Krunk4Ever!

I’ve been seeing the Lincoln MKZ ad on television for a few weeks and I’m starting to dig the song. After a quick search, it turns out the song is a cover of Major Tom (coming home) by Shiny Toy Guns:

[Please visit blog post to view streaming video]

Generally, I’d just tweet this but it turns out that Shiny Toy Guns is giving away the song for FREE: TRANSMISSION TO MAJOR TOM. YOURS. FREE. They require you to register, but that seems like a small price to pay for getting the song for free. After registering however, it appears to just redirect you to Lincoln’s website, telling you to look for the download link in the lower right corner.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the download link. Looking at the comments back on Shiny Toy Guns’ website, people were saying it was pulled because they were planning for an official release. However on Lincoln’s website, their source still links to the song:

function downloadSong() {
    [...]
    window.open('/extras/asset/majortom.zip', '_blank', 'height=100,width=200,top=200,left=300');
}

If you input javascript:downloadSong() into the location bar or just open this download link, you should be able to download the song. It’s a 10MB file with a 320kbps encoded MP3

Enjoy!

So I recently heard an old song on a TV show and really dig it: Cherry Lips by Garbage

YouTube Link

However, it wasn’t after listening to 20+ times that I realized the song was about a boy!!! According to Wikipedia:

Shirley wrote the lyrics in the song as a tribute to writer “JT LeRoy”, pseudonym of Laura Albert, with whom she has an email friendship, after reading “his” two novels Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. The song is loosely based on the two novels, apparently referencing the character ‘Cherry’, a cross-dressing child-prostitute from the novel Sarah.

So I finally remember to ask the Xbox discussion about the issues I was hitting with Lips.

It turns out that all my issues stem from the fact I have a USB microphone connected to my Xbox 360. Somehow microphone registration gets all screwy because of that. In my case, I have my Rock Band microphone plugged into the Xbox 360 at all times. The fix is to unplug the USB microphone when you’re playing Lips. Apparently this will fix both the 2nd microphone lighting issues as well as the static noise, video and audio out of sync issues, as well as the freezing issues.

Other good news is that Harmonix (creator of Rock Band) is going to patch up Rock Band so it can use the wireless microphones! From MTV Games:

We broke the news that the highly regarded microphone bundled with Microsoft’s “Lips” karaoke game would not work with “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” at launch.

Harmonix and MTV Games have now addressed gamers’ concern over the lack of compatibility, and there’s good news to be shared.

“Microsoft and MTV Games are working together to ensure that consumers will be able to use the wireless mics from ‘Lips’ with ‘Rock Band 2’ after launch,” said the companies in an e-mailed statement. “More details on timing to come. Harmonix and MTV Games strive for all third-party controllers to work with the ‘Rock Band’ games, fitting with Harmonix’ open-platform philosophy for controllers.”

Sounds like we’ll have a patch in the coming weeks! Will you use the “Lips” mic?

That’s great news! Being able to play Rock Band with a wireless microphone would be neat! Then I can scrap my Rock Band microphone and not hit into these issues anymore!

I don’t actually own the game yet, but I’ve played the demo and I found it to be a lot of fun. You may then be wondering why I have a whole blog post dedicated to Mirror’s Edge. The main reason is because it ties in with a couple things I wanted to blog about but doesn’t deserve their own post at the moment.

I got the demo a few weeks back and it was extremely fun. As one of CAD’s sillies state: “I have never felt this much like an acrobatic asian chick in my entire life.”

On the same lines, Penny Arcade also made a comic strip about Mirror’s Edge, but I didn’t really have much problems with the headaches, given that I’m pretty sure I’m quite susceptible to 3D motion sickness. For example, I was playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Saturday and after just 2 missions (~30 mins or so), I felt a slight headache and had to stop playing. It could be that the demo was short and it didn’t have to time to get to me yet, but even with COD4, I was pretty sure I’d get a headache within minutes of playing the game, which I didn’t really get with Mirror’s Edge.

I was planning on getting it for the Xbox 360, but it looks like it’s going to come out on the PC in January, so I might pick it up then. PC games are usually cheaper to get and I’m not sure I’m willing to drop $50 on it quite yet, given that I heard it’s a rather short game.

Speaking of which, have you seen the trailer? Check out these trailers just to see how fun they look!

You can find more trailers here: Gametrailers.com – Mirror’s Edge: Reviews, Trailers, and Interviews

The music you’re hearing in all of the trailers are remixes of a song called Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky. No, this has nothing to do with the Portal song by Jonathan Coulton.

You can also watch/download the HD version on Gametrailers.com. Someone also posted the mp3 for you listen: Still Alive.mp3 (Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky – 4MB). I personally think the song’s amazing, especially with the piano keys, which for some reason makes me think it has some Asian background. I wonder if that has to do with the fact the main character you play as is Asian.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I assume some of you are still recovering from being overstuffed.

Thanks to Carolynn for planning out this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lot of fun helping prepare the food. Of course it was also fun eating it. There was a pretty good show up this year: Carolynn, Joe, Perry, Sathana, Felix, Tom, Jim, Saran, and Pita (sorry if I misspelled your name). Valerie also showed up later to join in the festivities. We had turkey, stuffing, green beans with onions and bacon bits, mashed potato, yam and marshmallows, pumpkin pie. The stuff was delicious. Now I’m hungry just thinking of it.

After eating, we played some Xbox 360: PES 2009, Rock Band 2, Lips, Gears of Wars 2, and even some 8 person Halo 3.

I took some photos which you can view in the photo album:

Thanksgiving 2008

I even recorded a few Rock Band Sessions (posted with permission):

Unfortunately I ran out of disk space during Perry’s and Pita’s performance.

I picked up Lips earlier in the week at the company store, here’s my semi-review. Since I’ve been an semi-avid Rock Band player, I’ll probably be making many comparisons to it.

The game comes with a good selection of songs. All 40 songs are unlocked at the beginning, so you don’t have to go through some tour mode to unlock them. Given that, we’ve found that even though there were 40 songs, not every song was something people wanted to sing. Unlike Rock Band where singing is optional (where you can choose to play guitar or drums), Lips requires someone to actually sing, and people always have a fear of singing songs they’re not too familiar with, especially when you only know the chorus.

You can’t actually fail in this game, but since you’re the center of attention, people become self conscious. It helps if 2 people are actually singing or if the whole crowd joins in like at a real karaoke.

Additional songs can be purchased at 160 points (about $2) each, but the selection is pretty weak right now, but more are supposed to be coming.

It comes with 2 wireless microphones, which is really neat. However, it’s sad that the microphones do NOT work with Rock Band, which apparently requires a patch from Harmonix. It’d be sweet if I were able to use the wireless mics with Rock Band sometime in the near future. The wireless microphone includes motion sensors similar to the Wiimote and you can use it to swing and make noises and so on. It also required to enable star power or overdrive or whatever Lips calls it.

The singing part uses the the center area for lyrics in big text and jumpy balls like at karaoke, and on the top and bottom are the pitch lines for 1st and 2nd player, which includes another set of lyrics, similar to Rock Band. However, different than Rock Band is that the lyrics move along with the pitch lines vertically, making it hard to read ahead. I can look at the lyrics in the center screen, but then my eyes have to jump back and forth between the lyrics in the center and the pitch lines above. Another pet peeve I have is pitch marker. In Rock Band, there’s this triangle that tells you exactly where your current pitch is. In Lips, they have a ball which is very hard to see, making it difficult to judge if I should increase or decrease my pitch in an instant.

There’s also a mode where you can connect a music player (i.e. iPod or Zune) where you can play your music and sing along to it. I haven’t tried this mode yet, but apparently it also does the pitch lines, but without the lyrics, it becomes hard since most people don’t really know the words outside of the chorus for most songs.

Issues with Lips
I’ve hit into a lot of issues with Lips and I haven’t been able to find anyway to troubleshoot the issue. If anyone’s experience the following issues, I would like to know if you have a way to get around it. I’m pretty sure it’s an issue with the game itself, since I haven’t hit into any of these issues with the other games I play, but it could be that my Xbox 360 is finally dying.

• When playing 2 players, one of the mic’s lights do not blink according to the music. I’ve tried changing the batteries, resyncing the mics, but the lights will not come on. If I hold the power button, the lights will blink, but supposedly they’re suppose to blink according to the music’s rhythm during game play.
• Once in awhile, the music becomes out of sync with the game. Other times, there’s a lot of static in the music. And both of these are precursors to the game freezing, which I would then have to reboot. I verified it’s not actually the song or using custom videos as replaying the same song in the same mode has no problems after a reboot.
• There’s probably a way to get around this, but I haven’t figured a way yet. Once in awhile, I add a song in Sing mode and decide not to sing it, and I can’t seem to get rid of it. Every time I finish singing a song, instead of returning to the main list, it shows this song. Does anyone know how to remove that song so after singing, it returns me to the main list?

On Saturday, I caught dinner with Andrew and watched Milk. The movie was decent. Interesting information about gay history which I never knew about, but it was quite clear who their targeted audience were. I do have to say Josh Brolin once again outdid himself and gave an amazing performance. I didn’t realize it was him until halfway through the movie. After seeing him in No Country for Old Men and W. and now Milk, not only can he act like the person he’s portraying well, but he can LOOK like the person he’s portraying well. Andrew also mentioned, it would’ve been interesting to hear Dan White’s side of the story on this whole affair. Apparently Dan White was the first one to use the Twinkie Defense.

I know it’s been awhile, but here’s some food for thought. I first saw the 2012 trailer during the previews of Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond 007 film. The HD trailer was released and I started reading up on it. If you didn’t know, 2012 is the Gregorian year where the Mayan calendar ends. Many have predicted that it’ll be the end of the world.

Anyway while reading it up on Wikipedia, I came upon the following passage:

2012 is claimed by some with New age beliefs to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or alternatively an apocalypse). There is disagreement among believers as to whether 2012 will see an end of civilization, or humanity will be elevated to a higher level.

Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B’ak’tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Astrologer John Jenkins has determined that on this date, there will be “an extremely close conjunction of the northern hemisphere winter solstice sun with the crossing point of the Galactic equator and the ecliptic“, an event that will not be repeated for thousands of years.

According to Wikipedia, an ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. … The name ecliptic is derived from being the place where eclipses occur.

I don’t think the passage above predicts an eclipse is going to occur, but I’m not exactly sure what it means to have the Galactic equator crossing the ecliptic, but for some reason it reminds me of Heroes. If you’ve been following the recent Heroeos, you’d know that some eclipse happened a long time back which gave them their super powers, and another eclipse is going to come and take their powers away and somehow the earth ends up being blown to smithereens.

Update: During dinner, Xyon and I were discussing Monday’s episode of Heroes and the topic of solar eclipses came up. It seems that the closest 2012 total solar eclipse to this “dooms day” is on November 13. So maybe my theory is a bit off, or maybe the solar eclipse happens on 11/13 and the earth blows up on 12/21.

So I’ve been watching a new TV series called: Fringe. Pretty good series so far. As someone mentioned, it was like a mix between X-Files, House M.D., and Heroes. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as all 3 combined, but it’s been entertaining.

Anyway after watching the first episode, the opening theme music / soundtrack / song has been gnawing at my head. It sounds so familiar as if it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn’t place my finger on it.

So weeks later, after watching my 4th or 5th episode, it finally pops into my head. It reminds me of the Music from The Inner Life of a Cell. You watch the clip here: BioVisions.

Not exactly as close as I had expected, but my mind somehow linked these 2 musical pieces together. And the theme of the accompanying video and 3d animation are pretty darn similar too!

I initially posted this on my HD-Trailers website, but thought I shared it with you guys too.

Saw this on Digg and thought it was beautiful:

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

A couple of pencil-outlined birds escape from a little girl´s drawing, leading us through the life she dreams of. you can find more about the making of at this link in my page. (Source)

They have a 720p version available, but you have to register/log in before it’s available for you to download. Amazingly beautiful, you should definitely check it out.

So I wasn’t planning to blog about the 2008 Olympics, mostly because I’m not much of a sports fans, but over the past few days, I’ve accumulated a few things regarding the 2008 Olympics I wanted to share.

First, Artemyst blogged about the 2008 Beijing Olympics song/music video: 北京歡迎你 (Beijing Welcomes You). Update: It appears YouTube has taken down the video. Here’s a mirror.

At first I found the accent a bit off, but after awhile, I realized many of the cast were Hong Kong actors singing in Mandarin. The lyrics were borrowed from Artemyst’s blog, but the English translations were rather bad in the YouTube video description. I’ve gone ahead and did my best at translating it:

北京歡迎你/群星
Beijing Welcomes You/Various Artists

作曲：小柯
Composer: Xiao Ke

填詞：林夕
Lyrics: Leo Ku

主唱：群星
Artist: Celebrities

【陳天佳】 迎接另一個晨曦　帶來全新空氣
[Chen Tian Jia] We welcome the next morning, bringing in fresh air

【劉歡】 氣息改變情味不變　茶香飄滿情誼
[Liu Huan] Weather may change but friendship will not, the tea’s fragrance is filled with friendship

【那英】 我家大門常打開　開放懷抱等你
[Na Ying] Our door is always open, waiting for you with open arms

【孫燕姿】 擁抱過就有了默契　你會愛上這裡
[Stefanie Sun] After hugging and developing a bond, you will fall in love with here

【孫悅】 不管遠近都是客人　請不用客氣
[Sun Yue] Everyone is a guest no matter how far away, please feel at home

【王力宏】 相約好了再一起　我們歡迎你
[Wang Lee Hom] Agreed to get together, we welcome you

【韓紅】 我家種著萬年青　開放每段傳奇
[Han Hong] We’ve planted evergreens, displaying every spectacle

【周華健】 為傳統的土壤播種　為你留下回憶
[Wakin Chau] Sowing seeds into the soil, leaving you with good memories

【梁詠琪】 陌生熟悉都是客人　請不用拘禮
[Gigi Leung] Strangers and friends are all guests, no need to be formal

【羽泉】 第幾次來沒關係　有太多話題
[Yu Quan] No matter how many times you come, there are much to talk about

【成龍】 北京歡迎你　為你開天辟地
[Jackie Chan] Beijing welcomes you, opening your eyes to a new world

【任賢齊】 流動中的魅力充滿著朝氣
[Richie Ren] The flowing charm is full of life

【蔡依林】 北京歡迎你　在太陽下分享呼吸
[Jolin Tsai] Beijing welcomes you, sharing the joy of breathing under the sun

【孫楠】 在黃土地刷新成績
[Sun Nan] Making new records on our yellow soil

【周筆暢】 我家大門常打開　開懷容納天地
[Bibi Zhou] Our door is always open, welcoming the world with open arms

【韋唯】 歲月綻放青春笑容　迎接這個日期
[Wei Wei] The old ages is smiling like youth, welcoming this day

【黃曉明】 天大地大都是朋友　請不用客氣
[Huang Xiao Ming] Everyone is friends, please feel at home

【韓庚】 畫意詩情帶笑意　只為等待你
[Han Geng] The arts bring smiles, only waiting for you

【汪峰】 北京歡迎你　像音樂感動你
[Wang Feng] Beijing welcomes you, like how the music moves you

【莫文蔚】 讓我們都加油去超越自己
[Karen Mok] Let’s work hard together to go beyond ourselves

【譚晶】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[Tan Jing] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【陳奕迅】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[Eason Chan] Having courage will bring miracles

【閻維文】 北京歡迎你　為你開天辟地
[Yan Weiwen] Beijing welcomes you, opening your eyes to a new world

【戴玉強】 流動中的魅力充滿著朝氣
[Dai Yu Qiang] The flowing charm is full of life

【王霞．李雙松】 北京歡迎你　在太陽下分享呼吸
[Wang Xia, Li Shuang Song] Beijing welcomes you, sharing the joy of breathing under the sun

【廖昌永】 在黃土地刷新成績
[Liao Chang Yong] Making new records on our yellow soil

【林依輪】 北京歡迎你　像音樂感動你
[Lin Yi Lun] Beijing welcomes you, may the music move you

【張娜拉】 讓我們都加油去超越自己
[Jang Nara] Let’s work hard together to go beyond ourselves

【林俊傑】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[JJ Lin] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【阿杜】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[A-Do] Having courage will bring miracles

【京劇】 北京歡迎你呀
[Beijing Opera] Beijing weclomes you

【容祖兒】 我家大門常打開　開懷容納天地
[Joey Yung] Our door is always open, welcoming the world with open arms

【李宇春】 擁抱過就有了默契　你會愛上這裡
[Chris Li] After hugging and developing a bond, you will fall in love with here

【黃大煒】 不管遠近都是客人　請不用客氣
[David Wong] Everyone is a guest no matter how far away, please feel at home

【陳坤】 相約好了再一起　我們歡迎你
[Chen Kun] Agreed to get together, we welcome you

【謝霆鋒】 北京歡迎你　為你開天辟地
[Nicholas Tse] Beijing welcomes you, opening your eyes to a new world

【韓磊】 流動中的魅力充滿著朝氣
[Han Lei] The flowing charm is full of life

【徐若瑄】 北京歡迎你　在太陽下分享呼吸
[Vivian Hsu] Beijing welcomes you, sharing the joy of breathing under the sun

【費翔】 在黃土地刷新成績
[Kris Phillips] Making new records on our yellow soil

【湯燦】 我家大門常打開　開懷容納天地
[Tang Can] Our door is always open, welcoming the world with open arms

【林志玲　張梓琳】 歲月綻放青春笑容　迎接這個日期
[Lin Chi-ling, Zhang Zilin] The old ages is smiling like youth, welcoming this day

【張靚穎】 天大地大都是朋友　請不用客氣
[Jane Zhang] Everyone is friends, please feel at home

【許茹芸　伍思凱】 畫意詩情帶笑意　只為等待你
[Valen Hsu, Sky Wu] The arts bring smiles, only waiting for you

【楊坤．範瑋琪】 北京歡迎你　像音樂感動你
[Yang Kun, Christine Fan] Beijing welcomes you, like how the music moves you

【游鴻明．周曉歐】 讓我們都加油去超越自己
[Yu Hungming, Zhou Xiao'ou] Let’s work hard together to go beyond ourselves

【沙寶亮．滿文軍】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[Sha Baoliang, Man Wenjun] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【金海心．何潤東】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[Jin Haixin, Peter Ho] Having courage will bring miracles

【飛兒．龐龍】 北京歡迎你　為你開天辟地
[F.I.R., Pang Long] Beijing welcomes you, opening your eyes to a new world

【吳克群．齊峰】 流動中的魅力充滿著朝氣
[Kenji Wu, Qi Feng] The flowing charm is full of life

【5566．胡彥斌】 北京歡迎你　在太陽下分享呼吸
[5566, Anson Hu] Beijing welcomes you, sharing the joy of breathing under the sun

【鄭希怡．刀郎】 在黃土地刷新成績
[Yumiko Cheng, Dao Lang] Making new records on our yellow soil

【紀敏加．屠洪剛．吳彤】 北京歡迎你　像音樂感動你
[Ji Minjia, Tu Honggang, Denis Ng] Beijing welcomes you, like how the music moves you

【郭容．劉耕宏．騰格爾】 讓我們都加油去超越自己
[Guo Rong, Will Liu, Tengger] Let’s work hard together to go beyond ourselves

【金莎．蘇醒．韋嘉】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[Kym Jin Sha, Allen Su, Wei Jia] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【付麗珊．黃征．房祖】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[Fu Lishan, Shawn Huang, Jaycee Chan] Having courage will bring miracles

【全體】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[All] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【全體】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[All] Having courage will bring miracles

【全體】 北京歡迎你　有夢想誰都了不起
[All] Beijing welcomes you, with dreams everyone can be great

【全體】 有勇氣就會有奇跡
[All] Having courage will bring miracles

If you notice any translation problems above, please do tell. I notice most places label this song as Welcome to Beijing, which I guess is technically correct or Englishfied, but to me there’s a difference between Welcome to Beijing and Beijing welcomes you. May be I’m being nitpicking.

Later I saw these awesome photos: 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony. These images are just magnificent and as someone mentioned in the Digg comments, many of these images reminded me of Magic Eye. Did I mention how beautiful these photos are?

Finally, Windows Media Center, TVTonic, and NBC teamed together to bring you easy access to the Olympics: NBC Olympics On The Go. The whole company got an email late this past week stating about the project. When VonLobster was over here earlier today, he brought that up and we decided to check it out.

The process was much more complicated than I had expected. After clicking “Launch” from the MCE menu, it prompted that it’ll be opening a browser and I’ll have to run the setup after it finishes downloading. I don’t see why it couldn’t have streamlined the process. It even specifically stated I wouldn’t be able to use the remote to continue with the setup.

After installing and launching TVTonic within MCE, I would have to say the navigation was rather poorly designed. It took us quite awhile to figure out what to do. We were just trying to figure out how to watch a video, and that took a good 5-10 minutes.

After we figured out how to subscribe to channels, things went pretty smoothly from there. Videos would automatically start downloading and if we wanted to watch a particular one, priority would be given to that one and it would pretty much start streaming immediately. We checked out a few swimming ones and the opening ceremony.

The Lenovo ads did get a bit annoying after awhile. Between every clip, it would play. I understand it’s sponsored by Lenovo, but maybe if there were just more than 2 Lenovo ads, that’ll be okay, but I’ve seen the laser vaporizing and the fruit basket one at least 8x today. It also didn’t help that the audio volume was much lower in the actual clips than the ad, so immediately after the clip, the Lenovo ad would be SUPER LOUD.

I was hoping to share some of these videos with my parents, but unfortunately they’re drmed and requires a TVTonic license to view. I know it’s free, but I doubt I can teach my parents how to install TVTonic.

It also took me awhile to figure out where they were caching these. On Windows Vista, it’s located in:
C:\Users\All Users\Wavexpress\TVTonic\Cache\Services

Update #2: Ohfuee had asked me for the names of the artists, but unfortunately I only had the list of them in their Chinese names. I then found this video/description which lists all of them: Various Artists – Beijing Welcomes You w / Translation. They even have a download link to the mp3.

So it’s been awhile since I posted new music that I’ve started listening to. Recently, I’ve become much more interested in alternative music and have been listening to 107.7 The End a lot more. I never did really understand what the alternative genre encompasses. Is it just any song that doesn’t fit under any category? But typically punk rock and similar music gets place into this genre.

Ah… I just looked it up on Wikipedia (Alternative rock):

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. The term “alternative” was coined in the 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired bands on independent record labels that did not fit into the mainstream genres of the time. As a musical genre, alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, and indie pop. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s.

Before when people asked me what music I enjoy, my usual reply would be any music besides rap and country. But now I think the top of my list would include soundtrack, trance, and alternative in no particular order.

Anyway, here’s my new list of songs I enjoy:

• Carolina Liar – I’m Not Over (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Death Cab for Cutie – I will Possess Your Heart (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Death Cab For Cutie – No Sunlight (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Beck – Gamma Ray (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Bad Religion – Sorrow (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Pennywise – The Western World (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Smashing Pumpkins – The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Scars On Broadway – They Say (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers – Snow (Hey Oh) (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Foo Fighters – Let It Die (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Rise Against – The Good Left Undone (YouTube) (Amazon)
• The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go (YouTube) (Amazon)
• The Bravery – Believe (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Linkin Park – Hands Held High (YouTube) (Amazon)
• Flobots – Handlebars (YouTube) (Amazon)

As mentioned earlier, most of these songs I got from 107.7 The End. In fact, I had browse through their playlist and looked up the songs on YouTube to figure out the ones that I liked.

There are a few ones that I discovered through different means.

Scars On Broadway – They Say was a free song of the week on iTunes a week or 2 back.

I actually first heard Smashing Pumpkins – The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning on the new Watchmen movie trailer and like Lsiymle, I’ve played the trailer over and over again listening to that song. The main chorus/melody part is just pure awesome.

I’ve actually heard of Red Hot Chili Peppers – Snow (Hey Oh) a long time back, but while browsing iTunes and I somehow landed on Red Hot Chili Peppers page and looking at their top downloaded songs, I discovered Snow. Given that I still have $10+ of iTunes credit, I decided to get it.

The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go was actually introduced to me by RayAlome.

Finally, Linkin Park – Hands Held High was a Digg article. Linkin Park music is usually a hit or miss for me. Some are just very repetitive, while others I really dig the beat. This one was actually social commentary done in slow rap. Similar to Flobots – Handlebars, the message was heartfelt.