Salintheus

Over the weekend I decided to do something I’ve been meaning to do for about 8 – 9 months now.  Burn off a whole heap of Linux Live CDs and give them all a go.  So I did.
For being such a user-friendly pushed OS, Ubuntu kind of wasn’t for me.
On the other hand, Sabayon and Knoppix were rather good and simple to get going. Mandriva also was fairly quick and simple.
Ahh, the wonders of being a Linux n00b.
I might install Sabayon into VMWare Fusion on ze Macbook Pro. Sounds like fun.

Even though Ubuntu wasn’t great, I wanna set up a box with Ubuntu studio on it because I quite frankly don’t want to have to fork out another $800 for Pro-Tools. Anyway, thats another story.

I actually have a recording contract in July. *shock and horror!*
I haven’t had one in like a year because I started Uni and blah blah blah.
On the hilarious side, its my brothers band. On the good side, they want a releasable EP.
On the extra good side, money for me! Apparently they play experimental jazz fusion instrumental type stuff. Could be fun. Emphasis on the could.

Anyway, today (well, last night) I dug up some of my old Angra CDs because pretty much all I listen to is ReBirth onwards Angra and I felt like listening to Andre singing and not ‘Mr. Perfect Hair’ Eduardo. It was a rather welcome change I made.

Despite doing all this, I got a total of zero Uni work done. Oops.

Holy shit, its brilliant.
I picked it yesterday for $118 (Go Big W!) and I can rather say its worth it.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t use it straightaway as I had a chem lab to go to but this morning I discovered that my BMI was 38.37.
Not too healthy……
Still, exercising with it is incredibly fun.

Lunge, Warrior and Tree are absolute death.

Ihsahn’s new album ‘AngL’ is amazing. It just has one major let down. That comes in the form of the song ‘Unhealer’ with guest vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth.
A full review shall be written later.

Over the past few days I’ve had a craving for some rather impulse items. These are Wii Fit (both me and my fiance need to lose weight in a fun manner), Mario Kart Wii (just because its awesome) and an Eee PC.
I think I’ll wait until the 9″ Eee PC comes out, but still get the Linux version which I will then proceed to format and install Sabayon, Ubuntu or Fedora 9 (which was released last night).

Also, Labor Budget 2008 was not as great as expected. Disappointing Mr. Rudd and Mr. Swan.

Uhhh, its fucking weird. Like disgusting weird.
Its made out of actual foods and Tahitian Noni juice.
It is putrid, although oddly I want more.
On the plus side, it fucking works well.

I just got their second album, New Era Part 2: War Of The Gods. Its rather genius.
It starts off by throwing you into this almost Rhapsody Of Fire-esque chant just much heavier and far less ridiculous keyboard. In fact, the chants in ‘Overture’ are almost catchy. The second song ‘New Era’ and the third song ‘Betrayer’ have some rather heavy thrash elements in them while still maintaining their symphonic power metal sound. Kind of like Dark Moor actually.

The fourth, ‘I Don’t Wanna Die’ starts off almost 80s like, kinda slow. It seems to be the slower of the fast songs and the vocalist is just amazing on it. The next track, ‘Golstar’s Rage’ is very Rhapsody Of Fire like but once again without the wanky keyboard and much thrashier.

The next song, ‘Why’ is the ballad of the album. Can’t really say much about it though. They use some interesting effects for it and in typical ballad fashion, it fades out at the end.

The seventh track ‘Back to the Crystal’ starts off a lot like ‘Crystal Lake’ from their first album. I assume it was deliberate. Very thrashy. Quite simply, it rocks and the vocalist kicks ass once again.

Number 8, ‘Immortal’s Lair’ I think is the most different song off the album. It starts off fairly predictably but then at 30 seconds in, this near-hypnotic chanting comes in and completely throws you off. It then returns to a very Rhapsody Of Fire part and remains that way for the remainder of the song, which is 8 minutes.

The next track, ‘The Hunter’ starts off sounding like it is truly going to be epic. Guess what? It is. It also includes more awesome chanting but also includes some cool effects. It continues to remain epic and the vocals are just amazing, stretching some octaves. Although, it does sound like a different vocalist, I’ll have to check.

The second to last track, ‘Before The War” is an instrumental which means pure guitar and keyboard wanking. It turns out brilliantly although they could have managed a bit more than 1:49.

The last track, ‘War Of The Gods’ starts off sounding like a honky-tonk piano but then enters their typical form. Pretty standard stuff for them with a slow solo thrown in but the ending will just throw you out.

Anyway, 7/10 seems like an apt rating.

Just do it. Best vodka known to man!
*hopes he gets some money for plugging*

If you like black metal of any sort, you should probably listen to Vesperian Sorrow. They are an amazing Texan band that just kick ass. Although, some may say they have too much keyboard, but is there really such a thing?

Also, if you like power metal, you should listen to Derdian. Being a symphonic power metal band from Italy, you have to automatically compare them to Rhapsody (Of Fire). I guess you could say they are similar, but the Derdian singer has an AMAZING voice. Absolutely perfect for symphonic power metal.

Another couple of bands that you should pay attention to (granted they feature the same genius) is Vintersorg and his new project called Gravisphere. If you haven’t heard Vintersorg in any of his bands, you should be shot. I don’t think I can praise this guy enough.

Enough music, now games with more tiny reviews.

Mario Kart Wii:
All I could say was “WOW”. It is just the masterpiece of the series and you HAVE to play it with the wheel. Pure and utter joy. Tracks, characters and karts/bikes have to be earned but that isn’t too much of a feat. Multiplayer is exactly what you would expect and as per usual, is amazingly fun and addictive with the exception of the coin collecting battle mode. Apart from that, a game that everyone must own. 9 /10

The Witcher:
A bit different now. Based on a book series written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher is a surprisingly immersive RPG with a more classical art style to what you would usually see in todays RPGs. There isn’t really any character customisation, apart from distributing level points, so there is really nothing to distract you from the story. The only few downsides are the intense loading times, silly little glitches and hilarious voice acting. 7.5 / 10

I haven’t bought GTAIV yet, I’ll wait until they fix the glitches.

All those people who have twitter, my username is lollbirdsey, so follow me, because I actually use it a lot.