One of the greatest rock and metal singers and frontmen of all time passed away yesterday. Another metal god has passed, but his voice will live on forever.
Showing posts with label heavy metal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heavy metal. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Dimebag, Destroyermen, and Declarations
It’s a day late, but four years ago yesterday guitar god Dimebag Darrell Abbot was senselessly gunned down on stage doing what he loved most, playing guitar. I think about it every once and again, when Pantera or Damagepan (or Black Label Society’s In this River) comes up on my iPod or radio and it still pisses me off and saddens me. All Dime wanted to do was jam out, drink, and hang with his pals. So, light a candle, raise your drink and toast to the memory of one of the greatest Metal and Rock guitarists ever. I was lucky enough to see both Pantera and Damageplan live.
In this River by Black Label Society
Walk is probably Pantera’s most famous song, and rightly so. The main riff is so recognizable and just charges you up with adrenaline, it works when you’re in a good mood or when you’re pissed off.
However, Cemetary Gates might be my favorite song from Pantera, it’s got both a great slow side and a hard edge and the way Anselmo’s voice and Dime’s guitar “duel” at the end is just great.
In less somber news, I posted up my latest review last night, the second novel in Taylor Anderson's highly entertaining Destroyermen sequence, Crusade. While the two books haven’t been perfect, they’ve fit the bill as solid entertainment. With that in mind, here’s a brief glimpse of my review:
Once again, Anderson’s background as a military historian informs much of the narrative. Whereas the first novel, this was a bit of a speed bump in the story, Anderson managed to smooth that out and the narrative here in Crusade moved along at a better pace because of it. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well Anderson managed to maintain both the tension and plausibility of the evolving relationship between the Lemurians and Humans. What I hinted at earlier, the men’s anxieties, came to a well-handled head towards the middle of the book. Anderson, in his dedication, mentions Honor as an important thing to him and obviously, to the characters he’s created. This honor helped to keep the Lemurian-human relationship intact in the face of dishonorable human actions.
Over the weekend I finished Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, one of the most powerful and haunting novels I’ve ever read. The thing that amazed me, perhaps the most, about the novel is that the translation manages to hold such beautifully rendered language together. I don’t speak or read Spanish so I can’t compare the translation to the original, but there is a very magical quality to not just the story itself, but in how it was told. I’m going to let this one percolate a bit before I attempt to write a review.Last but not least, 10 years ago today I asked my wife for her hand in marriage.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Where's Mario?
Fun with camera phone, part I:
As I was preparing to cut the lawn and clean up the leaves, I came across a gigantic mushroom. The shoe in the picture is mine just to give an idea of the size of this thing.
Keep in mind I'm not a small gentleman - I wear a size 12 sneaker.
Makes me wonder what Jeff VanderMeer would think of this fungus. Though this thing certainly isn't a Gray Cap, it still scares me
As I was preparing to cut the lawn and clean up the leaves, I came across a gigantic mushroom. The shoe in the picture is mine just to give an idea of the size of this thing.
Keep in mind I'm not a small gentleman - I wear a size 12 sneaker.Makes me wonder what Jeff VanderMeer would think of this fungus. Though this thing certainly isn't a Gray Cap, it still scares me
Thursday, July 03, 2008
SFFWorld Status & The 100 book meme
I know some of the folks who visit here are members of the SFFWorld.com forums - we are experiencing some problems with the site. The backend software was recently updated, so hopefully the ship will right itself soon. I can't access the site from all the places I usually do.
I know iPods have been around for a few years now, but I finally got one last week. Or rather, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff, awesome wife that she is, gave me one for our Anniversary. I've got the 8 gigger and it is already nearly filled, although I won't be putting any of my old Aerosmith or Guns n' Roses on it since I could hear either of them at any given point if I tune into either XM or FM stations. I swear, those two bands are played more now then they were 15 years ago. I've heard enough of both bands in my life, don't need to hear them again. Granted Appetite for Destruction is a seminal album. Rant aside, one of the cool things is listening to stuff I haven't listened to in a while, as I load music into it. So, that's me, cutting edge.
Since a lot of people are doing it, here's my stab at the 100 book meme.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own so we can try and track down these people who've read six and force books upon them.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
(I read this in a really cool course at Rutgers - The Bible as Literature).
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
I hated this novel; I had to read it in an early English course at Rutgers. I still can’t decide if this or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the book I loathed the most from my English courses
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles– Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
(I took two Shakespeare courses at Rutgers– comedies and histories/tragedies so I read a bunch of them)
15 Rebecca– Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (If I haven’t read it by now, I probably won’t)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
(Well duh, see #33)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon (Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff read this and keeps asking when I’ll read it)
60 Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville (I was surprised how enthralled I was by this book that has a reputation for being boring)
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (I read this waaay back in I think 4th grade, but recall nothing of it)
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web – E.B. White (saw the movie)
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Only 24 of the above books read – wow do I feel like a plebe.
I know iPods have been around for a few years now, but I finally got one last week. Or rather, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff, awesome wife that she is, gave me one for our Anniversary. I've got the 8 gigger and it is already nearly filled, although I won't be putting any of my old Aerosmith or Guns n' Roses on it since I could hear either of them at any given point if I tune into either XM or FM stations. I swear, those two bands are played more now then they were 15 years ago. I've heard enough of both bands in my life, don't need to hear them again. Granted Appetite for Destruction is a seminal album. Rant aside, one of the cool things is listening to stuff I haven't listened to in a while, as I load music into it. So, that's me, cutting edge.
Since a lot of people are doing it, here's my stab at the 100 book meme.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own so we can try and track down these people who've read six and force books upon them.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
(I read this in a really cool course at Rutgers - The Bible as Literature).
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
I hated this novel; I had to read it in an early English course at Rutgers. I still can’t decide if this or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the book I loathed the most from my English courses
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles– Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
(I took two Shakespeare courses at Rutgers– comedies and histories/tragedies so I read a bunch of them)
15 Rebecca– Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (If I haven’t read it by now, I probably won’t)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
(Well duh, see #33)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon (Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff read this and keeps asking when I’ll read it)
60 Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville (I was surprised how enthralled I was by this book that has a reputation for being boring)
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (I read this waaay back in I think 4th grade, but recall nothing of it)
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web – E.B. White (saw the movie)
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Only 24 of the above books read – wow do I feel like a plebe.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Lucky Day
Yes it is snowing here in New Jersey. But today is something of a lucky day. On my way home from work, driving on the barely plowed roads (thanks NJDOT, although the roads were much worse during the February storm), I was listening to the only terrestrial radio station that plays the music I really like, 89.5 WSOU. I've been listening to the station for almost 20 years know, since my middle school and high school years when I really began to enjoy Heavy Metal. As is typical with the station, they announced they would be giving concert tickets to a caller within the hour. I kept the radio tuned to the station, hoping the giveaway would occur before the signal crapped out, which often happens as I get closer to home. When they played the latest song by Shadows Fall, I realized the contest would be next. After a couple of unsuccessful attemps (they often give tickets to caller #89) I won! So, in April I'll be seeing Shadows Fall and Lacuna Coil at the Roseland in NYC, probably my favorite small-scale concert hall in the area. However, it has been about 10 years since I saw a concert there.
I also had tickets ordered for Godsmack today, they'll be at the Hammerstein in May.
When I checked my e-mail, I was told I'd be receiving a copy of Scott Lynch's forthcoming Red Seas Under Red Skies - W00T!
And to top off the day, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff baked a batch of home-made Chocolate Chip cookies.
After an insane week at work, Friday turned out to be a nice little surprise of a day.
I also had tickets ordered for Godsmack today, they'll be at the Hammerstein in May.
When I checked my e-mail, I was told I'd be receiving a copy of Scott Lynch's forthcoming Red Seas Under Red Skies - W00T!
And to top off the day, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff baked a batch of home-made Chocolate Chip cookies.
After an insane week at work, Friday turned out to be a nice little surprise of a day.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Metal May Monster
The month of May was Metal Month on VH1. They played more Metal videos, they premiered the Pantera Behind the Music and recently completed the four-part Heavy: The History of Metal documentary series. They are also running Supergroup, a reality TV show with some great and legendary hard rock/metal musicians trying to form a band and write music over 12 days: Scott Ian of Anthrax, Sebastian Bach, Evan Seinfeld of Biohazard, Jason Bonham and the Motor City Madman - Ted Nugent. I’ve been a big fan of Anthrax since they started writing songs about Stephen King books and Judge Dredd many years ago. My first concert was Aerosmith, with opening band Skid Row, so yes, I’ll be tuning in every week to watch this show.
Now to the History of Metal - of the four episodes on this thing, the first two are probably the best. These two episodes (rightly so) spend a great deal of time on Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Maiden. Sabbath and Maiden are probably two of my favorite bands, metal or not. The third episode was mostly about the glam rock scene in LA and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal while the fourth episode spent collectively, about 15 minutes on the big four as they are sometimes known: Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Metallica. On the other hand, about 15 minutes was dedicated to Marilyn Manson, who is controversial, but not explicitly Metal and will not be as remembered as, at the very least, Metallica. Barely any mention of Pantera, the band many (including myself) feel helped to keep metal alive during the grunge years/early 90s, barely any mention of some of the current crop of metal bands. I find a little odd that the big four get only a glancing mention, especially when Geezer Butler of Sabbath states: "Thank God for Metallica" and they spend half of an episode on hair bands like Poison and a quarter of an episode on Marilyn Manson.
What do they close out the four parter with? A reunion show of Twisted Sister. Yes they were an important band, and were big 20 years ago. However, they aren't exactly where Metal is now, and where it is going with bands like Trivium, Shadows Fall, Hatebreed, In Flames, Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, or even progressive metal like Dream Theater and Stratovarious.
Enough ranting about Metal. Today, I posted my latest review, Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling by D.M. Corninsh.
This blog has been on stutter steps lately, the new job is really taking up my time. That and finishing up the novel I started writing in November. I told myself when I knew I wouldn’t finish it for NaNoWriMo 2005, I wanted to have it finished by this summer. It really looks like that will happen. Once I feel satisfied with the ending, I save it, print it, and keep away from it for a few months.
Now to the History of Metal - of the four episodes on this thing, the first two are probably the best. These two episodes (rightly so) spend a great deal of time on Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Maiden. Sabbath and Maiden are probably two of my favorite bands, metal or not. The third episode was mostly about the glam rock scene in LA and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal while the fourth episode spent collectively, about 15 minutes on the big four as they are sometimes known: Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Metallica. On the other hand, about 15 minutes was dedicated to Marilyn Manson, who is controversial, but not explicitly Metal and will not be as remembered as, at the very least, Metallica. Barely any mention of Pantera, the band many (including myself) feel helped to keep metal alive during the grunge years/early 90s, barely any mention of some of the current crop of metal bands. I find a little odd that the big four get only a glancing mention, especially when Geezer Butler of Sabbath states: "Thank God for Metallica" and they spend half of an episode on hair bands like Poison and a quarter of an episode on Marilyn Manson.
What do they close out the four parter with? A reunion show of Twisted Sister. Yes they were an important band, and were big 20 years ago. However, they aren't exactly where Metal is now, and where it is going with bands like Trivium, Shadows Fall, Hatebreed, In Flames, Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, or even progressive metal like Dream Theater and Stratovarious.
Enough ranting about Metal. Today, I posted my latest review, Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling by D.M. Corninsh.
This blog has been on stutter steps lately, the new job is really taking up my time. That and finishing up the novel I started writing in November. I told myself when I knew I wouldn’t finish it for NaNoWriMo 2005, I wanted to have it finished by this summer. It really looks like that will happen. Once I feel satisfied with the ending, I save it, print it, and keep away from it for a few months.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Writing and Metal
I hit a nice little writing milestone this morning – my novel reached 100K! I felt pretty damn good about hitting that number, although I realize quantity doesn’t always equal quality. That’s not to say those 100K plus words are crap, I feel pretty good about most of what I’ve written thus far.
The book started in November as part of my NaNoWriMo experiment, but it was a story idea I’ve had for quite some time. Since November, I’ve been writing and plugging away on a pretty daily basis, between five to seven days a week. One thing I’ve discovered is that the days where I don’t think I’ll have much to write end up being some of the more productive sessions.
So the question remains, now that I’ve hit the 100K mark, where will it end? To be honest and optomistic, I feel I’m coming close to finishing this thing. I didn’t expect it would be quite this long when I started, the tale definitely grew in the telling. This storyline, which I thought I could flesh out in one novel, has grown into what I can now see as a duology, a number of plot points grew as I was writing. I see the end in sight on this book and I’m looking forward to giving it the first once-over when I finish it.
One thing I’ve found to be good background as I write, at least when I’m on the desktop in the “office” at home is the Music Choice channel, specifically the Heavy Metal station/channel. They play probably the best mix of metal available in my area, mainly because the well-known WSOU doesn’t come in too well at my house.
Keeping with the Metal theme, I acquired a couple of really solid albums recently, Trivium’s Ascendancy and Of One Blood from Shadows Fall. I also happened to hear Trivium’s cover of Master of Puppets, which is one of the better cover songs I’ve heard. I’ve heard a lot of good stuff on Music Choice, music I wouldn’t and likely will never hear on any of the local radio stations. I first heard Shadows Fall on Music Choice and have since become a fan of the band and really enjoyed seeing them at Ozzfest last year. I've also been visiting some Heavy Metal Web sites and forums lately (http://www.allmetalforums.com/forums, http://www.thegauntlet.com/forums/, and http://www.metal-rules.com) to find out more about the artists I've been hearing on Music Choice.
The book started in November as part of my NaNoWriMo experiment, but it was a story idea I’ve had for quite some time. Since November, I’ve been writing and plugging away on a pretty daily basis, between five to seven days a week. One thing I’ve discovered is that the days where I don’t think I’ll have much to write end up being some of the more productive sessions.
So the question remains, now that I’ve hit the 100K mark, where will it end? To be honest and optomistic, I feel I’m coming close to finishing this thing. I didn’t expect it would be quite this long when I started, the tale definitely grew in the telling. This storyline, which I thought I could flesh out in one novel, has grown into what I can now see as a duology, a number of plot points grew as I was writing. I see the end in sight on this book and I’m looking forward to giving it the first once-over when I finish it.
One thing I’ve found to be good background as I write, at least when I’m on the desktop in the “office” at home is the Music Choice channel, specifically the Heavy Metal station/channel. They play probably the best mix of metal available in my area, mainly because the well-known WSOU doesn’t come in too well at my house.
Keeping with the Metal theme, I acquired a couple of really solid albums recently, Trivium’s Ascendancy and Of One Blood from Shadows Fall. I also happened to hear Trivium’s cover of Master of Puppets, which is one of the better cover songs I’ve heard. I’ve heard a lot of good stuff on Music Choice, music I wouldn’t and likely will never hear on any of the local radio stations. I first heard Shadows Fall on Music Choice and have since become a fan of the band and really enjoyed seeing them at Ozzfest last year. I've also been visiting some Heavy Metal Web sites and forums lately (http://www.allmetalforums.com/forums, http://www.thegauntlet.com/forums/, and http://www.metal-rules.com) to find out more about the artists I've been hearing on Music Choice.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Hello Children
Lost, while not a complete disappointment, left me unsatisfied. Even more so because of the long wait between new episodes. A little bit of development in the Henry situation, and we see some more backstory about Sun & Jin didn't cut the mustard. The island cured Locke, so why can't it cure Sun? As is too often the case lately with this show (and the Sopranos for that matter) the previews for next week's show was the best part of the episode.
On the other hand, South Park was brilliant. I don't think they could have handled the Isaac Hayes situation any better. On one hand they dug even deeper at the Scientologists, and on the other, they really did a nice tribute to Chef. The soundboard quality of Chef's lines was probably the funniest aspect of the episode, aside from the final fate of Chef.
Best of luck to Jim Rigney (aka Robert Jordan) and his treatment. I haven't been a fan of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time for a while, although I admit to enjoying the series when I first graduated college. In recent years, I haven't paid much attention to the storyline, and try to keep my distance from the books. However, say what you will about the books, there's still a person behind the story and output . I wish the man well on his road to treating what looks like a rare and difficult disease.
Lastly, and randomly, here's the mix of music I've been listening to at work:
On the other hand, South Park was brilliant. I don't think they could have handled the Isaac Hayes situation any better. On one hand they dug even deeper at the Scientologists, and on the other, they really did a nice tribute to Chef. The soundboard quality of Chef's lines was probably the funniest aspect of the episode, aside from the final fate of Chef.
Best of luck to Jim Rigney (aka Robert Jordan) and his treatment. I haven't been a fan of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time for a while, although I admit to enjoying the series when I first graduated college. In recent years, I haven't paid much attention to the storyline, and try to keep my distance from the books. However, say what you will about the books, there's still a person behind the story and output . I wish the man well on his road to treating what looks like a rare and difficult disease.
Lastly, and randomly, here's the mix of music I've been listening to at work:
- Ozzfest Summer Sampler 2005 (Some nice metal from Trivium, Soilwork, In Flames and Bruce Dickinson)
- Avenue Q Original Broadway Cast Recording
- Rob Zombie, The Sinister Urge
- Bon Jovi, Bounce
- Rage Against the Machine, Renegades
- Dream Theater, assorted songs
- Nativity in Black, A Tribute to Black Sabbath
- Lacuna Coil, Comalies (with some Savatage and Avenged Sevenfold thrown on the end of the burned CD)
Monday, February 27, 2006
Bumpeses!
They say death always comes in threes. Don Knotts passed away over the weekend. Darren McGavin also passed away. He, of course, is best know for the quintissential father role of all time - The Old Man from A Christmas Story. Of genre note, he starred in the cult television show, Night Stalker, I've never seen an episode. Lastly, science fiction writer Octavia Butler passed away over the weekend, too. I haven't read all of her books and stories, but those I have read were thought-proviking and moving. I first read Dawn in my Science Fiction Literature class at Rutgers many years ago. The book really opened my eyes, made me think, terrified me, and made me want to read more of her work. I eventually picked up an omnibus of the Xenogenesis saga and really enjoyed it. I've read a few of her short stories and liked them, too. Her most recent book I read was Parable of the Sower for the SFFW SF Book Club a couple of years ago, and I've heard great things about Fledgling, her take on the Vampire myth.
On a happier note, I took Mrs. Blog o' Stuff to see Shinedown at the Starland Ballroom last night. I gave her the tickets as a Christmas gift, since Shinedown is a newer band we both enjoy quite a bit - they are a mix of southern rock and hard rock and lead singer Brent Smith has a deep, powerful voice. Shinedown was great, even if Smith's voice wasn't holding up the whole time, it sounded as if he had a cold. They dedicated their cover of Skynyrd's Simple Man to the late, great Dimebag Darrell and my only criticism of their performance was that it wasn't long enough.
Of the two opening bands, Flyleaf and local Philly hard rock band Halestorm, I enjoyed Halestorm much more. Flyleaf reminded me too much of the Cranberries, and I would never consider myself a fan of the Cranberries. Anyway, both bands were fronted by women and Lzzy Hale of Halestorm has an incredible, powerful voice. We liked Halestorm so much, we picked up their CD at the show.
On a happier note, I took Mrs. Blog o' Stuff to see Shinedown at the Starland Ballroom last night. I gave her the tickets as a Christmas gift, since Shinedown is a newer band we both enjoy quite a bit - they are a mix of southern rock and hard rock and lead singer Brent Smith has a deep, powerful voice. Shinedown was great, even if Smith's voice wasn't holding up the whole time, it sounded as if he had a cold. They dedicated their cover of Skynyrd's Simple Man to the late, great Dimebag Darrell and my only criticism of their performance was that it wasn't long enough.
Of the two opening bands, Flyleaf and local Philly hard rock band Halestorm, I enjoyed Halestorm much more. Flyleaf reminded me too much of the Cranberries, and I would never consider myself a fan of the Cranberries. Anyway, both bands were fronted by women and Lzzy Hale of Halestorm has an incredible, powerful voice. We liked Halestorm so much, we picked up their CD at the show.
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