these guys are really good

If you have never listened to or heard of Black Star, you need to pull yourself together and make sure you check these guys out. Black Star is the combination of Mos Def (now rapper turned actor - I think many black folks should thank Will Smith for breaking a major barrier, I wanna compare him to Jackie Robinson) and Talib Kweli. Mos and Kweli started out underground and have become major, they made Black Star after doing some Soundbombing. After some Soundbombing for Rawkus, they got together and made their only official CD together. Check out their apperance on the Chappelle Show and their great classic song "Respiration" featuring another great rapper Common. It is always nice to hear rappers who have something decent to tell the world.

det jul det cool...

Nu hvor jule tamtam'en er ovre vil jeg sende denne forsinkede jule hilsen til jer alle - inden det bliver nytår. Det første jeg vil dele med jer er en "fætter-kusine sang" som Micahala, Alexander og jeg lavede til vores kusine Natascha til jul.



Det næste jeg har fundet er nogle spillere fra Detroit Pistons basketholds julehilsen, de er også gode til at synge.



Nu er der kun tilbage at ønske jer alle et godt nytår.

KNA Connected

Check out KNA Connected. One of the group members is Khalil, a great Bahá'í who happens to have a great flow to go along with nice rhymes - he is the tall light-skinned brotha. The three guys in KNA Connected are all residing in Denmark, they do a great live preformance to go with their music (Saw them at "Operaen" - right Chris?).



I was watching my favorite tv show (on MTV), top ten at ten, and then I saw KNA Connected. It was top ten danish bands, pretty impressing to see them there. Here is the video, the danish remix of their song "Fibs".



If you wanna hear the original in english and know more about them check out their homepage (link) or on their myspace.com site (link).

Holla!

casino royale

Now that I'm in the business of recommending things, I going to recommend going to the movies to watch the new Bond movie.


Not only because two of the actors in the movie are danish (Le Chiffre played by Mads Mikkelsen and Mr. White by Jesper Christensen), but because it is a good movie. I like the whole idea of telling the story of how Bond became Bond. Much like "Batman Begins", it is a great way to reintroduce it with a new actor to us younger fans. The movie is like your typical Bond movie: hot cars, hot girls and great action scenes. But Daniel Craig, much like the new Batman, brings a more rugged persona to James Bond - thereby making him more realistic. If you don't like action movies or Bond movies this movies is not for you. Casino Royale has the usual Bond plot, which actually has its charm, and it also has some twist you don't expect.


The movie is also banking on the poker craze that has hit the world the last couple of years. Hate it or love it...


Trailer on youtube


I can also recommend the movie "Layer Cake" with Daniel Craig in it, if you like movies like "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels".

a few artist

This whole blog post of a list of artist I like, has grown from a wish to write a review of the Roots new CD "Game Theory" - so first is a short review "Game Theory"
For some reason I have been straying away from the CD shops lately and therefore haven't picked up the real CD. Instead I downloaded "Game Theory" on iTunes Musicstore. I have downloaded multiple full CDs through the Musicstore and I love it! It is great for a instant gratificationist (is that a word?) like me. iTunes Musicstore is an awesome addition to modern consumer culture, the internet has provided and continues to provide great ways for lazy people to stay up on everything and spending money without having to leave comfort zone being their (in my case) beloved computer. Now on to the review (in unprioritized bulletform):

• The Roots mix the CD with slower tracks and seriously speedy tracks - check the songs "Game Theory" "Here I Come", where they push the speed, some what like what they did in "Rolling with Heat" off Phrenology.
• They keep the good ol' Roots sound, jazzy beats mixed with melodic singing. The return of that makes the CD worthwhile. Thats one of the things that fans (myself included) missed from Phrenology. Some people say it is the effect of not having (now superproducer) Scott Storch onboard for the CD
• Black Thought is as thoughtful as ever in his rhymes. The mixture of songs seems not to bother him, but they really enhance his rhymes skills - he has skilz! Love his flow!
  
• I appreciate the tribute to J. Dilla, but the the end of the song is too long. It is a great beat, but they should make the rest a hidden track.
• One thing I have been missing from the "new" Roots is the homogenity the old CDs had, if you want to know why the Roots are among the best hip-hop bands of all time, purchase (or borrow them from me) the following Roots CDs from me: "Things Fall Apart" and "Do You Want More?!!!??!"

All in all, the CD recieves a 4/6 from me, they did well and continue to do well. But I'm still stuck in the old school.




Next is Nas an Jay-Z, two great rappers, they have the amazing gift that they are still alive - compared to the two who stole limelight form their early careers, Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.. Their debut albums are probably my two favorite albums ever and they have continued to keep the same high standards. Jigga has gone on to being, probably, the richest and most powerful rapper ever. Nas fell off, but kept his own when he was beefing with Jigga. For Nas' best listen to "Illmatic", and check out "Reasonable Doubt","Unplugged" (with the Roots as band)"The Blueprint"(the CD that established Kanye West as a producer) for Jay-Z' best. But both have been an integral part of defining newer hip-hop and rap.


Onto rock, the Strokes! These guys are awesome. My brother Omeed says "They probably have the best bass in rock." And I agree, they have created two great CDs and one very good one. Enough said! Listen to all 3 of their CDs, chronologically, if you like the indie rock type of music (my mom doesn't). This is music to get you going, I listen to this or AC/DC if i need extra energy for my morning bike ride. Also listen to Bloc Party, the Killers and Franz Ferdinand if you like that type of music.


Some danish rock artist that are very worthwhile, Kashmir, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy (and later Tim Christensen) and Mew. They are all good rock bands and I enjoy listening to them. Mew has a sound like probably no other band, so thats the one band you really should listen to. The other two are just classic bands, really thats all they are CLASSIC bands.


Listing all these artist makes me want to list more. But I will save this for another time. Hopefully this should make you want to check out some of the artist and buy their CDs or go to their shows. If this post could make you want never check my blog again, I understand you.

I will end the post with a shout-out to my former co-workers in Bahá'í World Center Kitchen, whose music has inspired me and expanded my musical universe - like Cocio, you gotta love them! Miss you Manu!

Keeping the boycott

After reading the news about some workers in a KB in New Mexico, I've found another reason to boycott Kurger Bing. They placed cannabis in the burgers of two cops (link). Yep, I loved eating there, but their fall from grace just continues.

In danish:

Jf. Politiken.dk artikelen om nogle unge fyre som syntes at det var sjovt at placere cannabis i en burger, hos to politibetjente. Jeg mener at folk kan gøre lige hvad de vil for at skade sig selv, men det er vel direkte dumt at forsøge at gøre politifolk skæve. Håber ikke det går udover KB, men at de 3 idioter får en rimelig lærestreg.

Kurger Bings nye logo...

ultraviolet and infrared...

Today, Niklas (my roomie) and I, were going home from our local Føtex (a grocery store) and observed these awesome rainbows! I decided to inaugurate my new camera, with some shots the double rainbow action.


I live in the third building from the right. So if you ever are around, you are more than welcome to drop by. Or as the danish rapper Johnson would say: "Kig forbi!"...


These pictures fail to do the rainbows justice, they were awesome! But I feel compelled to share them with you (whomever "you" might be).


This is to keep my church membership... It was sunset-time, couldn't help myself....

This might blog become "my corner of the web, where i alone post pictures", but hey! a picture is a thousand words, right?

digt?

Nogle gange finder man ting som man ikke kan huske man skrev. Her er et af det eneste digte som jeg nogensinde har skrevet, som jeg selv synes om. Det er ikke noget seriøst, men mere bare en samtale i mit hoved. Nok snak, her er digtet – håber det er værd at læse…

Mad og min mave

Min mave knurrer, hvorfor det?

Har jeg ikke spist? Eller er den sur?

Jeg tog da en stor tallerken med mad.

Så meget og så sundt som maden var, hvorfor er den sur?

Køleskabet er fyldt med mad, jeg har lige købt ind.

Men gider jeg at gå hele vejen derind?

Det kræver både energi og en masse vilje.

Med smerten som min mave giver, vinder den snart!

Hvis jeg skriver dette digt, vinder min hjerne over min mave.

Jeg skriver videre selvom min krop siger: stop!

Hvad er det der er så godt ved mad?

Er det bare fordi at vi ved vi skal spise det?

Nu tror jeg at min mave hader min hjerne

Den kan jo øje køleskabet i det fjerne

Med disse sidste sætninger, siger min sultne krop hermed igen: stop!

Min hjerne er blevet for svag.

Måske er det fordi at min mave vinder over min hjerne!

26. august 2004, kl. 17.55

Sunsets, Baby!

It has been a while since I posted something, but I have been without access to the worlwide web, from home, for a few weeks now. To make up for not posting, I'm posting a few pics for your viewing pleasure. This is especially for my friend Bendershot who is a fanatic follower of the "Church of Earlier and Later Day Picturetakers" (Sunrises and sunsets). Here goes:

I was messing around trying to figure my dads camera out and I got this shot.

The angle does a bit...

The same sunset "reflected" on the mountain...

Good ol' Tasiilaq!

So here are some pictures... I am not a great photographer, I take a million shots and get lucky once or twice - trust me.

I hope you can enjoy the pictures - especially you Bendershot!

a few words...

Here I am in Nuuk enjoying a Cocio and the view on our veranda

At the moment I am at home at my parents house living off the fat of the land. This time I will be here for 5 weeks. It is great to see Nuuk - I like it more and more every time I come back - it is also great to see the people you only see once or twice a year.
My grandmother - Abuelita - will be visiting Nuuk while I'm here, Inger-Cecilie a good family friend will be visiting too and my brother will be gracing me with his presence for all of 5 days.
For my stay here, I have been lucky enough to get a job in the Home-Rule Government. I'm a studenthelper and I have yet to make coffee - believe it or not...

- remember, you can never have too much Cocio...

Kids in Tasiilaq - You gotta love 'em!

As you may or may not know, I spent 3 weeks in Tasiilaq, East Greenland, with my good friends Ben and Omeed. We spent our time with the Bahá'í community there and we volunteered at a free daycare Red Barnet. At Red Barnet we met many kids, they were loving and kind, Ben and Omeed managed to have a great time dispite the language barrier.

One day we each recieved somewhere between 10 and 15 small drawings as gifts from the children and we tried to give the children a few drawings in return.

The pictures should give you a small glimpse of the children in Greenland - enjoy!

You gotta love the kids!

Lars taking care of Omeed

Outside with Red Barnet

Kids looking at Prayer we wrote out for the kids at Red Barnet

The kids at Red Barnet giving us drawings

A girl in a Greenlandic national dress

Boys playing in their sunday clothes

A girl, Hilda, with a puppy

This kid tried to take my camera..

Omeed and Daniel. Great kid, always smiling and loving


Ben was there too - thanks for the pictures...


Fussball!

One small step for mankind, one big step for Blog Free Ads....

Update: My blog moved to aliikkutat.gl

TASIILAQ, GREENLAND. They travelled long and far, across many seas, endured multiple airplane rides and one crammed helicopter ride, to climb one great, treacherous, snow-covered mountain—all to proclaim their support of Blog Free Ads!

Our onsite reporters managed to secure footage and interviews from the momentous occasion. Coca-Cola sponsored Omeed Rameshni was reported saying: “We came a long way to climb that mountain, and if it wasn’t for the continuous, unending support of Coca-Cola and Michelin. Well… who knows where we’d be right now…” his eyes glazed for a second, before he continued, “God Bless Coca-Cola, I mean, it’s not like I even drink it, or that they gave us any money or encouragement or any material or non-material support at all. No… it is the mere existence of Coca-Cola that got us through this one. And… I don’t even own a car—and when I did I had Bridgestone Tyres! But Thank-you! Thank-you Michelin and Thank-you Blog Free Ads!”

“Amen!” spoke Ben Hendershot in support, an avid fan of all sporting extra-curricular activities hosted by N.C. State University who was the onsite photographer.

Stephan Montgomery-Andersen, sponsored by Michelin, refused to comment for our reporters, but it was clear that he was very emotional. When someone mentioned Michelin a small tear ran down his face. During Omeed’s moving speech he was found nodding his head while rivers of tears streamed down his face.

We would like thank our sponsors, Coca-Cola, “Enjoy Coca-Cola” and Michelin, “Tyres for the next century” for their continuous support during this whole ordeal. This entire post would not have been possible without Blog Free Ads. And let’s hear it for N.C. State University too.

For more information on Blog Free Ads please visit http://blogfreeads.blogspot.com

Forfølgelse og Undertrykkelse af Bahá'íerne i Iran

Her kommer et forsinket indlæg… Jeg vil bare kort gøre opmærksom på det systematiske forfølgelse og undertrykkelse der sker af Bahá'íerne i Iran. Siden Bahá'í troens fødsel i 1844, har de Bahá'íer som levede i Iran været forfulgt og siden revolutionen, i 1979, er over 200 Bahá'íer blevet dræbt af det Iranske præstestyre. Der har været flere FN resolutioner mod denne forfølgelse, som dog ikke har ændret på det. Blandt andet er det på nuværende tidspunkt ikke muligt for Bahá'íer, bosiddende i Iran, at få en universitetsuddannelse - da der lovgivning som gør det ulovligt for Bahá'íer at tage uddannelse på Iranske universiteter. Den 20. marts 2006 udtalte en af FNs special rapportør for menneskerettigheder, om hendes frygt for medlemmerne af Bahá'í troen forfølgelse. Jeg vil ikke sige mere end det, men hvis der er interesse for at undersøge sagen nærmere har jeg sat nogle links i bunden af siden.

FNs pressemeddelelse

Kort beskrivelse af situationen for Bahá'í i Iran

Længere redegørelse af forfølgelsen Bahá'í i Iran

Bad Service = Boycott

I promised my friend Jesper Isbo to post this, after our trip around Århus and trip to Kurger Bing. Basically we had been standing in line for about 10 min in KB and then we se that the line next to us is practically empty, so we move over (to tell the story truthfully, I forced Jesper over). As we get to the front of the new line, and are about to happily make our order, the girl standing at the register leaves. We think, "fine she will be right back", but no! 5 min later we are still standing there waiting. So at that point we do the analysis - stay in this line or get to the back of the line in our old line. Well to make this sad story short, we stayed - out of principal, I must add. I think we were in the line for about 15 more minutes, during which Isbo was constantly telling me how much he hated me and that he was going to kill me. After those aggrevating 20 min (during which I must have been in some sort of shock, since I didn't complain - loudly) we decided to change back to our old line. So after about 35 min of waiting we get our burgers. As it turns out the girl had gone for lunch without even closing her register... The ultimate outcome of this story is that I am boycotting KB. When it comes to junk food only shawarma, falafal and pizza from here on out - not even McDs can tempt me.

Playoff time again...

So here I am again, it is NBA playoff time and I am again stuck in a remote part of the world and about 8 time zones away from the action. Many of you are thinking: Denmark isn't remote, is it? Well, NBA-wise it is pretty remote. All I want to do is watch Kobe go for 50 points against the Clippers in the next round, maybe see the Pistons Team kill their opponents and who wouldn't mind watching Eva Longoria cheering for Tony Parker (and the Spurs)? Thats what I want to see. After my good ol' days in Texas, with Monday, Tuesday Thursdays on TNT, I have been able to catch about one NBA game a year. Not satisfying!

This season I been keeping up with the NBA action all year, thanks to ESPN Motion (you can see the sportscenter clips for free the next day). It has been great to at least be able to see the highlights. So yeah, Denmark when are you going to start showing the NBA games, on one of the 25 cabel channels I have in my dorm?

I guess the best news right now is that the World Cup is coming up. Even without Denmark it is going to rock!

If you are wondering who I support, all I am going to say is that my favorite player scored 81 points in four quarters...

Tillykke!

Endelig er det sket! Min Onkel Jørn er blevet gift med min Tante Sif! Efter at have set hinanden an i næsten 23 år, blev de borgerligt viet i lørdags. Det var en smuk dag med høj sol. Som gæst blev man kørt i gennem en masse mad - både en frokost og en festmiddag. Det var en glædelig dag, det hjalp virkeligt at mine forældre og min bro' var der. Det er jo så sjældent at man ser dem når man bor hernede i det Danske land. Endnu engang tillykke!

i have joined the crowd of bloggers

First off, i know no-one is going to read this blog - so i am actually wasting my time.

So instead of posting something that meaningful and revolutionizing, i am posting something that shows my joy for the burger monarch - Burger King or Kurger Bing, as i call it .

Enjoy!

PS props to Pitu for taking the picture

A test picture of me

Here is a picture that makes me look presentable..

Tak A.K.