Chan's Personal Blog

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found the first perfect music CD for 2006. It's P.O.D.'s latest CD entitled Testify. I call a music CD perfect if I like every single song on it. Usually it's pretty rare to get that designation because a lot of artists put filler tracks in their CDs, and filler tracks really takes away from the experience.

For those who are unfamiliar with the band, P.O.D. stands for Payable on Death. Their genre is a bit fuzzy, but I'd say it's a mix of hip-hop and rock with certain reggae elements. If you subtract the reggae, then I'll say they're kind of like Linkin Park. Compared to P.O.D.'s earlier CDs, Testify definitely has more hip-hop than usual.

The CD features a lot of tracks where they collaborated with other artists. The most interesting match up is with Matisyahu who's an Orthodox Jew that performs raggae, and he primarily sings about G-d. This raises many eyebrows, but it actually works somehow. The radio stations say you either hate or love Matisyahu. I personally find his message quite uplifting, positive, and meaningful.

In either case, Testify has a good mix of tracks. Some of them are exclusively hip-hop, some are reggae, some are pure rock. Despite all these styles, they're able to bind this collection together and make it all work together. My favourite track from this song is entitled, "This Time." There's very good flow in the CD as it has a good mix of slow and fast songs. A lot of CDs suffer from having a very upbeat start, and end very slow.

The most intriguing thing about P.O.D. is that they're a Christian band, and they're able to compete in the secular music world. I think their last CD went four times platinum? Anything that can dispel the myth that Christian music is subpar when compared to their secular counterparts is a good thing in my books. I think music is also a very effective tool to spread the gospel to today's generation.

Two thumbs up!

Well, today ends an extremely hectic week. I've been really busy so my blog posts have been really slow, and my e-mail is fairly backed up. This week I had a code release and other issues at work, a crazy assignment due, and two midterms. In the last two days, I've only got about 10 hours of sleep in. Last night I slept at 1am, and got up at 5am. In short, it has been fairly rough.

Thankfully this next week is reading break, and I'm taking the whole week off from work, so you have no idea how relieved I am. This weekend, I endeavour to do nothing productive. It has been a really long time since I've had a completely free weekend. Productivity killer number one will be sleeping in, and catching up on a lot of lost sleep.

Next week will involve catching up on assignments, and running errands. It's usually really hard to get errands done during the work week because I usually get home at around 5pm or 6pm, and everything is usually closed by then. In either case, next week I'm going to get my financial house in order, and get those RRSP contributions in before March 1st. Mental note, I owe you Newbies Guide To RRSPs Part 2.

A brief aside, today was freaking cold. Apparently today was the coldest day of the year so far, and I believe it. With wind chill, it was -14 C this morning. Brrrrrr, now THAT'S a Canadian winter.

Anyway, you can expect more blog articles this coming week.

Time for some much needed sleep.