The Last Candle

Victor Davis Hanson has some valuable insight over at National Review Online prison abuse photos, cries for Rumsfeld to resign (boggling!), and the internal war currently being fought within the US:

[…] Either this year or sometime in the next decade a Democratic administration may well take the reins of power and in matters of national security it will be far to the left of the Liebermans of the world. And the disturbing events that we saw in the 1990s � constant appeasement of Middle East terrorists and their national sponsors, the emergence of a nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, sudden withdrawal from messy places like Mogadishu, a jetting special envoy Jimmy Carter � will return, though made worse through the prism of the present fury over Iraq.

The “Donald Rumsfeld must resign!” schtick is such a knee-jerk reaction.

I got the crazy idea of interviewing Tod a little while back. After his acceptance and subsequent speech, a list of questions was arranged, ditched, remade, and eventually the dialogue was created, the result an unnatural stew of grace and bilge. <p/> Read the interview here.

Q: What popular sport(s) should implement projectile weapons?

A: Polo. Definitely polo. Give those silly brits harpoon guns and watch their boring prancy sport transform instantly into a brutal testosterone frenzy!

Tod tackles 28 questions involving blimp flights, fruit stacking, Spongebob Squarepants’ cleaning procedures, classical painting, Nikki Sixx, and a lot more garbage. Enjoy. <p/> (The page looks a little less nice on Internet Explorer, but not nearly enough to ruin the presentation. Problems involve font size not showing up correctly and such, image alignment problems, etc. Actually, I’ve had whole sections stopped being rendered in IE, but I think that’s a unique problem here.)

I alterate in month-wide spans of Mad Crazy Musique-Nouveau Hunter and keeping it sweet and lowdown with the already-haves. Overall, I’m a strange-progressive kind of guy with my music: I have to keep looking not only to introduce myself to new strums, but to keep the old stuff in perspective. Or I just need new tracks every once in a while to keep my lust for metal leashed up (with a barbed-wire collar \m/ ). I’m in Hunting mode at the moment, so here we go with something I’m excited about: <p/> After rooting around a few of my favorite band pages, I realized that there’s quite a bit of free music offered by either the label or the artist to promote the music. Free music, and it’s using those shiny bits everyone these days is talking about. In the face of these free downloads, I’m going to keep an eye out for metal artists that are showcasing their tunes to pass along and gain support. (Maybe sometimes music other than metal? I dunno – this is a Heavy Metal Household, after all, so maybe you should just wipe your feet up the door and pick up a complimentary axe while you visit.) I’ll write a little bit about the artist and pop a few hyperlinks for visitors that I’ve managed somehow to make curious or just clicky. There are quite a few tunes and artists available already that I’ve never covered here, so likely I’ll at some point soon-ish do an �berpost of a lot of tracks for sustained, blissful metal pleasure. <p/> Today’s group: Evergrey. <p/> My tastes have changed recently to heavier grunge on the guitars and lead vocals, but I haven’t lost my love for bright instrumentals that groups like Rhapsody and Kamelot continue to produce in quality quantity. However, these more power metal-oriented groups can be too bright at times. Music like that grabs ahold to your attention with the continual outspoken melodies. Sometimes you just want something a little more blurred and less bright in overall tone. Not too heavy, like Soilwork, but something that’s not at differentiated, something with more — ahem — grey. <p/> Evergrey is a group like the aforementioned grey style. It’s definitely in the vein of power metal, but the group plays with more resouding distorted guitar and a lead vocalist, Tom S. Englund, that uses more rough than smooth. Even if Englund isn’t as silky sounding as Sonata Arctica’s Tony Kakko, he’s still the largest contributor to the feeling of Evergrey’s music. It’s a little like Hansi from Blind Guardian with the rough lead. (Although Blind Guardian, next to probably Opeth, is at the top of the ganre for composition). <p/> Many full songs and several samples are available at the band’s downloads page on their main site. I’ve been listening to the track from the most recent album, The Inner Circle, called A Touch of Blessing. The amazing melody at the end of each phrase of the chorus, part of a continuous melody theme introduced in the first seconds of the song, takes my breath away to a degree I haven’t felt since Sonata Arctica’s Wolf and Raven. The “plotline” is grey and melancholy (from what I’ve gathered, it’s about putting aside personal volition and pledging work to a higher power, and the results of undertaking such a responsibility), but the vocals are very expressive, giving the basis great power. That’s the difference between a group like Evergrey that has variance and Hammerfall or Iron Savior that has trouble changing tone within and between songs. <p/> Enjoy.

Big news number 1:<br/> Anthony is an official Central Michigan U. Alumni! Congrats to him, and let’s hope that’s a job he smells. <p/> Big news number 2:<br/> Anthony graduating means he won’t be staying with us next year, as his time has come to hit the job market, while the rest of us have a little more school to hammer into our soft brains. <p/> It’s a happy thing to see ‘em move on into the big-time life, but we’ll no longer have his company at the apartment to share the good, the (rare) bad, and the (common) goofy. The past two years spent with these guys has been the best of my life. Missed will be the scary video games and Slurpees on Weekends, and tactical PC multiplayer gaming. The Gabriel Knight and MST3K discussion will be remembered with great happiness, along with the absolute mass of quotations and expressions that stretched from live experience to classic film to gaming. <p/> I expect constant nagging for him to stop by the new place. Not like a child tugging on a mother’s apron, but like letters from relatives you haven’t seen in a while: “Come try out these new doorknobs we just installed!” or “Corn Flakes with Bananas! You gotta see this!” Anything to get ‘em over. <p/> Meanwhile, for this one: I move into the new apartment on Saturday, but training for my on-campus job starts Thursday, which means temporary housing in a motel for a couple days. Besides withstanding the separation anxiety being away from my computer, I’ll be spending my lunch hour poring over the hot hot hot Electronic Entertainment Expo news. <p/> My annual excitement for E3 usually doesn’t start up until a couple days before the show, but there are so many things to get good coverage this year — the new Nintendo console (the “DS”), the new Sony handheld finally unveiled, Silent Hill 4, Final Fantasy XII, Metal Gear Solid 3, new Metroid Prime, Super Mario, and The Legend of Zelda games — that I’ve been waiting this year’s gaming spectacle for a couple months. I don’t think it’ll let anyone down. <p/> (Eight days without an update. Ouch.)

Exam week starts now! Been pretty busy in preparation (believe it), so I haven’t been able to comment on some of the things that’ve happened recently like the completion of Kingdom Hearts, thoughts on going to a party and attemping to be social, and music awareness. Usually, when I mention these posts in advance, they never come to fruition. So let’s forget all about them and just keep going. <p/> On Speed Demos: We’ve all seen the Super Mario Bros. 3 speed demo by now, right? Where the guy blows through the game in something crazy like eight minutes flat, while the rest of us dragged it out for days. (Unless you’re nuts about speed demos or club-serious with the games.) In any case, I love these frickin’ things. Mario 3 in eight minutes, The Legend of Zelda in less time than it takes to make a cake, and the entirely of Mega Man 2 in the same time space that I can finish half a level and die a few times. It’s like watching a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode: You still get to see an original product, but it’s been tweaked a certain way at the hands of a master such that the experience is quite different. <p/> Most recently I discovered the Speed Demos Archive, which focuses on the Quake games (check out Quake Done Quick), but has an “Other Games” area for everything un-Quake. I sat down with a tasty sub-wich and a Guinness last night to watch the 57 minute clearance of Half-Life, and it was better than most action films I’ve seen recently. (Very funny as well. This dude can tear it up.) Also good was the 1 hour, 58 minute dash of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes with a guy playing on Extreme mode (no radar, no kills, can’t even be seen) and still dashing behind guards backs and killing the first boss without moving a step. Next up to watch: 50 minute run of Donkey Kong Country. <p/> If I get crazy enough with these things, I’ll grab the 1.13 GB The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time where a guy somehow beats the game in about five hours and says in the description “I can still do it faster.” Hop to it. And thanks for the entertainment. <p/> All this talk makes me want to study…really fast!! Go watch that Half-Life speed demo and be amazed. (It does show the entire game including the ending, so depending on your interest in the playing the game someday, that’s a boon or a bane.) <p/> And I updated the links page for the first time since the new design was put up on January 22nd. Rejoice. (Interests have been updated as well, but even I hardly care about those.