Hello!

It’s been a while since my last update (almost 3 months, yikes!).  But I’ve been pretty damn busy in those past three months.  Here’s a quick run-down of everything that’s happened since my last update.

Sydney Trip

I was lucky enough to head down-under for about 3 weeks to visit the Atlassian office in Sydney.  This was my first time in Australia so I was super stoked to go!  

While I was pretty busy with work most of the time, I did get some time to meet up with some Canadian friends, drink a lot of beer, do some sightseeing and enjoy the city.  Sydney is a beautiful place and although it can be expensive, I'd definitely like to be back there again sometime in the future.  The only thing I could complain about would be the weather!  I’ve got a bunch more photos available on my Flickr site.

SF Giants Win the World Series!

While I was away I unfortunately miss an awesome party in San Francisco.  The Giants won the world series!

I had really enjoyed following the Giants while they made their run (I was able to catch up on all the games during my Sydney trip).  However I was pretty bummed that I missed the homecoming parade that happened a few days following their win.

Congratulations to the SF Giants on their win!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving Holiday in the US this year.  Actually, we’re guilty of celebrating two Thanksgivings this year as we decided to celebrate the Canadian holiday as well (in October).  However, it’s apparent that Americans take their Thanksgiving holiday much more seriously.  It’s the start of the holiday shopping season (Black Friday) and I found the food to be a tad more gluttonous.  Take for example, my first experience of Turducken:

This beast is a full turkey, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with sausage.  Needless to say, I was stuffed after this meal!  My first Thanksgiving dinner in the US was a success!

Concerts

Needless to say, I’ve been able to take in many shows since my last update.  Here’s a quick rundown of the concerts I’ve been to recently:

• Pepper @ The Warfield - Second time seeing these guys (last time was at Warped Tour many years ago).  Great show with lots of energy!
• Bad Religion @ The Regency Ballroom - First time seeing Bad Religion outside of Warped.  For 30 year veterans these guys can still rock.  One of the best punk shows I’ve been to.
• Weezer @ The Nob Hill Masonic Center - Weezer played the Blue Album in its entirety on this night.  Brought back many memories of listening the album in elementary school!
• Weezer @ The Nob Hill Masonic Center - Night #2 featured Pinkerton, which is probably my favorite Weezer album.  It was classic.
• Wu-Tang Clan @ Mezzanine - The entire crew (minus RZA) was in the house for their first show of their latest tour.

And some photos from a few of the shows:

What’s Next?

With the holiday approaching, I’m gearing up to list my Top 10 Albums of 2010.  Be sure to stay tuned as I run down my favorite albums of the year!

Dylan

Phew, what a month!  It’s been since mid-August since I’ve posted and I’ve got an excuse, since then I’ve been extra busy with travelling and visiting friends and family.  And also eating a lot of delicious food, take the image below for example (from the Ferry Building Market):

The end of August marked my first visit back to Victoria since moving to San Francisco.  A weekend full of partying and weddings made for a very long trip back to the states.  It was great to see everyone and celebrate with them!  Surprisingly the weather in Victoria was even better than I have seen in San Francisco all summer.  However it appears I’m eating my own words on that one, as this weekend has been the hottest so far this year and there’s more to come through October.

I also checked out back-to-back San Francisco Giants games in September.  Luckily I was able to score some sweet seats at work to a Friday night game, followed up by a Saturday game in the nosebleeds.  Unfortunately the Giants fell in both tries with only few hits, which was unfortunate as they are currently making a run for the playoffs.  Still a few weeks to go though, go Giants!

September also marked my first NFL game ever!  I was lucky enough to check out the San Francisco 49ers vs. the New Orleans Saints.  It was a nail-biter right to the end, and while both teams didn’t really play their best it was a close game that the Saints ended up taking with a last minute field goal.

What surprised me (not really actually) was how passionate Americans are about football.  70,000+ people all in red yelling at the top of their lungs can be deafening!  The Saints fans in the stadium also got an earful.  I was also impressed by how seriously the fans take tailgating.  Some had been their hours before kickoff just to fire up their BBQs and slam beers before watching their favorite teams.

On another note, September marks the return of many of my favorite TV shows.  I had barely caught up on season 2 of Fringe right before the premiere last Thursday.  Following that new episodes of 30 Rock and The Office aired.  And my guilty pleasure Hell’s Kitchen also started up this week as well.  I’m also looking forward to catching up on Eastbound & Down which starts up season 2 this week!

Oh, and last (but not least) on the list, pre-season hockey has started!  It appears that the remainder of the Canucks pre-season games are available for me on the NHL Network down here (and in HD!) which is great.  However I’m not sure what selection I’ll have come the regular season and may be forced to purchase the Center Ice package.  I have been able to stream some games online via my PS3 but the quality is hardly watchable.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.  Regardless, the team looked great against the Ducks last night and I’m eager for the regular season to start!

Stay posted as I’m hoping to have another album review come up in the next few weeks!

Dylan

Welcome back!  Review #3 on the list of DIlly’s albums marks the first time that a hip-hop is reviewed.  I wish I could’ve started out with a better album to review, but hey that’s the luck of the draw.

Today’s review for Dilly’s Albums is…

Kanye West - Graduation

Review: #3

Released: 2007

Wikipedia Synopsis: (Full article)

Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released September 11, 2007 on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios and Sony Music Studios in New York City and at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant in Los Angeles, California. It was primarily produced by West and DJ Toomp, and features guest contributions from artists including Mos Def, Dwele, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Chris Martin of Coldplay. The album’s cover artwork was designed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

Discovery:  I had both of Kanye’s first two albums in my collection.  Only natural to give this one a listen and add it.  There was also a lot of hype at the time as this album release coincided with 50 Cent’s Curtis (an album that was added and then quickly dropped from my collection).

Ranking:  Kanye’s first three albums are currently in rotation in my iTunes collection.  Out of those three, I would have to say this ranks last.

Rating: 2 stars

Favorites:  Can’t Tell Me Nothing, Everything I Am, Homecoming

I’m a big fan of Kanye’s first two albums, however I find that this album strays away from the higher standards that he had for his first two albums.

When Kanye West first hit the scene he really interested me.  Being a protege of Jay-Z instantly made me interested, and the fact that he was in a car crash and dropped some tracks with his mouth wired shut (that didn’t sound like crap) was impressive.  On his first two albums Kanye did a good job of mixing hip-hop and dance style tracks that flowed well together.

On Graduation, Kanye definitely moved towards the more dance-style tracks.  He drew a lot of inspiration from bands such as U2 to do more “anthemic, inspirational music”.  Kanye produced most of this album and included a lot of synth in many of the tracks which I’m really not a big fan of.  Also a gratuitous use of auto-tune on some of the tracks didn’t impress me.

All this said, Graduation did receive the Grammy for Best Rap Album.  But we all know that music awards in this day in age are stupid and pointless.

The albums first single, Stronger, is a remix/mashup/whatever of Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.  The song got massive airplay and was a staple in many bars and clubs.  Because of this, I grew tired of it quickly.  To be honest, I didn’t find it to be different enough from the Daft Punk track.  Mostly it just seems like he’s rapping over the same track.  Lame, in my opinion.

This album also contains probably the worst hip-hop song in my library, Drunk and Hot Girls.  The content of the song is exactly what the title says, Kanye rapping about Drunk and Hot Girls.  What’s worse is that this track features Mos Def.  Considering some of the awesome songs they’ve collaborated on in the past, this was a huge let down.

The album does have it’s bright spots.  Can’t Tell Me Nothing is an awesome track over a classic Kanye hip-hop beat.  In the retrospecitve track Everything I Am, Kanye raps:

Damn, here we go again / Everything I’m not made me everything I am

Kanye also collaborates with Chris Martin of Coldplay on the track Homecoming.  I’m not a fan of Coldplay at all but I am a big fan of this track.

In general, I just find this album boring.  Aside from a few tracks mentioned above it doesn’t really flow well.  Considering how well his first albums flowed (including skits, intros, etc. that you find in most rap albums), Graduation seemed like a thrown-together piece of work after Kanye spent a week in a studio with a synthesizer and a bunch of old records to mix up.

I’m looking forward to having either of his first two albums show up for review as I believe they are much, much better offerings than Graduation.  If you’re considering adding some Kanye West to your collection, try his rookie and sophomore albums before testing this one.

Dylan