Nothing quite like trying to sell stuff by reminding people of an awful, awful movie.
What were they thinking?
Author: loserx
Deaths March 2008
The first quarter of 2008 isn’t over yet and already two men who shaped my world have passed on.
To use what is by now a cliché, Gary Gygax failed his last saving throw on the 4th of March. Thanks Gary, for all the hours of imagination, joy and friendship your creation brought me and countless other geeks across the multiverse. I will never forget the days of “Traps? Pfft! I boot the door down.”. The Order of the Stick put it more eloquently then I ever could, so the strip shall have to speak for me.
Jeff Healey was a giant of music, and it is criminal that he is not held in higher regard by the general public. Few knew that his real love was for old American jazz or that he played the trumpet and clarinet expertly. Here he is at his incendiary best absolutely ripping it up on the title track from his debut album “See The Light” with a little help from Dr. John, Marcus Miller and Omar Hakim.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBBCJ68mC4c
Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV
Trent Reznor has done it: a double album of new instrumental music available as a high quality, DRM-free download, very reasonably priced 2 CD set (US$10) or either one of a pair of luxurious deluxe packages. I’ll be grabbing the 2 CD set myself (yes I’m cheap).
In the mean time you can check out Ghost I, which is available for free (TPB torrent link, as the NIN server seem to be having problems dealing with the digg hordes).
Castle ActiveRecord Bug?
Or perhaps it was actually NHibernate at fault. I was trying to set up a many-to-many relationship with attributes on the association table and the ActiveRecord CreateSchema call just kept complaining that my assocation table already exists and cannot be created again.
After an hour or so of head-scratching, turns out the error only occurs when I use GUIDs as the primary key in the association table. Switching to good old “int” solved everything. I wonder if that has been fixed in the trunk, I should go code spelunking.
Jazz Guitarists And Their Strange Guitars Part Two
An even more unusual intrument than Charlie Hunter’s 8-string is Pat Metheny’s Pikasso guitar. Here he is doing his live impression of an orchestra playing a solo piece titled Into The Dream before breaking out the band for Have You Heard, equally stunning.
Pat Metheny Group - Into the dream/Have you heard (live '98)
Jazz Guitarists And Their Strange Guitars Part One
A stunning take on Hendrix’s classic If 6 Was 9 by Garage A Trois, featuring drummer Stanton Moore, saxophonist Skerik and guitarist Charlie Hunter playing his 8-string Novax guitar. Skerik’s solo is smokin’.
Charlie Hunter If 6 Was 9
Top 11 Albums – 2007
- Devin Townsend – Ziltoid the Omniscient
- Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
- N.I.N. – Year Zero
- Neil Young – Chrome Dreams II
- The Bad Plus – Prog
- Alex Skolnick Trio – Last Day In Paradise
- Steve Vai – Sound Theories
- Rush – Snakes & Arrows
- Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
- Explosions in the Sky – All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
- Eddie Vedder – Into The Wild
In that order, I think.
Honourable Mentions
- Metheny/Mehldau Quartet
- Tomahawk – Anonymous
- Dominici – O3 A Trilogy Part 2
- Symphony X – Paradise Lost
- Paradise Lost – In Requiem
- Black Snake Moan OST
- Radiohead – In Rainbows
- Ministry – The Last Sucker
- Kanno Yoko – Smooth in the Shell
- Megadeth – United Abominations
Good, not great.
Disappointments of the Year
- Dream Theater – Systematic Chaos
- Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
- Type O Negative – Dead Again
- Velvet Revolver – Libertad
These albums are not bad. They just fall short of my admittedly high expectations.
Dishonourable Mention
- Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist
Not even “so bad, its good”, just mediocre.
Steve Vai – Touching Tongues
I’m a huge Devin Townsend fan and the song that made me an instant convert was Touching Tongues, from Vai’s Sex & Religion. Here’s a wonderful live performance from 1993.
Laibach – The Final Countdown
How do you cover one of the most bombastic rock songs of the 80s? If you are Slovenian industrial group Laibach, you make it more bombastic. Remade as some kind of a Wagnerian/disco mutant love-child with spoken lyrics, operatic female backing vocals and an over-the-top CGI music video, its got something for everybody.
Laibach - Final Countdown (Official video)
Michael Jackson: Colour Collection
Found this in a shop, obviously a collection of songs from before he got help with hitting the high notes.