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Laughing Man

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Blog Entries posted by Laughing Man

  1. Laughing Man

    I'm feelin it

    By Laughing Man,

    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 came with the interactive Star Wars board game I had in the 90s
    12. Attack of the Clones
  3. Laughing Man

    Stone Temple Pilots

    By Laughing Man,

    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 exclusive limited edition)
     
    and that's it. unfortunately in the band's 20 year career they created a fairly small discography, but what a discography it was - yes, some albums were weaker than others (No. 4, Shangri-La, and the 2010 self-titled reunion album are usually thought to not live up to the standards of the first three) but all of them were enjoyable and good in their own way.
     
    the band does technically have one other release - an EP recorded with, of all people, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington on vocals following the dismissal of Scott Weiland from the band in 2013. I personally don't consider this a true Stone Temple Pilots release and prefer to pretend it doesn't exist. there's also some side-project stuff (Scott's work with Velvet Revolver, Art of Anarchy, and solo career; the DeLeo brothers' Army of Anyone; and the mediocre STP-minus-Scott project Talk Show) but the only one of those I've bothered with is the first Velvet Revolver album. while all the musicians in Stone Temple Pilots were talented in their own right, when taking on other projects they simply never matched the incredible chemistry that they had with one another.
  4. Laughing Man

    Skyrim

    By Laughing Man,

    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
  5. Laughing Man

    RIP Scott Weiland

    By Laughing Man,

    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 albums I needed on Monday. there were a couple others I was going to put off for a while longer, but maybe now I'll go ahead and pick those up in his honor.
  6. Laughing Man

    Jessica Jones

    By Laughing Man,

    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
  8. Laughing Man

    Blind Guardian

    By Laughing Man,

    (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 as cool and special as these.
  9. Laughing Man

    Sixth Metalversary

    By Laughing Man,

    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 like it before. wasn’t sure whether I loved or hated what I was hearing at first, but eventually it grew to be the former.
     
    my tastes have changed and diversified a lot since then, but that album really opened up a whole new musical world for me and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. gonna listen to it tonight to mark the occasion.
  11. Laughing Man
    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 considering my interest in Lego/Bionicle is below 0% at this point, so I rarely if ever post in those subforums) but I'm still more active in COT and stuff than I am here in my own blog.
     
    I also used to have it pretty well decked out with graphics and stuff but now it's about as bare-bones as you can get.
     
    so yeah, suggest stuff I can post here, I guess. this blog used to be semi-active and fairly popular and now it's just dead.
  12. Laughing Man

    The GazettE

    By Laughing Man,

    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 with artwork on each side that changes as you move it.
     
    front: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
     
    back: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
     
    in addition to the standard CD case, the slipcase also houses a CD-sized photo book.
     
    easily one of the coolest packages in my collection.
     
     
     
    BONUS: enjoy this framed picture of a squirrel that I have on my desk.
  17. Laughing Man

    Lamb of God

    By Laughing Man,

    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 of a stage-diving audience member at one of their shows. those dark days are indeed reflected in the lyrics of the new album, but also in the songwriting as well - it is, in my opinion, the fiercest, darkest, most caustic album they've done since 2004's Ashes of the Wake and probably my favorite since that album. really good stuff.
     

     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Burn the Priest (2006 reissue; self-titled debut released under the band's original name)
    - New American Gospel (2005 reissue)
    - As the Palaces Burn
    - Ashes of the Wake
    - Sacrament (producer edition featuring a bonus disc of song stems)
    - Wrath
    - Resolution
    - As the Palaces Burn 10th Anniversary Edition (remixed/remastered reissue featuring bonus DVD)
    - VII: Sturm und Drang (FYE-exclusive deluxe edition featuring bonus tracks and bonus disc of instrumental versions)
  19. Laughing Man

    Baroness

    By Laughing Man,

    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 about all bands that go through such drastic changes in direction (coughOpethcough).
     

     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Red Album
    - Blue Record
    - Yellow & Green (2CD double album)
     
    these guys also have two EPs, First and Second, which are out of print and really hard to find. I'm currently keeping an eye on a set of both that's up on eBay for a decent price, but it's got three days left and I imagine it'll be driven way up by the time it's sold.
  20. Laughing Man

    Paradise Lost

    By Laughing Man,

    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 also like to get their recent rarities compilation Tragic Illusion 25 at some point, probably digitally.
     

     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Gothic (Icarus Argentina pressing)
    - Shades of God
    - Icon
    - Draconian Times
    - One Second
    - Reflection (best-of compilation)
    - Symbol of Life (US edition with bonus tracks)
    - In Requiem
    - Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
    - Tragic Idol
    - The Plague Within (US digipak edition with bonus track. currently my favorite album of 2015.)
  22. Laughing Man
    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 podcast. an offshoot of tTH also briefly acted as an off-topic sister forum to the website Mask of Destiny.
     
    while we're a primarily Bionicle-based forum similar to BZP, we pride ourselves in having a much more casual, laid-back atmosphere and a greater focus on off-topic discussion, of subjects ranging from music and movies to friendly debate and daily life. we also have features like customizable-by-request member titles and personal blogging subforums that are given to you once you reach 100 posts. we consider the site to be aimed more toward older members of the Bionicle fanbase, but younger members who want to join are certainly welcome as well. we invite you to visit us any time.
  23. Laughing Man
    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, especially in a package as nice as this. the case is pretty much a hardcover book, and while I didn't get pictures of them, the actual pages inside are pretty cool. full lyrics, artwork, and credits for each of the albums plus some additional commentary and information.
     
    I also own a physical copy of their latest album Distant Satellites which I probably could've shown here, but maybe I'll save that for when I have more of their albums and I can do a collection post.
  24. Laughing Man
    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.
     
    incidentally, the album Mozaiq is also pretty hard to find. for a while it wasn't available through U.S. or European digital outlets, and all the CD copies ranged from $30-$100. furthermore, if you were lucky enough to find a CD copy for cheap, there was a pretty good chance you would end up with one of Amazon's awful "manufactured on demand" CD-Rs instead of the real thing. and as if this wasn't annoying enough, it would appear that virtually all the copies of the album available outside of Japan, digital or otherwise, have the track listing totally screwed up where the songs are all shuffled around and don't match what's shown on the packaging or listed online - some copies, specifically the Amazon CD-Rs, even mistakenly include a song by a completely different band in place of the track "Neo-Gothic-Romance". I somehow managed to luck out seriously a couple years back and find a promotional European pressing on Amazon for $7. it does have the track order messed up, but at least it's not a CD-R and none of the songs are missing.
     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Idolator (European pressing, excludes two tracks included on the Japanese version, includes the music video for "Truth")
    - Mozaiq (European promotional copy, includes the bonus track "Cosmic Highway")
    - Epsilon (European pressing, includes the bonus track "Royal Sky", an updated re-recording of "Final Sky" from Idolator)
     

     
    this one is a complete collection, albeit with a far less interesting background than the Blood Stain Child one. Days of Nothing is a bit harder to find than the other two, but I did manage to luck out and get one for about $8. all of these are American pressings to my knowledge.
     
    top to bottom:
     
    - Days of Nothing
    - Oionos
    - Second World
     
    as a side note, if everything goes as scheduled, I should have an entry up tomorrow about a very cool box set I ordered last week.
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