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news tijuana video

Tijuana Video Competition: 119th Birthday Card

Video Contest for Tijuana's 119th Birthday

The Tijuana Convention & Visitors Bureau offers $500 to the best video birthday card for Tijuana’s 119th birthday. The deadline is July 9th by midnight. Submit your video to the Tijuana Birthday group on YouTube. Judges will announce the winner on Tijuana’s official birthday, July 11th.

Rules:

  • Videos should be between 60 to 90 seconds in length
  • Video must reference Tijuana’s 119 years and its birthday
  • Video must include images, icons, or visual references to Tijuana
  • Videos can be in Spanish or English or both
  • Video must include text promoting “TijuanaOnline.org” at end
  • Video must not be vulgar, offensive, negative, or in bad taste
  • Submit your 60-90 seconds video no later than July 9th
Categories
music news tijuana

Nortec Collective Upset

Members of the Nortec Collective stand at the beach
From left: Panóptica (Roberto Mendoza), Bostich (Ramon Amezcua), Hiperboreal (P.G. Beas), Clorofila (Jorge Verdin), Fussible (Pepe Mogt)

A few weeks ago, the progressive Tijuana magazine ZETA published a candid interview with Pepe Mogt (Fussible). In the interview, he expresses his outrage that fellow Nortec Collective member Roberto Mendoza (Panóptica) individually trademarked the name “Nortec” as his own:

Nortec isn’t something between just the five of us. Nortec is part of the same people of Tijuana that made it possible to define the sound and its own cultural movement. Nortec is a sound. Nortec isn’t a brand, nor is it something that belongs to one person alone, or a specific group of people. At least to those of us in the collective it’s ours in the musical sense, but Nortec came from many people that gave an aesthetic and musical life to this movement; and if we have to mention names, we’d say Torolab, Acamonchi, Ángeles Moreno and an uncountable group of others. (Translation of Pepe Mogt’s comments in ZETA)

Mogt describes the name Nortec as an abbreviation of “Norteño Techno.” He clarifies that the collective registered the name “Nortec Collective” for international distribution, but says he’s unsure of the legalities in Mexico. He says this all came out of nowhere; he was notified on paper and hadn’t yet spoken to Mendoza.

Another collective member, P.G. Beas (Hiperboreal), blogged about the controversy. He confirms the group had no plans to tour in 2008 as each member works on individual or duo projects.

I haven’t the least idea of Robert Mendoza’s plans with his band named Nortec Panóptica Orchestra. The use of the name Nortec like this pisses us off; it’s already disingenuous that a band that isn’t the Nortec Collective uses the name Nortec. It’s obvious that no one in the collective knew that Robert Mendoza would register the name Nortec in Mexico as his own. This would seem obvious, but in some news it wasn’t made clear. Another thing that would seem obvious, but I’d like to underline it, is that we have said a thousand times that without Tijuana, Nortec simply wouldn’t exist. It would be nothing. (Translation of P.G. Beas’ blog post)

Bloggers (BeamTV, Xeelee) clearly agree with the anti-Mendoza sentiment, using words that just don’t have the same ring in English :)

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2:45 a.m. Interview on KPBS

I’ve been working from about 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. the last few nights to keep KPBS.org updated. Our web team, along with the news staff and other volunteers, are taking turns to keep everything up and running 24/7. As I was finishing up early this morning, Doug Myrland (KPBS general manager who was working overnight on-air), asked me a few questions about the Google map to give people a sense of how we’re doing it.

Here’s the conversation:

[display_podcast]

(It’s not exactly an award-winning performance by yours truly, but I thought it was worth a posting for posterity’s sake.)

Much has progressed since this recording. Google has joined the effort to streamline updates, and those who have been updating the county maps will now be contributing directly to our Google map. In addition, a site from Governor Schwarzenegger, calfires.com, has embedded the map directly. Local CBS is linking to the map. Wired bloggers Michael Calore and Kevin Poulsen reported on KPBS’ use of Twitter and Google maps.

(Special props to Joe Spurr for pushing the use of Twitter and Google maps.)

Categories
news photo web

San Diego Fire Updates

KPBS’ broadcast tower at Mount San Miguel (along with several other towers) has burned in the fire. They’re now broadcasting from FM 94.9, streaming online from both kpbs.org and fm949sd.com, as well as through cable television.

KPBS News is using Twitter to post up-to-the-minute information as it comes in:

Live San Diego Fire Updates on Twitter

Check out this Google map for fire perimeter, evacuation shelters and residential evacuations:

San Diego Fire Perimeter, Evacuation Shelters, Residential Evacuations

My family in Escondido was evacuated but, thankfully, their homes are fine. Here are some of my brother’s pics:

Taken on the evening of 10/21/07. We were forced to evacuate the next morning. Escondido, CA. — Smokey Sunset, originally uploaded by prgibbs.

About 3:30AM looking southeast from Old San Pasqual. This is a very short distance from our house. Escondido, CA. — Fire!, originally uploaded by prgibbs.

An easterly view of our home just prior to our evactuation at approximately 6:30AM on 10/22/07. Escondido, CA. — Evacuation #1, originally uploaded by prgibbs.

About 7:30AM on 10/22/07 looking south on Orange Ave., Escondido, CA. — Orange Ave., originally uploaded by prgibbs.

About 8:30AM on 10/22/07. Looking southeast from my parent’s yard. This is a full color photo, not sepia. Escondido, CA. — Smokey Sky, originally uploaded by prgibbs.

Shortly after 9:00AM, we received another evacation notice. Me posing before we hit the road…again. Escondido, CA. — Evactuation #2, originally uploaded by prgibbs.