CD Releases (Week of May 13, 2008)

All kinds of good stuff this week in the new CD releases post…

First, how about new songs by The Offspring and Weezer.  The Offspring have a new song out called ‘Hammerhead’ and I absolutely love it.  It’s like three songs in one and they all seem to flow into each other perfectly.  Nice work and welcome back Offspring.  The other song that’s new is Weezer’s ‘Pork and Beans.’  I like this song as well.  There’s only one gripe I have about it.  In the song, there’s a line that goes as follows…

Timbaland knows the way to reach the top of the charts… Maybe if I work with him I can perfect the art.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that they’re giving props to Timbaland, but I think that would’ve been a great place for Timbaland to make a cameo in the song.  How cool would it have been if after that line, they break it down and throw a little rap in there?  That’s just my theory.

As I’m writing this post, I’m listening to Death Cab for Cutie’s new song.  It’s called ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ and it comes out on the ‘Narrow Stairs’ CD on Tuesday.  If I could recommend one of the following to pick up, it’d be that one.

Anyway, here you go.  New CDs…

Bryan Adams - 11

Cherish - The Truth

Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Jason Mraz - We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things

Ryan Cabrera - The Moon Under Water

Jeremy Mccomb - My Side of Town

Filter - Anthems for the Damned

Local H - 12 Angry Months

Safetysuit - Like Left to Go

We Are Scientists - Brain Trust Mastery

More Free Music… NINE INCH NAILS

A while ago, Nine Inch Nails released some music in the form of a CD called Ghosts.  The first portion of Ghosts was free.  You could download and share and remix as much as you wanted.  Now, they’re doing it again.

The CD is called The Slip and is being released exclusively via the Nine Inch Nails website, www.nin.com.  Here’s what the band has to say about the CD.

As a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

The music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

For those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

The cool part is that not only do you get the CD, but it is something called ‘creative commons.’  That means, according to the Nine Inch Nails website…

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

Now, that’s cool!  So, download away. 

I also heard that Metallica is supposed to be releasing free music.  I’ll try to get some details on that soon.  Until then, enjoy your Nine Inch Nails CD.

GTA4 vs. MADD

I know… I know… That’s a lot of letters.  What does it all mean?  Let’s break it down.  The gist of the title of this post is Grand Theft Auto 4 vs. Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  In case you don’t know what either of these are, let me enlighten you.

(Yes, I know Wikipedia isn’t a great source, but I’m going to use it anyway to get my point across!)

From Wikipedia: 

Grand Theft Auto IV is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North … released worldwide on 29 April 2008.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, is a single-issue non-profit anti-drunk driving organization in the United States.

Now that you are familiar, let’s bring you up to date on what’s going on.  Rockstar Games released their game last week and according to an article I read on MSNBC.com, it’s expected to sell $400 million in the first week. (Article)  The problem that M.A.D.D. has with it involves a scene where a character can go into a bar, drink (and get drunk), and then get behind the wheel of a car.

I could understand that if the game played the same if your character was sober or drunk, but the game takes the situation seriously by making the game harder to play while your character is intoxicated.  The camera movement is jumpy and out of focus.  By doing this, Rockstar allows gamers to see that it isn’t all fun and games when you’re drunk behind the wheel.

In a statement, Rockstar Games said…

We have a great deal of respect for MADD’s mission, but we believe the mature audience for ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game’s content.

I have to agree with that.  Here’s why… The game is already rated with a MATURE rating and that is sufficient for this game.  In the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) rating system, the next level would be ADULTS-ONLY and that doesn’t seem to fit the game.  That’s where MADD wants this game to be rated.  From the ESRB, here’s the definitions of the ratings…

MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

ADULTS ONLY
Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

The MATURE rating is for age 17 and up while the ADULTS-ONLY rating is for 18 and up.  I really don’t think that one year is going to make that much of a difference.  You also have to look at the definitions above.  Drunk driving, albeit not good, is not a “prolonged scene of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.”  For that reason, it wouldn’t fall under the umbrella of ADULTS-ONLY.

Here are my final thoughts… I enjoy playing Super Mario Brothers but you don’t see me jumping on every turtle I see or throwing fireballs at things or breaking breaks around the neighborhood.  I also enjoy playing The Legend of Zelda but you don’t see me grabbing a sword and killing things with it.  If I enjoyed playing Grand Theft Auto, I might enjoy driving drunk in the game, but it’s not something I am willing to do in real life.  Just because it’s in a video game doesn’t mean that kids are going to imitate it… especially since the game is rated so that it is only for people who are 17 years old or older.

That’s just my 2 cents.  What are your thoughts?  Share them in the comment section!

More Free Music… COLDPLAY!

I’ll tell you what… I love bringing you guys free music.  I know some download music illegally, but it’s great to know that there are bands out there that are trying to help do something about it.  One of those bands is Pennywise.  We gave you the information about how to download their entire CD for free a while ago.  Now, we’re bringing you Coldplay.

Although it’s only one song, it’s still a good thing when bands give us free stuff.  The song is off of their new CD and is called ‘Violet Hill.’  It’s easy to get the song, but not as flexible.  Here are the directions for how to get the single.

Ewe Cant All Ways Bee Write.

…or is it ‘You Can’t Always Be Right?’  Either way, you were still probably able to read the title of this blog post.  It amazes me how much people get away with misspelling words on signs, brochures… and even on TV.  I know that we all make mistakes, but sometimes, there is no excuse.

There are funny signs out there all the time.  If you see a sign or something else that’s misspelled or funny, you might want to send it in to English Fail.  English Fail is a blog site that posts pictures of ways that the English language was not meant to be seen.  The site even accepts user pictures… If you have one, you can send it in.

Some Healthy Tips

I was suring around on the internet and I noticed my friend has posted a link for an article about “The Worst Places for Your Health.”  I’m not one who buys into the whole ‘healthy’ lifestyle.  I try to get exercise when I can, but it’s not something I stress over.

Here’s a link to the article… Click Here.

Some of the things they address include where to sit on an airplane, where to keep your toothbrush, the worst place to pick up a prescription, and the worst place to keep medicine.  Check it out.  It’s definitely worth 5 minutes of your time.

Successful Geocaching…

I went and searched for a total of 4 different caches on Tuesday and guess what… I found them all.  I searched for the Hillbilly Cache again.  This time, I searched on the right side of the stream… and it was there.

After that, I drove back home to Pittsburgh.  My friend and I went caching in Moon Park.  (Moon Park is located about 4 or 5 miles away from the Pittsburgh International Airport.)  We searched for three of them when we were there and found all three.  Two of those three included coordinates to a final cache.  Luckily, I had already found the third one with the 3rd set of coordinates about a month ago.  So, with coordinates in hand, we’ll head back out today or tomorrow to see if we can find the bonus cache.  Before I do that, though, I have to figure out how to get that location into my GPS.

Well, that’s my success story.  Hopefully there’s more to come! 

CD Releases (Week of April 29, 2008)

There’s a lot of new CDs out this week, including the long-awaited Madonna CD.  We’ll get to those in a minute.  First, though, I want to talk about the band Local H.  Most people didn’t know who Local H was but most people know their only real hit.  The funny thing is most people think it’s called ‘Copasetic.’ It’s not… It’s really called ‘Bound for the Floor.’  Either way, they have a new song that’s being released this week.  It’s called ‘24 Hour Break-Up Session.’  I haven’t heard the song yet, but I really want to.  (I just can’t right now because our engineer is in the studio and we’re not allowed to listen to streaming music!) So, I was able to sneak a 30-second sneak peak in and it sounded okay.  My first impressions on music normally aren’t the greatest, however.  I’d need to listen to more of it to get a good impression.  That brings me to the next song…

It’s by a band called ‘City Sleeps.’  The song is called ‘Not an Angel’ and I really didn’t like it at first.  After listening to it a bunch of times, I came around.  I actually think it’s a pretty cool song now and it’s worth checking out.

Let’s get to it, though.  It’s new CD time…

Madonna - Hard Candy

Augustana - Can’t Hurt, Can’t Love

Steve Winwood - Nine Lives

Cherish - The Truth

Phil Stacey - Phil Stacey

Mark Chestnutt - Rollin’ with the Flow

Martina McBride - Martina McBride: Live in Concert

One Flew South - Last of the Good Guys

Chris LeDoux - Classic Chris LeDoux

Dumpster Diving

I just got an advance screening of the package that Missi Matthews did focusing on dumpster diving.  Apparantly, a group of students at Penn State save a whole lot of money each year by getting food, transportation, and other good stuff from dumpsters.

It’s amazing to see some of the things that these students find.  You can see the entire story tomorrow at 5:00 PM on Channel 6 News.  It’ll also be online sometime after it airs.  You can visit www.wjactv.com for the full story once it airs tomorrow afternoon on Channel 6.

More Geocaching + Pictures

The weather has been fantastic over the last couple of weeks.  Temperatures have warmed into the 80s and we’ve seen our fair share of sunshine, especially for the month of April.  That allowed me to get outside again and do a little more geocaching.

Here’s some pictures from my geocaching adventures…