I have no idea who Michael Paynter is, but this new song of his featuring The Veronicas is got a nice “gritty” feeling to it that draws you in. Have a listen:

I remember the time
When I was searching my mind
Just to find out if I ever define who I am
Could I ever afford to consider being more,
I was sure that I saw all the world
But I keep wishing for more
So I keep checking my direction
Watching my own reflection
And I’m still, still
In connection with the way I wanna be
Did I behave
…Cause I’ve been stuck here for days,
I’m in a daze
Had the chance to be a savior
But I threw it away

(Chorus)
What if I dive off the edge of my life
And there’s nothing beneath
What if I live
Like there’s nothing to lose
Just to die on my knees
At least I know
I walked the door
I took the scars
I risked it all
And learned to love the fall

I could never see how it hurts
To feel the worst,
I’ll never make it
Even though how hurts
That I won’t be that type of guy
That never tried
That never took a chance or took
his moment to fly to be free

You may be of the opinion
That I’m making a wrong decision
But I’m giving up the chance
To live my life in your vision
But I can’t give up
No I won’t give up
Until you see that okay’s never ever enough

(Chorus)
What if I dive off the edge of my life
And there’s nothing beneath
What if I live
Like there’s nothing to lose
Just to die on my knees(What if I live?)
At least I know
I walked the door
I took the scars
I risked it all
And learned to love the fall

I’m here
My hands are cold
My heart is racing
Yeah, and
The only fear is fear I’m failing

(Chorus)
What if I dive off the edge of my life
And there’s nothing beneath (Beneath)
What if I live
Like there’s nothing to lose
Just to die on my knees (What if I live?)

At least I know
I walked the door
I took the scars
I risked it all
And learned to love the fall

After a few high profile songs featuring Bruno Mars (like Nothing On You and Billionaire), Bruno Mars has finally released his first solo song and it’s a pretty good one.

Talk about a pretty good way to build up your name and reputation before launching your own song! Smart marketer, this Bruno Mars.

Oh her eyes, her eyes
Make the stars look like they’re not shining
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly without her trying

She’s so beautiful
And I tell her every day

Yeah I know, I know
When I compliment her
She wont believe me
And its so, its so
Sad to think she don’t see what I see

But every time she asks me do I look okay
I say

When I see your face
There’s not a thing that I would change
Cause you’re amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for awhile
Cause girl you’re amazing
Just the way you are

Her nails, her nails
I could kiss them all day if she’d let me
Her laugh, her laugh
She hates but I think its so sexy

She’s so beautiful
And I tell her every day

Oh you know, you know, you know
Id never ask you to change
If perfect is what you’re searching for
Then just stay the same

So don’t even bother asking
If you look okay
You know I say

When I see your face
There’s not a thing that I would change
Cause you’re amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for awhile
Cause girl you’re amazing
Just the way you are

The way you are
The way you are
Girl you’re amazing
Just the way you are

When I see your face
There’s not a thing that I would change
Cause you’re amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile,
The whole world stops and stares for awhile
Cause girl you’re amazing
Just the way you are

Unfortunately Arsenal didn’t quite start the season like the 6-1 massacre of Everton in the 09/10 season, and neither was the game anything like the classic 4-4 result during the last Anfield game, but last night’s match between my two favourite BPL teams showed great promise and I could not be any more excited about this season, especially after the unpredictability of last season.

Let’s start with Arsenal (of course). Given that the Gunners only had 1/4 of a spine (Vermaelen) and the other 3 were missing (any goalkeeper except one that we currently have, Fabregas and Robin van Persie), I think we did pretty well. Jack Wilshere was given a rare start in an Arsenal shirt and I think he made the most of it. New boys Koscielny (damn I’m going to have to learn how to spell that) and Chamakh looked like they had the goods and although a couple of players looked like they might be lacking a little bit of fitness, there’s definitely potential there.

I thought both red cards were ridiculous. Joe Cole spends more time getting injured than injuring others. I wasn’t pleased to see Koscielny being stretchered off, but I don’t really feel it was worth a red card. Also, the second yellow for Koscielny was just outrageous. Torres tries to flick it over him and he’s moving his arm while he’s trying to catch up. It’s not like it was intentional. I can’t help but feel we might have had a more classic match if it was 11 v 11 for the entire game.

Liverpool played well. There’s definitely a different energy about the team than there was in the second half of last season, and by that I mean for the better. Certainly looks like there’s a lot more belief now. They played pretty well even without Torres in the squad but I think they’re still missing someone key in the middle of the park like Alonso, who was never quite replaced. Huge props to Agger for playing like a champ though.

Arsenal Ratings:

Almunia – Flapped pathetically at crosses (as usual) and is nervy every time the ball gets near him. Not good enough to be featured in a League One team, yet alone one like Arsenal. Schwarzer can’t get here fast enough. 3/10.

Sagna – Neither here nor there game, crossing still needs work (I predict I’m going to be saying this every week). 5/10.

Vermaelen – This guy is going to be an Arsenal legend. Showed great pace and stability and cut out several key balls. 8/10.

Koscielny – Love the fighting spirit of this guy to come back on after being stretchered off the pitch. The partnership between him and the Verminator is going to take some time to develop. Silly 2nd yellow card. 6/10.

Clichy – Looked like he was still warming up to the season, I expect to see the fueled-with-desire Clichy that ended off last season back in a few weeks. 6/10.

Nasri – He didn’t play badly, but certainly not up to his usual standards. Mediocre game. 6/10.

Wilshere – Thrilled Jack is getting his chance at first team football and he did look like he worked really hard. Can’t wait to see more of him. 6/10.

Diaby – I thought he played pretty well in the middle of the park. Great ball control, as always. I think Wenger needs to figure out where to play him to really fit into the team. 7/10.

Arshavin – Sleepy performance from the Russian. Wenger blames it on the midweek friendly, but come on, he didn’t even play in the World Cup. None of his Anfield magic here. 4/10.

Eboue – Not impressed and his theatrical “falls” are getting on even my nerves as an Arsenal fan. 4/10.

Chamakh – His size does stand out amongst the rest of the Arsenal team and I’d play him ahead of Bendtner at every opportunity. Worked hard and eventually got us the goal (with a nice bit of karma for Reina for his stunt with the Barca shirt on Cesc). Great start to his Arsenal career 9/10.

Subs:

Walcott – Pace made a difference, brilliant curved free kick, terrible decision making in and around the box.Hope he delivers this season.

Rosicky – Looked as sharp as I’ve ever seen him when fit. Really hope he stays fit and has a good season.

van Persie – Didn’t have much of an impact on the game, but I don’t think he was ready for it anyway. Stay fit for the whole season for once, please, Robin.

Next up, a home game against Blackpool who smashed Wigan 4-0 this weekend. Let’s give them a great Premier League welcome.

I had no idea who The Saturdays were until I heard this song and did some research, turns out they’re a girl pop group from the UK. All I can say is only the girl with the short hair catches my attention and the cheesy water-splashing-dancing bit is terrible, but the song itself is pretty good. Check it out:

I miss missing you
I miss missing you

Where’s the pain when you walk out the door
It doesn’t hurt like it used to before
Where’s the love that we couldn’t ignore
It doesn’t kick like a pill anymore
Where’s the thrill at the end of our fights
Where’s the heat when we turn off the lights

I just miss all the miss that we made
When we still have the passion to hate

I miss missing you, sometimes
I miss hurting you ’til you cry
I miss watching you as you try
Try not to end up in tears
Begging to get back together
I just want you to be
To be stuck in a second forever
So don’t freak out and believe.

Sometimes I’m just missing
Missing You
I miss missing you

There’s a dark cloud pulling me in
That’s the girl I was breathing in sin
There’s a blind force letting it win
And it’s longing to tear us apart
I get high when you’re making me weak
Let me down ’til I crawl on my knee’s

I just miss all the mess that we made
When we still have the passion to hate

I miss missing you sometimes
I miss hurting you ’til you cry
I miss watching you as you try
Try not to end up in tear’s
Begging to get back together
I just want you to be
To be stuck in this second forever
So don’t freak out if I leave

Sometimes I’m just missing, missing you
I miss missing you

Miss missing, miss missing, miss missing
I wanna crush in your arms at the other side of the world
Miss missing, miss missing, miss missing
I wanna die for you ’cause love is only true if it hurts

I miss missing you sometimes
I miss hurting you ’til you cry
I miss watching you as you try
Try not to end up in tear’s (ooh)
Begging to get back together (together)
I just want you to be (want you to be, yeah)
To be stuck in this second forever
So don’t freak out if I leave

Sometimes I’m just missing (I’m missing)
Missing you (no, missing you)
I miss missing you

Even though I featured this song on Music Monday 80, the music video was just released and I think the video adds so much power to the song that it’s worth featuring again.

A few things:

• Eminem looks great.

• So does Dominic Monaghan (great move to shave his head)

• Rihanna still looks trashy.

• Megan Fox takes great care not to show her toe-thumb (but we all know it’s there)

• Great camera shots.

Enjoy:

I finally got down to catching Inception and it really lived up to its hype, bringing a level of brilliance, genius and originality last seen about ten years ago with The Matrix.

Inception poster

In many ways, Inception played out as a comic book or graphic novel in my head as it had all the staples of the Science Fiction genre – think the opening scene to set the stage, an intense backstory, the gathering of the team and so on. Christopher Nolan clearly has an amazing imagination and he understands how stories need to be told, as proven time and time again in his Batman movies and now, Inception.

Without going into the story in too much detail, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, someone who has the ability to get into people’s dreams and steal secrets from his victims. Something terrible has happened in his past and because of that, he can’t go back to the United States ever, which places him apart from his kids. Later, Saito (Ken Watanabe) provides Cobb with an offer he can’t refuse, with the condition that Cobb perform an “inception” – planting an idea into a victim’s head in such a way that the victim thinks it’s his/her own idea.

Needless to say, Cobb takes up the deal and gathers up a team to get the job done.

What I Liked
The sheer insanity of the show – dreams within dreams within dreams? The story is complex and you can’t leave your brain at the door, make no mistake about it. It opens in a confusing manner and only after Cobb recruits Adriadne, the Architect (Ellen Page) do things get any clearer. Not many would be able to take on such a complicated plot and execute it brilliantly (hell M. Night Shyamalan can’t even execute a good vs evil plot properly), but Nolan does it very well.

The characters – I loved that everyone has their little “nickname”. The Dreamer, the Point Man, the Architect (not to be confused with the Matrix’s Architect), the Chemist, the Forger, the Shade, the Mark and the Tourist. This is an element I also enjoyed in the 100 Bullets graphic novel.

Ellen Page – seriously, this girl has talent (and is gorgeous to look at). Necessary, strong female character in a testosterone filled cast (and a rather unlikeable other female character, which I’ll talk about later).

The effects – whether it’s the Architect trying out her new skills for the first time or the crazy hotel battle sequence with the Point Man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Nolan manages to imagine scenes that are revolutionary the same way the Matrix’s Bullet Time was revolutionary, and let’s face it, since the Matrix every movie has looked the same, until Inception.

What I Didn’t Like As Much
Mal – whether intentionally or not, the Shade (Marion Cotillard) was an immensely unlikeable character, I feel partially because the actress overplayed her role. Ultimately I didn’t feel much for the connection between her and Cobb because she’s portrayed as crazy and psychotic in almost every scene. I felt more for the connection between Cobb and his kids throughout the show, and we don’t even see their faces. Also, her accent was crazy annoying. And what kind of name is Mal anyway? Malevolence? Malice? Come on.

Leonardo DiCaprio – I know some people think he’s a great actor, but I felt he wasn’t as consistent as Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Ellen Page in the movie. Some scenes I felt like he underplayed the emotion, and in others it felt like he overplayed it. I wonder how much of this can be chalked up to Mal’s character.

Dreams within dreams – It’s not so much dreams within dreams that I have a problem with, but the final act of Cobb and Adriadne going down a level. In each of the previous “levels”, the person whose dream it is is left behind, awake (Yusuf the Chemist in level One, Arthur the Point Man in level Two, and Eames the Chemist in level Three), but in the final level, both Cobb and Adriadne go under, leaving no one else to give them the “kick” to wake them out of the dream state. I could have missed something, but this part doesn’t make sense to me.

The Ending
Finally, I don’t think any review of Inception is complete without talking about the Ending. Personally, I thought the long con was put in place much, much earlier in the show. When Cobb wakes up after trying the Chemist’s sedative for the first time and is splashing his face with water, he spins the top and it falls to the floor. I suppose the reason is he was too shaken up to spin it properly, but I thought that would have been the point where everything from that point on would be revealed as a dream. Although, who’s to say it isnt? Maybe the Chemist’s drug really did put him under and he couldn’t get out although he thought he did.

Ultimately, I think the ending is meant to be open-ended, and I feel it doesn’t matter which side you choose to believe is “reality” because the important thing is Cobb had to go through the whole series of events to get to where he is and finally be happy.

Is Inception perfect? Nope. Is it the most original thing to be released this decade? Arguably, yes. If this isn’t the best movie I’ve seen since the Matrix, I don’t know what is.

July’s resolution to create five pieces of content a week didn’t work out terribly well, mostly because this is the peak period for me and I’ve just been running around on a day to day basis to be able to sit down and churn out content.

This “the day is spent rushing from place to place” thing really took its toll on me and the straw that broke the camel’s back came last week when I forgot to bring my work laptop to the office and had to rush home and back in a hurry. Needless to say, I can do without being this frazzled.

So this month, I’m making a commitment to following an “end of day” routine that looks something like this (bare minimum):

• empty out my bag (for obvious reasons)
• take a note of what I spent for the day and key that into my budget
• look at my to-dos for the day and finish them or shift them around as necessary
• look at my appointments for the next day (or two)
• look at my to-dos for the week and schedule them in for the next day, as well as prepare any necessary materials I may need for them (eg bringing a dentist appointment card to the dentist)

On top of that, a Weekly Review every Sunday to keep things current and up to date.

I think if I can do all of these steps every day for this month, I’m going to be a sane camper. I’ll leave being a happy camper to November.

ps: I also paid US $6.99 for an iPad app called Pocket Informant which I am really liking and it’s been instrumental in helping me with this daily routine. I’ll check in again in a few weeks to update you on how it has (or has not) been working well with my life.

So tonight I was all ready to feature a certain artist for this week’s Music Monday, until I realised that this particular label doesn’t allow people from outside North America to watch their videos on YouTube.

Look, it’s 2010. Geographical boundaries are smaller than ever and close to non-existent on the internet. You take away easy access to music and all you’re encouraging is more piracy. Plus there are sites like Grooveshark that give access to music easily.

I could easily find another YouTube video or embed a link from Grooveshark, but you know what, if this label doesn’t believe in leveraging the internet to spread the word of its talent, then I sure as hell am not going to help it do so.

So here’s the deal: until this changes, no artists from this particular label will be featured here on this blog. End of story.

Last night was Saint Joseph’s Institution’s 10th year reunion of the graduating class of 2000. It’s really hard to believe it’s been 10 years. I suppose unlike the majority of the other guys, it doesn’t feel that long to me because I’ve been involved in Scouts since I left and visiting the school was virtually a weekly affair for me. Nonetheless it was a good opportunity for a “grown-up” (and rather expensive) meet up. Here are some pictures from the night:

Fondue and Beer!

Class of 4A7, 2000

Our classroom (it looks different now)

Scouties

On a more somber note, the absence of Jerome was felt. So wherever you are, we miss you dude.

Besides having a pretty weird name, Lady Antebellum also has a pretty catchy song in “Need You Now“. It has a pretty Country feel to it which leaves me with the imagery of what you might hear from Taylor Swift if she sang in a band.

Not too sure about the meaning of the song though..  Not sure if I want to be on the receiving end of the song and being drunk dialed.