Birdy Nam Nam's "The Parachute Ending"

It’s no surprise that this song is reminiscent of Justice's album Cross, because the French duo produced the song. And just like the famed jams from that album, Birdy Nam Nam's bass-thumping "The Parachute Ending" is sure to move your hips – if you can take your eyes off the video.

Beginning with a hover-craft wielding alien, the video narrates an epic space battle full of neon colors and constant movement.



See my blurb on www.nickydigital.com here.

Settle down now: Helsinki

I am finally settling down. I have spent the past two nights in my new apartment, which is only a five-minute walk away from the fake apartment I was duped into believing was a good choice. (See my previous blog post if you don’t know what I’m talking about there.)


I am starting to think it was kind of fate that I didn’t get the other apartment, because this one is really ideal. It’s tiny, but lovely. Here is what I love about it:

Read the rest of my blog post on my XIHA Life blog here.

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Sparklehorse – It's a Wonderful Life

Welcomed to Finland with a scam!

A Finnish friend of mine moved to New York in January. A few months later, he told me about his old roommate who refused to return the deposit from his previous apartment. I gave him my best advice and told him that this was a huge difference between the U.S. and Finland, in my mind. People in Finland are more honest and wouldn’t try to cheat another person out of a measly $800. “That doesn’t happen in Finland!” I recall saying.

Yap, well it does. And it happened to me, but under other circumstances. I never got to live in my apartment, and I still didn’t get my deposit back. I just moved from New York to Helsinki, arriving in Finland on Sunday, May 31st. I don’t have a job yet, but I had arranged for an apartment in Töölö and it seemed perfect: it was 36 m2 for one person with electricity, water and Internet included in the price.

Read the rest of my blog post on my XIHA Life blog here.

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Dear Nora – Girl From The North Country

XIHA Life

Check out XIHA Life! The "About Us" section on the site explains it all:

XIHA Life is the world's first truly multilingual social network.

Targeted at people living outside their home country, as well as multilingual people around the world, XIHA Life makes communication and content sharing easier across cultures and language barriers. Our language recognition and filtering technology enables users to select not only one, but several different languages to communicate with new friends and people they care about.

You can also follow XIHA Life on Twitter! Check it out here.

Why am I forwarding this Web site so much? Why, I write for them, of course! Join and enter this wonderful multicultural community.

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Cat Stevens – I Wish, I Wish

The Brooklyn Paper

An evolution-themed artwork that beautified an ugly scaffolding was ripped down by state officials who claimed the artists did their public service without permission.

On May 8, the artist group De-Fence installed wood cutouts of various flora and fauna on the eyesore scaffold that has surrounded the Empire Stores warehouse in DUMBO for two years. The work depicted a storyline of evolution, moving from small water creatures to a throng of birds bursting into flight. Read the rest of "Art attacked! State park cops reuglify DUMBO building."

Photo by Tom Callan / The Brooklyn Paper

Drivers, neighbors and merchants who are forking over handfuls of quarters to pay the newly increased parking meter rates during peak hours on Fifth and Seventh avenues say the city’s so-called “Park Smart” project isn’t living up to its name — because debit cards that render change obsolete aren’t being sold in the neighborhood yet! Read the rest of "Park Smart? More like Park Dumb as high-cost meter cards aren't even for sale!" (I didn't write it, but I did reporting for it.)

A proposal for a federally overseen clean-up of the Gowanus Canal sounds like something that everyone can get behind, but it’s actually pitting neighbor against neighbor over facts and hearsay that are as murky as the waterway itself. Read the rest of "Superfund showdown on the Gowanus."

One police blotter!

Another police blotter! (This one is funny. I called it "Teenage Wasteland" after that song by The Who. Read it to find out why!)

And finally, a tribute video they did for me. Aw, how sweet.

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Beck – The New Pollution

Let's play catch-up!

I have been MIA over the past few weeks. Trouble is, I went to Peru for a week (for my birthday!), then when I got back to New York, I had to pack up all of my stuff and move it around the city. Now about seven or eight different people are storing my stuff over the summer while I am gone.

Where am I? LIVING IN HELSINKI, FINLAND!

The next few posts are going to be me playing catch-up, hence the sudden boost in posts. Enjoy!

Em

Cops nab bikers in red-light sting! (Clinton Hill)

Police cracked down on rule-breaking bicyclists in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill last Friday, issuing tickets for running red lights and then slapping offenders with additional summonses for minor infractions, including one bicyclist who didn’t have a bell.

The dragnet snared 36 bicyclists on the popular DeKalb Avenue bike lane that links the two neighborhoods with Downtown Brooklyn.

Cops said the crackdown was long overdue.

Read the rest of my story for The Brooklyn Paper here.

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Jean Jacques Perrey – E.V.R.