MOVED TO WORDPRESS

NEW BLOG ADDRESS >>>FOOTPRINT 2.0<<<

Migrating to Wordpress

The reason for my pronounced absence is because I'm in the process of moving ( or trying to) this blog to wordpress.com ( later on to paid hosting). Still working on themes and designs colours ; boring stuff really.

So whoever reads this blog should expect to see it revamped and with a new direction but on a different platform. I might or might not be updating this blog so don't expect anything for a while; at least until I change my mind about moving.

Michael Jackson - smooth criminal LIVE

Video of the Day - '' Tecktonic Dance''

I got introduced to this dance by a little French friend of mine ( no not my gun:-) scarface reference...anyway) Pretty smooth dancing style perfect for our white cousins

Film review 'Kabluey'

For the past couple of weeks, Viasat 1 has been airing movies from a particular production house, New Films International. The movies that have been shown have however been a hit and miss.I thoroughly enjoyed ' Dating games people play' but slept through most of 'November' starring Courteney Cox (plays Monica in Friends).

In addition to the six or so movies I've seen from this production company, Kabluey is the best out of the lot in my opinion. It it is movie that talks about a family, that is made up of frustrated-with-life mom, two sons that are out of control( euphemism for Lucifer's incarnates) and a dad that's been posted to Iraq. Things naturally get to a boiling point for Leslie ( mom- Lisa Kudrow of Friends fame) who in an act of desperation ,turns to her estranged brother-in-law for help.

Salmon to the rescue.

Things dont get off to a good start with the kids though, the elder of the two in particular, turning on him with their juvenile destructive energy. Salmon eventually gets a menial job working as a walking ad campaign handing out fliers as a marcot for his employers.

The actor-writer-director of this film, Scott Prendergrast does a brilliant job with his impecable comedic timing and delivery. He reminds me of John Heder who plays the lead actor in Napoleon Dynamite ( a cult classic) with his geeky-awkward-funny-without-saying-a-word look.

For those of you who didn't see the film, buy the DVD or pray for the repeat on VS1.

My Favourite entries

For lack of having anything to blog about for the moment, I have made a list of my favourite postings for the past couple of months. They range from music, arts, video and the like.... so in no particular order...

•  Tricky the cool genius
  

• Over 1.5 million views for my videos on youtube - until yt decided to take one of them down because of copyright infringement

• My Favourite videos of all time !!! NO JOKE!!! 

• Weird and interesting things Part 1 & Part 2 [ My fav of the two ]

• The Davos Debate 2009: A Question of Ethics 
  

• The War on Gaza: Most one sided war I' ve seen

• Arts.21 : A short clip of one of my fav TV shows

• Prince: Another favourite 

Pardon my abuse of the word  favourite, it just happens to be my favourite word :-)

The curious case of the 'LAFA'

                     Van Vicker -- shameless 'LAFArian'

Look i dont know what the whole fuss is about with this 'LAFA' ( which stands for Locally Acquired Foreign Accent for those of you who arent in the know) phenomenon as we call it locally. When you really think about it how do people in general acquire their accents? How does someone who has lived all his life within the shores of his/ her mother country, end up talking like someone from east London or New York? Answer: Very simple. Human nature.

When we as human beings, get exposed to a certain culture whether we get to experience it first hand or long distance we will end up picking up elements of that foreign culture; Accent, food, fashion sense and yes, even our taste in women or men for that matter. Whether this happens consciously because one finds it more appealing and cooler to talk like an American or we just slip into the tongue just because we watched too much TV flooded with foreign programs is beside the point. The fact is it happens; its human nature.

 

People who acquire LAFA are constantly exposed to MTV, CNN, listening to music reading foreign entertainment mags etc...( yes you can acquire LAFA by reading; i was once told i had a Brit accent just because i said 'pity' instead of 'its a shame' ; and this was when i was instant messaging!

So for me the hating from all of these expats and locals alike is unjustified.The same way our brothers from abroad get offended when we, who are supposed to be their brothers and sisters at home, call them 'obroni' or when you call someone a 'villager' (derog) because he cant speak proper english we shouldnt label LAFArians as frauds.

There I've said my peace so until next time its Later Homies !! :-)

'Britain's Got Talent ' UPDATE

I was pleasantly surprised by the show and a bit numbed by the concept however; winning a competition to get an audience with the Queen just didnt go down well with my anti-class alter ego . May be I would have a different view of things hadI grown up in Britain. But thats  in another life :-)

As expected, the turnout was huge ( not American Idolesque mind you, smaller country:)but the hardwork of sifting and sieving through the human rubish present  must have been monumental.  So after the elimination round where those who couldnt manage to cross that faint line that separates  weirdness  and weird talent, fell by the way side or on this ocassion were 'X'ed off stage in front of millions . Feel your pain guys especially when you told your ex you were going to be famous after you win the show.

In the end I was pissed because the people I was rooting for lost (Susan and Flawless) .But truth be told I kind of had a sneaky feeling that Flawless werent going to win especially when they were up against a rival dance group with the more pleasing and less cocky name Diversity. Coincidence that the public went for a more embrassing name or they were just better dancers? Better dancers i dont know about that , but with the cute kids and flawless performance Diversity deserved to win. For once Flawless werent so flawless.They just didnt put on a performance worthy of a grand final . [ main problem : shoddy and over-elaborate choreography]

Ooh Susie Susie Susie. I feel for the old gal. Coming from her little corner somewhere in Britain to snatch the hearts of thousands in the process building massive good will and a solid momentum to win the  competition only to fail at the final hurdle. No wonder she ended up seeking medical help of a psychiatric nature ( apparently she's out as I type these here words) She could have done with more rouge on the cheeks; showbiz is lets face it, about looks and charm so  in the end the more dazzling competitor won.

Author Spotlight:- Ayesha Haruna-Attah

I watched this girl  on Kwaku Sintim Misa's (KSM) TGIF show on Metro TV yesterday and was impressed by her achievement. She recently launched her book ( not sure of exact location) ''Harmattan Rain'' after going through a 9-month writers' workshop in Senegal hosted by none other than Ayi Kwei Armah author of ''The beautyful ones are not yet born''. (beautyful not spelt wrongly :-).

My only hope is that people wont be  put off by the 400-page book before even buying it. For reason that are not yet clear to me, most African lit comes in less than 300 pages. Cost? Running out of creative steam? Going out of one's mind getting dry plots to stick? hmm

If her personality is anything to go by then her book should be a engaging read; good writers tend to do that, infuse their work with bits of their personality that is.

Video of the Day: Flawless - Dance Act - Britains Got Talent 2009

Some spine-twisting, spine-tingling dance moves from the dance group FLAWLESS


Flawless - Dance Act - Britains Got Talent 2009 - The most amazing home videos are here

SelektoR: Prince - " How come you dont call me"

	Prince - How Come You Don't Call Me Anymore?
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Football: Man Utd Knocked Out Of FA CUP

Ooh what a fucking disaster. Personally I didnt get to watch the match live because of work but managed to get commentary from BBC, on the patched-up radio I had nearby.

The first 120mins went by like a flash, except for the fact THAT WE WERE ROBBED OF A CLEAR PENALTY IN DAYLIGHT. So without any goals takin the game went into penalties. But then I hoped against all hope that Ben Foster, our dimunitive England team aspiring goalie, would come to our rescue. But instead it was the American goal keeper ,Tim Howard who i still think we sold at the wrong time; ends up saving two penalties so even though Tim Cahil blazed his effort over the crossbar Everton came away winners with a 4-2 scoreline.

Why oh why did Fergie field so young a squad... yes we have a lot of important matches coming up but he could have fielded the fringe players instead and not the youngsters. Surely a great manager like Fergie wasnt expecting Macheda to repeat his wonder goal scoring spree.... huff. What I didnt expect from him however was to join Arsene Wenger in blaming the pitch for not winning.

So bad judgement and cruel referreeing has stolen our chance of winning the cup because we all know that we could beat Chelsea should we have met them in the finals.

Video of the day: Anais - ''Mon Coeur''

I just love, love, loooove this girl. Enjoy this clip.

Fabulous picture show - 09 april, 2009

PART 1




PART 2

A.L Kennedy

For the past couple of weeks i have been reading with great interest and enthusiasm, the blog entries on and of the Scottish writer A.L Kennedy on the Guardian website.

For some reason I can't explain, I find that her prose writing style and just her writing in general, tends to appeal to me a great deal. May be its the gloom that just wraps around you when you read about her suffering from back pains, a secluded life and her unabashed admission of having sex once every five years. I must confess that I am not the avid reader I should be since I have very lofty ambitions of becoming a writer ( which she advices against, naturally. No writer would wish for anyone other than themselves to go through the pain writing involves; fiction writing at least) since reading and writing, for me at least go hand in hand. According to her, taking the bold and foolish decision to become a full time writer ,ie earning a living through words should only come as a last resort of sorts. It is too much of a sacrifice learning the craft and after years of trial and error, solitude and mental torture finally be confident enough to type your first sentence.

Anyway,I am yet to read any of her short stories or novels for that matter but I have a feeling that I will greatly enjoy my reading when I finally do. She isnt main stream like John Grisham and Danielle Steele so it's hard getting her books locally.

But in the mean time you can watch her talk about her latest book, ' DAY', in the video below.

Video of The Day: The Lonely Island - '' Jizz in my pants''

Another vid i found while vidigging when all of a sudden I JIZZ IN MY PANTS

Sacarsm At Its Best : ''How to write about Africa''

I have never read any piece of writing that hit home with such unashamed sarcasm that was also funny and very true about most novels, articles and writing in general, that are about Africans .In a nutshell, this is a ''Dummies Guide To: How Not To Write About Africa''.

Click HERE to read the full article

Champions' League QF draw

I was really praying we wouldnt get to play a typical big team during the draw and thankfully my prayers( of sorts) were answered. When I mean 'we' I mean Manchester Utd.





Below is the full list of how the draw unfolded.


first Quarter-finals .
Arsenal - Villareal


Second Quarter-finals
Manchester United - Fc Porto
[ Winner of this tie meets winner of first Quarter-finals]


Third Quarter-finals
Liverpool - Chelsea , again!


Fourth Quarter-finals
Fc Barcelona - Bayern Munchen

Man U's tie is going to be tricky; on the surface it looks like we got an easy pairing but with the likes of their influencial Argentine captain Lucho Gonzalez and the one they call ' The Hulk' it might just prove to be a very slippery away tie for us if we fail to win at home convincingly. Tomorrow's game against Fulham is going to be very important in terms of building our self-confidence after being pumelled to death by our sworn enemies Liverpool at home. GO REDS !

SelektoR : '' Peaches Mixtape ''

Video Of The Day : '' Watchmen '' - trailer

Here comes another on screen comic book adaptation but this time from the studios of Paramount , Warner Bros, Legendary pictures and DC Comics.

It is for this reason alone that I will make it a point to see this flick. From the gossip circulating the WWW it sounds like its going to be one hell of a movie; that is if you are into adaptations of comic books into movies.Or if you are into comic books at all. Or if you don't mind some big-shot Hollywood director murdering your favourite super hero characters on the big screen. Last year, the phenomenally successful Dark knight set a very high bench mark and this undoubtedly means the viewing audience is going to settle for nothing less than that. That would take some doing though(Watchmen out grossing the Dark Knight). But Some say they are two different movies and shouldn't be put into the same category. Its still about a bunch of super heroes and heroins dressed up in psychedelically-coloured, suffocating spandex costumes.

Director Zach Snyder who brought us 300 with the backing of Legendary pictures is in charge of this one as well. I loved 300 especially the part where one of the elders of the council was consulting the 'Oracle'. Since when did Oracles become this hot. She been giving dude a huge boner every time I watch it, even after watching the movie over four times. Anyway back to movie at hand. Watching the trailer, you notice that Zach again employed a couple of the techniques he uses in 300. The special effects am is outstanding no two ways about it... but the main thing movie aficionados are worried about is the ending. Too many movies have thrived on the popularity of brilliantly edited trailers only to be 90 minutes cinematic flops.

Hope for Mr. Snyder's sake this movie goes down well with audiences ( call it artistic solidarity or just old fashion well wishing.)