I finished reading Motley Crue’s The Dirt and came to conclusion that those guys are fucked up! The amount of stuff they did was insane! If you haven’t read it you should, it’s an entertaining read. Since I’ve finished that I’ve started reading the biography of Nirvana. It’s written by a journalist who was with them when they were coming up in the scene. So far its pretty good.

I also just bought Rock Band 2, which is amazing so far. I didn’t wait for the whole kit (drums, guitar & mic) because I bought the drums from the first Rock Band for $40 (barely used). Can’t wait to get home and play them!

I can’t really think of anything else that’s happened, but a few upcoming concerts should have you coming back for more.

Until then I leave you with this. Enjoy…

There were a number of games that I want to test drive but couldn’t because of the number of people wanting to play them. Although I did get to play two of the most anticipated games of the year. Gears Of War 2 & Rock Band 2. I’m not the best at playing multiplayer because I stink but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play Gears 2. This game is going to kick ass when it comes in November of this year. I was a huge fan of the first Gears and am planning on pre-ordering Gears 2.

Rock Band 2 was the other game that I was able to play and it rocked! I’ve purchased the past two Guitar Hero’s and was satisfied. However, seeing the track listing that Rock Band 2 will have is incredible. I don’t even want the instruments (since I don’t have anymore room in my basement for a third guitar or a set of drums). I just want to be able to rock out to tunes that I grew up listening to! This will also probably be on my pre-order list along with Gears 2.

I didn’t get a chance to play FIFA 09 or NHL 09 but did get to watch others play it and they look amazing. The graphics were so crisp (I guess a HDTV/Plasma screen will have that effect) and from what I’ve read the game play has also been improved.

Anyways I’ve written a more in depth blog about X08 for work with contributions from my co-workers. Check it out here.

Enjoy!

Too Human

A about two weeks ago I got my hands on Too Human, which was developed by a Canadian company Silicon Knights. This RPG (role playing game) is full of action from the start. You play as Baldur who is one of the Norse gods which are basically enhanced humans. Baldur’s duty is to protect the human race from being attacked by machines that are determined to eliminate all humans.

Now onto the gameplay. Too Human is a third person RPG that has unique controls and cameras. I found that a lot of games are using the right analog stick as camera point of view but in Too Human, the right analog stick is used for combat. The camera is controlled by the AI and you can center the camera angle back if it gets too out of place.

As Baldur you are what the machines are after. So far I’ve noticed that when you are being attacked by the enemy’s, they are always firing at you. You do have backup team that is trying to defend/protect you from being attacked but since their is such an onslaught it proves difficult and you end up doing your best to kill off the enemy. Baldur is equipped with dual pistols which can be shot at the same time and at the same target or you can aim them at different targets. It’s a tad difficult a first but once you get into action you pick it up quickly. The same goes for Baldur’s second weapon, his sword. The sword is control by using the right analog stick and is really easy to use. After playing it for a few days now I’ve come to enjoy the game and look forward to finishing it.

So we get to our hotel in Switzerland and fell right asleep (I didn’t sleep on the flight). The next morning during breakfast I decided to give my phone another shot at this wifi issue since where we were staying had free public wifi. Turn my phone on, wait for it to connect to the cell network, go into settings and turn wifi on and……….restart! Tried it a couple more times, not believing that my phone and be F’ed, and the same result. I finally decided to let it be, enjoy my trip and worry about it when I get back home.

A few days after I got back into the swing of things I did some research and found out that a lot of people had wifi problems if they unlocked their phones using ZiPhone’s method. At that point I’m confused because i didn’t use that method to unlock. One solution that i was hoping would work was to upgrade from 1.1.2 to 1.1.4. Hoping that it would work i turn wifi on and kaboom my iphone blows up in my hands! Actually that was a lie, it just restarted. Getting frustrated at this damn thing because i have no wifi, i also have none of the 20 APPS i had before!

I let it be for almost a week before i tried turning wifi on again and this time not only did it reboot once, it kept rebooting. It was like an endless loop of rebooting.

Thanks to my brother, he found a site (irepair.ca) which fixes all Mac products. I was glad to hear about this and checked out their site and found their locations. Sweet not too far on College Street, then i saw the store hours. They open at 11am and close at 7pm on weekdays, not enough time for me to go before/after work. So my only option would be Saturday, i decided that it will have to be then when i bring it it.

Which then brings use to today. A few days ago a bunch of brilliant guys released software that will jailbreak/unlock/activate 1st gen iphones for the 2.0 firmware (which is what all the new 3G iphones have). Last night i braved the possibility of messing my phone up even more and upgraded to 2.0 without any problems (hoping that it would fix my issue).  After iTunes did it’s job and the whole process was complete, i turned wifi on and poof it connects and it didn’t restart! Sweet i thought until i noticed that it drops the signal right away

So this leaves me with two options: 1) Bring it in for repairs and find out how much it’ll cost to fix -or- 2) Wait for Fido to release a statment that addresses the people (like me) who are not eleigble for an upgrade to a 3G iPhone.

What do i do?

Edgefest 2008 marked the return of Edgefest after taking a year off. This years Edgefest was held at Downsview Park and entertained a huge crowd. This years line up included Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Sam Roberts, USS, The Flatliners, Attack In Black, Ashes Divide and more!

Age & I didn’t get there until about 2:30 so we ended up missing USS, which I wanted to see, but from what I’ve read they were great! As we were scouting for a spot to sit and get ready for Ashes Divide to hit the stage I couldn’t help but notice the enormous line for the beer tent. This line was insane! At first the line got lost in the crowd by the stage but then it started to bend and go past the entrance to the beer garden and it almost got to the point where it was by the entrance to the park!

Anyways onto the show. The first band that we got to see was Ashes Divide. Ashes Divide is a side project by A Perfect Circle’s guitarist Billy Howerdel. I was pretty excited to see them live since I enjoyed their debut album ‘Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright’. Their set was enjoyable to watch and luckily the weather held up too because they put on a good show! Next up was The Bravery. I saw these guys open for Incubus last year and I’m only familiar with the hit singles. They include An Honest Mistake, Time Won’t Let Me Go and Believe. I didn’t find their set to be enjoyable since it was pouring during their whole set! And even if it wasn’t raining I’m sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyways!

Next up was Sam Roberts. Last time I saw him live was at the first Vfest in 2006 and I almost forgot how good he is live! He played his hits like Brother Down, Bridge To Nowhere and Them Kids and they also jammed for a bit which added to the experience of seeing him live again!

After Sam got off the stage STP took longer than expected to hit the stage but that didn’t matter because they rocked out for their entire one-and-half hour set! The minute they showed up the crowd went crazy for their whole set. Without saying anything the band opened up with Big Empty and pumped out hit after hit after hit! Including Crackerman, Vasoline, Plush, Sour Girl, Interstate Love Song and Sex Type Thing. Not only did STP rock out and sound great live but Scott Weiland put on a show within a show! His onstage performance was great, whether it was from running from one side of the stage to the other, grabbing his megaphone and using it to sing or during Plush when he leaped off stage and performed by the light stand! They are a great band live and I am extremely fortunate to have seen them live!

Once STP finished their kick ass set it was off to the second stage to see The Flatliners. These punk rockers from Toronto were the headlining band for the second stage and they did not disappoint as they put on an awesome show and their energy added to the whole experience of seeing them live.

Closing the show was Linkin Park. They started off their show in a weird way (at least I think they did). I saw Linkin Park last year during their Toronto stop for their Projekt Revolution tour and I was hoping to see a similar performance. However they opted for a slower start to this performance with just Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington playing a toned down version of Breaking the Habit followed by Pushing Me Away then the rest of the band showed up and tore into What I’ve Done. The crowd was very energetic and responsive. Age & I didn’t stay for their entire set but from other reviews that I’ve read they put on a good show.

All in all it was a good day except for the rain, the sore feet, the packed TTC bus and the huge beer line up. Oh and the Batmobile was there too!

I’ll write about my trip in another post because it deserves its own post. Other random shit that’s going on in my life. The iPhone 3G comes out Friday and like many pissed off Canadians I am not going to buy one, at least for now I’m not! The rates are insane and really not worth it. Us Canadians have pissed off Rogers so much that they released a promotion today (July 9th) that will allow you to add-on a 6GB data plan onto any one of their voice plans which seems more reasonable than 400MB.

Also this weekend is Edgefest. Headlining this years Edgefest will be Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots. Not only am i stoked about seeing STP for the first time but also finally getting the chance to see USS live. It should be a fun day @ Downsview Park. Stay tuned for a review of the show come Sunday or Monday (that’s if I don’t get lazy again!).

Anyways that should be it for my rambling so stay tuned for an Edgefest recap, my Switzerland post and me bitching about my iPhone problems!

later!

If you’ve played the first Gears of War you know that Locusts are a pain in the ass and by the looks of it, they seem to be more of a pain! The Locust can now sink entire cities using giant emergence holes, which is going to make for and awesome battle! Since Gears of War 2 will be using the new Unreal Engine, it allowed them to render hundreds of characters quicker, which in-turn allowed them to add hundreds of Locusts!

Since the Locusts can take over an entire city there is no way any grenade will kill them all! So instead of using grenades to attack the onslaught of Locusts, we see a vehicle called Deeicks which brings along a tunnel machine, Grind Lifts to where the Locust are occupied.

Not only are Locusts bad guys but you can now use them as shields against other Locusts! I can see this working well especially when you can’t find cover and need something to hide behind, what’s better that a Locust to hide behind!

And finally the chainsaw battles. This looks amazing! Why waste ammo when you can just saw your enemy in half! They have added a new camera angle that allows you to see how the chainsaw is driven upward through the torso and blood gushes everywhere!

I recently played the first Gears of War and cannot wait until the second one comes out in November! This is definitely a game I’m going to pre-order!

Enjoy the trailer below!