Jay-Z vs Coldplay

My buddy tipped me to this yesterday. Thanks J!

Viva La Hova. I highly recommend you download this album. It's Jay-Z mixed in with beats made from Coldplay songs. Highly Worth it.

Check it out here.

Who Brought the New Guy??

I've mentioned a few times before, but haven't written to much about, that I'm currently in school taking a post-grad program in PR and Corporate Communication. On top of this, I've recently taken it upon myself to also start learning about social media. I think that social media will continue to dominate technology for years to come, even more than it does now. I also think that being able to understand and adapt to social media will be an asset to anyone who deals with PR and/or Corporate Communications. Social media will become the way most people communicate both to and about companies and organizations. As well, companies will adapt to ways in which they can use forms of social media to promote community within.

I think that by learning as much as I can about social media I will be giving myself an edge next summer when my course is done and I begin the ever feared job hunt. The problem with my goal is that there is so much out there and I sometimes feel like I'm almost lost.

I read a lot of blogs to try and find out what's new and what's cool in the world of social media. One of my favorites is Mashable, as they are constantly looking for new social media products,services, sites, etc. and giving fairly good reviews of what they find (which sometimes include video's of the service they are showing). The problem with this method is that I never know which ones people will use and which ones are useless.

Now, I'm not completely new to the idea's of social media. I even consider myself to be the early adapter of such things with in my group of friends. I was one of the first people I knew to have a myspace (which I have since forgotten about). I had a facebook account before they opened it up to the general public and you needed a university email to sign up.  Aside from the big FB though, I kind of lose my group of friends and am forced to try these things out myself.

One of the best features of social media is creating your own little community, but my community is little over one. Not to say that I don't have friends who use some forms of social media, but in most cases I find myself exploring them on my own.

For instance; I finally got myself a twitter account a few months ago, but when I did the initial "search for your email contacts" I came up with a list of three people and one of them was a person I emailed once I think to send a resume to. I've slowly started to build my list of twitter friends though by searching for terms in twitter like "Toronto PR" and such. Some people have been nice and have become people I speak with via twitter, but I would still say the contact is very minimal.

It's very hard to try and build a social media community when your community truly doesn't know you, or about you. However, I'm going to continue to push myself into more online communities so I can use the social web for it's full potential and learn as much as I can. So, if you ever get a request on a social community from a member named 40deuce, chances are it's me.

Also, if you are interested in getting to know me more via a social network, here's a few places you can find me:

Twitter

Digg

Facebook

Last.fm

Hype Machine

Friend Feed

(On a side note before I post my outro music, I had an idea while writing this post. What do you think about the idea of me starting a new blog that just deals with introducing, reviewing and learning about social media? It would be a process where I would learn but as well help other people learn about and use social media. Maybe I'd even invest in a domain name and everything. If anyone is actually reading this, let me know what you think either in a comment or email or any other way you find to get a hold me.)

REALLY? 17 Years for this??

So, while doing my morning internet surf this morning I came along the new Guns N' Roses song. Take a listen here.

I'm so disappointed right now. 

You would think that there would be something amazing to come out of an album over 10 years in the making, wouldn't you? You would think that if Axel took over 10 years to put something together while still using the name Guns N' Roses, even though it's really just him, better sound like Use Your Illusions III (which should sound like Use Your Illusions I + II + Appetite for Destruction).

I can't even think of the words to describe my disappointment right now. Especially because there was one other track I heard years ago (maybe 2002) that had a bit of potential. It's not a good G'n'R song really, but a decent rock song. I also think that Buckethead was playing guitar for Axel at this time. He's since gone through about 4 others.

Let's hope this one makes Chinese Democracy, the album that people were waiting 10 years for, and then stopped giving a crap for the last 7. 

Better - G'n'R

40deuce

The World Loves Social Media

Now, if we could only get them all to love one together.

Check this out. It's a map of the world showing which areas use which social media the most:

New Fav

I'm sure I'm not the only one who love's mac vs. pc ads. They're very entertaining. 

And for anyone who watches as much TV as I do, I'm sure you've seen that Mircosoft has been coming out recently with a whole bunch of ads to combat Apple's amazing ads.

This lead Apple to make my new favorite ad. It's relevant and funny. What more could you want from a commercial?

There's just no good way to do it

Last night I went to a networking event put on by the CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society), of which I am a recent member of. There was a few people from my class there, a few other's I recognized from my school and a bunch of people I'd never seen before in my life. All and all, it was a nice little event for people to get to know the board of the CPRS.

Here's the problem I had however:

We were supposed to be going around and meeting all the board members, but it was in a very informal setting. Everyone was just kind of standing around with a drink in hand. The board members were primarily talking amongst themselves, and we the students had to kindly interup all of their conversations just to say hello and introduce ourselves.

Now, I'm usually pretty good about budding into other people's conversations. I usually don't care if I interrupt people in the middle of their thoughts or sentences, but it seems like a whole different ball game at an event like this. These aren't my friends talking about last night's hockey game and I can just jump in. This is the President of the society looking like he's having an intense conversation with the chairman in charge of sponsorships, and I'm just this lowly student who wants to say hello for the one in a million chance that they'd even remember me in the future. I don't usually intimidate very easily, but there's something weird when you're put in a situation like that. 

All and all, I wound up interrupting a lot of conversations last night, and although it felt awkward at times, I think it was worth it in the long run, and hopefully I stood out in a crowd of my peers.

F the FCC

I live in Canada, which apparently means my government is a lot cooler than the government just a bit south of me. For anyone who knows what I mean, you know that swearing on channels higher than 25 happens all day long. It also means that after 9pm, even the lower channels let the cusssing roll through into your living room.

I've noticed for a long time that Canada's law's regarding what can and can't be said on TV are very different than our south of the border friends. One of the first times I noticed how tight they are about things like this in the states was when I was on vacation and caught Weezer's video for "Hash Pipe" except the version of the song I was hearing was about a "Half Pipe."

Anyways, yesterday I saw something else that "got my goat." 

As any good geek such as myself knows, very soon the new Kevin Smith movie staring Seth Rogan is coming out (and it looks f'n hilarious). It's also a well known fact that the movie is called "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." There's posters all over Toronto with the name of the movie up, and there's even a slight bit of oral innuendo on it. However, yesterday, I saw the American FCC strike again.

My roommate is a huge football fan, so he spends Sunday afternoons flipping between every American station watching all the football games. During a break in the Bears game we saw a commercial for "Zack and Miri."

No, I didn't leave out the "Make a Porno" part, the commercial did, and it really pissed me off. People with dirty minds, who always make movies with dirty thought's in them (eg. my boy Kevin Smith minus that one he did with JLo) have to bend to the will of the people who said "you can't say porno on TV." I know it's really not a big deal and I could even see why parents wouldn't want their little 5 year olds to be saying "mommy, what's a porno?", but it still really pissed me off.

Check out the real trailer, porno and all, here:

40deuce

New Bond Theme to Die For (Pun Intended)

I'm not sure how long ago this song actually got released, but I just heard/saw it for the first time when I was flipping channels at 4am this morning when I got home from work. And yes, I work at night.

Anyways, check out Another Way to Die by Jack White and Alicia Keys, cause I think they make a pretty cool duet combo.

The video's ok, but the song is stuck in my head.

Poor Animals

Just saw this video. It's for an environmental group that doesn't speak english, so if anyone can translate the end for me, I'd appreciate it.

The rest of the video is kinda sad though.

Unimpressed

This surprises even me.....

So yesterday, Apple had it's big notebook event. I'm a big mac geek. I love shit like that. The music event they had in September got me so excited.

Last night I watched the notebook keynote and aside from  few things, was not too impressed. Not to say that the new notebooks aren't good, cause I'm sure they are, but I don't care as much about owning one as I thought I would. All day I thought that I'd watch the keynote and then crave a new macbook pro for the next two months. It would've been especially bad because the macbook pro I have now is only 4 or 5 months old. 

They did make the new notebooks cool. There are some things that I would like, like the thinner size, lighter weight, LED backlight (not for the no warm-up time, but just because it's supposed to look better) and better graphics, but really, I can live without them for now. I don't even care about the black keys like I said in an earlier post. I also don't think I'm a fan of the new trackpad. Sure it's bigger, but having the whole thing a button???? iduno.

The only thing I'm REALLY jealous of is the four finger gesture they had for the new trackpad that brought up expose and app switcher. Maybe they can add those to my macbook in a OS upgrade though? I mean mine already supports gestures, it's just an extra finger.

All and all, I give them kudos for really emphasizing how they concentrated more on being environmentally friendly.  I also enjoyed when they said that Apple sales are doing great, and one of the reasons was because of vista.

The new notebooks look great, and I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't use a mac yet. The new one's look good for someone who needs a new computer, but I'm in no rush to get one.

As Jobs loves to say "one more thing...." 

I had this great idea that I was going to play Cake's "I Want to Love You Madly" after I raved about how much I loved the new macbooks and would kill your mom to get one (yes YOUR mom). Since I didn't do that I'm gonna play another fitting Cake song...

40deuce

Say It Ain't So Hiro!

So I decided I should write about something different before I write more about my mac obsession. I also haven't had a chance to watch the actual key note from Jobs to get all the info on the new Mac notebooks, so I'll do that while I watch election coverage and then tell you (if anyone actually reads this) all about the new toy I want.

But, first I want to say WTF happened at the end of Heroes lat night???

By the way, if you didn't see last night's Heroes, STOP READING NOW.

So Heroes is one of my favorite TV shows (again). The first season was amazing. Second season almost lost me, but the third has brought me back. Which brings me to last nights episode...

All seemed normal in the Heroes-verse. Some people are dealing with their powers, some people are doing something bad, someone's trying to kill Sylar, Hiro's on a quest, blah, blah, blah. But then, the last 15 mins hits. 

First, Hiro killed Ando!!!! What the fuck is up with that?? He just straight up stabbed him through the heart. He didn't even whisper to Ando something like "don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He just said "I have to do this to save the world" (that's my own paraphrasing) and stabbed the poor SOB. I know there's going to be some sort of thing next week where Hiro uses his abilities to control time and space to save him (I hope), but still, WTF! They can't kill Ando, him and Hiro are an amazing team and sometimes make the show.

The second thing that made my mouth drop was when they revealed the "real" bad guy for this season. For the first few episodes you might think it's Linderman (Malcom McDowell).  Then, near the end of the episode you see that Parkman's dad is putting the visions of Linderman into people's heads, so for about 4 mins I though he was the bad guy. Cut to the last scene when we find out that the real villian for this season is some guy in a bed that's too weak to even talk. But he's just not any guy in a bed, HE'S PETER AND NATHAN'S (and now Sylar's) DEAD DAD. WTF!!!!

Season 3, you've won me back.

Sneak Peek?

found this on the interweb.

It's a spy shot of what may be the new macbook pro. If it's true, I'm jealous already. I like the black keys. The two-tone colour is cool.

we'll see if it's true in an hour.

Anticipation for no real reason

I'll be the first person to admit how big of a geek I am. Especially when it comes to Apple products. On this coming Tuesday (Oct. 14th), Apple is having one of their famous "events" where they release and show off new products. This one looks to be focused on their laptops.

If you remember last month, Apple had an event that had a music theme. They showed off iTunes 8, the new nano's, new ipod touch's, and my personal favorite, they released the iPhone OS 2.1. I didn't care too much about the new ipods because I have an 80gig classic already that works fine and I still have a bit of room on it to fill with more music. I was however excited about iTunes 8, for the genius feature (which doesn't work as well as I hoped it would, but is still cool) and even more for iPhone 2.1 because it really did fix a lot of bugs on my precious. In case you missed it, here's a brief rundown of that event:

I was looking forward to hearing most of that information for so long, that I was actually in class during the event, but was reading live blog updates as it happened. Yes, I'm that geeky that I wanted the info as it happened.

Looks like I'm going to be doing this live blog reading again this coming Tuesday. I get really excited about new releases like this. From the rumors I've been hearing floating around the internet this is what we can expect Mr. Jobs to be announcing:

- new aluminum shells for notebooks

- smaller design (thickness, not screen size)

- and possibly the release of a mac notebook for under $1,000, which is pretty good considering I paid over $2,000 for my macbook pro

- one more rumor is that there's talk of a mac touch tablet (but I highly doubt that one for now)

The worst part about all this is that it has my geeky spidey-sense tingling,  but I'm not going to be able to do anything about it because I just bought myself a macbook pro in April. That means my computer is only 5 months old, and it's already going to be out of date! DAMN YOU FAST MOVING TECHNOLOGY!!!!!! I know I'm going to be craving the new notebooks no matter what's new about them, but there's no way I'm going to be able to afford one. Ah well, it'll still be fun, and hopefully I don't get busted for watching the updates in class (I was almost caught last time).

I'm sure I'll have a post Tuesday night telling you about all the new things I'm jealous of, but till then, here's my ending song. I figure Digital Love by Daft Punk would be appropriate for this post:

FIRST BLOG EVER! (sounds cool if you say it like comic book guy)

So, it's been a long time coming, but I finally decided to start my own blog. 

We'll just call this my starter blog, or blog with training wheels, to get me going in the blogging game. Also, if you're wondering what this blog will be about, well you're looking at it (if you're looking at the title). I don't have a specific topic, so I figure I'm just gonna blog about anything I find interesting, or stuff thats on my mind, completely random shit. 

For this first post, I figured I should tell you all (if anyone's reading this) a bit about myself so you can have some idea of what to expect.

I'm a 26 year old student (sad, i know) in Toronto. I recently went back to school to do a post-grad in Corporate Communication and Public Relations at Seneca College. That's one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog, I figure it will be good writing practice for myself. The excuse of good writing practice is also a good excuse to not have an overall theme for my blog.

I'm a bit of a recent tech-geek. I've always been into computers and tech gadgets, but a few months ago I bought my first mac, and that was the end of everything. I've joined the cult of mac. I'm in love with my mac and love reading blogs and all things apple related. I of course had to get an iPhone 3g to go with that, so that upped my game a bit. ALL HAIL JOBS

I've also recently started to get into learning as much as I can about social media and web 2.0. I figure that's going to be the future of both PR and marketing, so I might as well try to get in on the 2nd floor (I figured I missed the ground floor). Hopefully by next week sometime I'll figure out how to put one of those boxes on the side of this blog that links to my twitter, digg, and other such accounts so you can follow my A.D.D. there as well.

I'm a huge music person. I don't play any instruments, although I did buy an acoustic guitar a little while ago and am teaching myself to play (I can play four whole chords now!). I love listening to music, and I've held many jobs related to music from working in a record store to DJing to working for a small concert promotions company. Music has been, and most likely always will be, my first love. I love finding new music and sharing it with other people. I'll listen to anything as long as it makes my ear drums dance, so please feel free to send me anything cool. Hopefully one day I will find a way to marry my PR/marketing and music loves together.

I'm a pop-culture whore. When I started university I was actually in a program called Popular Culture Studies. I love movies, TV, books, comics, everything pop culture, but I can't stand celebrity gossip.  I'm a crazy LOST fan. If I could only watch one show ever it would be LOST, so don't be surprised in the new year when the premire gets closer if I have a lot of LOST related blog posts. I've also gotten back into reading graphic novels lately. I just finished reading Marvel Zombies, which was a cool idea, but not the best thing I've ever read.

I think that's a good start for now. It gives you (and me) a fairly rough idea of what you'll find in this blog in the near future. If you're still reading, thanks, and I'll quit boring you for now, but come back and check me out every now and again, and I'll try my best to at least make one post every couple days.

Also, feel free to leave me a comment and make me feel loved.

ONE LAST THING!!! Since I love music so much I'm gonna try to put a song or a video at the end of every post, just for fun. I was going to put up something significant here for this first post, since it should be a big deal, but I just had way too many songs pop into my head, so instead I decided to put up this video I saw earlier today, cause it just rocked and it's stuck in my head.

Watch the whole thing, it's worth it, cause you don't even see Prince for the first 4 mins of the song, but then he comes out and steals the show with an amazing solo. enjoy!

40deuce