That about covers it

I went to a cover show, and saw

Bjork (ugh, GET OFF THE STAGE)
Blink 182 (omg amazing...they played a request that the drummer had never heard and he played it amazingly)
Jimmy Eat World (wait, is this a cover show or a fifth grade talent show?)
Distillers (whoah, whoah, is that *actually* the Distillers or just a cover?)
Danko Jones (good, but NO BOUNCE? WHAT THE FUCK?)

Some choice heckles I had (didn't say them loud enough for the bands to hear, of course):

Bad singer, to sound guy: "Hey, I can't hear anything on my monitor."
Me: "Consider yourself lucky!"

Laura, to me after I air drum a song: "Can you play drums?"
Me: "Better than this guy, but that's not saying much."

Crappy bassist grabs a second bass guitar.
Me, to friends: "This guy has two bass guitars? Maybe he should learn how to play one, first."

Guitarist, trying to get tthe crowd excited: "C'mon, get up! Did you come here to sit on your asses?"
Me: "No, we came to see some decent bands play!"

Other wonderful moments:

The bass player for the Jimmy Eat World cover was in a fairly corpse-like state: no presence at all, and he was a fairly bad at bass to boot. Nonetheless, at one moment, I'm pretty sure I saw him wipe his forehead, as though he was exhausted from his awesome performance.

At one point, one of the members of a bad band decided to tell a really lame joke. I laughed really hard in a belittling manner. He then followed up the joke with the classic "punchline" guitar riff, but wound up messing up the last note, making the whole event much more hilarious than the joke he told. I laughed hysterically for minutes.

Both of my friends head to the washroom. Seconds later, a drunk native woman comes up behind me, and says something along the lines of "Hey, don't be shy! If you know the songs you should get up and start dancing! I see you singing so you should be dancing...(etc.)". Minutes later, she was seen to be escorted outside.

Listening to... Danko Jones - Bounce
Link of the moment... Well, maybe I'll get to see it when Danko plays here in May!

What kind of music do I like?

I always have to think a little bit before I answer when I am asked what sort of music I like or listen to. I usually wind up answering with "stupid metal", since I realize not many of the people I talk to listen to my type of music, and would probably categorize it as "stupid metal". Anyways, I thought about it, and here are some songs that I like to listen to, linked to YouTube (some live, some not) for everyone to appreciate.

• Stockholm Syndrome by Muse. Characterized by some "fuzzy" guitar, fairly high-ranged (in some parts falsetto) vocals, and a change of tempo in parts of the song. Muse is described as Wikipedia as "New Prog", "Alternative Rock", and "Progressive Rock".
  
  
• A Better Lie by Pitchshifter (I'm sorry, you'll have to settle for a DBZ video). Some effects on the guitar. The drums are very involved (lots of electronica-type percussion). Again, there's a distinct change in tempo during the song. The vocals are fairly gravelly and admittedly not the least repetitive thing in the song. Pitchshifter is described by Wikipedia as "nu metal, industrial rock, industrial metal".
  
  
• The Bending by Hopesfall. The guitars are layered at times and much more than generic power chord progressions. The drums are quite unpredictable and add a lot to the song, in my opinion. The vocals switch between classic cat-in-a-blender screamo, and something a bit more melodic, overlapping with backing vocals. The guitars play some dissonant tones at points (~2:10). Hopesfall is described by Wikipedia as "Rock, Melodic Hardcore, Post-hardcore".
  
  
• New Noise by Refused (you might want to skip to just after the first minute). Basic, repeating riff at the start of the song. Mostly screaming vocals during the chorus, and mostly talking during the verses. Guitars are mostly basic chords during the chorus, along with the repeating riff throughout. Drums aren't anything to write home about, but fairly varied through the different parts of the song. Refused is described by wikipedia as "Hardcore punk, Post-hardcore, Alternative metal".
  
  
• Under A Glass Moon by Dream Theater. Keyboards and guitar bring the song in, with some great drumming near the start. I really like the alternating drum patterns in 1:06-1:20 and also during the chorus at 2:09-2:36. DT supposedly has one of the better drummers out there and it shows. Definitely lots of tempo changes. The vocals are high-range, and I guess it also falls in the falsetto range at some parts. Dream Theater is described by Wikipedia as "Progressive metal, Progressive rock".
  
  
• Deliverance by Opeth. A very mellow guitar intro, leading into mellow vocals, delivered on an odd rhythm that seems to carry though most of the song. At 1:44 and 2:02 we get some dissonant guitar chords. At 2:23 we get some screamy vocals that are closer to death metal than screamo. Around 3:28 we get a completely new rhythm and a key change, and back to more melodic vocals. The song ends a bit early, but I didn't want to find and analyze the full 13 minute song. Wikipedia describes Opeth as "Progressive metal, Progressive death metal, Progressive rock".

Well there you have it. According to Wikipedia, I listen to progressive rock and metal with some post-hardcore. I hope you enjoyed delving into my musical tastes! So, what kind of music do you listen to?

Listening to... Blindside - Eye of the Storm (no good version for it on YouTube)
Link of the moment... Of course, every now and then I like to listen to something random (pun intended).

OMG! Game store in Thunder Bay!

Hm, so I guess I'll nerd it up on my blog since I'm at a loss of other nerdy things to do at the moment.

Last Saturday I went to a concert with my mom at my old high school whose theme was video games. Even though I was well aware that I'd be subject to the usual high school concert conditions (babies crying, uncomfortable seating, idiot high school kids hamming it up), I couldn't turn down video game music. About half the songs were from Final Fantasy games, and unfortunately about half of those were from the FFs I haven't played (8, 10-2, 11, and 12). Among the songs I recognized were the generic Zelda and Mario medleys, "To Zanarkand" (FF10), "Aeris' Theme" (FF7), "Red Wings" (FF4) and the Pokemon theme.

Accompanying the Zelda medley was the worst choreographed fight between a guy dressed up as Link and some girl with a scythe (can anyone identify this character? I don't think Ganon(dorf) ever used a scythe). Actually wait, I take that back. "Choreographed" implies that they knew ahead of time what they were doing. What I saw must have been impromptu. Props to that guy for having a good Link costume. I'll finish this topic with ten words: hot high school girls dressed up as video game charcters. Yeah. I know it's wrong too. Wrong and awesome.

I've heard of a few good games lately, one of which is called Cash'n'Guns. Unfortunately, the game seems to not have been picked up by an American publisher and thus can be difficult to find. For some reason (and I really can't remember why I thought to do this), I had the bright idea of constructing the game myself and printing off a copy of the official rules. After some forum research, I found a program that lets you create custom decks (called nanDECK; if you ever need to to create a simple deck for anything, take a look). I also have used Cool Text extensively in the card design. I'm accumulating different guns as they come to me from dollar stores (I'm up to three, I need six).

Before making components for that game, I decided to make a more permanent deck for werewolf. After a little tinkering with card sizes, I've gotten to a finished product. I printed a front side and back side, used an old playing card between them for stiffness and threw them all in a clear plastic card sleeve. Normal printer paper is 20lb, I bought and used 28lb; I suggest using at least 65lb (card stock) if you are going to print a front and back and use a sleeve, otherwise shoot for 110lb if you dont' plan on using a sleeve. Two 28lb sheets are for too flimsy (these are the sorts of things you learn when you feed your nerdy habits).

I went the extra mile and constructed a tuckbox for the deck as well. It was inredibly easy considering I made a friggin' tuckbox on my first try. I used 65lb paper for this which is the heaviest I could find in the house. It's not too bad, but I might track down some 110lb paper for any I make in the future (I likely will; they're very nice looking and an upgrade from elastics).

I went to the Bookshelf (factoid: the website of the Bookshelf is www.thunderbay.com. The city's website is www.thunderbay.ca) today to track down clear plastic card sleeves. I could get 200 on eBay shipped for $5, but I figured it would be cheaper to find some locally. When I parked, I looked for a sign that said "parking for Bookshelf customers". What I saw was "Parking for Gameshelf customers". I looked up at the store next to the Bookshelf. There was no sign, but the door was open. I peered inside, and saw a girl behind a till, a lot of empty space, and a few stands set up with board games. Yes that's right my friends: Thunder Bay is getting a (dedicated) game store! They're not officially open until next weekend (or so they told me), but they sold me my card sleeves. I looked around at the stuff they had set up, but I (stupidly) didn't take note of any of the prices for comparison puposes. I did happen to look at Hive which has caught my attention lately. It had a marked price of under thirty dollars. J&J has their copies marked at $27, so if the rest of their stock has similarly comparable prices, they'll get a lot of my patronage.

Before I found out about the Game Shelf, I figured out a nice little plan to acquire games cheaply. Thought Hammer comes highly recommended on BGG, for good reason. With the Canadian dollar doing as well as it is (or is the US dollar just doing poorly?), it is much cheaper to place an order at TH and get it shipped (free if the purchase is over $125) to Ryden's (a store just across the border that handles packages) which is only about an hour drive away from Thunder Bay. I'd still have to pay some form of taxes crossing the border, but even if I have to pay some sort of fees on top of PST/GST, it would have to be extremely high to not make it worth my while. The prices at TH really are amazing.

Pictures follow:

My werewolf deck, with tuckbox in the background (yeah, I even added some "colour text" to all the role cards).


My table in all its glory (well, not all of it. I obviously don't have the legs folded out at the moment).


A close-up of one of the corners. Isn't that exposed wood rail just breathtaking?

Listening to... Iced Earth - Wolf (I've listened to this song about a dozen times in the last few days)
Link of the moment... My new TV drama fix

Our hero returns after a short hiatus

13 days since my last post? Egads! I'd apologize, but I certainly have nothing to apologize for. I owe you all nothing, you hear me? NOTHING.

I can't say much has happened in the last two weeks, really. I went to the Silver Spur last weekend, with John's sister Maria and her boyfriend, along with John and Julie. It wasn't particularly entertaining, but nowhere near as bad as that one time I went to Scuttlebutt's (*cringe*).

Tonight I went to Polar Jam '07. There were six bands in six hours, but I wasn't really up for a six hour commitment, so I missed the first two bands (Intransit and Saigon Hookers, two bands I was particularly looking forward to). I saw The Junction (thumbs up), Brassmunk (if I had any more than two thumbs, they would all be down for this overly generic hip-hop), Idle Sons (recognized one song, most of their others were generic verse/chorus/verse/chorus/guitar solo/chorus, but overall enjoyable) and Thornley (great performance as usual, but their Come Again/Big Wreck setlist is getting a bit stale). It was an outdoor concert, so during most of the bands my toes were painfully numb. I was even wearing two pairs of socks! Not the warmest night we've had lately, most of the bands were complaining about it.

Today, I decided to try to get some sleep after getting back from classes. About half an hour into my rest, I heard a crowd of people, and assumed Hugh had some people over or something. Then I heard them come downstairs. Then I heard my door open, and saw some people poke their heads in. They seemed pretty shocked to see me, and I asked them what purpose they had in my bedroom, uninvited. It turns out that our landlord decided to give some people a tour of the house, without giving us any prior notice! I'm pretty unimpressed with him. Even if he los tour number, he should at least come to our house before he brings anyone else with him. What an ass.

My weekends seem to be chock full of things to do. Tomorrow I plan to go to campus to play some board games with Watsfic. Next weekend, Nicole is going to be in town, and I'll be going to a concert with her on Friday night. She said she might be going to a party on Saturday night, but if not, I'm sure we'll be doing something together. Maybe mario party, perhaps bowling; we'll see what the weekend has in store for me.

I'm not all that impressed with my assignments lately. I have two due next Friday, and I'm not entirely sure how much I will be able to finish by then. My big work days will be Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, but I like to be essentially finished by Tuesday so that any problems I can't get past on my own can be solved on the Wednesday before the assignments are due. I took a look at Network Design, and it doesn't look too difficult. The bigger challenge will be Network Flow, since the questions deal with STUPID linear programming and matrix representations of graphs. I don't understand any of it, and I've noticed that staring at the page does not do much for me.

I finished Okami, after 34 grueling hours. I've started up a new save in my favourite game of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics. This year, it's ten years old, and still as engrossing as ever. Judging by my previously saved game of 50+ hours, it might take a while to beat this game. After playing Okami, I stand by my opinion that a short game (10-15 hours) with lots of replay value is more enjoyable than a long game (30+ hours) that relies more on its story than variety in gameplay.

Well, I should get some sleep. Our landlord is showing the house to people tomorrow at 2PM, so I should try to get up early to get a bit of cleaning done (I wouldn't want people to think I live a slovenly lifestyle!)

Listening to... Tool - The Patient
Link of the moment... Kudos to [station on channel 5 in Waterloo] for putting this on after The Simpsons at 5:30

I need your help!

I was watching an episode of CSI just now, and heard a song which, after some sleuthing, I identified as End Theme by Zero 7. What troubles me is that I know I've heard it before, but I'm unable to figure out where. If you know where I might have heard this song before, please lend me some insight. At first, I thought of "MirrorMask", a movie I saw just the other day, but I can't find any proof that that's what it was.

Listening to... End Theme - Zero 7
Link of the moment... I'm pretty sure it's nothing listed on here

This is my main offender

Hm, how to sum up last weekend's wedding...I went to the casino and won $170, had cheesecake three days in a row, enjoyed seeing some family, and was breathtaken by the Detroit skyline at night.

I bought Fluxx a while ago. Fun game, but I think it's getting borderline stale already.

I've been putting off this comparison assignment for a while now. After getting back my 60% process paper, I feel like anything I hand in to Paci won't ever be good enough, so what's the point in trying?

I finally bought my PS2 the other day. I could justify it without it being on sale because of my casino winnings and a Future Shop gift card from my sister for my birthday. I've finally got it tricked out to play burned games really easily, but it took a lot more effort than it should have. The kit I got was subpar. The instructions online were just plain wrong. I replaced one of the pieces with a self-moulded twist tie. I'm convinced I could have done the entire thing with just twist ties. I also had to glue one piece in for it to stay in the spot in which it needed to stay, so my console is permanently modded. So much for the warranty; I certainly hope it lasts the year. On the bright side, it works marvelously. It's much quieter than my old black box.

All weekend, I've had this terribly powerful urge to play Guild Wars. I think once I get my assignment in on Wednesday, I'll go buy it. It's been a while since I treated myself to a new PC game. I'm sure it'll be slightly boring without anyone with which to play it. I'm trying to convince Andrew it's in his best interest to buy it, but $60 takes a lot more convincing than what I've been doing. I suppose eventually I'll get caught up in some guild online or something. Hopefully there's some guild of casual players...I hate jackasses that yell at you for not using the "best" builds or not being able to hotkey like a madman.

I downloaded the new Three Days Grace and Hoobastank albums. They're both pretty good, but it will still take some time for them to grow on me. I'm debating whether or not I should buy one or both of the two Chore albums I can't find any other way. I probably will eventually, but I think I've spent more than enough money on myself lately (at least, I will once I get Guild Wars later this week).

Well, I'm going to make some pancakes for the roommies. Aren't I such a generous person? I think so...

Listening to... Eyelid - Invention of Hope
Link of the moment... Nothing is ever as easy as it looks.

Anyone want to talk about feelings?

Man, I am BORED as shit right now. It's one of those moments where you feel like you're bugging out. Sort of like cabin fever. I guess I know the ins and outs of the house, so I'm a little accustomed to it.

This feeling is partly because I feel like I didn't accomplish anything today. I only did a small bit of work on my CS234 program (though that portion is done), and only some brainstorming for my critical comparison, which I hope to have done by Monday night. I spent more time than I should have watching the Simpsons today, and some other assorted tv as well. I made alfredo sauce for part of my supper, but the milk I used tastes like CRAP so the sauce is more or less inedible.

I'm not as tired as I should be at 1:30. I'm sure most of you can relate when I say that I don't want to go to bed because I feel like my day isn't really quite over yet. You can't really go to bed until you feel that you've done something with the day. I suppose making this blog post is about as productive as I'm going to get tonight.

There's not really anyone on MSN either. I don't know who exactly I'd like to talk to the most right now...probably Holly, or maybe Laura...good kids. I haven't talked to Adam in a while either, I wonder how he's doing. I can't say I have anything too exciting to talk about, but I'm sure I can make up some conversation if need be.

I struck up a conversation with Sonja the other day...it died off in about three minutes. It's almost like there's too much to talk about, so I don't know what to talk about (and it's all just "catching up" sorta stuff). Man, my writing skills are taking a dump right now, and for that I apologize. Sometimes I just like to ramble, and I don't pay attention to verb tense, word choice, or parallel structure. I hope you don't need a rosetta stone to decipher my posts.

I cleaned the house a bit today. That is, I vacuumed a few rooms. I think maybe tomorrow I'll get a one dollar mop and bucket and do the kitchen up nice and good. I suppose I really do have a lot more time than I would on a regular term. If I could only utilize it a bit better, I could accomplish a lot. I realize I must waste a lot of time, because I have four full days to get all my work done, but I sometimes still feel pressed for time. I can't even think of where it all goes...probably bad sleep schedule, watching TV, and hanging around doing nothing with the roommies. I guess I spend way too much time on my computer, doing nothing (not unlike right now).

I played Civ 4 today, just the tutorial level. I finished the tutorial but it crashed shortly after. I really should have expected that, what with it being pirated and all. I found it a bit too open and hard to follow. It would take too much time to actually figure out what all the technologies and civics did.

I am TOTALLY rocking out to Hopesfall with my headphones on right now, and I am TOTALLY intending on typing out a lot of useless, useless information in this post. I certainly hope you people enjoy reading this, cause otherwise, who will hear my woeful cries?

Hm, I found out the other day that the Witness Protection Program broke up. That saddens me. I had fully hoped I'd get to hear them live one day, but I guess they've gone the way of Chore. What I really don't like is that I really want to go to their shows so that I can actually buy their cds which are painfully obscure. I don't want to have to order them online, and there's no other way to get their stuff.

I wonder if this post will wind up breaking my old record of approximately 2000 words. I wonder if, now that I've wondered that, I'll make a conscious effort to do that in which case it really defeats the purpose. Hm, I justs checked, and I'm only at ~750 words, so I don't think I'll be awake nearly long enough to break the 2k mark.

I have some gift cards here that are a year old, I think. I have no reason to use them. No one ever has the time or money to go out for a nice meal.

I'm not sure if I'll ever know what I want out of life, or if I'll ever truly be happy with what I have. The grass is always greener, I guess. I think ignorance is bliss. If you don't know what you're missing out on, you could never miss it. Like chocolate. If you never had any before, it's probably easier to not have any for your entire life, but once you have some, you think "man, I could go for some more of that". Or making out. Whatever.

Hm, should I set my alarm tomorrow morning? It'll only be six hours of sleep I get, max. I think I'll leave the alarm off and just roll my sorry ass out of bed at noon. It's a tough call. Today I had the alarm set for 8:15, but left the radio on until 11 AM. What do you think, is that being awake? I heard some of the songs, but I wasn't fully conscious.

There is no deal on PS2s this week. I'm very disappointed. I think I'm going to have to hold out for YET ANOTHER WEEK because I can't really see any pressing reason to get one now. I doubt I'll have any reason to watch a DVD this week, and I'm trying to convince myself that I'm too busy to play any PS2 games. If there's no deal next Friday, I think I might have to murder someone. It's the only way I could possibly set my mind at ease.

You know what I should do? I should finish all my work tomorrow, and then spend ALL DAY Monday playing video games. No, actually...I'd probably want to play one of my burned games, and for that I should wait for the new console which is hopefully a little more reliable in that regard. Then I should...finish all my work tomorrow and spend all day Monday studying for my midterm the following Tuesday! But that's not nearly as exciting. Doesn't matter much, cause I doubt I'll finish my comparison paper in one day. That is, if I did I doubt it would be very good, but then again I'm not really aiming for perfection.

Well I think maybe that's it. I think I'm done feeding my thoughts through my keyboard into a text box that will soon be posted to the internet, where anyone can find it, so long as they know the right way to find it. It's my little contribution to the soon to be current state of the public universe.

Listening to... Hopesfall - Manipulate the Eclipse
Link of the moment... I don't like how this tastes on bread. What does it go well with? I'm thinking graham crackers or pretzels.