Justin Bieber is dead.

The Eggplante has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, as you may have noticed. The reason? A much needed vacation. There is no reason for the silence other than the lack of content to post up. I’m away in Europe for the first time in four years, visiting family, travelling with friends, and making some memories. With that said, I just haven’t been able to attend any concerts or events that I could post on Eggplante. Of course, resident game reviewer John Kalanderopoulos is on top of the game reviews floating around on here, and I’ve got some long-awaited pictures from the Much Music Video Awards coming up soon.

I do have some pretty great news, however. First off, Justin Bieber is dead. Okay, we all wish, but in any case, I return to North America in less than one month, and in the first two weeks I am back there, I’ve got about five concerts to attend and am going to be bringing back the best photos and concert review you’ve seen on here in a while (if only because there haven’t been any recently).

See you soon, and enjoy the teaser from the MMVA photos!

Jersey Shore in Toronto

These kinds of events are not the typical Eggplante fodder. But with fodder in mind, I bring to you the crap that is Pauly D and Mike “The Situation” from MTV’s Jersey Shore. While I don’t know them personally, these guys seem like total douchebags. Completely self obsessed and famous for doing nothing more than putting shellac in their hair, the girls swoon for who knows what. I mean, the guy has a Cadillac tattoo down the side of his torso. Yeah, a Cadillac. Tattoo!

Either way, the guys were in town to “DJ” a party at Wetbar and Suite 106 in Toronto over the weekend. The party was cramped, the music was pretty crappy, and the reason DJ was written in quotes there is because neither Mike nor Pauly D did any actual DJ-ing at Wetbar. The place was rammed over capacity at more than 1000 people between the two clubs, and it was absolutely chaotic. No one could move, fights broke out, people were falling on each other, and cover was $20! For a guy with a blow out! He should be paying me to see him!

Not my kind of thing, and not really the Eggplante-style event, but I wanted to test it out and see what you think of these kinds of events. Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. Or follow us and send a message on Twitter!

Next up: Snooki is coming in two weeks. Have fun; I won’t be there.

Year Two: Welcome to 2010

This is year two of Eggplante. The first full year we will have. The first of the decade. And the best so far.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported Eggplante in 2009, and I promise to bring you even more content in 2010! Since I usually turn the camera on everyone else, I’d like to show you a bit of my home: Toronto. Here is our glorious city, some familiarity, some streets, and some friends. This is Toronto. Toronto is Eggplante. Enjoy.

And why not something a bit familiar….

For those of you who scrolled all the way down here, you get a treat. I’m announcing today that Eggplante will be undergoing a pretty major redesign within the next several months. Some things that are going away: awkward photo management and naming schemes (yuck!). Something that is sticking around: the simple design (that’s not to say it won’t change). Something that’s getting better: photo sizes, Twitter integration, and…. oh, that’s all the time we have today folks. See you again soon!

The Year in Photos

We are officially on day 365. Tomorrow, we begin at 001 again. What better way to celebrate than by taking a look back at the year in photos. Click the photos to see the original articles! And because you deserve a treat, I will divulge that there will be a big Eggplante redesign in the new year. Larger photos, new features, more frequent coverage…. tons of new stuff for you to look forward to! See you in 2010!

Eggplante’s first ever picture. This is Justin Furstenfeld from the band Blue October. Unedited. Very purple. Very emotional. Not quite setting the stage for things to come, but a photo I love, nonetheless.

This is Eggplante’s pretty exhaustive E3 coverage from Los Angeles in June. This Summer was filled with some pretty big events: E3, the MMVAs, Wakestock, Warped Tour, and the list goes on.

Speaking of the MMVAs, here is one of the most infamous events of 2009. Actually, I think we can all agree that Lady GaGa is an infamous event in and of herself.

Warped Tour was a huge success and Eggplante had plenty of coverage; show coverage, lots of photos, and an interview with my girl LIGHTS!

Same deal with Wakestock 2009, but with more interviews, and an even larger gallery of photos!

I also did the occasional movie review…

… and the only slightly more frequent Video Game Review.

There was plenty of Much On Demand coverage, including LIGHTS, Stereos, Leona Lewis, Justin Bieber, OneRepublic, and more!

We had some cool event coverage like the War Child’s Busking for Change series which featured artists all around the streets of Toronto!

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And last, but certainly not least, Eggplante has some incredible fortune to have such amazing concert coverage with some pretty stunning photos, if I may say so myself. I actually had a lot of fun making this one, too:

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You know that you can follow Eggplante on Twitter (@eggplante) for all the latest coverage, and of course Fan the Eggplante page on Facebook. On there is “The Greatest of Eggplante”, a Facebook exclusive set of our favourite photos! Be sure to check it out!

A Push for the Aubergine

Eggplante is nearing its first birthday in a few short months, and we’ve got some pretty intense stuff planned out for all you loyal readers. We’re looking to get a short video portion going, in addition to something called “vignettes”. But you’ll hear more about that later. For now, we need the biggest push for Eggplante that you can muster. Twitter, Facebook, tell your friends, update your status, and email people at random. Okay, that last one is called spam, and no one likes it, so don’t be spamming, but your friends list is fair game. All the vital details are below. Now go for it! Make Eggplante as popular as we all know it can be!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Eggplante/169130648341?ref=ts

Twitter: www.twitter.com/eggplante

We’re working hard to bring you great content, but there has been a slight lull lately do to a whole bunch of factors. I’m personally working very hard to get some unique pictures of Toronto up, as there are some great sights to be seen and they should be showcased on a decidedly photo-obsessed website, no? As for recent news coverage, there are some events we would’ve like to have been at, but again something held us back. With that said, here is at least some of the recent news from the heart of Toronto.

iPhone Tech Talk Toronto: Apple holds something called developer “Tech Talks” at a few cities around the world every year. They are confidential events (and clearly marked as such) meant to bring developers together to discuss trade secrets, learn proper Apple-sanctioned techniques, and schmooze among the crowd. The event was fully catered and offered an impressive collection of breakfast and lunch items, as well as a wine and cheese reception. Of course, the focus was to enlighten developers and Apple delivered; their technology “evangelists” took the stages in various conference rooms and highlighted very dry material in very exciting ways.

Much Music VJ 2.0 Selected: I can’t say I’m all too happy with this one. I am not a huge fan of the new VJ choice Liz Trinnear, although to be perfectly honest, I didn’t like Jesse Giddings all that much, but my opinion changed when I actually met him in person (really stand-up guy; I got some genuine niceness out of him). With that said, I think Ally Walker should have won, if only for her smile, but who knows how I will feel after I see and meet the new VJ in the flesh.

Kanye West is not a Man. But Lady GaGa is.

I am going to preface this with something very important for you completists: I fell asleep halfway through the show, so here is my rundown of half the performances and main events of the MTV Video Music Awards 2009! Oh, this also assumes that you saw or heard about it in a vague sense, at least.

First off, What The Fuck was Lady Gaga wearing. I’ll be the first to admit that I thought GaGa’s style was unique and pretty freakin’ awesome. I mean, no one was actually supposed to leave the French catwalks with those outfits, but she had the balls to do it. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said Lady GaGa has balls. Oh, nevermind.

GaGa’s performance was absolutely ridiculous to the point that made me finally realize she is either extremely talented (likely) or slightly insane (more likely). Her music is incredibly catchy, but she’s just plain weird. The performance itself made no sense, the blood came from nowhere, and she is simply overdone at this point. Goodnight GaGa.

I thought the stage band playing covers was a quite unique rendition on the elevator music they usually pump out between commercials at these shows. It added a nice original touch to the event, which could certainly use it considering it’s always held at the same venue and Kanye always manages to blow up at these things.

Oh, right. Kanye. I’m not going to speak much about the fiasco, but I will say that he is just looking for attention. Now that he did what he wanted to for publicity, deny him the joy and stop talking about it! I won’t help an idiot attention whore who thinks he’s doing a righteous thing. I just hope Beyonce doesn’t get caught up in the whole thing, because she was clearly genuinely taken aback by the entire ordeal and had nothing to do with it. It’s disgusting to think that he couldn’t give a newcomer her time to shine. Kanye West is not a man. Lucky for him, GaGa can take up the slack. (Wow, two hermaphrodite jokes in one article? Roll, people!)

Taylor Lautner walked out with Shakira and while she looked STUNNING, he looked kind of, well, duuhhhhhhhh….. Not really a people person, I don’t think; shy, introverted, and very awkward on stage.

Okay, back to Beyonce for a wrap-up. Breasts. She’s got a great set. One of her songs has the lyrics “To infinity and beyond” in it. Rather than make a Toy Story reference, I will just simply say that her breasts are out of this world. Jaw drop.

From what I saw, I guess it’s fair to say that I wasn’t really impressed. Perhaps I am simply more apt to be negative about these kinds of events, for whatever reason I choose. But you really need to do something original to get attention nowadays, and for me, it just isn’t working. Oh and I don’t mean Kanye-original. Although one could argue that breasts aren’t all that original but hell, they still work.

James Cameron’s Halo

It looks like the long awaited Halo movie is finally coming out. And it’s called Avatar.

Now, I admit that I haven’t looked up all the mythology behind Avatar and I don’t know the storyline or any specific facets of the narrative. However, they are both science fiction, army-infantry driven narratives about a lone soldier and technology to make him a stronger, more capable fighter. With those congruencies, would it really have been so difficult as to create unique characters?

The similarities between main characters and two sets of vehicles is far too great to ignore. In the Halo universe, a character called Cortana affects gameplay probably even more than the main character, Master Chief. And yet, here she is, being transposed into the Na’vi (a name, by the way, that is somewhat similar to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time‘s little assistant, but I won’t get too carried away here). Just look at the resemblance; perhaps a different pose would’ve helped your case, Mr. Cameron.

Next up are two sets of vehicles: the famous Halo Warthog and the lesser known Hornet, both with counterparts being used as army vehicles in Avatar as well. No explanation needed here; just look at the similarities and judge for yourself.

Perhaps all this is the result of a personal character flaw; Cameron has a habit of holding keeping the innovation to a minimum and just overusing tested material or historical fact without having to create anything original. I’m looking at you, Terminator. And Alien. And Rambo. And Titanic. Check out his IMDb page: 12 out of 20 items are interrelated!

I am most certainly a Halo fan, if you couldn’t already gather. But I am not a fanboy (alright, I probably am). But either way, I see far too many similarities here for this to be anything unique. If I were Bungie, I’d be flattered, but this is just some blatant ripoffs from a hugely successful game and I’m surprised so few have noticed it yet.

Note: If you read this from the Eggplante.com homepage, you can click the headline to see the full size pictures!

Had Enough Advertising?

As if there is another choice in cinemas.

Funny People

The latest Judd Apatow flick hasn’t even hit the silver screen, but that isn’t stopping the comedic juggernaut from doing some pretty intense (and ingenious) marketing for the movie.

Last night, doing some channel surfing in a futile attempt to fall asleep, I came across Adam Sandler on David Letterman. I watched until the show threw to a commercial, and continued flipping channels. A few over and I landed on Jimmy Kimmel hosting Seth Rogen on Kimmel Live. Not being a huge fan of Rogen, I continued on and found none other than Judd Apatow on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!

This is a full on attack from all sides. No matter your late show preference, unless you’re a Conan diehard, you tuned in to someone from Funny People last night. On one hand, I would be pretty annoyed that I couldn’t get away from the group, but let’s be honest, they’re funny, down to earth guys, and each have their own unique wit about them. A different host for each also mixed it up a bit, as Jon Stewart has a much drier sense of humour than either Kimmel or Letterman. I ended up catching a bit of each, and thought all three were pretty decent interviews.

I actually learned that Funny People is a movie about death from comedians’ points of view. I was not even mildly interested in seeing the movie before the interviews, but apparently they did what they were supposed to do, because it is now on my list of to-watch movies.

Funny People hits theatres tonight.

Equipment and Appointment

Ignore my attempt at a fancy synonymic title. This past week, I’ve been getting a lot of work done. In addition to getting some work done with a client I’ve been working with, I recently picked up a few photo gigs. Next week, I’ll be shooting Edgefest as well as the Much Music Video Awards (MMVAs), and I have an interview with Bedouin Soundclash currently in limbo (fingers crossed!).  Jump the break for some news that explains the header graphic.