Back in the fall, I heard that Train would be putting out a new album in the new year, but I somehow missed the release date of January 31st. I’ve been a fan of train since their early days. I saw them open for Hootie & the Blowfish in Toronto the night before they were on Conan O’Brien and they’ve skyrocketed since then. While the song Meet Virginia from their originally album still probably remains my favorite, they’ve put out some real quality albums since then. This latest album, For Me, It’s You is also really good. A lot of times I need to listen to an album a few times to warm up to it, but on the first listen through, I can see this one becoming part of my regular rotation in iTunes. If you’re a fan of Train, you probably didn’t miss the release date like I did and this will be old news to you. But, if you’ve never heard of them or haven’t listened to them in a while, this one is definitely worth checking out.

Technorati Tags: train, music

They say there comes a point in time for every iPod where the battery doesn’t like to hold a charge any longer. That time came before Christmas for me. I headed onto Ebay.ca and picked up a new battery for my 4G 40 Gig iPod. It arrived and then it was the fun of trying to crack it open and install the new battery (since iPods don’t have any screws, this can be a little more “fun” then you might think!)

I found these great instructions - there is a PDF document and even a video to show you how it’s done. I followed it step-by-step and didn’t seem to have any problems.

However, shortly after changing the battery, my iPod started to act a little weird. It would just randomly crash and tell me that the battery was out when it wasn’t, etc. Not fun! So, after almost giving up and possibly shipping it back to Apple to see if they could fix it, I decided to do a complete “Restore to Factory Settings” - bascially it wipes out everything and you’re left with a fresh iPod as if you just bought it. I was skeptical about this working, but I would want to do this to ship it back anyways.

So far, (and I know it’s just one day), it seems to be behaving as it should. I know that’s not the ideal situation for others that are having problems with their iPod, but as a last resort, it seems to have done the trick! I’ll post an update if things change…

UPDATE: The replacement battery does not seem to be holding a charge for nearly as long as it should and my iPod has still been randomly crashing. The guy who sold me the battery on eBay is going to let me exchange it, so I’ll wait for that before giving up and sending the whole iPod back to Apple. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: I installed the replacement battery and the problems I was having seem to have gone away and I’m getting a good charge out of the new battery. I wanted to wait a while before posting the update since last time I said all was good, it all went bad again! All in all, besides the hiccup with what was likely a faulty battery, I’d recommend that anyone who’s iPod needs a bit of a boost check out getting a new battery.

I was going to write about my New Year’s Resolutions, but considering one of them would be to update this site more often, and seeing as it’s been nearly a month since my last post, it doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

Instead, I’ll just give a quick update on what’s been happening here in Calgary over the past couple weeks - in reality, not much! I’ve been busy with school and getting ready for another exam. We went skiing once more since we’ve been back - we hope to get out this weekend and the mountains have been getting a ton of snow. I will do everything I can to remember to bring my camera this time.

We also got a new TV (a 20″ Philips - steal of a deal from Costco) and
DVD Player. Unfortunately, we haven’t had that much time to actually test them out yet, but what we’ve seen so far is great. I know most people have a TV and DVD player, but I was using an old 13″ TV that I’ve had since grade 4 and did not have a DVD player. If you are in the market for a DVD Player and have lots of Divx or Xvid movies (if you don’t know what these are, then you probably don’t have any), then this is the player for you - it plays them all and they look pretty good!

Apple released a bunch of new products last week. I ordered the new iLife ‘06 which could have some great new tools and features to help with the recording of The Skinny on Sports. I’ll try and keep everyone posted on what I like and don’t like about it when it arrives and I start playing around with it.

I’ve discovered a new website that is quickly becoming something that I can’t live without. It’s called Pandora and it’s a streaming music recommendation service. Simply put, you go to their site, enter a song or artist that you like, and it plays you other songs that it thinks you will like based on 400 different criteria for each song. They rate each song in person and individually so it’s pretty accurate to your tastes. It gets even better at knowing what you like since you can tell it whether you like or don’t like each song - so it learns from you! You can set up multiple channels with different types of songs depending on your mood. After using it for a couple of weeks and rating some songs that it recommends, it has a pretty good idea of what I want to hear now. I just leave it on while working around the house or studying and I’m discovering a bunch of great new music. Everyone should definitely give it a try!

Alright… back to the books! I’ll try for the New Years Resolution I mentioned at the top - but no promises!

WOW! That’s all I can really think of to say about the concert last night. I’ve seen the Barenaked Ladies quite a few times, but the concert last night has to be one of their best. It’s all the little things that the guys do to make the show enjoyable for everyone.

We arrrived at the venue at 7pm - just as the doors to the auditorium were opening. We made our way to our seats - 3rd row center! - and were getting ready for a great show that was set to begin at 7:30. While we were waiting, I looked over to my left and saw Steven Page signing autographs. Down the other aisle was Ed Roberts. Jim Creeggan was up one level, along with Tyler Stewart. Maybe it’s just the concerts that I normally go to, but I don’t ever recall seeing the band come out to sign autographs before the show!

After the opening act, the show opened with a local Calgary boys and girls choir taking the stage. They sang a few Christmas carols and then were joined by the Barenaked Ladies for 3 more carols. Again, just another touch by the Barenaked Ladies to make this holiday show one to remember for everyone. They played a great mix of old songs, new songs, Christmas songs, and they even invited the Calgary Accordion Association up on stage to join in on If I had $1,000,000.

I also have to hand it to the guys for having such great energy up on stage. With it being so close to the holidays, I’m sure they are anxious to get home to their families, but they didn’t make it seem that way at all. Every time I’ve seen them, they’ve always been very lively on stage and last night was no exception. Over 2 hours of music and lots of fun!

If you want to check out the pictures I took of the great evening, you can see them here!

I can’t beleive that I’m at the Christmas break of my first year of medical school! While we are at the half-way point of our current unit so I can’t completely forget everything that we’ve done leading up to the break, it’s still great to have some time off.

We accomplished our goal of staying “mall-free” with our Christmas shopping this year. Online ordering is fantastic! I should have posted more details about good sites we found along the way, but I was worried that the people for which we were buying the gifts would get too much insight into their gifts. That being said, anything we wanted to buy for someone, we could find online - ie. we didn’t have to change what we were getting people based solely on internet availability.

We’ve got the Barenaked Ladies concert tonight which should be a lot of fun. Based on the setlists of some of their recent shows, it looks like it will be a good mix of Christmas songs and some old favorites. I missed out on their Christmas tour last year, so I’m really looking forward to it. The other thing that they have been doing is making all of their concerts available for download a few days after the concert. It’s cheaper than buying a CD and I applaud them for coming up with more great ways to get their music out to people - especially since the music industry these days seem to waste more time complaining about piracy than actually promoting the music.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! Be safe and I’ll write more soon!

While getting caught up on ER over the weekend, the last episode ended with a song that both Amanda and I really liked. A quick Google for the lyrics came up with a UK artist by the name of James Blunt. Combine that with an iTunes exclusive live album and an iTunes gift certificate that I recently received and this 5 song EP is quickly becoming a favourite listen! It is sort of a mix of David Gray and other acoustic type musicians that I like.

If you have iTunes, you can check out the album here. The nice part about iTunes is that you can get a 30 second preview of each song before you buy!

The Barenaked Ladies are back in the studio putting together a new album. While this in itself is good news, what makes it even cooler is the fact that they have their own blog where they give frequent updates about the recording process. It’s really interesting to read the posts, see some pictures, and get an insiders view of how the songs are written, right up to being album ready. You can check out their blog here or you can subscribe to their blog feed here. Oh, and did I mention that I have tickets to the Barenaked Ladies concert in Calgary on December 19th!

All of you that know me, know how big of a Hootie & the Blowfish fan I’ve always been. A lot of people still think of them as ‘one hit wonders’ and they forget that the guys are still together and making great music. Their latest album, Looking for Lucky, has just hit stores and let me tell you - if you like ‘old school’ Hootie, you are going to love this album. I think the band is at their best on this album from the opening track State Your Peace to the radio single One Love and the catchy Get Out of My Mind - every song sounds great.

If you haven’t listened to Hootie in a while, give this album a chance - at least a few listens through. If you’ve ever liked the band, I think it would be hard for you to not enjoy this album.

Happy listening!

There’s just something about listening to a Jack Johnson album that puts you in a relaxed mood. It’s the “surfer-dude” approach to the music takes that leaves you no choice but to be laid back while listening. Although Jack’s music is all basically the same style, the new album In Between Dreams still makes a good impression even the first time listening through the album. The first track Better Together is a great start to the album and the first single from the album, Sitting, Waiting, Wishing is very catchy. The leading candidate for my favourite song though is Banana Pancakes.

If you’ve liked Jack Johnson’s other two albums, you’ll likely enjoy the new album as well. If you really get into Jack’s music, there are also a ton of live concert recordings available on the internet as Jack has an open taper policy (gotta love musicians that do that!) Enjoy!

The rumors were true. Two new iPods were released today. The first is the iPod photo and comes in 40 GB and 60 GB models featuring a colour screen to view all your photos. While the colour screen is a nice touch, I have a feeling many people will find it a tad expensive to start - but still very nice! Of course, most people initially feel that Apple’s products are a bit expensive when they are first announced but then Apple can’t keep up with the demand. This will probably be the case this time again! These are available to purchase immediately.

The second is the U2 iPod that has been passed through the rumor mill for the past few days. It’s a black iPod with red scroll wheel on the front to correspond with the album cover for U2’s new album. These will be available in November when U2’s album is released.

Many European countries were added to the iTunes music store today as well. While Canada is still left out, Apple also officially confirmed today that we would be getting our own music store in November. Looks like the November 26th date that’s been floating around might be correct afterall.

Rumours are starting to surface on the internet that Apple may be extending their iTunes Music Store to Canada this holiday season. The date that is floating around is November 26th. I for one am super excited about this since I’m an iPod owner and there is currently no online store in Canada with downloads supported by the iPod. Rumour is that the prices will be 99 cents a track.

In other news in iPod land, it is expected that on November 23, U2 will be releasing its new album in a new way. One option instead of buying the CD will be to purchase an iPod with the new album pre-loaded. Again, this is just a rumour but U2 has been doing some advertising with Apple lately and their new single is availble from the iTunes Music Store in the US. To add further fuel to the rumours, some sites have also reported that it will be a special edition black iPod containing the new album and various songs from older U2 albums. I don’t know if I beleive that Apple will move away from its white product line, but it will definetely be interesting to see how this plays out, and if true, what kind of effect this marketing strategy will have for both U2 and Apple. Stay tuned!