The youtube video sums it up pretty well. Behold gaming and greenpeace:

Financial crisis

OH MY GOD; OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! It is HERE. The previous big global depression took place in the 30's when the stockmarkets in the Unated States went bancrupt. In Finland, the country I was born, last big money crisis happened in the early 90's. Back then I was just a kid, but I still remember the common athmosphere. Happiness was banned, the city was gloomy and people paid big money to get billboards that stated 'We're broke!'. I also remember a small handconsole we bought, but that is beside the point.
Both of my parents lost their jobs, which made us practically penniless. Personally I didn't realise this, but later I started to notice differences between my family and some other's. I am not sure, it really is not my business, but I bet the depression also had something to do with my parents divorce.
I still count myself and my family as one of the survivors. We are now financially stable (as far as I know), we always had a roof on top of our heads, and we never were hungry or cold.
So the last depression had a huge influence in the Finnish people. Now we are scared, that once again, we have to fight for every single penny we are able find. I bet this dark cloud is above all of us, since nobody really knows, what is going on, or what is going happen in the future. Already thousands of Finns (in a 5 million country that is alot) have lost their jobs. I'm not going to even mention the situation in the States, the amount of unemployed people is too big for me to comprehend.
Finally today I took the time to find out, what is really happening and, mostly of all, why. According to Helsingin Sanomat (Finlands biggest newspaper) the reason for all the lost jobs, hunger and panic lies within the stockmarket, and people playing with money they don't have.
I have heard about the money juggling before. People loan few million for thing X and take another bigger loan with the previous one. This cycle goes on and on, untill the system brakes down. Now we all have to pay, just because somebody just had to say 'look at me, I got zillion dollars on my bank account'. These people should be ashamed, brought in front of the justice, judged and put behind bars for all eternity. It just pisses me off and so it should you.
Apparently banks and goverments are now investing money, they have had all along, to save the nations. When the crisis is over, they will withdraw all that money back, and we are to survive on our own again. If the money stays in the free market for too long, the next problem would be inflation. Well isn't that nice. We are living on a double edged sword.
My point in all this is the following: this system does not work. There will always be greedy bastards, financial crisis' and too much money in all the wrong places. We need to stop obsessing about money and live beyond that. If the system does not change, we must. Especially now, with the globalisation, we are all dependend on one another. If one country goes down, we all will go down with it. What are you going to do?

Beirut - the new chapter

The new album from the band Beirut is now here. It took only two years for singer/song wirter Zachary Francis Condon to publish new production on 16^th of February 2009. This time they published an double EP called The March of Zapotec/Holland, the later called individually Realpeople Holland. The two EPs derive their inspiration across the globe, Zapotec is inspired by Mexican funeral music and Realpeople by Hollandaise disco pop.

The March of Zapotec sound exactly like Beirut in their original assemblage, it would be hard to guess that a 20-men band was hired to play in the back. As the music is bit more melancholic than the previous EPs, it brings a little bit darker edge to the typical melancholic but hopefull-mood. Otherwise Zapotec doesn’t give any surprises. This disappoints the listener, as mr. Condon’s music always have been very innovative and had a surprising element to it. In other words The March of Zapotec is not bad, but not anything special either.

What is good about this EP, is that this time mr. Condon focuses mostly on the instrumental sounds; he lets the melodies tell the stories almost without any lyrics. After a second listen-through it is easy to fall in love with the melodies he gives us. (And thrust me, it brakes my heart when I say it is not all that good)

Realpeople Holland, in the other hand, is a wonderful breath of fresh air. Beirut has mostly focused on acoustic sounds, so synthetic instrumensts give a whole new aspect to the band. My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille starts EP, and it blows your mind. It is clearly Beirut, but with a whole new sound. The rest as brilliant as the first one, playing the common longing melodies, but make you walk different paths of life. The whole EP just proves how brilliant mr. Condon is. He can be given any instrument and he will make beautiful music with it. And the best about him is that he is not afraid to try out different things.

As a whole the both EPs are good although the later is better by far. Zapotec gives new and old and it drives inspiration from a totally different culture than Realpeople. Realpeople is a step forward for the band but not a leap to unknown. Both are inspiring, different, nostalgic, longing and most importantly, beautiful. The EPs are definitely Beirut’s production and they can be very proud of them.