Apr
4
2009
Between hosting a weekly movie night and my regular Netflix subscription, I have seen quite a few movies lately. So I thought I’d share some of the films that I particularly enjoyed.
Let the Right One In - not your average vampire movie, exceptionally good story, disturbing only in its honesty.
Choke - while the first 15 minutes remind me of Fight Club (same author), the sheer absurdity of the movie is engaging and ultimately enlightening.
City of Lost Children - french movie, very strange bordering on absurd, but with a captivating story – if you can follow it.
no comments | tags: movie, review | posted in asides, film
Feb
27
2007
good show tonight. Cradle of Filth had some weird stage setup though with palm trees and camo netting… but you still have to respect a black metal band who manages to incorporate an opera singer :-) and Nymphetamine always hits the spot. not sure what the keyboardist was doing but i’m pretty sure the keyboard music wasn’t quite synchronized with her fingers hitting the keys. hrm.
it’s unclear whether The 69 Eyes take themselves seriously… but it’s emo-metal from Helsinki… so it’s pretty much awesome either way. if you count HIM among your guilty pleasures, you’ll like The 69 Eyes too. if you need a quick primer, buy their best-of album titled Framed in Blood.
and finally our friends to the north have produced something definitely worth listening to in 3 Inches of Blood. if you’re not familiar with them, their Advance and Vanquish album covers the important metal topics (orcs, medieval war, naval power, and futuristic robots). their new songs sound cool, but they’re a bit more prog than previous albums i think. prog rock pretty much started in the great white north with rush, so why not have some prog metal from 3 Inches? one song actually reminded me of mastodon’s blood mountain album – if you discount the vocals. which isn’t a bad impression to make. i only wish they had gotten more songs in.. they were the opening act and only did 7. (and this was the band I most wanted to see)
next week – Killswitch Engage and Dragonforce!
no comments | tags: concert, metal, music, review | posted in music
Feb
5
2007
The Logitech Revolution MX mouse is worth every single one of the rather large number of pennies it costs. I’ve had it for a week now and I liked it initally, but today I upgraded to SetPoint 3.3 (the config software) and now i’m totally hooked. The mouse has two scroll wheels and three buttons. The normal scroll wheel up top scrolls vertically, leans left and right and clicks. Then it has a thumb wheel that scrolls horizontally and clicks. It also has the usual Forward-Backward browser buttons.
The way I set it up, the top wheel scrolls documents like any normal mouse and the left-right clicks are set to do Prev-Next in my iTunes playlist. The thumb wheel is set to do volume up-down and click to mute. Then it still has the browser back button, a middle click for tabbed browsing and an interesting Search button where you can highlight text and press it, then it opens a google search on that phrase. Cool. Very cool.
no comments | tags: mouse, review | posted in tech
Dec
26
2006
Listen
I’m a big Vendetta Red fan and was bummed that they broke up right after releasing the amazing Sisters of the Red Death album. Well, the good news is that some of them got back together as Sirens Sister and now they have their first album out called Echos from the Ocean Floor. Buy it now.
no comments | tags: music, review, rock | posted in asides
Dec
23
2006
Listen
2 Minutes Hate – Killing Time (post-punk) I think the band name refers to 1984
Utopia Banished – Night of the Black Wyvern (melodic death metal)
Bludgeon – Carnage Begins (metal / east-cost hardcore) reminds me of Hatebreed
no comments | tags: music, review | posted in asides, music