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Off-Topic: Royals By Lorde and the Rare Phenomenon of Genre-Neutral Hit Music

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I’ll never forget the moment when I first heard Royals by Lorde. Steff and I were in the car. As I tend to do, I flip between radio stations playing all different types of music. Stopping on our local alternative rock station, I was caught off-guard by the sounds of Lorde’s harmony over 808 drums. “Why is this station playing this song?” I asked. “No idea,” Steff replied.

Since then, it’s not just our alternative station playing it. Come to our neck of the woods and you can find Royals on our urban station, pop stations, rock stations and even our adult contemporary station. She’s managed to create what I call a ‘genre-neutral hit’.

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Off-Topic: Being Past My Prime

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Screen shot 2013-04-06 at 4.01.23 PM
“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” – Toby Keith

That guy on the left in the grainy screen grab is me, circa 2003. Back then, being the best baller I could be meant the world to me. I put in countless hours to make the best of my abilities, which I put to great use as a member of house leagues, school teams and on streetball courts around my city. Heck, I even took part in the And1 Mixtape Tour’s open run when they came to Toronto, where I got to play in front of thousands at the Air Canada Centre.

When I step on the court now, my mind still thinks that I’m 18 years old. However, I’m struggling to come to grips with the fact that my body clearly isn’t where it used to be.

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Off-Topic: #stormTO

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On July 8th, 2013, the city of Toronto got hit with its worst rainstorm in recorded history. Streets were flooded, cars were submerged, and hundreds of thousands of people were left without power for a long stretch of time. Some people (like yours truly) got left without power for a few days.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m fine, though not without a story to tell.

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Future Ambitions For My Man Cave

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man cave 1

This is our den. It may not look like much, especially in its pictured state with all of the clutter, but its a step forward for Steff and I comfortably living together. In the past, we did not have the room for my gaming setup to get its own space, which forced me to set up shop in the main living room. While I liked being within close proximity to Steff while she watched TV, it was far from ideal for both of us, especially when we wanted to zone out and do our own things. With this den, the plan is to use it as a place for all of my gaming stuff, while also accommodating some storage to hold assorted house stuff.

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Taylor Swift and Transcending Rocksmith

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Not sure if I’ve mentioned this on the blog, but I do bring it up on The Recurring Bosscast a lot. I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan. I own all of her albums, loudly sing her songs when she comes on the radio and am not ashamed to admit my fandom for her music. A few days after starting Rocksmith, I set myself a personal goal that I would one day learn how to play one of her songs. However, two things got in the way of that goal:

1) Most of her songs require a capo, which I don’t own. This is a relatively easy fix.

2) I just started learning how to play guitar and everything about it was hard.

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Off-Topic – Adventures in Apartment Hunting 2013 Edition Part 7: The Decision

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After a good night’s sleep, Steff and I were still feeling hot on the place we saw the night before. That morning, we reached out to our real estate agent to lock things down for us. However, I got a call from Steff shortly after with some bad news.

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Off-Topic – Adventures in Apartment Hunting 2013 Edition Part 6: The Also Ran

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The suite on the 2st floor would be a hard act to follow. Steff and I were gushing about it on the elevator ride down to the 16th floor, where our final stop of the night was. Before going into it, this one was sort of doomed, due to it being on a lower floor and more expensive. However, the building has already made a great first impression and who knows what we’ll find behind this next door.

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Off-Topic – Adventures in Apartment Hunting 2013 Edition Part 5: Sky is the Limit

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As creeped out as I was from being at the Sketchy Time Donuts condo, I drove away from that thinking it was a positive experience. It was the first time I really got to spend time in a loft-style condo, and it opened my eyes to that style of home. No time to dwell on that though, as we had two more places to see tonight in the same building: one on the 21st floor and one on the 16th.

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Off-Topic – Adventures in Apartment Hunting 2013 Edition Part 3: The Lake House

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Based on our learning from our last adventure, we opened up our search to include triplex-style buildings. It didn’t take long for us to find one by Lake Ontario that had a lot of potential. Did we finally find ‘the one’?

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Off-Topic – Adventures in Apartment Hunting 2013 Edition Part 2: The Triplex

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Our first foray into apartment hunting in 2013 was not a bad first outing. We did get to see a quality place and learned that this particular area was not our cup of tea. We went back to the hunt and found an interesting place in a format neither of us had any real experience with: the triplex.

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