Jor-El - Man of Steel

Inspirational, can't help but think of Gladiator though.

Jonathan Kent - Man of Steel

Inspires...

Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. Certain things inspire you others don't. As an aspirational writer, I never really understood the need of a muse of sorts, but as I constantly strive to put more pen to paper, I am typically turning a blank, and it dawns on me a muse or muses is essential.

Why is this I wonder? Well, life has turned a little from what it was, to what it is, and it's left me uninspired.

In the past, contentment lead to a level of creativity, as I was relaxed and free to ponder life's great mystery, and then create my own 'world' where I could drift and subsequently write. However now, as I begin to retool the pieces of my life and discern its next direction I feel preoccupied, to the point that writing and essentially drifting, is difficult as I feel that I may miss something, what, I'm not sure, but missing it is my concern.

My hope is that as the dust does settle entirely, I may be able to avert my gaze from over my shoulder and back to what might appear in front of me, and if that becomes a muse, then there is hope!

That's all I have right...

Loneliness

Sitting on the waterfront looking out toward Toronto island waiting for an interview at 4, listening to Coldplays cracking tune Teardrops from Heaven; one can't help pondering life's predicament and the cards that it has dealt me in recent months.

I have sold my house as part of a divorce process, I lost my job, and subsequently moved into my own little one bedroom apartment. And while on the surface all this may appear to be hard times, I really can't submit to that ethos. 

On a stunningly crisp October afternoon, sitting, looking over the serene waterfront of lake Ontario, there is a sense of zen. People walk by with their dogs taking in the scene wrapped up in the trials of their own lives, young lovers sit on a bench playing and bonding. Boats move about the scene, planes come into land, carrying people from around the north eastern states. It is a scene of the world in harmony. 

Seagulls fly about scowling the terrain for morcels of food to scavenge and I sit upon a picnic table simply waiting. Waiting for the the 4 o'clock witching hour where I have to perform for a job I'm not entirely sure about. 

But all this is ok, this is a part of life, sometimes it's crazy, sometimes it's a little convoluted, sometimes it's a little confusing and most often times its just fun, so long as you look at it that way. Everything has its time, everything passes; bad times might seem to last forever, but they pass, and we are all the better for it, whether we think so or not. 

Sometimes I sit and feel alone, but what really is loneliness? Loneliness is more often a state of mind, if you think you're alone, then you shall be, but if you fill your time with things you like, then loneliness runs void. 

That time filler may come in the form of spending time with a loved one or mate, it might be writing, it might be working, watching a movie, listening to the most current songs from your favorite artist or producer, it may even be simply sitting on a picnic table taking in the scene and people watching.

What is loneliness? Loneliness is nothing, it's a temporary state of consciousness where as humans we wonder what others are doing, to the detriment of our own time that we have been given. I have no time for loneliness, because frankly, it's a waste of time.

Everything goes in cycles!

Back in early 2001 or 2000, I can never remember which, I, through my own desperate search for "new" music, stumbled upon a musical series called Transport. The first iteration was by a "group" called Trendroid. Frankly it was a mesh of techno and progressive, but harder than I had heard before. Suffice it to say I enjoyed the compilation, and the next time I went to the local FYE, sought out with gusto another.

This volume was put together/ mixed by a bloke I hadn't heard of before, a guy called Max Graham. When I put the disc in my CD walkman, I was hooked and felt great about this new series of house discs that I had found, and after having patted myself on the back, chose to share my joy of music with anyone who would listen... Alas, in the grand land of North America, the progressive house or for that matter, house scene had not taken root as well as it had in London, or at least not from what I had found. And so my fervor at sharing my joy fell on deaf ears. Alas I was then left to enjoy my newly discovered music alone. Time passed, alternate music appeared and the two Transport discs sat upon my desk collecting dust. 

Until, that is, some 12 months ago when I was very analy cataloging my CDs, and chanced upon the two albums! I let out a yelp, and regressed back into dance heaven, when a thought struck me... I had very recently discovered by pure fluke, a website called www.soundcloud.com. Where with the miracle of technology, you can search an artist, musical genre or other and likely find music; be they original, remixes or recordings.

I took it upon myself then to search Trendroid and Max Graham on the site, and while I found little on the former, found a page for the latter. Surfing to Mr. Graham's page, to my delight, came upon 3 uploads with nothing less than 2hrs a piece of mixed progressive house - for FREE!

With the excitement of a juvenile child at Christmas, I downloaded the recordings and uploaded them to my iTunes library. From that point fourth I have never listened back. 

The uploads were from a, formerly, monthly show that Max puts out through digital radio, where he compiles in mix format all the progressive tracks of the moment. I say formerly, as he has subsequently made the show a weekly one (be still my beating heart) and while some of the track choices are repeated, each and every mix is nothing short of top quality! 

There is a little techno in there for the harder dance fan, a little trance and a stack load of progressive house, that, if you are into that genre is just cracking.

It's like a musical journey almost, stitched together with the occasional intro to what the listener has heard or about to hear. 

In terms of background, Mr. Graham hails from Montreal, although the fine folks at Wikipedia state that his origins are in the UK; which might explain his musical choice...

He has been DJing since '84, which puts him at the musical forefront of house music, he has remixed bands like Yes and then produced his own tracks of which the most well known are: "Sun in the Winter” and “Nothing Else Matters”.

If you have never sought out house music, and moreover the sub-genre of progressive house, to taste in the delight that is this electronic extravaganza, you could do much worse than checking out cycles radio, every Tuesday 12 noon EST on DI.FM DJMixes Channel. 

Thanks for reading; until next we meet.... The Weeks - Out!

Blackberry Playbook, my thoughts...

So, I was fortunate to get my sticky little fingers on a Blackberry Playbook 16GB for the last couple of weeks. I had been fairly keen on getting one to play around with and see how it compares to the ipad and then determine if its worth getting either. To clairfy my position; while I don't own the iPad, I had played around with one for a number of weeks a couple of months back; equally being a mac convert had been fairly keen to get one. However, I do own a Blackberry Torch, and have been impressed, so felt that I should at the least give RIM a fighting chance at my continued patronage...

So, first impressions; its all black, it fits in the palm of my hand, and it has a good weight to it. I went through the set up process, which was fairly simple, and found that navigating around the tool, was reasonably simple. Stroke up from the blackberry logo on the bottom, you get the extended menu. Stroke diagonally from the left, and you get the keyboard, (which I found to be fairly responsive and user friendly, however I did struggle with the lack of caps lock... I LIKE WRITNG LOUDLY!) Other than that most of these tablets are similar from a navigation perspective.

The Blackberry Bridge that allows you to tether your BB phone was fine, however, at the set up stage, with the QR code, for some unbeknown reason, my torch was unable to be read the flipping thing - which was annoying. However it connected perfectly on manual "bridging". Once I was connected, I was able to get email, calendar entries, contacts and BBM. I tried the Bridge Browser (the one on the mobile - to test when I was out of wifi range) and I constantly got error code 13 and no browser; which was really frustrating, and something they need to fix!

On the whole though, for email and bbm etc the bridge worked fine, I'm not sure it would replace the phone for being my main source of mobile email response, but there was a convienience level in having it there.

BB App world was cool; but really very limited in what you can download. Many of the tools that I am used to on my mobile device have not been extended to fit the PB which was annother irritant and mark against it. I did like, contrary to what I had heard prior to release, that my mobile app world account was able to be used on the playbook, merging all the apps I have.

Web surfing... this is the big sell point for rim, and frankly; believe the hype! I had as good a surfing experience on this little tablet as I do on my laptop. Sure, certain heavy rendering sites are a little slow; but on the whole, I felt that this would be my biggest reason to purchase.

Some of the games were cool. I enjoyed docs to go, didn't find an excuse to use the excel app, and the presentation tool I found that I had to email a ppt to myself in order to be able to get it on the tablet, and even then, I was restricted by the BES that we have through the office.

Camera's seemed fine, the back facing camera was fair quality, the facing camera, much the same. I would of liked to have seen a Skype app rolled out before release and been able to try the web chat, but no go thus far!

I have to say when I went to view videos, I was impressed; especially if it was HD. The image was crisp, ran smoothly and all in all the experience was excellent, I have also been impressed with the sound quality; which for a small unit, I was impressed how far the sound travelled.

So there it is... My opinion; would I buy one?

Frankly, it would be a tough call. If it was a gift - for sure! If it was a choice between BB-PB and the iPad2; had I not heard on BBC Click that the cameras on the iPad are crap, I might plum for that. Frankly for now, I have a perfectly good macbook, and a perfectly good BB torch; do I need a tablet for work or otherwise?

I think I can live without.

Until next time.

Corleone is in the House!

When glancing upon this cat, you would think of him, as a regular guy like you and me and you would be right; he is… However you would also be wrong, very wrong.

Frankly, this man is in fact the proverbial Don Vito! He will slay you with sound as quick as look at you!!

Born Alexander Paul Coe in Bangor, Wales in 1969, this man has, over the past 40 years of his life changed the musical world as we know it… he is a musical gangsta in sheep’s clothing.

Sasha as he is better known, is the proverbial Don Vito, he and a collection of DJ’s out there took what Frankie Knuckles began in the 80’s and 90’s and turned it into so much more!

To ask anyone around the world in that 30 something age zone who Sasha is, you get I knowing smile, telling you that his coverage is almost as wide spreading as our desire for food.

Sasha is it when it comes to House music, progressive, techno and trance! He is so it, that he can change IT and it is instantly cool; Austin Powers’ mojo ain’t got nothing on him!

He frankly breaks molds. He can take a track and dissect it into whatever he wants, which typically becomes nothing you could image. His musical shit blows your mind! He is so pivotal in this scene that he took the creative genius of BT and sent him on the path he now pursues relentlessly.

Sasha has had, over the past 30 years, 20 albums, 22 singles and countless remixes. He has gotten to such a point that he created the label emFire in 2007 that will be his exclusive platform for future releases.

I feel like I’m overselling a point, but if you have seen him live; you get it! Its as if, when you enter a venue he’s playing, there’s this instant desire to drop to your knees and hale the king… but you don’t; cause the tunes are so thick and rich that you simply get lifted up and carried off into the crowd where you spontaneously dance to the beat!

For one so good, Sasha, when interviewed is the most chill bloke. He is like so many groundbreaking artists, (cause frankly musician seems so passé); he just appears to take it in his stride. Double him up with his long time friend, Mr. John Digweed and the music is like Turkish delight!

You listen to any album that Sasha has made alone or with Digweed and the quality of the mix is just perfect. Stick the CD in the slot, or click play on iTunes and an hour and a half sails past before you know it, couple that with the fact that you can hardly tell where one track starts and another ends and you have yourself musical genius son!

We as a people, have a tendency to pass down from one generation to another the spankin’ hot shit we love! Sasha is, and will be no exception. I will share with my grandkids; experiences of those crazy days in the 20^th and 21^st centuries where music was free and people could express themselves with computers and create the craziest sounds! He will be the electronic equivalent of Beethoven.

15 years ago, I was abducted by the sound from a renaissance album, and thank God I was never set free!

Assassins Creed

My friends, I really feel a need to share my enjoyment of the Ubisoft Assassins Creed series.

I discovered this game through a friend, way back when I was lucky enough to acquire my playstation 3.

The first iteration of the series, aptly named simply, Assassins Creed, was about Altair. The game is an open world game that allows the player to explore a world as far back as what appears to be a time similar to the crusades.

I have to say I found this game pretty immersive. Not only was it one of the first games that I ever purchased, but it was one of the first I played on the games system. Frankly I was flawed by the technical mastery of the playstation as well as the overwhelming creativity and freedom of the game... That said, prior to then my foray into video gaming was as advanced as pong, and I never owned a system until this time, so it could be said I was in somewhat of a honeymoon phase.

Fast forward however to 2011 and there are now 3 games in the series; Assassins Creed, Assassins Creed 2 and now, most recently Assassins Creed: Brotherhood.

At each turn Ubisoft has bettered the game, with now an online multiplayer element as well as a team of assassins for the gamer to control. I am yet to fully experience this element of the game, but suffice it to say it has been fairly arduous on my wife to pull me away from the game it is that good.

The characters merge together nicely in the game, making the story one that you can engage with. Granted there are some spotty areas in the game, where some code may have been missed; but on the whole the game play is fairly hard to beat, especially, if you're like me, you relish open world game play.

The closest I have found thus far, that closely, but not quite matches AC, has been Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar games; a solid cowboy adventure, but not quite the same draw as The Creed.

All in all there it is, a recommend from me, will be interested to hear if anone out there in the wide wide world of the internet stumbles upon this fair blog and heeds my gentle advice.

Until next time, when we chat about my enjoyment of Progressive house; here's looking out at you...!