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A simple house entrance of Amsterdam.

About the appearance of Spanish EX-Prime Minister yesterday...

Three questions are floating in my mind since yesterday appearance of our ex-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar on TV. He basically said the terrorists attacks were done in order to induce a change in government and some mass media in Spain deliberately lied about the governement hidden clues that pointed foreign terrorists instead of national ETA terrorist group (that was their original idea about the source of the attacks).

This questions are so crystal clear that no doubt could arise in anyone with common sense:

1/ Why the ex-prime minister don't recognize yet that the whole idea of the Iraq war was completely wrong and no massive destruction weapons were menacing the world???
2/ He, and the right party has said that terrorist attacks in Madrid were planned before Iraq "preventive" war. Then I don't understand why they say the terrorist attack in Madrid goal was to remove the right party from governement because their support of US in the Iraq war.
3/ If the spanish government shouldn't have supported the Iraq war, do we think that even in the case of a terrorist attack in Madrid before the elections the people of Spain would have felt the necessity of a change in our leaders?. Probably in that case people would have grouped and supported the governement.

And one final question.... this one pretty subjective but quite scary for me....

4/ how our ex-prime minister can sleep at night?. Just thinking all the innocent people he has supported to kill, and all the anger he has helped to developed against us (occident) in other parts of world should be more than enough for me to scare my dreams for the rest of my life.

Do they think we're stupid????????.

COME OOOON!!!!!!!!!!

Rafa!

Oxide

What could be more characteristic of Amsterdam than their bycicles?. Trying to find an original point of view to steal an snap of this particular "feature" of Amsterdam.

A Great Evening

This photo was taken while having a walk in my birthday evening. The trip to Amsterdam was my birthday gift and I was very happy walking through the channels. When I saw this amazing cityscape I had to take the photograph.

New York in my Kitchen

Uploaded for the next thursday challenge web site weekly challenge about "everyday things"....

well,

this souvenir plate from new york is one of my first things in the morning. I love it because it reminds me of vacation time and gives me a nice kick to start the day.

Bent - Ariels

This week I could finally listen to the new album by british musicians Bent. I had read some not very good reviews of it in Amazon.co.uk. I should say that I don't agree with those bad reviews.
I've been a fan of Bent since their first recording. First song I heard from Bent was Swollen (in a Hed Kandi compilation) and I was completeley blown out with the originality, weirdness and quality of the song. The whole album (called "Programmed to Love") was amazing and it was full of hits that were used in countless chillout compilations.

The trademark of the Bent sound was the use of samples from the most weird and chessy recording you could imagine (including Nana Mouskouri cheesy songs).

Second album (The Everlasting Blink) included some great pieces and continued exploring in the world of cool sampling. Not so original, but first quality music.

Now, for their third album they've evolved their sampling technique. This is a thoroughly studied album were the samples have been created specially for it. This gives the Bent sound a more organic mood. I think it's a great evolution. It still sounds Bent but better.
Another evolution is the layering of the sound. Some songs of the new album have so many layers that you'll be pretty astonished the first time you'll hear them. Layers and layers of great female vocal singing, with layers of synths, strings beautifully crafted, and their trademark "cool" sampling (I love those harps blinking through out the album).

The mood of the album is mostly very upbeat. A good sense of humour is usual in Bent and you'll find lots of them in the album (take for example Silent Life and Exercise Four tracks). A really nice way to start the day.

I really love the string arrangement of Silent Life and As you Fall. By the way, the sound quality is pretty good this time (probably because all samples and sounds were specially created for the album, although I've heard some samples from sounds of their other albums here too).
Anyway I consider this album one of the five best albums of 2004. We live in a world were crap music is the standard, and it's hard to find a record with this quality in ALL its tracks.
Get Ariels and you won't be dissapointed. Creative, beautifully crafted music for people with ears in their head and a soul in their heart.

BTW, My favourite track right now is "Sing Me". A demonstration that pop, commercial, and quality are not antagonists.

Yet another comment on US Elections (my comment)

There are hundreds of comments about US Elections here and there in the web. This is mine,

Let met put some obvious (and demonstrated) facts:

1. Bush lied about the war in Iraq. No massive destruction weapons, no threat for anyone was there. That's A FACT!!!!.

2. It seems pretty clear people around Bush (and probably himself) are earning lots of money of these operations.

3. The internal situation of US is worse than ever (economically and socially speaking).

How, anyone could tolerate this situation?. Everyone here (in Europe, in Spain, in my office in Madrid) cannot understand how american people could tolerate this situation and how they have confirmed four years later the lies of this man. HOW?. Now, re-electing him as their president, they're telling the rest of the world that they agree with this unfair war, with the lies of the US government.

Look at what happened in Spain!!!!. Our governemnt involved us in a war that some months later demonstrated it was absolutely unfair and wrong. That unfair war brought us the biggest and saddest terrorist attack of all our history. How the people of Spain reacted about this?. We put the liar government out of order!.

I'm not an expert in politics, but I think I have common sense enough... not many spaniards were in favour of Bush before he was reelected yesterday (even most of the right wing people here was not in favour of Bush).

So, pleeeeease, american people who voted Bush, start using your neurones!!!!!.

Just my two cents!.

Travels...

This is my first studied shot with my new Nikon Coolpix 2200 (yes, you read right, just 2Mp) and also my entry for "Still Life" Photo Friday contest. For my opinion and thoughts about the Coolpix 2200 read my upcoming blog entry.