Napster

So as a dj I was put to shame at a recent trip to the club. The resident dj had a binder full of cd's that I could only ever dream of owning. I did notice one thing about that binder that really opened my eyes; (the exact same observation I made at the Cosmic Gates concert) all of the cd's were burned.
To date I have been getting all of my dance singles off ebay. I don't particularly trust mp3's and I figure by owning the actual singles I don't have to worry about quality. Clearly burned cd's can be trusted if everyone has binders full of them. So naturally I became really interested in all of those music subscription sites that I have been avoiding the like the plague so far.
There are only a couple of things that I want from such a service: the chance to preview my music first, the option to use paypal and of course not having to pay out of the ass for a song. Some sites were absolutely amazing but every single one of those sites demanded as much as a whole finger for a single song and in some cases even a thumb (One site boasted 2.00GBP per track which comes to over $4.00 Canadian!) .
So when I decided to try Napster I was completely blown away. They advertise a flat monthly rate that gives you access to their entire 2 million song database. Of course it sounded a little too good to be true so I decided to give their free trial a spin to figure out the catch. The downloads were swift, the quality was excellent and the selection was amazing. To be extra sure I checked my harddrive to make sure I actually owned the mp3's and even tried them out on winamp. It all worked, I was in heaven.
Then I tried to commit my newly acquired songs to cd and thats where I discovered the catch. If you want to take "your" mp3's off your computer then you have to purchase them. Though not terribly surprised I was still devastated. Not as much though as when I found out that I had to pay $1.99 per track, making Napster one of the more expensive site availabe. Especially after paying for a subscription to use the service in the first place.
After much consideration I decided that I couldnt avoid having to pay out of the ass for music and the at the very least I was able to preview the songs and buy only the songs that I wanted. So I gave in and bought the mp3's to start my first disc. Let me rephrase that:

I tried.

Of all the songs I downloaded, over half could not be purchased individually. In order to burn the one song that I wanted, I had to buy the entire album. My very first reaction to this discovery was to immediately get on paypal and cancel the billing agreement I had with Napster and remove every trace of it from my computer.

Napster: Fuck You. Im trying iTunes.

My Hero

Cosmic Gate

Today I suffered through work after only having two hours of sleep. Why? Last night was the Cosmic Gate concert. Thats right, I caved in and bought the ticket to that show as well. That means I spent over $80 in tickets this month. I haven't been to a good show in quite a while so I justified my purchase from that point of view. I will tell you this much, it was well worth it. Not only did I miss out on a lot of sleep but I even risked my life to see this show.
Early yesterday morning there was a police advisory all over the news calling for drivers to stay off the road at all costs. To say that the weather was rather uncooperative would be a massive understatement. As a result of this unsavoury weather the entire city fell into pure chaos (The real issue being our world famous suckass drivers) and instantly my memorable night was in jeapordy. Such an advisory was not to be taken lightly though and I began to consider missing the show in favour of keeping both my car and my limbs intact. However I had spent the money already and I've been developing a bad case of cabin fever for the last couple of weeks. I decided to risk it and I have yet to regret it.
The opening dj's were fantastic and in an effort to conserve energy I did everything in my power to not go completely nuts. A good call. Cosmic Gates set was insane. Despite there being two members of the band only one dj took command and with such skill that security had too literally keep the ladies from falling all over the guy. I kid you not. (Also kudo's to security for completely owning a fight that had barely even started.) I cannot even begin to describe the fun that was had that night, you'll just have to take my word for it. It was a blast.

wtf

lmao

4real

I Heart Edmonton.

Here is a picture of Armin Van Buuren playing right here in Edmonton back in May of 2005. If your like me and your kicking yourself for being an ignorant, narrow minded, musical elitist and missing such an appearance, then fret no longer. He returns December 28th.

Its actually been a good year for Edmonton and our little club scene. Consider Benassi's show back in July (another is being considered for January) and Lisa Lashes appearance last Thursday. If you know anything about trance music then also consider Cosmic Gates show coming up this thursday.

Spin

Parkour

I am a big Parkour fan, so as soon as I was through watching this video I knew I had to post it. Im also a big fan of Vancouver so I was extra pleased to see some parkour action happening over there. Everytime I see a video like this I briefly consider giving up the decks and even giving up my job to pursue the art of needlessly endangering life and limb.
For those of you not in the know: Parkour (aka free-running) is the art of moving through the urban enviroment with skill and grace by utilizing mixed elements of dance, martial arts and gymnastics to overcome obstacles. Wikipedia is a great place to start if you want to know more. I also highly recomend District 13, a movie that uses parkour in its action scenes and stars the man credited with starting the movement in the first place.

Revalucion!

My fellow Superstore employees:

We are no strangers to hardship. On a daily basis we put up with blocked garbage compactors, that cranky guy in recieving, a coffee machine that rarely spits out actual coffee and 100 Huntley Street on the lunch room tv. Superstore has finally denied us our our last bit of dignity and our right to a sane and happy work place. Around the clock christmas music at the start of november is immoral and unjust. We must band together and free ourselves from this oppression. Tommorow morning lets show superstore what we are made of. Let our voices be heard across the city so that all may know our struggles!

Oh yeah, Somebody bring coffee.

Justice

I'm doing my best to not get all political on this blog. Even though I'm affected by politics I'm still not very knowledgable on the subject, therefore I don't feel all that qualified to have too many opinions. However this post isn't about politics. Its about justice. Saddam getting a death sentence (regardless of obvious political backlash and reprisal on the global scale) is justice. Execution by hanging is justice. If I were to have it my way, I would set him loose in the desert and drop his own gas filled bombs on him. That would be justice.
"Ha Ha" - Nelson Muntz