Lost for the next 16 weeks

This is gonna be short, and I apologize to the readers for the lack of updates recently. It's been a pretty busy week. Anyway, I just wanted to throw up a post to celebrate the return of quite possibly my favourite TV drama of all time. So here's to 16 staight weeks of LOST, it's gonna be sweet. Btw, just random additions, the LOST soundtrack is one of the best original score soundtracks I've bought in a while. I've also just found out there's a season 2 CD as well which should be just as good. Anyway, LOST plays on ABC at 10:00pm and for my fellow Canadians, you can also catch it on CTV at 7:00pm on Wednesdays. Thanks for reading.

Casey's Mix of the Moment 2007.02.06

Following my "All That Jazz" post below, this edition of Casey's Mix of the Moment is gonna be jazz themed. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

1. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go by Madeleine Peyroux
2. Sunrise by Norah Jones
3. Four On Six by Wes Montgomery
4. Give Me the Simple Life by June Christy
5. Colors by Amos Lee
6. My Favourite Things by Kenny Burrell
7. Nuages by Joe Pass
8. Evidence by Thelonious Monk Quartet and John Coltrane
9. Dance Me to the End of Love by Madeleine Peyroux
10. O Tannenbaum by the Vince Guaraldi Trio
11. Come Away with Me by Norah Jones
12. Naptown Blues by Wes Montgomery
13. I'll Look Around by Madeleine Peyroux

All That Jazz

Alright, let's talk Jazz. Alright, I'm one of those people who when asked, "what kind of music do you listen to?", I answer "pretty much everything". At a time, it was truly just about everything from pop, to pop/rock, to alternative, to country, to hiphop, to thrash metal, to indie rock...like the list went on and on. However, when it comes down to it, although I'll give most music a chance, and I genearlly don't hate any type of music, there's definitely a list of genres I listen to more than others.

Recently, say over the last 5 years, Jazz has become one of those genres. My love for Jazz really started with Jazz guitar. I play guitar myself and so I'm always impressed with good guitar playing - and there's nothing more impressive than Jazz guitar (ok, Don Ross is pretty damn good too.) Aside from that though, the thing I loved about Jazz guitar (and I realized this about most jazz music in general), was that it set such a good mood for whatever you were doing. For example, if you're hosting a dinner party, or a party where you just have general mingling going on at one point, and you really want to stand out? Slap on some jazz music. If you live in a samll apartment, filling you space with jazz music all of a sudden makes it feel really classy. And what about Christmas? There's no better music to play during the spirited season than Christmas Jazz music (of note is A Charlie Brown Christmas, greatest christmas album of all time). However, the thing, aside from the mind-blowing technique of the jazz guitarists, and the amazing mood setting that jazz offers, there's one major reason you should be listening to it: basically it's really good music.

Now there's a catch. Over the years, because my love for jazz has grown, I've started to discover, like any other music, there's music that's good, and music that's not good. The jazz that's not good? SMOOTH JAZZ! Grrr....smooth jazz is really nicely polished recorded jazz that instantly brings Kenny G to mind. It just sounds really corny. The kind of jazz that I like is the old school bare-bones recorded stuff. We're talking Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Ella Fitzgerald, Kenny Burrell, Thelonius Monk, etc. Now obviously jazz has a broad range, and a lot of the newer artists are still recording in the old style, so when I say 'old school' I'm not referring only to old recordings.

Aside from the classics, there's a couple artists who have come along just recently who are absolutely phenomenol. Everyone knows about the first one I'm going to talk about, Norah Jones. Granted, she blends other types of music, but you can play her music side by side with classic jazz and not miss a beat. With her third album released just the other day, Norah Jones has done really well for herself and has done an amazing job of bringing good jazz into the mainstream. There's no denying it, Norah Jones is everything the hype says she is.

Another artist that's borderline jazz, but only because his sound is reminiscent of Norah Jones (that is, he sounds like NJ, and NJ sounds like Jazz, but he doesn't sound that jazzy himself) is Amos Lee. I wouldn't say he's nearly as good as Norah Jones, but he definitely has a couple of tracks worth listening too. Again, he's another mesher of styles so, some of his tunes are very jazzy, other are not.

But I've saved the best for last. There's an artist who's a little lesser known that's come out recently who has definitely captured the jazz essence from the past and polished it up nicely for modern day listening. Everytime I play her CD, people are always asking me if its Ella Fitzgerald. She's a favourite among music supervisors in hollywood as her music's been used several times in pretty big movies. And finally, her first release, Careless Love, is agurably my favourite album in the last 5 years or so.

I'm talking about Madeleine Peyroux.

Sometime when I starting getting old and started listening to CBC radio, I caught "Don't Wait too Long" one of her big singles and I instantly fell in love. I got a hold of her album Careless Love and let me tell ya', what an album. If you absolutely hate jazz, of course you won't like it, but if you have even the most remote admiration for this genre, you have to hear this album. The nice thing about jazz albums, and people may argue that this is what makes jazz bad, is that different songs don't stray much from the mood that jazz sets. Like from the upbeat happy, to the romantic love songs, there's not a huge leap. That's what makes is such a good album - it flows really nicely together. That what makes albums like "O" by Damien Rice so amazing, the whole album has a mood to it. Given, it's a lot easier to do in jazz, because all Jazz sounds pretty similar, but still. Madeleine Peyroux came out recently with a follow-up, Half the Perfect World, back in the summer of 2006, and although not as good as Careless Love, it was still a strong album.

Now, I'm not going to claim that I'm a huge jazz buff, I'm pretty new to the field. I mean jazz listeners are notorious for their "collections", and I what I have could hardly be considered a collection. However, I am getting into it, and I highly recommend you guys start listening to it. If you need a starting point, I'm going to have another edition of Casey's Mix of the Moment that's jazz themed. But until then, check out Madeleine Peyroux, Norah Jones, Wes Montgomery, June Christy, and Kenny Burrell. Thanks for reading, and all that jazz.

Btw, the best Jazz albums I've heard (yes, I'm a sucker for the holiday albums)

A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio
Indigo Presents Holiday Jazz by Various Artists
Careless Love by Madeleine Peyroux

Four Oh Seven

Two 4 litre engines. Both 8 valves. Giving us a W16, 8.0 LItre engine. If that's not enough, let's slap 4 turbo chargers on it. And to cool it, say, I don't know 10 radiators.

I've kinda been behing the ball on things when it comes to super cars. 'Cause sometime around last year, I missed probably the biggest annoucement in car history. The Bugatti Veyron. I might have heard rustlings of rumors about it, but apparently not enough for me to remember the name, or its specs. My buddy Chris reminded me of the affair recently, say about 2 weeks ago, and I found the past Top Gear episode about it (the series 7 episode). Aside from the specs I just opened this blog entry with, there are 3 figures I have to draw you attention to if you don't know what all the huff fuff is about. They are: 1001 BHP giving a zero to sixty miles an hour in 2.5 seconds, and a flat out speed of 252 MPH!!! (407 km/h!!!!!) How in god's name did I miss this car?

Clarkson made a really good statement that with the way things are going evironmentally with global warming and such, this could quite possibly be not only the fastest street legal car today, but the fastest street legal car ever! The reason I bring it up today, is that yesterday's episode of Top Gear finally but this behemoth of a car to its limits. James May (a.k.a captain slow) was given the task to bring the Bugatti Veyron to its top speed to prove its claim. I tell ya', it's weird how this actually makes good TV. 'Cause in essense, you're just watching a guy sit in a hunk of metal and press a pedal - I mean you don't sense 407 km/h just by watching TV. Yet somehow, the geniuses behind Top Gear managed to give a great sense of the euphoria that ensues hitting a blindingly fast speed. It was a short, but really well constructed segment.

Be sure to read up on the Bugatti Veyron if you haven't done so already, and if you get a chance, get your hands on that series 7 episode of Top Gear, and yestereday's series 9 episode. Top Gear airs Sundays on BBC2 at 8:00pm, and more info can be found at www.topgear.com. Thanks for reading.

Try to keep up with this one

Here's a post that originally appeared on my myspace blog, and I had nothing else to write about today, so I thought I'd migrate this one over.

So into utter oblivion where the crossing of cows and sheep of lesser mortals never understand the virtues of the way things truly work. When the analagous flows of the river start to slow down, how can the presence of the mind truly start to wander. There's nothing left in the infinite rants of ants and convoluted twists of mists in the air that it disgusts me to fathom the true passion of men. How can we be expected to dive into the plethora of problems of others when we, ourselves can't mitigate the battle between our own soul and being. But maybe it's not so grim. Perhaps the being that so many before us decry and so many before us repent is simply a misunderstanding. Perhaps the being that is associated with all the material goods and earthly matter is truly the transcendant being. In the ethereal tones of violins and pianos that ring in my ear, you can hear it. Just listen. You can hear the cry of small gods and even smaller princes. Kings will finally receive their praise. Men will finally be revered as the beauty that rings within. But all in all, there's not much to be found. Not much to be found. For once the cracking of the megalomaniacal being surfaces and comes to light, the soul will protrude shortly after. The soul will sell out, and the sould will find ways to become corrupt. After all, police were introduced with a good intention. A truly good intention. But never mind what the words of stupid people say. Be who you want to be. Sell outs don't exist.

By the way, recently I've noticed people's comments popping up on my blog, meaning one thing that I never saw coming - people are actually reading my blog. So I just wanted to give a thanks to those out there. I'll try my best to keep up the frequnecy of my updates. Thanks for reading.

Back to my roots

Back in my university and high school days, there was something I got heavily into: Tim Horton's non-donut servings. I mean, for forever, Tim Horton's was always the donut place and in the later years, the French Vanilla Cappucino place. But it took me awhile, say til I was about 17 to discover the great other half of the menu. You know, the soups, the sandwiches, and much more nowadays. I eventually settled on a usual which became the soup and bagel deal. With a drink, you got a great meal for dirt cheap.

Now, the thing is, when I find something I like, I stick with it like crazy. I hate to admit it, but for about 4 months straight, 5 days a week, I got the same quizno's sub and drink. So the Tim Horton's soup and bagel deal was no exception - anytime I hit up TH's, it would always be the same Chicken Noodle soup with a Everything bagel toasted with butter. The drink varied from time to time, and every now and then I'd get the herb and garlic cream cheese.

Now, for about 6 months, I'd forgotten about my Tim Horton's usual. They're just not as common where I moved to recently. So anytime I ate out, I'd be eating Subway, or at our school cafe, or quizno's, or Indian food. These meals were costing me on the expensive side of fast food, not unreasonbale, just the expensive side - say between 7-12 dollars CDN. Today, I decided to go back to my roots, and hit up Tim Horton's and the thing I realized I missed most, and the whole point of this post really, is how much cheaper it is to eat at Tim Horton's. It's so much better. I got my soup and bagel, and a peach juice, and a donut - all for under $5.00! And the thing is, it was a very satisfying and delicious meal - I wasn't over stuff, but I wasn't still hungry afterwards. And chances are, what I ate was slightly healthier than what I usually eat. My point is, for all you Canadians out there who haven't experienced the brilliance and low cost of a Tim Horton's meal, it might be something to consider next time you go out to eat. Just as a side note, their taste of the month - the cherry cake ring is a GREAT donut. Thanks for reading.

He Won't Shia Way

Alright, some of my pun titles are just not so great, so forgive it. I was going to do something along the lines of "I have a beef, a LaBeef" but then realized that beef in french is spelt "boeuf" not "beouf". This will all make sense in a second.

Alright, so a couple of years, perhaps more, I fell in love with a movie called October Sky. For those who haven't seen it, it's one of my all time favourite feel-good-chase-your-dream movies. Playing a lead role for the first time, we were introduced to Jake Gyllenhaal. He did an amazing performance and delivers one of my favourite speeches in feel-good movie history. Such a good performance in fact, that I followed his career shortly after. News came out about a movie called Donnie Darko. Before we knew it, Jake was on his way making blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow, small respectable films like Proof and Moonlight Mile, and oscar nominated flims like Brokeback Mountain. He had risen to be such a good actor when a lot of us spotted him way back in October Sky. I'd be impressed if anybody spotted him way back in City Slickers.

Well, my next call is Shia LaBeouf. You heard it here first. I mean he's already a pretty big star, and a decent amount of people know about him, but there are still people who say "who?" when you mention his name. Like October Sky, a feel-good-chase-your-dream movie, for me, Shia LaBeouf was introduced to me in The Greatest Game Ever Played. Now that movie wasn't nearly as good as October Sky, but to me it showed that Shia could act. He had a small role in I, Robot, but The Greatest Game Ever Played was his first lead. Then he went on to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Surf's Up (which btw, imo, looks way better than Happy Feet - am I the only one against Happy Feet?) and now, the hugely anticipated Transformers movie and what looks like a remake of Rear Window, Disturbia. My guess is, he's gonna be the next big young actor. I already respect his work, but his name is gonna start popping up everywhere.

Again, you heard it hear first. Thanks for reading.