Rants n Raves

NHL Draft - No Mo Drama?

2007-06-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

So I was watching the NHL draft a bit today.. I got home late so I only caught picks 24 onward, but I had been following online during my day.

One thing I got to wondering is - will there be any more spectacular busts as far as high draft picks? It seems those kids are scrutinized to an incredible degree, and how will we ever get a high draft pick who implodes as spectacularly as, say, the oft-mentioned Alexandre Daigle? It seems the kids in the draft now are coached even with regards to their media and career, so they all turn out the same when being interviewed or in their promo videos.

Does anyone else feel weird when watching those promo videos of the 23rd shaggy haired, slightly goofy looking potential first rounder talk about his junior coaching staff? They could pretty much play the same tape for all of em!

Wake me up when NHL Free Agency hits! Woooo!

Fresh tunes for June

2007-06-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Let me see, what tunes have been occupying myself lately..

Fables by Immaculate Machine features some great hooks and the always amazing vocals of Kathryn Calder. Plus they hail from my home town of Victoria, B.C.

Missed seeing them live last week, I bet they were great.

I just got Pride Tiger's album "The Lucky Ones" off of iTunes, $7.99 for the DRM-free stuff. Can't beat that for this fresh slab of Vancouver rock. Reminds me of Thin Lizzy, and that ain't a bad thing.

Being as up on things as I am (hah), I just discovered the CBC Radio 3 streaming radio. They have some really excellent stuff on there! I use iTunes for my radio needs (check under "Alternative")

Music: Listening Habits of the week

2007-05-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

In the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of posts expounding on my musical discoveries of the week, I thought I would get it going with what has been rockin' my car stereo for the past week straight.

The band is Bang Camaro, and as far as I can tell it is nearly perfect music for summer drivin', drinkin some beers with buddies (not whilst drivin', of course), or doing pretty much anything where you want to have a grin on while you're doin it. The concept is fairly straightforward: three guitars, a bass, a drummer and a chorus of about 20 or so dudes belting out lyrics. Makes for the ideal sing-a-long! The music reminds me a lot of some of the excellent hard rock/metal from the 80s, and they chuck out all the boring bits like long versus and go right for the meaty hooks and solos. Stuff like this makes me want to plug in a guitar and crank the amp, and then promptly realize I'm too lazy to actually learn guitar. So I crank this instead!

Link to the iTunes store is here. I looked around locally and ended up just going with iTunes and I don't regret it one bit. Buy it, burn to a CD you can play in your car and you will not be disappointed.

Blog-checked already!

2007-05-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Zanstrom over at the excellent Waiting for Stanley hockey-themed blog gave me a link today, and I'm properly chuffed over it. I've had a great time on there with the articles and adding the occasional comment that I hope contributes something to the discussion.

An interesting thing, I used to be quite active on various forums in the sports sections, but invariably the forums devolve into ridiculous name-calling and childishness. So far none of that on any of the sports themes blogs I have been regularly reading, including Waiting for Stanley, 100% Injury Rate and Full Court NBA. Perhaps it is because the blogs are more closely moderated, so any moronic comments can be swiftly purged from the system. Perhaps having a blogger/google account linked to it helps reduce the "anonymity factor". Or perhaps the hordes of jackasses just haven't discovered the sports blogs yet.

We can hope they never do..

New iTunes Plus - Now DRM free!

2007-05-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

As reported on various sites around the intertubes, iTunes has added the "Plus" section that allows you to download a selection of special files. These AAC files are at a higher bit rate (256kbps instead of the old 128kbps) and come without the FairPlay DRM.

I'm excited about this because I like the idea of buying direct from itunes, but I had been held back by the possible issues down the road with DRM'd music not working with future players etc. Plus it always seemed a shady move for companies to assume people were dirty thieving pirates from the get-go.

Anyway, my one beef is.. What's up with the pricing? On the US iTunes, regular albums cost $9.99. The "Plus" albums cost.. $9.99! However, on the Canadian iTunes, regular albums cost $9.99, however the "Plus" albums are.. $11.99? Now with the current exchange rate pushing $0.93US per $1 CDN, this makes little sense.

Hope this gets fixed soon!

First Post!

2007-05-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is my first post on the blog. I figure I have a lot of steam to vent, so this is as good a place as any. I'll be passing the url off to friends etc at first and who knows, maybe it will catch on. Or perhaps I'll update it 3 times then never again. Who knows!

Enjoy.