Barra Barra

First of all, I'd like to thank my mate Idep for sending me "Barra Barra" mp3 file. It's a very precious stuff and has been my most wanted song.



It's quite rare and can't easily be found in internet. But somehow the dude managed to get it, Bravo Dep! So, what is this Barra Barra song anyway? My first introduction to this song is when I was watching the movie BlackHawk Down. Somewhere in the middle of it, there was a scene with this song in the background. It was very awesome for me to hear this technorock blended with middle east athmosphere. The lyric was arabic, but sung in a heavy and haunting way and closely matched with what the movie was trying to describe. Since then, I've been trying to find and get this song, I could feel the coolness of listening this song while playing Counter Strike or any other computer wargames. Somehow my works always get in the way and I was too busy to acomplish the mission :) . Until a few days ago, I heard the song again in another video clip and I instantly typed in the keyword "Barra Barra" in Youtube and contacted Idep for a little help. Eventualy, both of them were finally able to provide me the live version video clip as well as the mp3. So, here is Barra Barra by Rachid Taha, the video clip, the lyric along with its English translation.

Barra Barra by Rachid Taha

BARRA BARRA hozd wel boghd ou zawara
barra barra fezd wel l'hozd ma b'qa amene
barra barra l'alach we ness menhoussine
barra barra la horma dolm wet ouboudia
barra barra nechfou l'widane helkou b'houratte
barra barra noujoum t'fate derguete chems
barra barra ma b'qa kheir la saada wala z'har
barra barra ma b'kate sadjra sektou la t'iour
barra barra ma bka lil ka n'har ghir dalma
barra barra jahanama ma b'ka zine
barra barra k'tar z'mane ma b'kate horma
barra barra fozd l'harb we dem isil
barra barra ghir l'hitane l'hitane waqfine
barra barra l'khaouf wa ness saktine
barra barra l'hozd wel boghd wa zawara
barra barra wel hozd ma b'qa amene
barra barra nechfou l'widane helkou l'bhourane
barra barra noujoum t'fate derguette chems
barra barra ma b'qa kheir la saada wata z'har
barra barra ma b'qa z'djour saktou la tiour
barra barra ma b'qa lil la n'har ghir dalma
barra barra gh'bina jahanama ma b'ka zine
barra barra k'tar z'méme ma b'qate horma
barra barra l'fezed wel harb wa dem isil
barra barra ghir l'hitane hitane waqfine
barra barra l'khaouf ness saktine
barra barra l'hozd fezd ou zawara
barra barra fezd wel hozd ma b'qa améne
barra barra noujoum t'fate derquéte chéms
barra barra ma b'qa kheir la saada la z'har
barra barra ma b'qa z'djour sektou lé tiour
barra barra ma b'qa lil ka n'har ghir dalma
barra barra djahanama ma b'qa zine
barra barra k'tar z'méne ma b'qate horma
barra barra etc.

Translated to English :

barra barra (outside) = bb
Sadness, hate and the reign of arbitrary
bb
Destruction, jealousy ; there is no trust left
bb
Thirst and people are unlucky
bb
No honour, but oppression and slavery
bb
Rivers were dried up and seas have ruined everything
bb
Stars are switched off and the sun went down
bb
There are no trees left and the birds stopped singing
bb
There are neither days, nor nights left, darkness only
bb
Hell ; there is no beauty left
bb
(solo of mandolute and ululation) ---

2.bb Time has increased, there is no honour left
bb
Ruin and war and the blood is flowing
bb
There are only walls left, walls standing up
bb
Fear and people remain silent
bb S
adness, hate and the reign of arbitrary
bb
Destruction and jealousy ; there is no trust left
bb
Rivers were dried up and seas have ruined everything
bb
stars are switched off and the sun went down
barra barra (in a low voice, plus crescendo) ---

3.bb There is neither good, nor happiness, nor luck anymore
bb
There are no trees left; the birds stopped singing
bb
here are neither nights, nor days left; darkness only
bb
Desolation, hell, there is no beauty left
bb (Silence)
bb
Time has increased, there is no honour left
bb
Ruin and war and the blood is flowing
bb
There are only walls left, walls standing up
bb
Sadness, hate and the reign of arbitrary
bb
Destruction and jealousy ; there is no trust left. Stars are switched off, and the sun went down bb
There is neither good, nor happiness, nor luck left
bb
There are no trees left ; birds stopped singing
bb
There are no neither nights nor days left; darkness only
bb
Desolation, hell, there is no beauty left
bb Time has increased, there is no honour left
Barraaaaa! Barra, barra, barraaaaaa!

Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Desktop Office Killer?

Another mind-blowing solution, state of the art work have been provided by google at http://docs.google.com/. Introducing, Google Docs & Spreadsheets. By the time I'm writing this post, it's still in beta stage, but I believe this stuff is the real answer to one of the most awaited breakthrough from Google, The Google Office. A year ago, I've been introduced to a web based word processing and spreadsheet service from writely.com, which was eventually acquired by Google. And that was a smart move by Google. I mean, can you predict how big the market in this "office solution" is? My colleagues and I had played around with writely.com for quite some times. We speculated that this could be the killer of what we call now "office desktop application", just a matter of time until the application gets matured, stable, bandwith-friendly, and most important thing is, POPULAR! I still can't do the math and logic on how Google is financing this free service, maybe sooner they will launch a commercial version of this application instead of putting commercial ads on the screen, maybe it has more text editing features, bigger upload file size, more rows and cols in spreadsheets, or maybe it can be our own "Office Server" that can be hosted in our local LAN environment...Imagine how amazing that will be. Or..maybe it will always stay as free service and get subsidized by other Google commercial services. Will it cut cost on those desktop office licenses? I really don't know. Think about people who are mobile and lack of internet connection or working offline at home, is Google also having solution for this kind of people? Do they have to install their "Office Server" locally on their laptops or desktops? That will be another story, but pretty crucial. For semi-technologist like me :D , it's fun enough to watch Web 2.0 works in "real production" and kicks ass too. I mean, the speed (well, it depends on how lucky you are, whether the internet connection is friendly or it sucks as usual), the features, and so on make me feel like I'm working on my usual desktop application. The ability to import and export different document formats are just awesome. It works well with MS Word, MS Excel and Open Office formats, and not to mention everyone's favorite ... PDF. You can also e-mail the document, instead of upload it, to a certain e-mail address so it can be automatically stored in our document directory. The spell checker and suggestions are just amazing, there are many languages provided, including Bahasa Indonesia! Another kewl thing is that we can invite other people to work on the same documents that we have shared. I'm talking about "real" online collaboration here. And guess what? You can also publish your documents to many popular blog sites, how do you think I'm blogging this post? That's rite, mate. I'm publishing it from the very Google Docs and Spreadheets itself, directly (but eventualy I have to go back to blogger.com to add the title manually, hmm why does it happen?). That is KEWL! Two thumbs up to you guys in Google. Keep on producing (or, should I say "acquiring"?), more sweet thing like this in the future, maybe I'll consider to be one of your investors (yeah rite Oki, who do you think you are?). OK Guys, the moment is starting now, if you want to spend some quality time, visit the mentioned url address above.

The look of document directory

This is how we upload documents

Text editor environment

The kewl Spell Checker..Bahasa Indonesia is there!

Check out this awesome web spreadsheets!