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Magna Carta Holy Shit.

No, I’m not calling Jay-Z’s newest album shit. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

I have never been so hyped about a new hip-hop/rap album. Kanye’s recent Yeezus got me excited, but I’m calling it right now, Magna Carta Holy Grail will be rap album of the year. J Cole’s Born Sinner is of the same caliber, with great music as well, but MCHG… Damn.

Seen all those Samsung commercials promoting it? Heard the background music? Those teasers do not do this album justice. Of course, you get a glimpse of the production process. But once you hear the album, you’ll be blown away. I know I was.

Here’s the tracklisting for you.

Holy Grail (feat. Justin Timberlake)
Picasso Baby
Tom Ford
F*ckwithmeyouknowigotit (feat. Rick Ross)
Oceans (feat. Frank Ocean)
F.U.T.W.
Somewhereinamerica
Crown
Heaven
Versus
Part II (On The Run) (Feat. Beyonce)
Beach Is Better
BBC
Jay Z Blue
La Familia
Nickels and Dimes

Here’s my advice. Don’t hesitate to download this album. This is going to go down in history as one of the best rap albums of all time. Jay never disappoints.

Earworm: “Do I Wanna Know?” by Arctic Monkeys

Alex Turner and his gang of Monkeys are at it again. The Arctic Monkeys put out an album just two years ago with Suck It and See, and now they’ve already begun to drop singles for their new album, said by Turner himself to be titled AM. You’ve no idea how excited I am for this, actually. All their albums are tremendous, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason to believe their next album won’t be as good.

With the upcoming release of their new album, the Arctic Monkeys will have five studio albums (Whatever People Say I Am, That’s what I’m Not, Favourite Worst Nightmare, Humbug, Suck It and See, AM), akin to my other two de facto favorite bands, Linkin Park (Hybrid Theory, Meteora, Minutes to Midnight, A Thousand Suns, and Living Things) and The Strokes (Is This It, Room on Fire, First Impressions of Earth, Angles, and Comedown Machine).

Actually, GQ stated the music of Arctic Monkeys can only continue to improve, as Alex Turner has been named was named as a Survivor in 2011 (http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/201111/alex-turner-gq-music-issue).

Do I Wanna Know? is the second (or technically third) single to drop, only preceded by R U Mine? and its B-Side, Electricity. Do I Wanna Know and R U Mine are heavily influenced by a hard slapped bass guitar, and it’s been a while since a song (or in this case a set of songs) has made me literally drool from excitement.

The song is accompanied by a ridiculously artsy music video, if I do say so myself.

Have a watch. Beware though, animated naked ladies. I don’t know if this is SFW or NSFW. Take heed, though.

iOS 7… Beta 2?

Already been using this iPhone for almost a month… I’ve gotten used to its innate quirks and undeniable flaws.
But that’s not what I’m here To complain about. In fact, I’m not even here to complain. (shocker, right?!?!?!) anyway. I actually want to inform anyone using an iPhone 5 for Verizon* and wants to beta test the iOS 7 beta 2, to actually go ahead and do it, so long as you don’t actually watch people’s Vine videos.
On the first beta, The features that I found most annoying were these 5.
1) Instagram wouldn’t load properly if you wanted to scroll back up.
2) After watching several Vines, the app would freeze and crash. Simply return home and kill the app to unfreeze it. Which was a bit of a bummer and inconvenience.
3) I can’t see the things people replied to on Twitter. Did Jimmy reply to this tweet or that? UGH
4) Google Translate (actual app) wasn’t working.
5) FUCKING BATTERY LIFE MAN oh and to go along with this the phone reboots (2 seconds really) which is also an inconvenience)

Alright, well, here’s how that list has updated in Beta 2.
1) INSTAGRAM WORKS!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!
2) Vine is destroyed and refuses to play videos. I cannot wait for Beta 3 to see if they fix this.
3) Twitter is still broken in this aspect.
4) Google Translate is still broken.
5) BATTERY LIFE IS IMPROVED TO NEARLY iOS 6 MAGNITUDE!!!! Still a bit horrendous honestly but it totally trumps Beta 1’s battery draining ass. Also it doesn’t reboot as much.

HOWEVER. I did find new bugs in Beta 2. Killing an app has an adverse effect on the wallpaper… Sometimes, not all, it removes the wallpaper leaving black nothingness. Also, I don’t know whether or not this is a bug, but in all iterations of iOS (including 7 beta 1) it was possible to view the big clock on the lock screen and double click to get to music controls. Now, iOS 7 Beta 2 has music controls permanently in place of the large clock. Inconvenient.
But some other improvements other than battery life are present. You can now swipe left on texting to see what time the messages were sent and received, which is a lot more sensible than 15 minute card time checks, which I do believe are still there for those too lazy to swipe.

Anyway that’s my observations on the topic. Feel free to leave comments about your findings!
*I am not entirely sure if these apply to the AT&T or int’l or any other iPhone build model, or if these apply to the iPads as well. Please leave a comment about these too!

I have joined the Dark Side.

By the Dark Side, I mean the dreaded iPhone nation. I have made the transition from Android to iOS. Now, iSheep, do not revel in this ‘defeat,’ for I’m still Android at heart. Partly why I’m actually documenting this reality is because of my heavy bias.

Let us remember https://justwroteablog.com/2012/09/15/time-to-catch-up-apple/ , an article I posted much earlier in the days of JWAB.

Read that prior to the rest of this post, that way you get the full experience of my experience.

(more…)

Return of the Random Photo of the Day

I blindly chose a picture from my computer’s photo library. Here’s what I chose.

This shot was taken by me, Cheesecake, in the Big Cheese’s own back yard with his Pentax K20d.

Earworm: “Horchata” by Vampire Weekend

What in the blazing balls is a Horchata?

Okay, so that’s a horchata. Why did Vampire Weekend use a Mexican concoction as a song?

I’m honestly too lazy to delve deeper, though. I like the song, it’s soothing, it’s fun to say “horchata.”

There’s no music video, but the live version is available. Oh, and this just makes their fanbase look like 16 year old hipster girls.

Earworm: “You Need Me, I Don’t Need You” by Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran. I love this guy. Millions of da chicas love this guy. His album, +, has received commercial success worldwide and his songs are blaring on most pop radio stations, Satellite or standard FM or otherwise.

His first single, The A Team, peaked at number one. This song is his follow up single. It peaked at number 4, and I like it so much better, just because the songs have such contrasting sounds.

You Need Me is nothing like the A Team, actually. It’s no ‘pity on the beautiful hooker’ song, it’s a, ‘screw you, I’m me’ song. Fantastic, really.

Here’s the music video. Get at it.