The Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is just a few days away, giving fans the chance to meet, get autographs, and hang out with Jeremy, Doug, Dave and Kyle. Our uber pro booth setup contains not only a mini-noobstore, but a gaming area with multiple PCs, a couch and TV, and standing room to stare in awe as contestants fight cross-platform for a chance to win an HP Blackbird PC. The following games will be played at the tournament:

Call of Duty 4
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
C&C3: Kane's Wrath
Tetris DS

You might want to bring your own controller(s) to avoid being stuck with someone else's noobstick. This is our boldest expo venture yet and it's sure to be a blast! See you there!

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Radiohead is having a remix contest and being a huge fan of Radiohead / Nigel Godrich I absolutely had to get in on this.
Please check out my remix and VOTE FOR ME!. You may need to use Internet Explorer to listen / vote.



OK Computer is probably my all time favorite album, it's just slightly more awesome that each of the other totally awesome Radiohead albums. I took the song "Nude" from their latest album and remixed it as I would have expected to hear it back in 1997 on the OK Computer album. The tune is reharmonized, only the vocals and drums are the original tracks. I would have liked to put some guitar tracks in there but I'm lacking in both guitar skills and gear. It still sounds fairly OK Computerish.

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Record Store Day is happening on April 19th. The idea is to promote the independent record store experience and boost brick and mortar music sales. Artists like Paul McCartney and Henry Rollins are quoted as supporting the event and noting the importance of the RL music store experience. Meanwhile, the latest generation of music fans are busy discovering bands on last.fm or carefully constructing their favorite music list for their facebook profile or updating their annoying myspace autoplay track to an even more annoying song. A few of them are probably pirating music too.

Last summer, the Canadian music retailer Sam the Record Man closed their landmark Toronto location. The above linked CBC article states: "The owners blamed a combination of declining CD sales and the increased popularity of internet downloads". The article doesn't mention that Sam the Record Man refused to enter the DVD market unlike every other major music retailer which includes neighboring HMV and Sunrise Records. HMV could be yet another step ahead now that they have also started to carry video games. Sam the Record Man refused to adapt and become Sam the Digital Media Man.

Adapting to the modern music business is going to be all about convenience. I've been in situations where I have wanted to listen to a particular album that I have bought on CD and I have to choose between searching through a folder/box full of CDs or the quicker and easier option of downloading it from an illegitimate source. Digital downloads are a must for my generation of music consumers.

I'm not advocating piracy, I'm illustrating the fact that media retailers have yet to match the convenience, simplicity, and quality of illegal sources. Note to iTunes fans: Any software that deletes music from my iPod (music that I composed, performed and recorded myself) because I rearranged music files on my hard drive is malware garbage. I don't know what pissed me off more, the misleading "Some of the items in the iTunes library were not copied to the iPod because they could not be found" error message or the fact that Apple is underhandedly trying to stop me from pirating my own compositions. Though you've got to give Apple credit for taking steps to secure the title of the number one music retailer in the US while the major labels had their heads in their asses.

Back to Record Store Day: Free stuff, huge discounts, musicians appearing to support the event, reissues on 180-gram vinyl, sounds great! This is a good sign, retailers are now joining us in the 21st century. They have finally figured out how to get the Internet generation back into the record stores. Let's find out where we can go to join the action.

OH WAIT, THERE IS NO WAY TO SORT THE MASSIVE STORE LIST BY CITY.

hmmm...

CoD4 anyone?

EDIT: Currently half of the links on the Record Store Day site don't work. According to the banner at the bottom, the website was made by a company that specializes in web design for the music business. Maybe this is part of the problem.

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I sat back in my chair a few days ago and realized that I've built a pretty pimped PC gaming system / multimedia workstation. It's not the latest and greatest in terms of the box, but my Nvidia 8800 GTS + Quad-core with 3 gigs of ram can run most games I play at full res / effects. It's the peripherals that make it pimped. In case you wonder where all of the PP magic is made, here it is:



The Samsung 275T wide screen monitor is about as big as I can imagine is comfortable to look at / fit on my desk. The MOTU 828MKII sound card connected via balanced 1/4 inch TRS to a pair of Mackie HR824s complimented by acoustic foam paneling provides an excellent stereo image / monitoring situation. The Ergodex DX1 input system is pretty sweet for PvP in WoW (not that I play WoW anymore).



My vintage Thorens turntable often provides the tunes to pwn n00bs by. Let's not forget the Razer Deathadder and Pure Pwnage competition gaming surface. Top it off with an Steelcase Leap chair and a cup of chai tea and I'm good to go for a night of gaming. It's better than some rigs but still far from perfect.

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