Yeah. You know what? This website is outdated. You shouldn't be here anymore. Go here instead.
While I do have a bit set up over there already (3 months of news, the work blog, the about pages), there is still a ton of content to get moved. Yeah, it's going to be a long process, but I've got a lot of time on my hands anyway. At least I'm doing something semi-constructive with it.
I won't be posting any new stuff here either, so while all the junk will remain for a while to come, the Angelfire sites are officially dead. Most of the links to incomplete pages still point to the Angelfire pages anyway. If you feel like helping me out, go through any pages that are set up and check out the links and pics to see if I missed anything or made any link typos. I've checked my work pretty meticulously, but mistakes are likely to be made.
With that all said, yeah. Big props to Mike for letting me piggyback on the Comedy Napalm webspace. I guess it's just one step closer to completely integrating Torrential Equilibrium into CN. Maybe one day...
Well, we're off to a smashing start, no? Yeah, I've been trying to get the BotM done all month, but when the internet died, progress was impeded, and then the Unix computers wouldn't let me save images, and everything was going all wrong. But here we are and here it is.
Who the hell is Trooper? You say. And why the hell are they band of the Month? That you also say. Come closer. Closer. I'll tell you the story.
See, the thing is, it's so late in the month that I'm pretty much doing a Band of the Week thing here, and I couldn't let a band I listen to a lot get the shame of only seeing a week of fame when it should have had a month. So I picked a band I don't listen to a whole lot. To be completely honest, I almost never listen to Trooper. Sure, "The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car", "Two for the Show" and "Raise a Little Hell" have spots in my playlist, but then again, what classic rock fan doesn't have those songs in his playlist? Exactly. I honestly know very little about Trooper or their music, so there's no much I can say. I know my parents went to a Trooper concert when they were teens, but that's about it. Oh, and they're Canadian so yay.
If you want to know anything else, you're gonna have to figure it out on your own. I'm not doing any research for you this month. All I can really say is to listen to any of the songs I mentioned in the last paragraph, or listen to your local classic rock station. They'll come up eventually. What a sham this is. Oh well. Article Thursday, and if you hadn't noticed yet, I've got a new bit on Comedy Napalm.
Good news everyone! I'll be moving off this POS Angelfire sometime soon! Yes, hooray for me. The gears are turning slowly, but it's happening. The issue is that my internet is still disconnected, and will more than likely remain that way until the beginning of February. I blame Christmas. But anyway, it's gonna take some time, but eventually Angelfire-consticted Torrential Equilibrium will be gone and I will rise again on a place without ads! Oh, and I'll try to get some updates in on Thursday at Comedy Napalm and Coozy for Hire.
NEWS FLASH: My internet is dead... again! This means no posties or anything important until it's back up. Sure, I could write crap at the Uni, like I'm doing now, but that won't be happening. This goes for Coozy for Hire and Comedy Napalm updates as well. You'll be seeing none of me on the internet for a while, but I guess at this point, you've already gotten used to it. Later days.
So I took a little break after all. Sue me. I've been working all day and the '05 Xmas list is ready to roll. Your next article should arrive Monday night at the earliest. You've gotten three articles this month, so don't complain.
You Christmas gift is here, in the form of a small update to the CD collection. I'd like to say something along the lines of "Now I head of to do the Christmas thing, see you in the new year", but you know I'll probably be spending Monday hard at work on a new article.
I whipped up a short(ish) article today, just out of the blue. Actually, it wasn't really out of the blue, but we'll say it was because it's not that one "surprise" article I talked about the other day. It's kinda stupid too, but I'm gonna go with the philosophy I went by back in the early days: content is content.
Speaking of the early days, three years, baby. Yeah. I think the consensus is that the site's "birthday" is on the 16th (Why the 16th? I don't know. Technically it should be the 2nd...), but for the third year in a row I forgot. I mean, I've had it in mind all month, but when posting on this here blog, it managed to slip my mind. So yes, three years and I've still not given up. Huzzah for me!
Well, that snow sure didn't last long. Being so close to the internet equator probably isn't helping. The fact that I got annoyed with it might have something to do with it too...
Secondly, there are tiny little updates all over the sidebar. Okay, two. First, I added a link to Comedy Napalm, a fancy-pants new website which I have signed on to write for. Whether it will get exclusive content, I don't know, but my full articles and psedo-articles will remain exclusive to TE. Only time will tell what goes down. I also changed the forum link to go straight to the Comedy Napalm forums. As you might have been able to tell.
I really haven't got much else, so here's a couple links
Surely you noticed that it's snowing over on this part of the interweb. I know it's like the biggest website no-no ever, but I couldn't resist. It's just so damned cute. *Loses 10 masculinity points* Also, there's now a mistletoe on the sidebar, so be sure to keep clear of it if there's anyone around. I don't have anything to give you today but another entry in the CD collection, and that won't even be up for a few minutes still (I wanted to get the blog post done first, so sue me).
As for the article production sheet, we've got two that will be done by the end of the month. One is the yearly Xmas article and the second... Well, it's a sequel of sorts, I'll tell you that much. Think about what time of year it is and it should be apparent.
The last thing I want to do today is drop you a new (sort of) link. You've all been subjected to my many plugs for the MOA-Online forums. Sadly, some two weeks or so ago, they dieded for goods. On the upside, they've been reborn as the MOA Aviary forums. While they're more animal-centric now, a bunch of the old users are back, and there's still plenty to gab about. I'm not an animal person myself, but I'll be doing my share of posting there. Not anywhere near as much as last time, but there will be posting by me. The point of this plug is that since my forums will never be revitalized, all I can do is plug other forums I visit and live vicariously through them.
I'd like to go off about how I don't put enough pictures in the blog, but there's more important things to discuss today. Like HIM. Back in July of 2004, not long after I redesigned the site, I reviewed HIM's Greatest Hits CD. I don't know where I'm going with this, so let's just hit the usual. I first started listening to HIM near the end of my high school career. As you may or may not be aware, Mike is totally obsessed with the band, and that would be where I first heard of them. See, back in the days of high school, when I started listening to a new band, it was because one of my friends had been raving about them. It was just the way I went about finding new music to listen to. But that's not the whole story. See, while Mike would rave about HIM for countless hours a day, I still never really picked up on them. It wasn't until I watched the movie "Haggard" that I decided to give HIM a chance. See, "Haggard" was directed and whatnot by Bam Margera, who might very well be the biggest HIM fan in the world. Anyhow, I noted that the music in the movie was excellent, and coming as little surprise, it was all HIM songs. So I finally went and did a little P2P search for HIM.
There's a lot to like about HIM. Most people seem to have some kind of brain defect where they think that anything from their country of origin or where their family comes from should be praised as some sort of diety, and since HIM is a Finnish band, I suppose that should be one reason I like them. The main reason I like them, of course, is because their music is awesome. It's like a perfect mix of rock 'n' roll and metal with goth overtones. Some songs are hard rock anthems that could melt even the most jaded of faces, and other songs are some of the most touching ballads ever recorded. Not to mention their ten-point covers of "Solitary Man", "Don't Fear the Reaper" and "Wicked Game".
HIM has released five CDs and a greatest hits collection, and though it needs not be mentioned, I own them all. The first, Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 is probably the weakest of all (though I expect some people would like to impale me for saying so), but it does have its high points. The biggest problem is that the recording of "Wicked Game" on this one isn't even as good as the Chris Isaak original. Fortunately, they redid it somewhere along the line and now it kicks so much ass. The next is Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights, which is so very much better than the preivous CD that you'd never believe it if you haven't heard them. I love both "Salt in Our Wounds" and "Lose You Tonight". "Pretending" is pretty great too.
Then along came Razorblade Romance, which sported some slick updated versions of "Your Sweet Six Six Six" and "Wicked Game" along with a plethora of great new tracks. Their fourth release, Love Metal, seems to be the most widely considered to be the best HIM CD available. Every song on Love Metal is incredible, but it does suffer from having only ten songs. It's not really a huge deal, because HIM isn't some dumb punk band whose songs are two minutes long at best. "Circle of Fear" is my personal favourite, but I've also taken a shining to "This Fortress of Tears" and "The Path". The last two CDs are the greatest hits CD And Love Said No and the latest release, Dark Light. I've reviewed both in much greater detail elsewhere on the site, so I don't feel I need to go into any greater detail here.
So that's the end of that. I don't think I should have to go into the whole "I like this band blah blah you should look them up blah blah download" spiel. That's all very obvious and is a crappy way of concluding the post. So I'll go out with a bit of advice today: "Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."