10. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night

This is basically the album My Bloody Valentine would have created after Loveless. Soaring music, beautiful lyrics and a sense that the band wants to tell the sad, sad tales that they have encountered throughout their lives. If you were a fan of MBV, you have got to get this as it would be a wonderful extension to that era.

09. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

Another minimalistic album which I downloaded based on the recommendation from Will’s Band Of The Week and fell in love with by the time I was half way through. This has been my “running” album of choice and whenever I have recommended it to fellow runners they have been full of high praises for it. The thing I really like about the album is the vocals and the guitar work and the most surprising thing about the album was the drums. I was fully expecting a drum machine but I swear that they have a live drummer. This simple change lit up the album! Loved it!

08. Menomena – Mines

I have a full post of this album so I will direct you there

07. Quest For Fire – Lights From Paradise

This band, in my books, is the best band from Toronto this year.The sonic landscapes and the lazy vocals are perfectly in tune with each other and take the listener off to a higher experience. In this album they seem to have specialised in building the tension in the songs and never ever releasing it. Especially the opening track ‘’The Greatest Hits By God’’ which basically lays the foundation for the album. Looking forward to their live performance.

06. Wintersleep – New Inheritors

The track Black Camera is the one song that really draws you to this album. I mean a group coming out with a song as rousing and catchy as Black Camera has got to offer more, and they did not disappoint. The album is frankly a very straightforward rock album but maybe that’s why I really like it so much. Songs have the right amount of grunge and right amount of pop to pass off as awesome! Loved the album.

05. Frightened Rabbit – The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

Their follow up to an outstanding album was amazing! In fact, I would venture to say that it was better than the first one (Midnight Organ Fight) even though it sounds “over-produced”. The first one was raw and full of emotions of falling out of love. This one did not have a central theme and if it did, I completely missed it. However, the songs are just amazing. I think the buzz that they have going on each song (and the dark, dark lyrics)
really made it one of my favourite albums of 2010.

04. Diamond Rings – Special Affections

First came across his music (yes, it’s just one man band) on CBC radio 3 podcast. I just loved the guitar work and the “minimalistic” sound of the song and went and bought the album. I was expecting the album to be an ok album because I have had a few miss hits lately and was pleasantly surprised. What really sets the mood is John O’ Reagan’s vocals. He has this nonchalant  way of singing which I really love and his impossible-to-ignore hooks in each and every song in the album. Can’t wait to see him live!

03. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

Finally! After 5 long years and they have come up with an excellent album. Seems like Kevin and Brandon finally were able to sort their differences out and get the band together (along with their old cahoots who are now as, if not more, famous than BSS – Feist, Emily Haines and Amy Millan) for a an excellent ramshackle album which delights, pauses one to think and then gives wings to the heart with scintillating music.

I saw this band live last week. And since the show was in Toronto, everyone was present including Feist, Emily and Amy. At one point I counted 16 people playing on stage! There was chaos but an organised chaos which delighted the 2500 or so people present at the Sound Academy. More on the show at a later post.

02. Black Mountain – Wilderness Heart

They are back! I love this Vancouver band and have been following all their different versions (Pink Mountaintops and Lightning Dust) for the last few years and they have progressively gotten better. Their latest album takes us back to their rock and roll roots with a bombastic sound that just gets my heart pumping! Awesome album.

01. Grinderman – Grinderman 2

What an awesome sound! What amazing performers! And what heart wrenching and disgusting lyrics. Everything these guys have done in the last few years has top notch and inspiring. I mean anyone who comes up with “What has that husband of yours ever given to you?/ Oprah Winfrey on a plasma screen” deserves the lyricist of the year award! However, it’s their music that really attracts me. Pounding, ear splitting noise that ensures adrenaline keeps rushing through your veins all the time. Outstanding album and my number 1 album of the year.

Honourable Mentions
1. Jeremy Fisher – Flood (Upcoming folk artist in Canada. Wonderful soothing tunes.)

2. KaiserCartel – Secret Transit (Folk with a tinge of Indie sounds. The vocalist has the best pipes I have ever encountered.)

3. The Pack A.D. – We Kill Computers (I have to add the obligatory ‘like The Black Keys’ this duo is vocalist guitarist and vocalist drummer but that’s where the comparison ends. The way this band pounds and sings, it would put Black Keys to shame.)

4. Small Sins – Pot Calls Kettle Black

5. Los Campesinos! – Romance Is Boring

6. The Soft Pack – The Soft Pack

7. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (Still trying to “get“ the album)

8. The Black Keys – Brothers

Tim Hortons has its franchisees locked down, too. There are the little things, like surprise “Always Fresh” audits that grade franchisees on how long customers wait at the drive-thru, the amount of time a pot of coffee is allowed to sit around, and whether there are weeds in the parking lot or graffiti in the bathroom. And there are the big things, like an ironclad franchisee agreement that maximizes profits flowing to head office in Oakville, Ontario. Store owners pay royalties of between 3.5% and 4.5% of gross sales, plus another 8.5% to cover rent. That’s on top of an average $450,000 franchise fee to get started. The company brings in yet another steady stream of income as the exclusive supplier to its franchisees: coffee, cold cuts, soup, bagels, doughnuts, pastries and buns. All of which come at a markup that some franchisees claim borders on gouging—but more on that later.

Not exactly the model I would support except my brain does not listen to me :(. And I don’t understand why the author has titled the piece “How Tim Horton’s Will Take Over The World”. I mean, is the world US and Canada only? There is mention of franchisees in China and India but has anyone seen Tim Horton’s in these or other countries?

• Very interesting read here : “Confessions of your worst WTF moments“. My own personal WTF moment :

10 years ago I was in charge of making sure that new rates were applied to an accounting table before a batch process was to run the same night. I applied the rates…..to the wrong table!! The problem was not noticed until 10 days later and the entire production was scrapped and had to be entered again for the last two weeks!! Needless to say I was not very popular amongst the customer service department and was able to get away with it because I was only a month old in the company!

• Book I am currently reading : The Way The Crow Flies. Really amazing story about an innocence lost. At a few points the imagery was so powerful that I actually considered stopping. I am glad I did not!

• What is with the weather in Toronto these days? I mean it’s 31 C (39 C with humidity) in the end of Sep!!!! Not that I am complaining. I remember last year. Good god that was an awful summer. Anyway, just walked past a shooting taking place on Queen St. and Spadina where there was ice lying all around and the extras were in heavy winter clothing!! I felt so sorry for them. And I did not see any stars :(

I am a peaceful guy who follows the law of the land to the letter and avoid trouble whenever I see it coming. Which is why I have always maintained that the Israel-Palestine discord can be mended with sane minds and people who pursue peace no matter the price.

But if something like this were to happen to my daughter, I would pick up a gun against the “lawful occupiers of Palestine” in a second!

An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday. The soldier, who has only been identified as “Captain R”, was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.

The manner of Iman’s killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was “scared to death”, made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.

The army’s official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected. A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.

In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post’s operations room and describes Iman as “a little girl” who was “scared to death”. After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive.

At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot. Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to “lure” the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then “confirmed the kill”. “I and another soldier … are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill … Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her … I also confirmed the kill. Over,” he said.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body. On the tape, Capt R then “clarifies” to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: “This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed.”

Even a three year old would have been killed! I ask you, how exactly are these brave soldiers any different from Hamas? News like this just makes my blood boil.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) — The senior at the University of Utah gets dressed and then decides which gun is easiest to conceal under his clothes.

If he’s wearing a T-shirt, he’ll take a smaller, low-profile gun to class. If he’s wearing a coat, he may carry a different weapon, he said.

He started carrying a gun to class after the massacre at Virginia Tech, but the student says he’s not part of the problem of campus shootings and could instead be part of a solution.

Nick, who asked not to be fully identified so his fellow students wouldn’t know he carried a gun, he says he has had a concealed weapons permit for more than three years. But it was Seung-Hui Cho’s murderous campus rampage that made him take a gun to class.

“Last year, after Virginia Tech, I thought ‘I’m not going to be a victim,’ ” Nick said.

“My first thought was ‘how tragic.’ But then I couldn’t help but think it could’ve been different if they’d allowed the students the right to protect themselves.”

….and also if any punk talks to his girlfriend, he can settle this the old fashioned way, by calling him out to a duel and shooting the living sh*t out of him. What a moronic law. Young hot headed adults allowed to carry guns. What’s next, anti aircraft gun system in your home to ward off birds sh*tting on the roof of your house?