The event was quite funny, of course, for the quality of music doesn`t really matter in an event like this, but it did have some positive sides. My favourites included the Lithuanians who performed a song called "We are the Winners of Eurovision" and who were booed by the sick viewers in the hall (in the end it gave Lithuania the sixth place among 24 contestants - not bad at all) and the rather crappy Finnish hard rock band "Lordi" who were memorable by two reasons - first, it played hard rock in an event like this yet wasn`t hard rock that made them stand out but their appearance. Imagine a band of monsters playing an event for grandmothers! I can`t really understand how come Lordi won, but that`s a fact "Hard Rock Halleluyah" became the first heavy song to win this silly competition. What`s good that at least they beat the crappy half naked girls with no voices but with silicon lips. In terms of pure quality this event was far from good, of course, but it was quite funny to watch it (I especially like the vote counting part of this event). This doesn`t presume, as you can probably imagine, that I`d watch this thing once again under any circumstances.

This is a film about a conspiracy theory, therefore I am completely aware that what the film claims to be absolute truth may be based upon misinterpratations of facts so they would comply to the message of the theory. Therefore I can not say that what Loose Change tells is close or any close to truth. What it presumes to be true is that the Attacks of 9/11 were initiated by the United States government in order to start a holy war. They show different videos, people`s quotes and other stuff to support the theory. On one hand I can see that lots of this stuff isn`t really solid, yet neither is the official position of the government. As a person with little belief in the greater good in people I can`t say: "The government would never do that to it`s people!" Yet I also wouldn`t believe entirely to Dylan Avery`s version, for I guess it would be much easier to let a thing like this happen and do nothing about than doing it yourself, including starting major cover-ups in a case when it would cost much less money simply saying to some Bin Laden fellow: "By the way, Os`, you probably know that our defence system against hijacked planes flown into buildings isn`t particulary strong." At least it`s what I`d do, or if were even lazier - I`d wait for Osama to come up with the plan himself and just sit on my lazy butt while everything happens. As a serious statement the film isn`t particulary serious, for there was too little resource involved in that, yet I can`t agree that this was interesting to watch.

Keith Moon is to rock music is as a a stark raving mad witch is to a medieval village. He`s loud, he`s proud, he`s drunk, he`s one of the greatest drummers of all times and, of course, he`s dead. Over his 15 years long career as a part of the Who Keith had earned himself a reputation of an unpredictable fellow with lots of boose and there`s no wonder that the same thing can be said about him on his sole album as an individual. He himself claims on a radio spot bonus on this record that "it`s one of the the brilliantly constructed album ever to come out of me", and he isn`t exterragating it by a bit. He also mentions that it could be also his first and last album as it also was, which is no surprise for a man of Keith`s lyfestyle. The record is an energetic barroom thing with lots of country music influences and terrible singing by Keith. He was a drummer and not a singer as you know. Out of the songs the real highlights are those that are included here as bonuses - I especially like "Naked Man". Here it`s not a problem that Keith can`t stay on key but there`s enough humour and groove to lift the song up. "I Don`t suppose" is the only emotional song on the record, although I gotta say that Keith isn`t exceptionally good even at reciting lyrics. In that case I`d prefer "Do Me Good" that a bit sounds like an early Ringo Starr song, which is no surprise, since RIngo has a lot of presence on this album and since Ringo and Keith had a lot of common drinking to do. I don`t suppose I`ll listen to this stuff much after this time but it`s bee a fun two hours with it and not every album can say that.

Mūsdienās "Spirit" nevienam nav diez ko labi zināma grupa - un nav jau brīnums - cik daudz gan sešdesmitajos bija hipijiski noskaņotu rokeru. Taču ikviens vismaz 20 sekundes no vienas viņu dziesmas ir dzirdējis. Proti, fragments no šīs grupas dziesmas "Taurus" pārtapa par ievadu mega populārajai "Stairway to Heaven", līdz ar to vismaz kaut kādas zināšanas par šo grupu dažiem cilvēkiem ir arī mūsdienās.

A truly classy hard rock album. Great organ work and brilliant guitar playing combine to a record that Deep Purple wouldn`t shame to have recorded. Songs like "Death Walks Behind You", "Gershatzer" and "Tomorrow Night" deserve to be remembered for longer than they were remebered.

What the hell was that? I read about the half of the book and I couldn`t understand a single thing Grass was writing here. It seemed sick to me. I may be too plain and simple and my German may be terrible but you have to be kidding me if you consider this monstrosity readable.

I wonder why I read so much Remarque. After all he isn`t one of my favourite writers and I`m not even reading his books in German. But I also have to admit that this book is significantly better than "Himmel kennt keine Guenstlinge". The book is about a German journalist who has escaped from a nazi concentration camp and now is looking for a place for himself in the land of brilliant oportunities - the States. He doesn`t do particulary well, but he doesn`t do bad neither. The same can be sad about the book itself.

Back in the 1980s the Peppers were chilly indeed. They wore nothing but socks on their penises during concerts, they sang about how "Catholic Schoolgirls" ruled and they were the epithomy of being alternative in respect to everything you can imagine. Their decline as an alternative force began with "Under the Bridge" which was a perfect song for young romantic girls. I still believe that "Californication" was a very good record though, although it is a bit too poppy of course. With "Stadium Arcadium" the band tries to become a bit more artsy than it`s ever been. You wouldn`t expect a double album with titles "Mars" and "Jupiter" for each of the records to be a dumb record, or would you? WIth the Peppers you can never know. It doesn`t seem that this is any sort of a conceptual album but that`s not a thing I would expect from the peppers. Basically it`s ballads in the vein of that accoustic song on "Californication" - "Road tripping" and lots of funky beats on other songs. I have no idea whether Kiedis and company have any clues what they are singing about but that`s music for jumping around and not music for writing essays on Gertrud Stein`s influence upon Henry James. And now I would like to jump around the office. Yet since I can`t do that I`ll take my bike and go looking for a brand new cadillac. Not a cadillac maybe, but a used Ford or Opel, but who cares?

This is a story you may be already familiar with if you watch Simpsons regularily. You know the episode when the schoolbus crashes and the children are swept to a desert island and have to eat each other in order to survive. Actually I supposed this would be much more gruesome than it was. Basically it`s just a story for the kids where some of the kids are killed by other kids and the lord of the flies (Beelzebub in old Jewish) is just a pigs head on a stick and the Beast is a dead parachutist. The novel mostly revolves around the conflict between the positive hero Ralph and the negative one Jack with the chubby Piggy thrown in the middle of it. The whole thing is full of metaphors of course but I don`t give a damn about that, I only care that this isn`t particulary interesting to read, therefore I can`t say that this is the best shit ever.

Actually I can`t really say that I`m much of a fan of Remarque`s work, although he`s a very strong novelist indeed. His writing manner in "Heaven has no Favorites" hasn`t changed much from his first novels - it`s clear and quite simple (which by the way isn`t typical for German literature), and in his essence Remarque isn`t much of a German really, relying much more on the French heritage than that of a German. I have no problems with that, of course, for I`d choose frog legs over sauerkraut any day you choose (well, I may be lying but who gives a damn). As for the story: Lilian stays at a sanatorium somewhere in Switzerland where she is slowly dying of tuberculosis but when she meets a car racer who`s come to meet his sick friend, she decides to spend the last months of her life living and not dying. So she does.