the awakening, that is. just got back from The Force Awakens. instead of talking about how much I liked it, here's my ranking for the Star Wars film series from best to worst: 1. The Empire Strikes Back 2. The Force Awakens 3. Star Wars (AKA A New Hope) 4. Return of the Jedi 5. Revenge of the Sith 6. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure 7. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor 8. The Phantom Menace 9. The Star Wars Holiday Special 10. the Clone Wars theatrical movie 11. the instructional VHS that cam
in honor of the late Scott Weiland, last week I ordered the remaining albums I needed for my collection by Stone Temple Pilots, the band he was best known for as well as one of my favorite bands of all time. the final album arrived today. from top to bottom: - Core - Purple - Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop - No. 4 - Shangri-La Dee Da - Thank You (CD+DVD limited edition; greatest hits compilation also featuring an exclusive track, of which
)- Stone Temple Pilots (Target e
hey guys I found this great new game I bet nobody's ever heard of okay so I'm almost 5 years late to the party but I finally broke down and bought the Legendary Edition of Skyrim during the last Steam sale and it's slowly consuming my life also: mods make the game 1000x better
was absolutely gutted when I heard the news last night, still finding it hard to accept even now. Stone Temple Pilots are one of my all-time favorite bands and at least half the reason why was Scott. talented as heck and when he had it together, he was truly one of the greatest frontmen in rock. it felt inevitable that it would end this way given his history, but it's still hitting me pretty hard. I was just in the middle of finishing up my STP collection, too. I just got one of the last alb
AKA my new favorite piece of Marvel Cinematic Universe media I just wish they would've done a better job of actually, like, establishing that it's part of the MCU (besides a few vague offhand remarks) also Kilgrave for best/creepiest/most sadistic MCU villain. I'll never look at the Tenth Doctor the same way ever again
(L-R: Somewhere Far Beyond, Imaginations from the Other Side, and Nightfall in Middle-Earth) about 10 days ago I dropped $24 on a set of three classic Blind Guardian CDs from Japan, and to my surprise, they arrived today. they’re all the original Japanese pressings with bonus tracks and booklets in both English and Japanese, although Nightfall in Middle-Earth is missing the obi strip which is slightly disappointing but not surprising. really nice to finally own these albums, especially copies
on this day six years ago I made my first foray into the world of heavy metal music with the album As Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage. up to that point I'd really only listened to generic radio rock and alternative bands. I heard their rather misleading single “Starting Over” on the radio and really liked it, but the album that was from wasn’t out yet, so I picked up As Daylight Dies from Walmart one night instead. as soon as the first song started I was floored. I’d never heard anything li
AKA hipster Steins;Gate played through the final episode last night and I don't think I've ever felt more broken by a piece of fictional media than I do by that ending
like the title says. I used to update this pretty often but for the past couple years I've only really used it to post music collection updates that nobody reads, with the occasional random musing here or there. I've got a tumblr (which I so can't link here) where I do most of my actual blogging and updates and stuff, but it feels weird having a blog here and doing absolutely nothing with it. I just don't know what to do with it. I'm not exactly the picture of activity on this site (especially c
instead of a full collection update, this is just something I got that I find particularly cool. about a month ago I ordered a pair of CDs by the Japanese rock band The GazettE, imported straight from Japan. today, they both arrived. on the left is Dim and on the right is Division (the Batman symbol isn't part of the artwork, that's just the reflection of my shirt) the coolest of the two is definitely Dim, which I got in the 2-disc limited edition. it comes packaged in a hologram slipcase
another opportunity for a collection entry has presented itself with the release of Lamb of God's latest album, VII: Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress" in German) on Friday. I was interested to hear how the various circumstances the band went through within the last few years would affect the songwriting - frontman Randy Blythe (also a presidential candidate in 2012) was arrested, held, tried, and eventually acquitted for manslaughter in the Czech Republic, stemming from the accidental death
bit of a small discography this time as the band only has three full-length albums (so far; they're recording a new one currently). yet another band that went from a casual interest to an overall favorite of mine. these guys have had an interesting stylistic progression - from heavy sludge/stoner metal on Red Album to a more progressive/alternative rock sound on Yellow & Green, with Blue Record somewhere in between. all of it is really good, though, which is not something that can be said
over the past year these guys went from being a band I had a somewhat casual interest in to being a band I consider one of my all-time favorites. in the last few months I've worked to obtain all their essential albums and this is the result. I'm still missing their debut Lost Paradise, the more synthpop-oriented albums Host and Believe in Nothing, and the 2005 self-titled album, although most of those aren't as well-received as the ones I've got so they're not quite as high-priority. I would als
Xinlo already posted an entry about this, but hey, I figured that as an admin it's my duty to shamelessly plug it too. ..to tTH4! tTH4 is the newest incarnation of the long-running and successful Bionicle forum the Toa's Hideout, which was originally founded by a group of BZPower members back in the year 2007. since then it has gone through several revamped incarnations, and we've had a lot of familiar faces among us over the years, including BZP staff and members of The Three Virtues pod
okay so it's a few days late but that's the postal service's fault. I almost pre-ordered this from their UK webstore for about $40 USD when it was first announced. thankfully I didn't, because less than a month after it was released, I was able to get it from Amazon for $20. great set. I'm pretty sure the DVD is region-locked so it won't work for me, but I bought it for the CDs anyway. I'm a bit iffy on Judgement's remastering, but it's still great to finally own these albums, especial
I've run out of larger collections to dedicate whole entries to, so here's a couple smaller ones put together. this one isn't quite complete, unfortunately. I'm missing the first two albums plus the 2014 Last Stardust EP, but that's because those are all difficult to find (and expensive) outside of the band's home of Japan. I'm fine with missing the first two albums since they predate the trance-metal hybrid style the band excels at, but I would like to track down Last Stardust eventually.
