Reading Methods: Review of LingQ & Learning with Texts

This is the second review that I do of this website, I made the first review when I was just beginning to learn languages on my own so I didn't have a lot of experience about a lot of self-learning techniques or programs or softwares out there . I'm not saying that right now I'm a complete expert on the subject, but I have tried almost all of the most famous self-learning languages courses and websites out there and I think I have a better opinion about them.

So now I'm going to start with LingQ, or to be more accurate LingQ 2.0.



The owner of LingQ is a fellow language learning blogger called Steve Kaufmann, who has quite a reputation on YouTube.

First of all, a lot of people might ask: What is LingQ? Steve Kaufmann defines it as: "Simply the best way to learn languages" mmm... ok, I don't like when people promote something they did in that kind of way and I'm sure that you neither so I'm going to talk to you about LingQ without all the drills and exaggerations.

Ok, LingQ basically promotes itself as a website in which you can "learn languages", but I don't find that accurate. LingQ is not a guide, LingQ is not a course, LingQ is not a systematic method that will teach how to learn languages. LingQ is just a platform where you can find , read and listen to texts in other languages, that's it. Yes, you also have the video calls, professional tutors  and all those things but I think you have to pay for the premium account if you want to get those. Mainly LingQ is a reading platform and a really good one if I may add. Reading a text with LingQ, is pretty much like reading a foreign text with an e-dictionary completely at your disposition. But listen to this, I don't recommend this method at all if you're just starting with a language. If you are just starting try Assimil or Pimsleur better, because in LingQ you already have to know how to read the language and a good decent chunk of basic vocabulary. Otherwise you will not understand a lot of stuff you're reading despite using an e-dictionary and you might get really frustrated because only few texts have complete translations you can look at, so you already have to know the basics.

LingQ is basically a library, a really big online library and let me tell you something: You might hate Steve Kaufmann, his attitude, the way that he promotes himself and his business but I have to admit that he has managed to create the biggest online library of foreign languages texts out there. You have hundreds of texts and books in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Italian... . I have never seen a library with so much content as this one and entirely free, every text has its MP3 audio which is really easy to download and the overall settings are easy to use.



For me this is the greatest aspect that LingQ has, you can find so much free material with audio. I think LingQ is the only website that I know that offers this and for "free".

But sadly there's a huge downside on this website, a huge letdown that made me stop using this site until I found a solution to it.  The point of reading with LingQ is to create definitions of the words that you don't know, every time you read something you don't know, you click on that word and LingQ will tell you the definition of that word in your language. That word will be highlighted in yellow and saved in your database. That's how you learn vocabulary with this method, the more definitions you do, the better, that's the whole point. But when you're using LingQ (the free version) you only get to create 100 definitions and that's it, and believe me, when you're reading  multiple texts in a foreign language 100 definitions is not enough.

You have to go to your database, erase the definitions you already have and then you can return to read. That was a complete pain in the ass for me, I was completely comfortable reading with this method and bum! you have created 100 LingQs that's your limit!, I had to return to my database, erase a few words and bum! I reached the limit again. That just made this method so annoying and uncomfortable that I stopped using it. That's the greatest flaw of this site , and that's why I don't use it anymore. Well I still use it but in another way...



Learning With Text was the solution that I found to this problem, and without any doubt LWT is the best way to use this reading method.

Learning With Text is not a website, is a software, kinda like an app. You use LWT exactly the same way that you use LingQ. But! LWT is completely free to use, and you can make as many definitions as you want to! no limits, the way it should be.



The only thing is that you have to import everything to it,  when you install LWT the whole software is empty you have to import your texts and audio to it, but this is really simple (copy/paste kinda stuff) and you also can choose two online dictionaries to use. And with that, you can study and read so much comfortably without limitations, without erasing words from you database, with a proper dictionary of your choise where you can see multiple definitions, and all of the data is in your computer so you don't really need the web to use it.

The downside of Learning With Text and there's really only one: Is a little bit tricky to download, is completely free, it doesn't take a lot of time to download but the way to download it and install it is a little weird.

There are several methods to install it, you can go to http://lwt.sourceforge.net/ to see them.

This is the method I used (using Windows and EasyPHP):

1. First you go to this link http://sourceforge.net/projects/quickeasyphp/files/EasyPHP/5.3.6.1/


2. Click in EasyPHP-5.3.6.1-setup.exe and a program will download into your computer, install it in Program Files.


3. Now go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt/ and download the zip of Learning With Text.


4. Once you have the zip of LWT, copy it and paste it in C:\Program Files\EasyPHP-5.3.6.1\www.


5. Unzip LWT inside this www folder. You'll have a lwt folder, after that you can delete the zip if you want to.


6. Open the lwt folder, you'll see a file named connect_easyphp.inc.php changed that name to connect.inc.php.


7. Now go to your Windows Start Menu, you'll see an EasyPhP icon, click it to activate it.


8. Now go to your browser and try these addresses: http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt , http://127.0.0.1:8888/lwt or http://127.0.0.1:8887/lwt_v_1_4_9%20(1)/, one of them should open LWT for you, when you find it, bookmark it so you don't need to write all those weird numbers again.


9. Now, when you want to open LWT again, just click in your EasyPhP icon at your windows menu and go to the address that you bookmarked and that's it.


10. Another thing, if you want to import audio, just go to your lwt folder, inside create another folder called media, you'll import all your audio there.
    

And that's it, once you've already installed it you can use LingQ and LWT combined.

As I already told you LingQ is a big library and you should use it as such. LWT is the best way to use this reading method and you should use it as such.

Go to LingQ, pick a lesson and import it to LWT so you can study it more comfortable, with no limitations and no cash spend. You can also import to LWT whatever kind of text you want, you can import songs (which are really useful) news and all kinds of stuff.

Do this!,because this reading method really works, if you already know the basics of the language and you use this method; you can pretty much read and understand every text in that language and at the same time acquiring a lot of information, vocabulary and the overall rythm of the language.

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Dream Theater - Images and Words (Album Review)

Okay, so, where do I even begin with this album? Some people call it the very first Progressive Metal album ever made (something I don't agree with), others call it the greatest Progressive Metal album ever and the greatest album DT has ever and will ever made. Yes I'm talking about the mythical and groundbreaking Images and Words.



Ok, so first of all, this album has this messianic complex that we all love. This album was made during a really tough moment for Dream Theater. Their debut album "When A Dream And Day Unite" was a complete commercial failure but this wasn't really DT's fault, there were serious problems with the record label when it came to the management and distribution that WDADU had.

DT was basically ripped-off by its first label company which offered them a tour, a single and even a music video and we all know that at the end of the day they didn't get a thing. It was also in this moment when DT realized that Charles Dominici wasn't the right singer for them and they decided to "let him go". I love that phrase, "let him go" ,come on dudes, it sounds pretty but you fired him, say it like that.

That's something that I have always thought was kinda cruel, especially when you watch Charles Dominici's early basement interviews with DT and you can see that he has the DT logo tattooed on his arm, OH DAAAAMMMNN, that must have hurted; It's like tattooing the name of your ex-girlfriend... but a little bit cooler.

Miraculously they managed to find a new label and a new singer, the infamous James Labrie. Now, they were ready for their second album but I'm pretty sure  this was their last chance; I don't think that DT would have survived another failure.

New unknown label, new unknown singer, only one bullet left and... this thing came out

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="300"] There was no time for pain, no energy for anger[/caption]

You know... just..one of the greatest albums of all time... it happens... it happens.

A lot of people call Images and Words the greatest album that DT has ever and will ever release, and I know that because I'm one of them.

Yes, for me, Images & Words is the greatest DT album ever, this album is just perfect in every way. There's nothing I have to complain about it, nothing! Every single second of music is perfect: poetical lyrics, beautiful melodies, technical compositions that are not from this world including a great number of the greatest guitar solos that you'll probably ever hear and an overwhelming emotional atmosphere ( we must to thank Kevin Moore for that, honestly).

There's only one other album that sometimes manages to battle my I&W preference, but it all depends in what kind of mood I am, but generally I&W is the one.

Every song of this album is a famous classic: Pull Me Under is probably the most famous progressive song ever, Under A Glass Moon is one of the greatest guitar composed songs of all time. The lyrics of the songs have also been memorable and analyzed through the years. Whether or not Metropolis is about Romulus and Remus, whether or not Wait For Sleep and Learning to Live are about HIV or about the struggle of fighting a mortal disease, whether or not Pull Me Under is really about Hamlet. There are a lot of interpretation of these songs that have risen over the years and that's because they wrote those lyrics in an amazing metaphorical but also literal aesthetical way.

I also think that this album has the greatest lyrics of any other DT album... well maybe except Awake. When it comes to lyrics I&W and Awake are in a complete tie for me. Awake lyrics are a little bit more literal but full of emotions and strong feelings.

Metropolis is my favourite DT song. Pull Me Under's guitar riff that starts at 4:03 is my second favourite guitar riff ever, only top by one of the final riffs that you can hear almost at the end of The Ivory Gate of Dreams by Fates Warning.

For me this album just represents the real and honest Dream Theater, this is not DT trying to copy or imitate other style, they started imitating bands like Iron Maiden and Rush but they soon evolve and here you can see a truly form style completely developed by them, a style that changed this whole genre and inspire many musicians to come. For me this is the real Dream Theater, every time that someone mentions DT; this! is the first album I think about and every time someone asks me about them I just say: Go and listen to I&W first! Because for me, that album is who they are, or well, who they really were.

I could talk about this album just on and on but I'm afraid all that I have left to say has already been said. Images & Words is just simply one of the greatest albums of all time (talking in general not only inside the genre), the greatest Dream Theater album, and a perfect candidate for the greatest Progressive Metal album of all time.

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Why DC heroes are destined to fail in film from now on

How many films has Marvel released in this last decade? How many films has DC released in this last decade? It's obvious that you can remember way more modern films based on Marvel comics than on DC. Marvel has tried, at first they failed many times with a lot of their superheroes but they kept releasing films. They were constant and optimistic about them until they finally managed to craft their art with this new wave of Marvel hero films starting with Iron Man (2008).



These new films that Marvel has released (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk)  are actually good, decent films. I mean the characters are well-developed and also they are incredibly well adapted to the big screen, the films are entertaining and you can really relate to these heroes. The only downside for me are the villains, non of these movies have great or memorable villains, just Ok villains. But despite of that, Marvel has managed to release good solid movie after another in a short period of time without any of them been disappointing. And let me tell you, the success that they are having right now is not a lucky streak, the success that they are having right now is the results of pure trial and error.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="258"] And when I say trial and error I MEAN trial and error[/caption]

Starting with X Men in 2000, they have been releasing films for the last 12 years and in this last 4 it seems that they have finally manage to make all their films solid, good and constant culminating with The Avengers.



And what about DC? well... Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy was enough to battle all these Marvel superheroes films alone, but now it's over, The Man of Steel is the next in line, but c'mon, Superman can't battle alone The Avengers as Batman did. Batman is frozen now, Superman alone and DC is pretty much screwed.

But now let's think this trough Ok? After all those films that Marvel has released, hero film after hero film for this last decade. I'm afraid that there's no room for DC heroes anymore and from now on DC heroes are pretty screwed in the art of cinema.

And these are my reasons why DC heroes are destined to fail in film from now on:

1) Marvel already owns the superhero film genre, which is something that they have been exploiting for the last ten years; that I'm afraid that real soon people will start to get a little bit tired of superhero films, specially films that introduce a new hero right from the beginning; so right now is a little too late to start releasing films about all the super heroes that you have.

2) And most importantly. With the exception of Batman, DC heroes do not work as well in the big screen as Marvel heroes, and this is the reason why: DC heroes are not as relatable to the audience as Marvel heroes are. Contrary to DC heroes, Marvel heroes are charismatic but the most important thing about them is that, it's really easy to relate to them (Spider Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Wolverine, even villains like Magneto) everybody can relate with at least one of them in some kind of way.  Almost any teenager can relate to Spider-Man specially nerdy boys, I'm sure that you know someone who behaves like Tony Stark and really relates to him. Anyone who considers himself a social recluse can relate to any of the X-Men or to Hulk. And this happens because Marvel heroes are imperfect, they have flaws which show their human side (even if they're mutants or something) that's what makes them relatable and that's what audiences want.



DC heroes on the other hand, they're not really that relatable and some of them are just too perfect that you can even consider them demi-Gods, honestly can anyone relate to Superman? or Green Latern? or Aquaman? or Martian Manhunter? No (well maybe some of you can) but my point is that those heroes just don't have that same effect and they will not be that interesting in the big screen to watch. And that's why I think that in an enviroment where Marvel's imperfect and charismatic heroes rule, there's no room for DC superheroes and they are basically destined to fail.

So I don't know what the hell is DC going to do now, a rushed Justice League film is destined to fail and we all know that.

There's only one thing that I know DC could do, to completely kick Marvel in the balls and reinvent the whole comic book film genre forever. I will summarize this in just one word ... Vertigo...

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Dream Theater - When A Dream And Day Unite (Album Review)

So, we start this series of reviews with the very first DT album: "When A Dream And Day Unite". Which is their most underrated album of them all and... maybe I'm alone on this but , its possibly one of their best albums ever too.



"When a dream" is actually an amazing album but not a lot of people and not a lot of fans seem to recognize it as such, but why is it? Well I think there are several reasons for this: WDADU is the band's most different album of them all, especially since James Labrie is not part of it. I'm sure when a lot of people hear the voice of Charles Dominici in this album they say: "What the hell?" "This singer doesn't fit with the band", "they sound nothing like their later records", "they never play any of the songs of this album in their concerts so why bother?". And they're right in all of the above. Charles Dominici didn't fit quite well with the band and that was the reason why he got fired, I wouldn't say that they sound nothing like their later records, their songs are a little rawer than I&W and Awake, but their style is there. And yes, they almost never play any of the songs of this album on tour, but despite of all that; if you see this album as a complete standalone 80's rock/metal work then you'll find out that its an amazing album and you should give it a listen.



I wouldn't call WDADU one the most original albums that I know, the influences of Rush and Iron Maiden are present trough out every song of the album. Basically their whole style is just an amalgamation of these two. But its a beautiful combination indeed. It's also really interesting and amazing the type of compositions that they were already able to create in this early stage of their career, that's when you realize that they virtuosic skills go back to the days when they were basically teenagers.

Another thing that this album has (which is something that I cannot say about other DT albums) is the fact that is really solid, consistent and fluent.  The only weak moment of the album (at least for me) is "The Killing Hand" which is the band's first attempt in creating a narrative epic, but is truly my less favorite song of the album.

The album also has a great dark atmosphere and we have Kevin Moore to thank for that, songs like: "Status Seeker", "The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun" and "Only A Matter of Time". Have an amazing vibe and tune, a little bit melancholic but really beautiful. 


I think that the main problem that this album had, was that it came out too late, 1989. Honestly that was a late year for releasing music of this style, bands like Iron Maiden started to fade away from public attention and bands like Rush had to change their style in order to survive and Heavy Metal itself was in the moment of decline. If WDADU would have been released in 1985, I'm sure that it would have been a blast.

A great album in the wrong time :(

But a great album indeed! and you should definitively check it out, specially if you're a fan of Rush, Iron Maiden or Dream Theater. Just imaging Iron Maiden and Rush playing together with Geddy Lee on vocals.





Thanks for reading :)

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Progressive Gandalf

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Dream Theater: Underrated? Overrated? Mainstream? The Most Important Prog Band Now?

I guess that I have a complicated history with Dream Theater. They were definitely my favourite band through a long period of time. To be honest;  DT was the band that changed everything for me: the way that I listen to music, they way that I perceive music and I know that this may sound as a complete exaggeration but they were the ones who introduced me to the whole genres of Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock, Avant-Garde and that's where everything began for me.

I remember, almost 5 years ago when I listened to them for the first time in the"Live At Budokan" DVD,  I was completely blown away by this band. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but most importantly, I couldn't believe what I was listening: pure musical virtuosity, complex song structures, impossible solos, a complete new musical genre for me, that I instantly fell in love with combined with my two long favourite genres of my youth: Rock and Metal.



Dream Theater was like no band that I have heard before, they were completely different in every sense of the word. The first time that I listened to them, all the other bands look like amateurs, lacking all sense of musical skills with no other choice but to  adopt a simplistic approach to music that I mocked of. Dream Theater were the greatest musicians in the world and period. And I know that's the exact attitude of a lot of youngster that have recently found this band or a lot of hardcore Dream Theater fans who only listen to them have. And yes I know, at first sight Dream Theater could seem as the greatest band out there, they are truly an amazing band, but they're not the greatest band ever (such thing doesn't exist) and another thing: they are not the only band in this genre. At first, is really easy to assume that Dream Theater is the only Progressive Metal band out there just by the simple fact that they are the most popular prog band out there and also, they have one of the most "in your face" styles of composition in Prog Metal music.

But no, there are a ton of Progressive Metal bands out there with different styles that you definitively should know about.(Pain of Salvation, Tool, Animals As Leaders, Cynic, Death is his later years, Fates Warning...) What I'm trying to say is that DT is not the only Progressive Metal band out there, you shouldn't lock yourself up and only listen to them. If you like the genre you should explore the whole genre.

The other interesting thing of DT in this modern age is the apparent course that they have spell into a lot of modern progressive metal bands of these days. I can see that a lot of recent prog metal bands want to create their own sound but; being heavily inspire by the genre itself (the genre that DT apparently conquer) they end up sounding like them. That's something interesting and I guess it most be hard to compose without being influence by the bigger and most popular band of the genre.



In my personal experience, when I listened to Dream Theater the first time, I completely fell in love with them and I kinda had the same attitude that I already describe before, but that attitude fade away quickly for me. And that's when the greatest thing that DT could have done for me happened. I began to investigate about this weird new genre that I have encounter: "Prog" and I quickly trail it back to its true origins: the Progressive Rock of the 70's and that's where it all began. Thanks to Dream Theater I discovered Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rush, Yes, Camel, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator and my favourite of them all Genesis (of the Peter Gabriel Era of course!). Thanks to Dream Theater I discovered 70's Prog Rock then I moved on to Avant-Garde and this was important because Avant-Garde music made me more open-minded about music in whatever genre, then Jazz, then Classical, then Metal once again, then RIO, then Death Metal then Indie music until the stage that I'm right now in which I basically listen to everything Prog related, everything that sounds weird and interesting, 70's and 80's Pop, Indie rock, Death Metal and pretty much everything except modern mainstream music xD.

And I have Dream Theater to thank for that because they basically opened the doors for me. And I completely love them for doing that and I know that I'm not the only one, it's very probable that if you're a reading this to; you had a similar story with this band. A lot of people love them, a lot of people hate them, some people call their music epic virtuosity combined with everything that the world of music has to offer and other people call their music just a bunch of gymnastic compositions lacking true feelings, creativity or meaning.



Some people think that the old DT was the greatest one, other people thing that the new one is the greatest stage that they ever had. But despite whatever other people may think of them, for me, they are the most important prog band right now and the greatest achievement that they did and that they're still doing to this day is inspiring people and introducing them to this genre and that's something truly amazing and is also something that only they could do. Dream Theater is a relative "unknown" band if you want to compare them with the most mainstream bands out there. But without a doubt they are still  the most mainstream prog metal band out there, at least they're mainstream enough to pop out in an MTV music video and catch the eye of a future fan. And believe me, just a few couple of Prog Metal bands can do this.

But after all of that, after all this prog  journey, no, after all this musical journey that I had and that I'm still too far to complete, I look back once again at Dream Theater and now I realize that I look at them with different eyes and I listen to them with different, truly different ears. I listen to everyone of their albums once again in chronological order to answer these questions: Are they truly that amazing and unique demi-God band that surpasses the way that a lot of other bands create music? Is their music just a bunch of gymnastic compositions with lack of true feeling and meaning? Have they already done the greatest album that they could? Are they overrated? underrated? I will try to answer all of these question in this following series of album reviews that I'm going to do in the course of these weeks, I'm going to review every DT album with a completely new perspective and I'm going to be completely impartial about this giving my honest opinion of course.

So follow me (if you like) in this series of reviews that I'm going to do to rediscover a band that 5 years ago I looked at them like Gods but now I' not really sure how I look at them in a musical sense.

Thanks for reading :).

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The Conformist Beauty: An observation of 90's cinema

None of the images used in this post are mine but from the films that I discuss.

"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about."

Although the sense of conformity and natural unhappiness in our daily life is something really common in our overall society. (The notion of conformity really visible, the notion of unhappiness, sometimes really well hidden) Is an aspect of life that cinema has only decided to truly analyze in these recent decades in a deep psychological, dramatic, surrealistic and even funny ways.

In the late 90's a new wave of seeing and portraying life through fiction started to emerge in the world of cinema. A new fiction that revolves around common human beings, living a mundane life. The type of people who you usually ignore when you're walking on the streets: the common day slacker, the common day office man, the common day clerk and the common day writer. Which in our minds, in our world, they are there, they are always there but do we really think about them? Not really, since they are so common, their lives must be equally common and equally uninteresting.



Some people prefer to see the story of a movie star, some other people prefer to see the story of a successful musician, some people prefer to see the story of a famous serial killer or a gangster. When in reality the greatest protagonist that could ever exist in the history of fiction is indeed the common day human being living in a common day life and having mundane existence.



When you see trough the eyes of a common day man, you see everything that his environment has to offer,  because he is his own environment, he is the person who is contact with the real world every single moment of its existence and he comforts it. He adapts to it, and they suppers their own self, to adapt and comfort in this society, they become this society, they do that and they stay that way. And that's when the conformity domain emerges. And it's time to look a those people, because when we do, we look at our real world. And that's what these movies did:



The main four movies that I will be discussing here: Clerks, American Beauty, The Big Lebowski and Fight Club were all release in that same time and era: the 90's, an era that people are just learning to appreciate until now. And by watching those films nowadays, you can really grasp and see those feelings of unhappiness through conformity, numbness, frustration, materialism and crisis of existence that attacked the youngsters, the middle-aged men and even the oldsters of that era until these days. I'm not saying that the 90's where the time when all of these feelings , ways of thinking and emotions started to arise, but it was the time when we actually started to analyze them in a more deep and meaningful way. Stories, with a powerful message for the common guy inside a satirical, comical, extreme and even surreal exterior.



What I found to be the most interesting aspect of all of these films (yes the themes that they explore, which are themes that we all have live and we all have experience) are the actual protagonists and the age that they have. All of them suffer from the same kind of repression despite being of different ages and going through different stages of their lives. Showing us that those feelings are present in every age, every social status and every period of our lives.

The four main protagonist of these films deal with these several themes, but every one of them reacts in a different way and every one of them has their own resolution: Some of them positive, some of them neutral and some of them completely negative.

In Clerks we have Dante, a young clerk working in a small convenience store who couldn't be any more unhappy with his current life and his current job, despising almost everything that he has to do, but without the actual will to change his situation despite having several chances to do so.

In Fight Club we have the Narrator, a common young middle-aged man, who suffers from insomnia and who's also trapped in a world of consumerism and materialism. When suddenly he "liberates" himself from that world, doing this in an extreme, radical, violent and nihilistic  way.

In American Beauty we have Lester, another middle-aged man, a magazine writer who also hates his job. But Lester is a little bit different because his the only one who has a family, well a dysfunctional family to be more honest: He has a neurotic materialistic wife who is obsess with success and a low self-esteemed daughter. But suddenly after experiencing a series of uhh... revealing moments with a young lady, Lester's life begins to change when he blackmails his boss for $60,000 and quits his job, and he then goes to live the life that he wants to live.

And in The Big Lebowski we have none other that "The Dude", the slacker and arguably the most triumphant of all of these characters. The Dude is a middle aged man, and in contrast with all the other characters: his unemployed (or at least he never has a job in the entire film), he is a conformist person and he's actually happy with his current life and status. But things begin to change for the Dude when he gets involve into an underworld criminal scam that he originally had nothing to do with.

We have our main characters but not only that, in every single one of these films we also have characters who are the complete anti-thesis of these protagonists.



In Clerks we have Randal, Dante's best friend and his complete antithesis, he's arrogant, misanthrope, has no respect for authority and despite being in the same situation as Dante he's completely OK with his job in terms of conformity and he's overall happy with his current situation in comparison with Dante.

In American Beauty we have Carolyn, who I already described as been materialistic but not only that, she's also extremely superficial, always trying to "emit an image of success", completely guided into what other people (more successful than her) think of her.

"This isn't life, it's just stuff. And it's become more important to you than living. Well, honey, that's just nuts"

In The Big Lebowski we have none other than... The Big Lebowski, and old man who is also the complete antithesis of the Dude and really similar to Carolyn if you start to think about it. He's also extremely materialistic, he has a trophy 20-year-old wife, he's also obsess with success, but he's not actually interested in achieving success, he's interested in pretending that he has achieved success. He is so obsess in keeping an image of success that he goes as far as planning a complex criminal scam so that his image and reputation could be intact while earning a few thousand dollars. Oh yeah that's right! the guy is not even a millionaire, he actually has no money and everything that he has is property of his late wife. So the guy is a complete delusional materialistic hypocrite and a fraud.

And in Fight Club we have none other than Tyler. He's everything that the narrator wants to be, all his anger, hate, and inner dark desires repressed. Emerging as a nihilist terrorist with a desire of senseless destruction masked as an anarchic revolution.

As I said before, the outcome of these characters is completely different to one another:

Clerks ends when Dante has survived possibly one of the worst working days ever, he has seen what this horrible job is doing to him, his best friend Randal and his Girlfriend (well Ex) Veronica, they give him enough motivation to change his job and his life completely: Randal implies that Dante has to be qualified for at least another more decent job and Veronica tries to convince him to return to College. At the end of the movie we don't know what decision we makes, but the most probable thing is that he decides to keep working at the convenient store after all.

Fight Club ends in a climatic rampage, when the Narrator realize that his is actually the one who's destroying the city, Tyler is actually the outcome of all The Narrator's repressive life surrounded by a materialistic, superficial, consumerist society that he decided to comfort in.

American Beauty ends in a redeeming note, when Lester has a final encounter with Angela, the young girl who he fantasized about. Lester viewed her manly as a sexual object, but he finally finds out that she's just a frustrated little child who tried to be popular and unique hiding who she really was and lying about herself and her life. After comforting her, Lester finally manages to see all the true liberating beauty of the world for a brief eternal moment of his life.

And The Big Lebowski ends with The Dude's confrontation with the Big Lebowski revealing that instead of the successful, hardworking, first class man that he pretends to be, he's only just a low hypocrite con man. And that's when we realize that the Dude, despite been a slacker and a conformist man, he actually has higher values, a better sense of morality  and a better way of seeing and living life than the whole crazy dark world that surrounds him.

One of them doesn't reacts at all, another reacts in a complete destructive and hateful way, the other one manages to truly free himself from that life for a brief period of time and the other one has an inner balanced slackery life who we all... at certain moment of our lives, want to live.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480"] The Dude abides![/caption]

Thanks for reading.

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Beardfish - Prog Rock of Our Time: Från En Plats Du Ej Kan Se

Beardfish is definitively one of my favorite modern progressive rock bands right now, they resemble everything that I love from the original 70's prog bands, Frank Zappa and modern hard folk rock. They are one of my favorite bands nowadays because without a doubt; Beardfish is one of the most solid and productive bands out there. In a lifespan of only 10 years they have released 6 albums and their 7th album is coming out this month. Many people called them the "Scandinavian Spock's Bread", jeje, this comment is a little ironic for me since I don't like Spock's Bread, their style is heavenly inspired by 70's prog rock and a lot of people may think that they don't have a lot of new things to offer, but they're wrong.

What I love about Beardfish is not particularly their music style or their musical skills but more like the musical atmosphere that they manage to create in their music: that melancholic, folkish, eclectic, odd nocturne atmosphere they manage to create is the soul of their music and that's what I love the most about them.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="425"] Rikard Sjöblom, David Zackrisson, Magnus Östgren, Robert Hansen[/caption]

Beardfish was formed in Sweden in the summer of 2001 as a small garage prog band, it was two years later in 2003 that they established themselves as a true band releasing their debut album: Fran En Plats Du Ej Kan Se.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320"] From A Place You Can't See[/caption]

1. Från En Plats Du Ej Kan Se (7:55)
2. Today (6:42)
3. Spegeldans (8:04)
4. Brother (2:54)
5. Poison Ivy And The Full Monty (6:28)
6. A Good Excuse (5:01)
7. Om En Utväg Fanns (6:48)
8. A Psychic Amplifier (15:01)

Beardfish is an ascending band, which means that every album that they release just gets better and better, their first release is a really solid debut album and it doesn't look like the first album of a band at all.

Is really well produced, and you can see that they had their atmospheric style already define, the music is solid and consistent through out almost all the album, however there are several low points.

The album starts with the dramatic, heavy and melancholic title track, a perfect opening for the album and for the career of this band.

Today is also an amazing song, a little bit more rock-oriented and melodic than the last one.

Spegeldans (The Dance of the mirrors) by far is one of the highlights of the album, it's the first major progressive rock song from the album and it has all the music and atmospheric prog changes of  that you love so much, despite been a great song altogether.

Brother and Poison Ivy and The Full Monty which are basically just one song. The first part is probably the most melancholic song of the entire album but it has an amazing intro bass line showing that Robert Hansen is probably one of the underrated bassist out there. The second part is symphonic rock at its finest and will remind you of Jethro Tull and early Genesis and then it turns into a funk jazzy zappa song ending with the amazing bass line that I already described.

A Good Excuse is a good song but I consider it the lowest part of the album, mainly because of the main riff of the song, they use it a lot and I just don't like that riff, but overall is a good funk prog song.

Om En Utväg Fanns you can call this a melancholic folk punk song with an amazing acoustic intro.

A Psychic Amplifier is obviously the highest point and climax of the album, all that you would expect from a true prog band is just right there, musical virtuosity, changing odd compositions, amazing signing and the characteristic Beardfish style all over the place.

Overall and amazing debut and a solid album but there's more yet to come.

 

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Nolan's Bane: How to NOT Make a Villain

Ok, so finally I have watched "The Dark Knight Rises" and Oh BOY!...



...I really don't know what to think about this film.

Is not by any means a perfect film as a lot of people expected, I don't know yet if I could call it a Great film or a Good film.

But there are certain issues that really bothered me about this final part of the Nolan trilogy. And I'm not going to complain about the logistics, scientific facts or physics of the movie, like:

How Does Bruce Wayne Get Back to Gotham?

Why Does a Prison Exist Where People Can Possibly Climb To Freedom? 

The Unrealistic way that the bomb exploded or the unrealistic way that the bomb functioned.

because I know that in that territory the film is pretty flawed.

If you want to see more technical and logic problems of the film, here you go.

But you know, almost all action films have these type of flaws, specially superhero movies. But if you think about it; there are a lot of great films with a lot of technical and unrealistic flaws and they are still great films indeed, and I guess there are flaws that not even the almighty Nolan could surpass.

But anyway, as a lot of wise people said "Just ignore the technical stuff and enjoy the story", and that's what I always do, but still there are serious factors about the story that annoyed me.

There are 3 major factors about the story that simply made me consider this film the weakest of the trilogy.

1.- The obsession to make Batman a Messianic martyr of the people. Instead of the dark, underground, mysterious and symbolic vigilante figure that he really is.

2.- I feel that the film doesn't know what it wants to do or in what it wants to become, TDKR stars mainly as a noir film but eventually right in the middle of the film, it wants to become a dystopian film all of a sudden, with really poor results, that’s because the overall dystopian Gotham is not developed at all. We don’t even see the true nature of this environment within the people of Gotham, we just see cops trap inside a tunnel, bad guys with tanks in the streets and that’s it. There’s no development in the environment, you don’t really see the hell and chaos you should see. If you want to make this kind of environment effective you need to give it a lot of exposure and development. That’s why I think it would had been so much nicer and badass to start the film already in this dystopian state, develop it throughout the whole film and explain what happened with flashbacks. Instead of building this forced dystopia that nobody knew how it really worked and we only get to see until the third act.

And third and most important, the villain: Bane.



I have to admit that the Bane of TDKR is probably the most disappointing villain of the last couple of years. And here's the reason why: Trough out the hole bloody film we hear about Bane, all the stuff that he has done, all the stuff that he is doing, all the things that he has planned, they build the character as a truly bad ass brutal mastermind and that's perfect, that's exactly what they have to do, specially with his background.

I mean, uuuuh he's Bane, he escaped from a prison climbing a brutal enormous cylindrical wall and he has been the only to reach the top, and he did this while he was just a little kid.

uuuuh he's Bane, his the son of Ra's Al Ghul.

uuuuh he's Bane, he has an eternal vendetta against Batman.

uuuuh he's Bane, he's the leader of the League of Shadows.

uuuuh he's Bane, he planned all this mayhem.

They built this character as probably the greatest villain of Batman ever and suddenly, is like... uh remember all the things that we  said about this guy... well... it wasn't him... yes... yes that's right it was that new chick over there... yeah the one who is suddenly so important in the third act of the story and we pretty much ignored her throughout the whole film giving her almost no proper character development... yes... she's the one... she did all that.... uh, what did Bane did then?... uh... well, he... he... helped her.

And then BOOOM , this great and epic villain that they were able to form in this entire film is dead by a single motorcycle gun shoot, and he dies in both a physical and spiritual way. When a villain dies at least he still lives in a spiritual way when you remember all the things that he did, but we cannot do that with Bane, because he wasn't the true mastermind behind all of this, he wasn't that epic villain that you thought he was, he was basically just a goon, the thing that you least expected from him.

Is not the first time Nolan does this, he did it in Batman Begins with Ra's Al Ghul, but at least he did in a reverted form you know: when you have a really cool villain, but you think he's just a goon of someone else but actually it turns out that he's the actual leader and it's even more badass than you thought, that way really works, Ben from LOST is a living example. But don't do it the other way around.

That was the thing that just killed the character for me and a big part of the film, I know that I'm complaining a lot with this but in a superhero film, the villain is the most important character in the story. And I just hate when they fool you with the identity of the true villain. I mean that's ok in a Mystery, Thriller or Noir story, but not in an epic action superhero film, specially since you have promoted that villain in the marketing of your movie like crazy!!!

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One of the best language learning methods, Assimil: How to use it and review

I have finished one of the most helpful books that I have read so far in my entire life, "Assimil: Le Nouveau Francais Sans Peine". If you are already a veteran of the language learning field; the most probable thing is that you're already aware of this method, but if you're a new comer in this discipline, this is the right place for you and probably this is the right method for you.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="437"] The Assimil Series: Available in a lot of languages[/caption]

The Assimil Series is one of the greatest self-learning books that you could encounter, mainly because of its unique method that consists in an overall exposition of the language you're learning in short lessons which feature either short dialogues, short stories, jokes, or interesting text about the language or about the country in which that language is spoken.

I know that the books are expensive and everything, but... you know... cuf, cuf... you could get them...cuf, cuf...around, cuf, cuf, cuf.

So, almost every lesson of the book looks pretty much like this:



You have your text in L2 ( the language you're learning ) and right in the next page you have the overall translation of that complete text in L1 (your mother language). But the true powerful aspect about Assimil is the audio, the book also has the audio recordings of every single lesson in the book, and that's the most important aspect of this method.

I know what many of you are probably thinking, "so it's basically just a book with a bunch of little texts, jokes and dialogues, but it will not actually teach me the language".

That's where you're wrong, I'm studying French right now and when I started "Le Nouveau Francais Sans Peine" I was a little skeptical about this method, but to be honest, it looked way more interesting and with much more content than the grammar-focused conventional books that I was studying at the time. So I decided to give it a shot, and the results were  amazing, taking in consideration the initial expectations that I had for this method.

This method is amazing because it works in a really mysterious but effective way, and also, (if you use it properly) it will actually make you start speaking and writing the language, better yet, it will help you to express yourself in the language, whether you're making some grammatical mistakes or maybe you're not speaking the language at 100%, you are still able to express yourself and make people who only speak that language understand you even tought you don't speak it 100% correctly, and that really should be your first goal while you're learning a language, to be able to express yourself so that natives understand you even if you're not speaking in a perfect way, that's your first goal, and Assimil really helps you a lot to achieve it.

First of all, there are two things that I would like to talk about this method. Okay the first thing is that, although Assimil tells you in the first pages that this method is for absolute beginners, I still don't quite believe that, but that's just my opinion, maybe you pick up the German Assimil and you'll learn a lot from it and you'll find it great, but I think that before you get to start with the actual book, you first need to check out a little bit your target language.

What do I mean by that? Ok, just check out the basics of the language like:

• Common greetings


• The verb To Be in present


• The verb To Have in present


• Common descriptive articles like: tall, fat, thin, etc.


• How to ask questions.


• Numbers, Days and Months

And that's pretty much it , you know, really basic stuff. But now pay attention at the expression that I used "check out", that doesn't mean that you need to learn them or to memorize them completely. Not at all, just get to know the language, familiarize with it, this is not yet the time to learn the language, it's just the time to familiarize yourself with it a little bit and c'mon don't be lazy, you can check out those 6 things that I listed above in just one week or maybe a couple of days.

Why do I says this? Ok, I believe this deserves an explanation. The thing is that if you don't know zero about the language, when you open Assimil, you are going to be truly expose to the language. You're a going to see texts all written in the language and even if you see the translation next to it; it's highly probable that you will be a little overwhelm by the language and by this method and if you're impatient you'll probably end up saying "Oh the hell with this!, this is just too advance, I will never be able to learn these entire texts, I need something simpler" and you will throw the book away. Big mistake.

But if you have already check out the language, it's probable than in the first lessons you will be able to identify certain words or sentences, and you will say "Hey I know what this means" even tought you still don't understand the rest 90% of the text without the translation, that feeling of "huh I already knew that word" or "huh I already knew what that sentences meant" kinda gives you some sort of motivation to keep moving forward.

How to use Assimil:

Ok, now let's get into the real stuff, how to use this book? In the first pages, the book already kinda explains you how to use it, but it's not really specific about it, it tells what you have to do, but it doesn't tell you in which order you need to do it, or which learning part is the most important. So, if you are having troubles or questions about how to use this method, I will tell you the way that I used it, maybe you don't like it, maybe you want to do it your way, but I'm just recommending this way because that's how I feel that I got the most out of this method.

Okay, first, remember the part of the audio recordings that I said before?

[caption id="attachment_402" align="alignnone" width="254"] Yes, here we go again.[/caption]

Well we're going to begin with that. The first thing that you want to do, when you're already about to start lesson one is... CLOSE THE GODDAMN BOOK!
Listen to the audio recordings, don't read anything and just listen to lesson one over an over again. Okay I'm going to explain myself, the language learning process in divided into 4 parts: Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. Assimil will help you with all of them, but the most important skill that you have to develop in your early stages of learning is: Listening. Yes I know that I have already said this a thousand times in my previous posts, but "Listening" is the form that the language gets inside your mind, inside your brain, and once that happens, everything is going to be so much fluid.

How many times should I listen to the audio?

Well I think this depends in the language you're learning, for example if English is your L1 and you're trying to learn another Germanic-based language like: German, or Danish. Or if your L1 is Spanish and you're trying to learn: French or Italian. I think that mandatory you'll have to listen to it 10 times, and then, once you have already listen to it 10 times, listen to it more times until you kinda actually now what they're talking about. If they are languages from the same group of families you should be able to at least recognize one or two things about what they're saying, when you feel that you understand just a little bit of what they're talking about, okay that's enough and open the book.

But what about if you're learning a language completely different from any other language you know, I'd say that 20 times mandatory.

Ok, that's the first part, now open the book, put the audio of the lesson once again and read (in your mind) while you're listening to the audio, do this at least five times. Then stop the audio, read the translation and all the notes that the text has, and then play the audio once again and try to read it yourself out loud along with the audio, do that at least 5 times.

Now you're going to close the book and you're going to do one of the most important techniques in the early stages of language learning, this is going to help you a little more with your listening and your pronunciation: Shadowing.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="302"] That's right baby![/caption]

When you do shadowing you have to listen to the audio and you have to say everything that the audio it's saying, but now here's the trick, you will NOT pause the audio at any time. You have to follow everything that the guy is saying without stopping and with the best pronunciation possible. That's why it's called "Shadowing". At the beginning is going to be a little hard, but it's all matter of practice.

How much shadowing you should do?

Well, ideally 10 times but I'd say that you should stop, when you understand everything that it's said in the lesson and when you feel that your pronunciation it's similar or almost identical as the recordings.

How many lessons should I do?

One lesson per day is perfect

But what about writing?

Ok, yes I know the method that I described doesn't contain any actual writing developement, but stay calm dudes. Assimil is divided into 2 big parts or "waves", in the First Wave (1 - 49) you should do what I already described to you and in the Second Wave (50 - 99), after you have already done your usual routine, as Assimil explains to you, you have to go back to one of the earlier lessons and you have to pick up a notebook, read the translation of that lesson and translate that translation (xD) into the original language without reading the original language. So is that good writing practice for you?

When you finally finish Assimil you'll have developed a good listening ability, tons and tons of vocabulary, a fair amount of idiomatic expressions, and the ability of expressing yourself in various subjects.

Is not going to completely teach you the language, but is going to make that tedious early learning stage so much easier, productive, faster and effective.

Trust me, I have used it in my French, and recently I met a French teacher (from France) and she told me that she was amazed with my French, the vocabulary that I knew, my reading ability and the sentences that I was able to formulate while speaking, she didn't believe that I have only studied french for less than a year. I'm not trying to show off xD, I'm just trying to make you realize how effective this method could be, and you should definitely check it out, the books are available for a lot of languages: Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, you name it, they are extremely good and trust me they will help you a lot.

I hope that this post was helpful for you and thanks for reading :)

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The Screenwriter's Dilemma: Becoming a Filmmaker

This post it's for everyone who wants to become a screenwriter or who's already one.

I remember that when I was younger I wanted to be a screenwriter, well first I wanted to be a writer, then a novelist, then a screenwriter and now I just write and I still write scripts. But I don't longer want to become a screenwriter, well at least, not only that. Obviously, I'm interested in the cinema industry, I'm interested in Hollywood but to a certain degree, I guess nowadays I'm more interested in the TV industry, because as I already said in a previous post,  I'm pretty sure that nowadays you can find better film quality in modern TV series.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="190"] Really good documentary about this profession[/caption]

But anyway, when I was younger, I started to investigate a lot about screenwriting and screenwriters and that was the same year when the Writers Strike took place, so just by that, I learned a lot about screenwriting, a lot about screenwriters and a lot about the situation that they were and that they are in. Let's face it, being a screenwriter has to be one of the most painful, unrewarding and underestimated creative jobs out there, and just for that, they're the most interesting characters in the cinema industry for me and they're the ones that I have analyzed the most, but I still have a ton of questions and a lot of things to say about them.



Okay, we are going to start analyzing this in the most simplistic way possible. And now, please answer the question in the most simplistic way possible, What is a film?, a film is nothing more that a story and that's it. You could have a brilliant director, you could have a powerful producer, you could have the greatest ensemble cast ever, but if you don't have a writer; you don't have a story and you don't have a film. For many years I looked at screenwriters as the martyrs of the film industry, mainly because they don't get at all the recognition that I thought they deserved. Just tell me, right from the top of your head, the name of five famous screenwriters...

I think the only screenwriters that I would consider "famous" or at least recognizable are Alan Ball, Robert Towne, Guillerrmo Arriaga, Paul Schrader and maybe David Chase (and all of them are also directors, producers and two of them successful TV creators executives).

But it's really strange to encounter a screenwriter whose talent is really recognizable and whose career it's really transcendental just by the fact of being a screenwriter and nothing more.

Most of screenwriters are left in the shadows if they don't get involve in the project as something else, and at the end of the day, they receive really poor recognition and poor compensation.

But why is it?, why screenwriter don't get as much recognition as directors? Well I think that there are certain factors to take into consideration,

• First, the whole: "Film is a visual media" yeah right I know that, but even if it's a "visual media" it's still trying to tell a story and stories are written in paper first.


• Most of really succesful movies are based in novels or in real life events, so that's not really good for the screenwriter if he wants to get recognition for his creative work, because he is not creating anything really, and even if he is, the public will think that everything is adapted.


•   And the third, which is the most important: ... (I'm going to save it, until the final part of the post)

That's the truth and still you have this:



The overall message that he is giving it's true. Screenwriting or better yet fictional writing it's a discipline and you don't need an absolute inherit talent, you can become a great writer if you do certain things or as he put it "skill sets", but which are those skill sets? God only knows.

I believe that you need to learn or experience certain key aspects to become a good screenwriter, and notice this word GOOD screenwriter. To become a screenwriter, there's only one thing you really need: connections. Talent or no talent, skill or no skills, if you have connections non of that matter.

But you don't want to be that writer right?, the one who writes bad comedy films and pathetic action flicks? No, I'm guessing that you're aiming for something with more substance.

Well, after all of this, it seems that being a screenwriter is one of the worst thing in the creative world. You struggle a lot and you finally manage to create your story, to define your characters, to connect everything together, and after months or maybe years of hard work, writers block, research, depression and everything; your script is finished.  And you did all that so that you could sell it to a film studio, so that studio could give your story (that's right YOUR story) to a director guy, who will make a movie about it and if it's successful, the producer will make millions out of your idea, the director will take almost the entire credit of your story (even if he wants it or not) and you will end up just as a lonely and forgetful name in the credits, without making a big amount money.



"Why would anyone want to be that?"

That's really not my question, to all of you young screenwriters or young aspiring screenwriters, my true question is: Why would anyone want to be ONLY that?.

In this world there are two types of artist: The Creative Artist and The Interpretative Artist.

Film Directors (who make movies based on somebody else's original work), Actors, Singer who don't compose their music. All of them are Interpretative Artist, they interpret what somebody else wrote, they interpret what somebody else compose or lived. Of course some of them are able to take their own creative perspective and transform it into something else. But without that main original idea, there's nowhere to go to.

Creative Artist, on the other hand,  they start from zero. Writers and musicians are creative artist, they have no place to go, no path to take but their own, they create that main idea themselves and then they develop it. So by this enormous characteristic, Creative Artist can generate their own material without relying in anyone else.

The third aspect that I wanted to save until this moment, is: Almost the absolute majority of successful screenwriters are film directors themselves and a lot of successful film directors are screenwriters themselves.

If you are already a creative artist, aren't you able to interpret your own work, your own story?

I understand why this happened before, but nowadays, there's no excuse, specially if you're young, if you're already a screenwriter why aren't you a film director? Nowadays there are only two things that you need to become a director, a story (which you already have) and a passion for films (which you already have). Why don't you take charge of your own story? Why don't you direct your own story?, even if it's an indie low-budget production it's Ok, the point is to get your story out there, show the world your story, receive feedback, and all of that is going to give you incredible experience in your writing and in your directing and guess what? since you're already a Creative Artist, you can write another story  and make it a film using all the experience that you gain from your previous one. In this time, is not that hard to produce an indie short film or something like that, there are a lot of good editing softwares out there, a lot of books info and tutorials about filmmaking, great cameras that are not really that expensive, and a lot of people interested in these kinds of projects.

Is that or, wait for some successful hollywood producer to take a look at your work and  if you're really lucky he will buy it, and you won't see your story ever again, until he produces it and that could take years or simply could never happen.

Screw that man, don't wait, don't waste your time with this industry-business bullshit,  life is too short, do it yourself!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="380"] Nowadays, we have great examples of this kind of philosophy[/caption]

Cinema is composed by two powerful disciplines: Writing and Directing. If you're a film-maker it's better to be these two things.

I already said that if you are a Writer you should become a Director, but that's also the other way around, if you're a Director become a Writer, generate your own material.

If you don't believe me, maybe you'll listen to Spike Lee:



So from now on, new and aspiring Film Directors; let's become writers and new and aspiring Screenwriters; let's become Film Directors, for the sake of both arts.

Interested about the cheap cameras stuff I said earlier?

Interested about the editing softwares stuff I said earlier?, of course you could buy them but... there are other ways.

Interested about the film tutorials stuff I said earlier? 

Thanks for reading :)

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Basic Spanish: Similarities between English and Spanish

Obviously, almost the most common question or the most common thing that someone asks himself when he has decided to learn a new language is the following question: Is it hard?



So, in this case, if you have decided to learn Spanish, you're obviously wondering or are interested to know, if Spanish is a difficult language or not .


In my point of view, the difficulty of a language it's completely defined by the languages you already know. I'm from Mexico, so it's possible that learning Portuguese it's going to be a little more easy than someone from China. Or vice versa, let's say that I and a chinese friend want to learn Japanese. It's possible that he will pick up the language a little bit faster that I will because he's already familiarized with Asian Languages.

Languages are all a big gigantic family, almost all of them are brothers, sisters, cousins, distant cousins, fathers, mothers and grandpa's. There are two enormous families of languages that are predominant in the world: The Indo-European Family and the Sino-Tibetan Family.

You can find the Indo-European languages in America, Europe, Oceania and the Middle East, while you can find the Sino-Tibetan languages in East and South Asia.


Spanish, English, French, Russian, Hindi, Italian, German, Portuguese, Marathi, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Urdu, etc. They all are from the Indo-European family, so in a way they all are, brothers, sisters, cousins and distant cousins.
So in a way, Spanish and English are from the same family but we can't called them brothers.
From the Indo-European Family several groups of languages descend:
The Italic Languages where Latin emerge and from here, the famous Romance Languages arise, all of these languages are based on Latin and they are: Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Romanian, etc). All of these languages are direct brothers from one another, and if you already now one of them, you can learn another one without great difficulty. They have almost the same structure and they have similar vocabulary.


English descends from another group of languages called the Germanic Languages: Where you can find German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, and many other, of course including English.
So they're both from the same family, but they are not from the same group, so I guess we can call them cousins, BUT!!!, they are not distant cousins, NOT AT ALL.

There's a big little thing that English and Spanish share with each other, and that little thing is LATIN!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="295"] Latin is not dead[/caption]

Yes, I know that English is not a language based on Latin, but the Anglo-Saxon language was heavily exposed to Latin in three great moments of its history, The Conquest of the Roman Empire (When the romans conquered Britain), the Christianization of the English Kingdom and the Norman Conquest (When french soldiers, who spoke french, a language descended from Latin, attacked and conquered Britain for a long period of time).


So as you can see, English is not based in Latin, but I'm pretty sure that English is the Non-Romance language that has been exposed to Latin the most.
Don't believe me ? , well I'm going to put a little text that I already wrote above, but after that little text, I'm going to write the translation in Spanish, and almost every little similarity that you see in both texts it's because on a Latin based word or term.

English is not a language based on Latin, but the Anglo-Saxon language was heavily exposed to Latin in three great moments of it's history, The Conquest of the Roman Empire (When the romans conquered Britain), the Christianization of the English Kingdom and the Norman Conquest (When french, who spoke french, a language descended from Latin, attacked and conquered Britain for a long period of time).

El Ingles no es un lenguaje basado en Latin, pero este lenguaje Anglo-Sajon a estado fuertemente expuesto al Latin en tres grandes momentos de su historia, La Conquista del Imperio Romano (Cuando los romanos conquistaron Bretaña) la Cristinianización del Reino Ingles y la Invasion Normanda (Donde los franceses, quienes hablaban Francés, un lenguaje descendiente del Latin, atacaron y conquistaron Bretaña por un largo periodo de tiempo).

So as you can see, there are a lot of words and a lot of things that Spanish and English share despite not been from the same group of languages.  So truly, without knowing it, you already have good descent amount of Spanish vocabulary without even realize it.

If you read the two texts closely, you can see that the structure of English and Spanish it's similar but they differ in certain aspects, but you can learn them without big problem. I will talk about these aspects in a next post, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading :)

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Ian Anderson - Thick As A Brick 2 (Album Review)

What a wonderful, clear , pure and nostalgic little masterpiece Ian Anderson has decided to release this year. What we have right here is nothing more and nothing less than the official sequel of Jethro Tull's epic masterpiece Thick As A Brick. If you haven't heard this album (well this song) and you're a fan of prog rock, then you still have a long path to travel.

I have to admit that I didn't expect this album, to be honest I wasn't even aware of its existence until a few months ago I just went to progarchives and I read "Thick As A Brick 2" and I was like "naaah it can't be, it must be some compilation album, or an homage from another band" or something like that, then I read Ian Anderson, and I was like "Oh my god, I think this is serious" and it was.

An entire new album created as the sequel of an influential and epic masterpiece is here, the sequel of Thick As A Brick, after 40 years, we have the sequel of this masterpiece, a real sequel in this year made by Ian Anderson, the brain and heart of Jethro Tull. What we have here is Thick As A Brick 2: What Ever Happened To Gerald Bostock? (not to confuse with Thick As A Brick Pt.2)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240"] A web-blog, GENIUS![/caption]

For those who are not familiar with Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson, Thick As A Brick or Gerald Bostock, I think I shall give a little background about this.



Thick As A Brick is a conceptual album that was released in 1972 by Jethro Tull. At 1972-1973 Progressive Rock was at the pick of its life, almost all of the greatest masterpiece of Prog-rock started to emerge these two years. Progressive Rock was in a wild state of evolution and one of the key characteristics of this evolution was the implementation of conceptual albums. Albums that in a way, told a story or dealt about a particular theme. A lot of conceptual albums started to emerge around that period during the Prog rock scene and Thick As A Brick emerge as a response or better yet, a parody of all the other conceptual albums that were around at the time.

Originally the concept of Thick As A Brick started as a joke, but the album quickly became a masterpiece and ironically one of the finest conceptual albums ever (despite being a joke or a parody of them).

The story of Thick As A Brick revolves around a little poet boy named Gerald Bostock, also known as "Little Milton". He enters in a poetry competition and he writes an enormous controversial epic poem called "Thick As A Brick". Of course he wins the competition, but at the last minute the judges decide to disqualify him, because of the controversial and offensive nature of the poem, plus when he attended to BBC-TV he "uttered a profanity". You can read the whole article about this in the cover of the album.

The album consists of only one epic song, lasting 43 minutes divided in two parts, and the lyrics that we hear in the song are the actual poem written by Bostock.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="380"] Of course all of this is fiction and the true mastermind behind the story, the album and the poem is this man right over here[/caption]

Of course the album it's a complete epic masterpiece but we are not here to talk about it, we are here to talk about its sequel.

And what can I say about it?

It's an extremely strong, solid and powerful album. I consider it a masterpiece but I guess the correct term it's actually an "Elitist Masterpiece". Why? Because this album it's only for lovers of Jethro Tull, Ian Anderson and 70's Progressive Rock and Folk Rock.

There's something special about this album, of course what he have here is not modern progressive rock, it's 70's Progressive Rock. A lot of modern bands try to create a 70's Progressive Rock album but in most cases there's something missing. In this case, of course, everything is right there and everything is right, but of course we are dealing with an elder veteran here.

Unlike it's predecessor, TAAB2 it's not only one song, the album consists in 17 short songs, but of course this album was meant to listen to it completely every time and not by song. If you do this you can start to visualize that the album it's pretty much just one big song as it's predecessor, and those 17 short songs are actually the 17 movements that this epic has.



The style and lyrics of this album are what you would expect from Ian Anderson, satirical, poetic, clever, highly romanticized (in a good way), dealing about trivial but also with deep meaningful aspects of life.



Ian Anderson in the flute it's magnificent as always and its voice hasn't changed a lot.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="312"] Now let's get inside the album and the new story it tells:[/caption]

The album starts with a slow version of the ending of Thick As A Brick Pt.1, setting right away that cool 70's feel, I'm not from that era, but I'm sure that if you were a Prog fan in the 70's and if you listen to this, you're going to feel nostalgic as crap. Then the album opens with a nice prog rock beat that transforms into an Electric/Acoustic hard song, really nice but now we get into the first progressive passage of this album, folkloric, bold, bad ass and beautiful at the same time.

In Might-Have-Beens the whole concept of the album it's explain. The album deals about the modern life of Gerald Bostock, now as a 48 old. The album talks about the 5 paths of life that he could have taken. In one life he is a greedy millionaire banker hated by many, in other life he is a veteran soldier of the Afghan War who is still traumatized by the experiences he lived over there, in another life he is a homosexual homeless bum, in another life he is an arrogant evangelist priests and in another one he is a simple common man, married who works in a store.

The album as a whole, flows in a magnificent rhythm, almost as the same rhythm of the original TAAB with beautiful acoustic passages, hard prog moments, permanent folksih atmosphere and even a little it of punk in some songs, the last five songs of the album are truly magnificent in every way.

The album it's an excellent piece of prog music. Of course, people don't consider it better than the original, but it's not meant to be. This album it's a phenomenal album on its own and despite that I know that it's not a masterpiece I consider it to be, because it remind me of all of the old masterpieces that it's predecessor made fun of.

This are some of my favorites songs (or shall I say movements) of the album.





Thanks for reading :)

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Arjen Anthony Lucassen - Lost In the New Real (Album Review)

Arjen is one of the most active musician and composers that I know today, he's always working in different projects and with a lot of different people. Something that I admire from him is his ability for composing and writing  entire albums or better yet Rock Operas almost completely alone and in a really fast time. I don't know any other musician who's able to do that, he's usually the mastermind behind all of the projects that he is part of. He is not only the definition of an multi-instrumentalist artist but also an multi-dynamic creator. If his albums were films he would be  Director, Writer, Actor, Producer, Editor, etc, etc.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="270"] Saint Arjen, Omnipotent and omnipresent[/caption]

His most famous bands or projects are: Star One, Stream Of Passion and of course Ayreon.

Of course is impossible to talk about Arjen without talking about Ayreon which is his greatest project, Ayreon is basically a Meta Rock Opera, all of the albums in a way tell a single collective story and within it you can really find Arjen's true musical style and influences.

However it seems that Arjen has finally left Ayreon because a lot of people called his last Ayreon album 01011001 "more of the same" (which they aren't lying). So since then, he has decided to put Ayreon to sleep, beginning to work in other  projects like Star One: Victims Of the Modern Age.

And know we get his first solo album since 1994's Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy.

And what we have is Lost In The New Real 

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="504"] Just look at this cover![/caption]

And I'm going to be honest with you people, I don't know what to think about this album, I guess I'll find out at the end of this review.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="280"] Glad you're happy Arjen, because right here is when things start to get a little ugly[/caption]

The first thing that I have to say is that I like the music from Arjen but I'm not a fan on his, of all of his albums with Ayreon, the only one that I consider a true masterpiece (and I agree in calling it The Wall of our time) is The Human Equation, all the others are just OK for me. The thing that I hate about Arjen's albums is that they try to be extremely pretentious with the stories of the albums, I like the Sci-Fi atmosphere that he always manages to create but the stories are cliché ,completely exaggerated and really pretentious. But you maybe asking:

What does it matter if the story of a conceptual album is good or not?, it's a music album! not a film!

It matters because that pretentious story defines the overall structure of the album and in Ayreon's case, it makes the album tedious, with bad lyrics and extremely long. If you want to create a conceptual album that is going to last almost 2 hours you have to make an effort in writing a good clever story and not another cliché Sci-Fi flick.

I don't like Ayreon very much and I blame the stories for that, I mean just look at Victims Of the Modern Age, it wasn't a conceptual album is not a pretentious Sci-Fi Rock Opera, it's a solid progressive metal album that everybody loved.

But that's enough for rants, now let's get into this album, and the first question that I ask is: Does this new album has the same flaws as Ayreon's previous album? I don't know right now but let's find out.

So the first thing that I realize of this album is that it has 20 songs and a length of 1 hour and a half, not my favorite album structure but whatever, let's give it a chance.

Lost In The New Real is also a conceptual album, but it doesn't quite follow a clear story-line, something that it's a little bit confusing. The concept is that Mr. L (the famous hippie character from the Ayreon saga) it's resuscitated in a virtual futuristic dystopian reality and the album deals with Mr. L exploration of this reality or something like that.

And the first amazing thing of this album is that the narrator of the story is a character name Voight Kampff who is none other than Rutger Hauer. The narrations that he gives are perfect for the mood of the album and one of the albums highlights.

Now, I'm not going to make a song by song review of the album, the album has a lot of them .  But I'll talk about the album in general.

And what I want to say is that almost all of the songs of this album are OK, there's no song that I consider bad. All of them have the same arjen-folkish-opera-scifi style that you already know really well, and a most of them are short songs and have the same structure, all of them are fine but sadly that's it. The only one that is more than fine is the title track but that's it. There are no great or excellent songs, perhaps the worst song is Our Imperfect Race which seems that this is the point where the album starts to get tedious but it doesn't.

The two songs that I don't actually consider them great but I liked them really much are Parental Procreation Permit and E-Police.

But now let's talk about the other aspect of the album, the cover songs.

The cover songs are excellent :) he couldn't have chosen better song to cover, all of them are amazing. The only that it's a little weird is Pink Floyd's Welcome to the Machine, that guitar riff is just an intruder in the song.

Besides of that, Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore completely amazing, and I loved the ending.

Alan Parson Project's Some Other Time as excellent as the original.

Zappa's I'm the Slime weird, crazy and scary, how it should be.

And finally Blue Oyster Cult's Veteran of the Psychic Wars, PERFECT. Fuck Metallica, this is the greatest cover of this song ever, hell I think is ever better than the original!

So that's pretty much all that I have to say about the album. All the songs are OK and decent, thanks to the amazing covers the album doesn't get tedious as previous Ayreon albums did.

So I guess this is a good balanced album. OK songs and excellent covers. If you're not a fan of Arjen check it out, it's a nice introduction of his genre and if you're a fan, you are going to either love it or hate it.

Besides the title track, these are my two favorite songs of the album:

E-Police



Veteran Of The Psychic Wars



Thanks for reading :)

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If You're an Atheist, Please Never Become This

I have never considered myself an atheist, but I had always sympathized with them, we were almost usually in the same point of view when it came to religious or even philosophical debates. I considered them a great group of people full of logic, comprehension and I respected them. But now that I discover more and more, now than I learn more and more, and now that I watch the modern atheism of nowadays I have to admit that I'm kinda disgusted with it. The new atheism that a lot of people now practice it's the so-called: Militant Atheism, which (and maybe I'm completely exaggerating here, but I don't know) it might become the fall of atheism or at least the fall of smart, believable and respectable atheism.

A key characteristic of this type of atheism is that; they're not only that, they're not just atheist, they have also become (and some of them might don't even realize it yet) anti-theist and misotheist. Let's get down to business, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God or any kind of deity and that's it, nothing more and nothing less. But when you start proclaiming hate, hostility, anger, discomfort, etc, etc. You're not just an atheist, you're an anti-theist too.

And to be honest, I have no objection at all of people hating or bashing on something, they're in their complete free will, and I completely understand why people would hate religion so much, is something that deserves a lot of criticism and in their point of view: hate or even destruction.

Is not an attitude that I admire but it is an attitude that I respect (well I guess now is "respected") until I saw some strange things that started happening. I guess that for most of these atheist/anti-theist, hating or bashing religion was just a simple hobby, you know, something that they did in their free time or when they were bored. But something started to change, when a lot of these atheists started to get more and more incredibly hostile, I was still OK with this, although it was something that bothered me a little bit, I was still OK with it.

But it all fell down, and I completely lose all respect that I had for them, when a lot of these atheists started to join in this incredibly stupid and not saying impossible quest for destroying religion and preaching the atheist word. With the stupid and pathetic idea , or better yet, the stupid and pathetic believe that if they manage to destroy religion all of the problems of humanity or most of the problems of humanity will disappear. That's the reason why I have lost so much respect for them, for that stupid and ignorant believe that they have; a lot them really think that religion is the greatest problem of humanity right now, that is the root of all evil in this world and that if we manage to bring it down, everything is going to be perfect and we will grow so much as species.



For a group that claims to be realistic and to be lovers and followers of logic I'm afraid that for reaching this point of stupidity you have completely deviated from such principles.

Yes I know that this video contains a lot of satire, but the overall message that he's giving it's alarming.

Now let's get realistic here people.

The fight that you're fighting is completely stupid and a waste of time. That's why it's a great hobby! But if you're actually taking this seriously, if you actually believe that you could manage to bring down religion and everything will be just pure happiness after that, I'm afraid that I'll have to slap you with the royal hand of realism.

I will not try to stop all of you atheist folks in your sacred crusade, because you're as exaggerate and hostile as your fanatics counterparts. But I'm just going to tell you 3 things that you should have in mind while doing this:

1.- Religion is something that would probably never EVER disappear from humanity.

Religion nowadays is something that has become so integrated in our global society, in our lives, in our history, in our traditions, in our way of seeing life (even if you're a believer or not), in our psychology and overall in our world that is hardly ever going to disappear because it has become a part of us. It's a part from human psychology, people will be always willing to believe in a higher power, people will be always willing to believe in a metaphysical or even supernatural force, they do that for means of escapism or/and comfort. A lot of people find the true meaning of their lives within religion. Religion gives to a lot of people a meaning, a purpose or even a reason to live. And that's just an incredibly enormous power, I'm not saying is good or evil, but I'm just saying that it's an incredibly monstrosus power that goes so deep inside the human mind, feelings and strength that is hardly ever going to disappear, it doesn't matter how "smart" we get. And EVEN if religion falls, someone (or a lot of people) would probably create a cult that would work similar or even identical as a religion and I bet my ass that a lot of people will follow it.

And another thing, religion is not the single worst enemy of mankind!, do you really believe that religion is the root of all the violence or most of the violence that it's happening around the world? Let me tell you something folks, we are humans, we kill each other, for whatever reason: money, power, love, respect, believes, politics, survival, revenge, safety, anger, food, order, drugs, etc, etc. And we have been doing that for a lot of years. And let me tell you something, religion is just one of them, just one in an enormous list of reasons why we would kill each other, and sadly enough, a lot of  violence coming from religion, wasn't just for religion but also almost with political, economical, expansive and imperialistic agendas. Religion was just a way to transport all of these agendas, in this context; religion is not actually a reason but more like a way, and if you only get rid of the way, the reasons will find another way for bringing their agendas to fruition. My point is that we will always find a reason to kill each other, ALWAYS, we're really creative in that department. Just look at this, the two greatest world-wide massacres that humanity has suffer in all its history have not come from religion or a religious background. It came from governments and a desire for power.

[caption id="attachment_292" align="alignnone" width="300"] Religion didn't cause that tragedy, humans did[/caption]

And just be honest and realistic to yourselves, close your eyes for a moment and imagine a world in which we're all atheist. Do you really see an improvement in humanity? do you really see less violence in the world? Do you really see an improvement in human behavior?. To be honest, I see that world even more violent that this one, because not all people will be able to handle their atheism as you do guys, a lot of people will go nuts. A lot people need something that tells them: this is right, this is wrong, period. And if they don't have that, they'll start to get confuse and things might not end well.

If you mange to bring religion down (which you'll not) there's going to be zero improvement in this world and in your lives.

2.- You're incredibly outnumbered!

Sure!, here on the internet it seems like there's an army of you, if you only live in the internet you would think that the vast majority of people are atheist/anti-theist. Sadly if you live in the real world, you can't say the same.

[caption id="attachment_275" align="alignnone" width="224"] Sorry, but I present you Misses Truth[/caption]

3.- Careful in what you're becoming

If you're an atheist/anti-theist, please tell me that you just hated every second of the cult of dusty video that I putted on top, please tell me that you completely hated it, because if you did, then I respect you and I have nothing against you, but for all of the other 3000 people who loved it, I just have to tell you something, careful in what you're becoming, you have become so passionate about this, you have select people who are always preaching your word and you have decide to follow them, and now you also have an imaginary utopia that is never going to happen but you're setting yourselves on a stupid crusade hopping to reach it.

I'm Mexican and I have a really ironic sense of humor so I have only this to say to you, remember Nietzsche:

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

And another thing that I still have to say to you, and to everyone really, everything in excess is bad, don't live with excesses, they're just going to ruin your life, if you're an excessive christian, that's pretty bad and if you're and excessive atheist, that's pretty bad too.

Let's imagine that here we have a girl who is an excessive christian, a guy who is an excessive atheist, a girls who is a passive christian and a guy who is a passive atheist. And they go out on a date.

First, the excessive christian goes out with the excessive atheist: Now just imagine the complete disaster of a date that is going to become, they're kicked out from the restaurant for causing too much noise and swearing.

Next, the excessive christian goes out with the passive atheist: The christian girl starts attacking the atheist guy  when the atheist guy just wants to have a good time, the atheist guy gets tired of all the fanaticism of this girl and he leaves.

Then, the passive christian goes out with the excessive atheist: The same, the atheist dude starts attacking the christian girl when the christian girl just wants to have a good time, the christian girls gets tired of all the stupid hostility of this guy and she leaves.

Finally, the passive christian goes out with the passive atheist: And they get a long pretty well, they don't try to shove their believes into one another, they have a good time, and at the end of their great date, they go to a hotel.

Now let me ask you: Who were the ones who got laid in this story?

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