An yes, all the ads are made in Romania.
Another hit campaign was the one for eJobs.ro, a recruiting online portal, presently nr.1 in its area. The TV commercial included super funny scenes of two characters, a very grown man with beard dressed as a bride, and her husband, a mellow man dressed in a boring office suit. They have typically banal and disturbing husband-wife short conversations, which reminds us that marriage is hellishly boring and just sucks. At the end, the message is smth like "It's just a job, not a marriage. If you don't like it, look for something else better." Anyway, my fav from this campaign is the following:

The other 2 TV commercials are this, and this.

Other great ones are for Cosmote (mobile network) entitled "MMS" and it's just full of extra funny moments or everyday's life in Romania, or things that people just kinda expect to see in Ro and have a good laugh at it.

Anyway, I actually voted for this one, because the scenes are just genially funny. And the tagline for this festival was smth like "To the times when we actually won't have to switch channels." This commercial just kept you watching it, over and over :D

Another very good one is for Zaraza (spirited drink), called "Kafka". But I just thought they have been doing it on the same pace for years now, and it's about time to think of some other ideas for their creative realizations. Great nevertheless!

Oh, and I cannot forget this "legend" that took over us, me&my b/f, we sing the song from this commercial liek every day, and make fun of it, with it. Watch it! Aha, and Sprite rules!

Other pieces of the campaign is here and here.

So vote for your favorite ad, keep in mind that the values that a good ad must include are brand recognition, emotional impact, and just the urge to keep watching it. What I value probably most in a TV realization is acting :D
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Happy Valentine's everybody!

I hope y'all share some sincere love with someone crazily special, and if not, I hope cupid gets you a piece of sweet love in no time ;)
I got something special for you readers, just behind that link...

Fo' ma galz
Hey I'm not sure everybody will like it, but at least I know I give this from the heart :)
So, you guys (galz :D) know 'bout Romeo&Juliet, right? :D Hehe... They did a film on Shakespeare's play in 1996, starring Leo DiCaprio :D and the soundtrack to this film is called "Kissing you" and is sung by Des'ree. (YouTube video here)
Well, the song is absolutely beautiful, honest and just the ultimate love song, I don't thing they could've found a better song for this film as a matter of fact :P
But all this I found out only after I listened to "Still in Love" by Beyonce (yes, I'm a Beyonce freak, blame me). I couldn't believe how pure and breathtaking that song is... I have to say, Des'ree's version doesn't even compare. To me... I agree the "sample video" for it is not glamorous or worth any awards, but I just love the song, especially for today's occasion ;)
so... VOILA! [and please judge it, like it, puke it, comment it, u are always welcome!]and turn up the volume ;)

lyrics here

For you boyz
Just wanted to say girls rule! and... that we love you more than anything, except for..lesbians.. Anyway, I thought what would be a better present for you than some hot almost naked chicks, I know that always inspires you :P Just for those who don't know yet, Sports Illustrated magazine issues a "swimsuit" feature edition every year, with pics of hot models/actresses/singers/whatever that show off their sexual appeal (oh god!) to all of you guys, sports fans and not only... I invite you to visit the mighty web page and delight your eyes, and just don't forget, this is just a beautiful form of art, not real women :P
Photos of the SI photoshoot behind the scenes are found here!

PS
If you find yourself interested in the 'wrong' section of this post, don't worry, what's nice is nice universally.. And it was me who found the page with hot chicks, so everything's just about normal ;) Seriously now, I think the pictures are phenomenal, I love the light and some interesting poses and environments that were used. Stay tuned for a sneak preview of the +1.500 photos, which means I selected the best of the best for you, the lazy or..busy..ones.
['later edit': i thought u just do it for yourselves now, those who are interested, cause i just got the message that this 'sh*t' is worthless to u guyz anyways]


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