Eurovision: Geeking out to bands I’ll never hear again

So, yesterday, instead of writing, I was geeking out over Eurovision. For the American readers unfamiliar with it, the Eurovision Song Contest is like the European music Olympics. Participating countries each send in an act, Europe votes, and the top score wins. (European readers, please elaborate in the comments as I’m also American and only get to watch from afar.)

Eurovision produces both amazing acts, horrible acts, and things you’re not sure what to think of them.

I learned of the ESC a few years back when I was introduced to a band called Lordi. They’re a Finnish power metal group who performs in full costume as a cast of monsters, including Mister Lordi, himself. This group won Eurovision 2006.

They’re a fun act, and knew how to entertain. If metal isn’t your thing, though, Eurovision has had a number of different acts over the years. Last night I was introduced to another performance from 2006. These guys had a lot of guts, but obviously, it didn’t work out for them.

There’s a lot of wonderful acts, like I said, but there are a couple of questionable ones. Ukraine produced one that makes me laugh, but I’m not sure I can call the performance good. Here, from 2008.

And if you like this stuff, the next semifinals is tomorrow at 3PM Eastern (GMT -5), and you can catch the stream on the Eurovision website.

Do you have something you geek out from another country or continent?

Getting Into It

Last week, I hit upon an idea that isn’t letting go.

It grabbed my attention and now I’m working it out every spare moment, and working the text out in a prewrite, just so I can write a well polished piece out of the image in my head.

Not every idea does this to me, and in fact, a lot of them I have to work until they even seem interesting.

When I was younger, I believed in ‘the muse’ like so many, and it was moments like this that we referenced. Brilliant creativity that just, comes to us. But I’ve learned over the years, it very rarely comes like that, and it’s not always my best ideas that leap fully formed to the page.

And I’m okay with this, now. I’ve learned to chase ideas wherever they come from.

Those ideas that need development I follow long enough to see if there’s something there that holds my interest and speaks to the way I see things, if not, I leave it in a little text file, to be pulled out if it ever does. Those that do get added to the project queue, and eventually get turned into something (though not always what I thought they’d become!)

How about you, readers, how do you get into your creative projects?

Neil Gaiman: Everything I Know About Being an Artist

Neil Gaiman linked this on his Twitter feed today, and I was entranced for the whole twenty minutes.

With his experience in artistic industry, his words about the future ring much more true to me (Even if they repeat everything I guessed myself) than much of the talk flying about the internet.

Special focus on the 3-fold constraint of freelancing.

So, what’s your latest interesting mistake?

John Green: Religion and Gay Marriage

This is the week of awesome videos. John Green talks about ‘traditional’ marriage, homosexuality, and how it all interacts with Religion.

DFTBA

Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter

I was passed this video by my mother, who knows I’m fascinated by words, and while I enjoyed the first poem, it’s the middle and final poem that make this video worth every minute.

Cynics

Something about this world has changed the way we look at it.

Recently, I won a prize for a school challenge I entered. As I’ve explained, I lost the challenge, quite soundly, but I won the drawing for the people who entered. Awesome feeling, except I didn’t believe it at first.

Obviously, my first step was to inspect the email. It came to my legitimate email, so that was a mark for it, and I recognized most of the companies listed in the email. So I read through, and gave my information (Don’t worry, it was just a shipping address!).

Of course, when I told others, they didn’t believe it either. People don’t win the random drawing, or that’s what people seem to believe.

Where did we go wrong that hope is no longer the default mode of thought when it comes to success and good fortune?

My children have been watching Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the opening of the movie shows what I’m talking about really well: Until the very end, Charlie and Grandpa Joe hope, even if the odds are heavily against them. Even Grandpa Joe rants about the topic, asking what Charlie has to hope for with the five tickets gone.

Maybe it’s time we remember that not everyone is out to get us, and that sometimes, good things happen.

Out of My League

As everyone here knows, I am pretty much definition techie. I love technology, gadgets, new software, hardware, and how it all works.

After all, I’m in college for information system technologies, which is a lot of databases and networking (When I’m not in business classes learning what’ll go in those databases).

Part of being into technology is that ever-present danger of saying something that goes right over someone’s head. I’m sure I’ve done it more than once, and I built my Tweetdeck Guide to help mitigate that problem!

When you’re into technology, though, it’s hard to get what it feels like to be completely out of your element when technology is concerned. Then I entered Cyber Quest.

For those who don’t know, Cyber Quest is a technology challenge for students studying computing, and more specifically security. The challenge is a quiz that asks you to analyze various files for inconsistencies, vulnerabilities, and settings on the systems in question.

And to be completely frank, it was like reading Greek. I had an idea of what it was asking, but I had very little idea of what any of it meant. I think I finally understood what it felt like to not understand computers!

What about you: Ever gotten a taste of everything you don’t know about a subject you love?