Papa Roach just released their new album, Getting Away With Murder, at the end of August so I decided to acquire it and see what it was like. I really liked their “Infest” album from a few years back, but really didn’t get anything out of their followup “lovehatetragedy”. I am happy to say that with this release, I am a Papa Roach listener once again.

I used to listen to “Last Resort” over and over again, I just couldn’t get tired of it. The title track from the new album is exactly like that. I think I could listen to “Getting Away With Murder” many times before I’d even start to get sick of it. Overall the album has a very consistent sound, upbeat and edgy. Some other great songs on the album include “Be Free”, “Done With You”, and “Scars”.

The album also contains “Blood (Empty Promises)”, “Not Listening”, “Stop Looking Start Seeing”, “Take Me”, “Sometimes”, “Blanket of Fear”, “Tyranny Of Normality”, and “Do Or Die”. Total running time for all 12 tracks is just 38 minutes, 5 seconds. Its a very entertaining half hour however!

If the next album from Papa Roach is anything like this one, I will definitely be getting a copy. I think “lovehatetragedy” was an experiment for the band, and I am glad to see that they decided it was not the right way to go. Back to the studio and “Getting Away With Murder” is the fantastic result!

Friday night I went to see Hero with Ashish and his buddies Long and Eugene. The movie stars Jet Li (the martial arts god) and Ziyi Zhang (from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). While I must admit I did enjoy the movie, it definitely was not what I expected, nor what I think most people would expect based on the trailer.

The film is very artistic, both in the format of storytelling and in the set and costumes. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks, first from Jet Li’s character, Nameless, and then from the King of Qin’s point of view. In each different version of the same flashback, the characters and set are a different color. In one, the set has a red tinge and the characters are wearing all red clothing. In the next, everything is green. Very interesting, I am sure there is some sort of Chinese color symbolism I don’t know about behind it.

Now about the expectations. For me, the trailer made the movie seem like a very realistic martial arts movie, with some amazing stuff done by Jet Li. Instead, I was quite disappointed to see a lot of flying through the air. And we’re not talking Matrix-esque moves here, the fight scenes in Hero look quite fake to be honest. I can understand that, on some level, the flying helps in telling the story (in that the fight scenes are remembered, and are thus probably more spectacular) but I think they could have gone about it differently.

One final note, the ending really confirms that the movie was not made in Hollywood. Definitely not what I would expect for the ending of a movie such as this, but at the same time, I think it worked quite well in closing the story. So would I reccommed Hero? Not if you are expecting a kick-ass martial arts movie. If you are looking for something with an artsy storytelling feel, then definitely go see it.

Tonight (being Friday) was the big dinner event with Ashish! It was good fun for all who came, like Violet, Andrew, Tom, Megan, Kim, Greg, Michelle, Long, Eugene, Ashish, Bhavya, Mike, and of course, yours truly. Wow am I a name dropper or what! To all of you who chose to do something else (or nothing at all) – your loss!

After dinner at BP’s, some of us went to play a little pool at Metro downtown. I got totally schooled by Mike and Ashish, absolutely no competition. I must practice more! Anyhow, after pool I went to see “Hero” with Ashish, Eugene and Long – review to follow. You can see some photos from tonight here.

Good to see you Ashish, good luck with the rest of your adventures in Toronto! And see you there next weekend 😉

Here are the details for tomorrow night’s dinner:

WHO: You!
WHAT: Dinner with Ashish!
WHERE: Boston Pizza Downtown (10620 Jasper Avenue) – Map
WHEN: Friday, September 3rd, 2004 at 6:30 PM
WHY: To have some fun with Ashish and friends before he leaves!

Hope to see you there!

If you had trouble accessing one of our sites this afternoon, it was because Interbaun was having connectivity troubles in our area. Everything appears to be working even though they still list the issue as In Progress.

A very sad day indeed. Amanda Walsh, my future wife (too bad for you inge) is leaving MuchMusic to pursue her acting career. I can only hope she makes it big so we see her in Hollywood and Maxim.

Read all about it here.

Tonight Megan and I went to Reds to watch Canada defeat the USA 2-1 in regulation. It was a pretty good game except for some dirty American play, and the ugly, puke-colored Canadian jerseys. And for some reason, Andrew decided not to come. You missed out man!

After the game was Stabilo and Social Code! I had never heard Stabilo before, and they were actually pretty good, but I shall defer to Megan for the review. Social Code was, as expected, awesome! They played a really good set, very high energy. According to the band, their next single is going to be “Whisper To A Scream”, as they are currently working on the video.

I didn’t catch the first song they played, nor did I recognize it, but they played “Whisper To A Scream”, “Miss You”, “Perfect Grave”, “Everything’s Fine”, “As Good As It Gets”, “No One To Save”, “Cats and Dogs”, and ended the show with “Beautiful”. I had never heard the encore song before either, I think he said it was called “Face to Face”. All in all a good show, even though I was slightly disappointed they did not play “Waiting”.

If you want to go see these guys, check out their tour dates here. Oh and just for you Megan, SoCo!!!

My Dad’s blog at EclecticBlogs is a Top Blog for August at BlogsCanada! If you haven’t checked it out before, go take a look, lots of good stuff on there.

The anonymous nominator said, “It’s comprehensive but not self-indulgent and it provides readers with just enough professional and personal context to get a sense of where he’s coming from. It also gives you a sense of Inuvik, NT…a place most of us will never visit. … Great photos of the area, too.”

Good job Dad!

Okay well maybe not the NEWEST, but one of the newest. I recently decided to join BlogCritics.org since I post quite a few reviews on my blog anyways. BlogCritics is just another outlet – basically I can post my reviews from here that I think are appropriate. For example, my first post at BlogCritics is a repost of my Ashlee Simpson Review and you can see it here.

I have been taking a look at the BlogCritics site for a while now. It is an interesting idea, and perhaps the only way I’d improve it is to not host another entire blog, but instead subscribe to a “BlogCritics” category on a bloggers existing blog. Less opportunity for revenue then however. Anyway, I will try it out and see how it goes!

Tonight Andrew hosted another Cranium party at his house (more here). In attendance this time was me, Kimmi, Inge, Jane, Ylz, Poon, and Warren. It was fun, but once again, my team did not win. We did pretty good tho Poon! You can read more about it here.

We also took advantage of the people and being at Andrew’s house and did some recording for Blogosphere Radio. I don’t think we have ever recorded so much in one session, let alone material so varied! We had funny parts, low parts, and some very heavy and serious parts too. This will probably be one of the most challenging edits to date 😉 Pictures from Cranium and the recording are here.

I have been thinking recently about our radio, and I might do an experiment coming up in the next couple weeks. But first, I should have our server fixed next week and the new show posted, so look for it!