Ayreon 01011001 DVD

Found in the special and limited editions. Well worth the extra cost, especially for this one line:

“Dear Penis, give my butt a sign”

– Simone Simons

Clever girl…

Published
Categorized as Music

Altered Consciousness

Just pulled an all night, and then in the morning I threw on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, and somehow additional dimensions in the music which I have never noticed before just leapt out of the speakers and blasted right through my consciousness.

Its an album I listen to a lot, and so I thought I knew it, but apparently I don’t know it at all. Perhaps I should try some Jimi next time.

Published
Categorized as Music

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).

Published
Categorized as Music

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.

Top 11 Albums – 2007

Ziltoid the Omniscient

  1. Devin Townsend – Ziltoid the Omniscient
  2. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
  3. N.I.N. – Year Zero
  4. Neil Young – Chrome Dreams II
  5. The Bad Plus – Prog
  6. Alex Skolnick Trio – Last Day In Paradise
  7. Steve Vai – Sound Theories
  8. Rush – Snakes & Arrows
  9. Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
  10. Explosions in the Sky – All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
  11. 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.

Published
Categorized as Music