Author: ClubSecretarry

Not a Spinal Tap moment

Dream Theater will finally be revealing who their new drummer is in a series of videos posted on YouTube. The seven who auditioned are: Mike Mangini, Virgil Donati, Marco Minnemann, Peter Wildoer, Thomas Lang, Derek Roddy and Aquiles Priester.

From the first two videos, Mangini and Minnemann seem to be the front-runners for the job so far. Both of them are first-rate and will probably be good fits. From rumours going around the interwebs, it’s Mangini, but we’ll see I suppose.

This is a change that’s good for both Mike Portnoy and Dream Theater. As an old fan dating from the Images and Words days, I must say their output after Six Degrees has been generally underwhelming with what I consider to be less memorable songwriting compared to the earlier days.

Another big problem I have with the later albums is Mike taking a shine to some godawful rap/growl vocal stylings that he’ll stick somewhere on every album. I’m probably being petty, but I can’t stand it.

It got so that I preferred the various side projects the members participated in, such as An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess, the Mullmuzzler albums by Labrie and Frameshift’s Unweaving the Rainbow (speaking of which, Henning, we want Frameshift 3). Hopefully playing with a new drummer will get their creative juices again, and here’s hoping that Mike finds himself interesting new projects too.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Edit: Mangini got it. I thought Minnemann would have given the band a fresher sound and am a little disappointed, but still, both are excellent choices.

Dog Days – Truth in Advertising

Cat-people vs. Dog-people...ostensibly

A pink and girly Chocobo...sorry I meant Cellkull

Ninja Warrior - lame edition

Appropriate attire for war

The HUMANITY!

I was already regretting my decision to give this show any time at all before the OP sequence was over which is probably something of a record. The show itself did nothing to change my mind.

So, this show is about a mixed race Japanese school kid who gets summoned by the dog princess to be her champion in the battle against the cat people. The battlefield looks like an obstacle course which is perfect since our hero is a gymnastics otaku. The “fighting” results in no casualties, losers just turn into stupid looking spheres.

This is a dog of a show. Avoid.

Please donate to the Japan tsunami disaster relief

Hello, this is the owner of the blog. Regular readers of our blog (all three and a half of you, you know who you are) know we are just a bunch with no agenda beyond writing whatever we want to write about and having fun doing it. This would be the first time I’m writing about something serious.

I presume every one of you who might see this post knows about the situation in Japan. On the 11st of March, Japan was struck by a massive 8.9/9 magnitude earthquake and the resulting tsunami was devastating.

We have all seen the videos and the horrifying photographs of the aftermath, and if you have been keeping up, you know the news getting out to us is worse by the day.

I’m asking you as a fellow citizen of the world, please donate to the relief efforts.

Fellow Singaporeans, as of now (6:20pm UTC +08:00, 14th March 2011) our local Red Cross has finally gotten their permit to raise funds. I will be updating this post with information as it becomes available.

EDIT: all links removed in favour of Google’s crisis response page. Proceeds go directly to the Japanese Red Cross.

Published
Categorized as News

Macross Frontier YF-29 Durandal

The DX Chogokin toys from the second Macross Frontier movie were announced some time ago but I totally missed it. Proper photos have just been released though.

YF-29 Durandal Battroid
YF-29 Durandal Fighter
YF-29 Durandal Gerwalk

I got to say the machine is a little underwhelming. While it certainly isn’t ugly, it just looks like the VF-25 and the YF-19 from Macross Plus mashed together, only flashier than both in a bad way. A little too busy, perhaps. I quote:

In the production of Macross Frontier, the VF-171 was chosen as the main fighter of the New U.N. Spacy because it was felt that the previous main fighter, the VF-19 Excalibur, looked too much like a “hero” fighter…

This one looks more of a “hero” fighter to me.

The roots of the design is especially obvious in gerwalk mode. Compare:

YF-19 Gerwalk
VF-25F gerwalk

Of course, it could be I’m just bitter at how poorly the Macross Frontier series ended.

Also:

  • 1/100 YF-29 Ranka Lee Version
  • 1/100 YF-29 Sheryl Nome Version

Yuck.

Picture sources: Gundam Model Kits and Figures, Mech9.com, Macross Mecha Manual

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka 3: Filler scenes is filler

NACHOOOO!
Sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun.

One of my early hopes for the season is turning out to be a little underwhelming. The pace seem to have slackened after that inspired first episode. Episode 3 has a few fine comedic moments and a little plot development. Unfortunately the rest of it feels like a too large chunk of fan service filler. Not something I’m opposed to but given the potential the series has exhibited so far it felt unnecessary and thus disappointing. I have to wonder what liberties the adaptation took with the light novels source (having never read the books, and not having a desire to).

Still, it was a decent enough episode (it’s not Beelzebub) and it is early days yet. A lot of time to turn things around and I certainly hope that it does.