“Still Alive” Collaboration

Listen to…the awesome.

When you hear it, you just know somewhere out there the Companion Cube is running free… [sniff sniff]  Well…maybe not exactly running, more like standing there motionless…but she’ll be standing there, happy and free…and potentially covered in char and ash.   Just brings a tear to the eye.

Writing Is….

Writing is creating and solving a puzzle of your own creation, with an unspecified amount of pieces that change every day, and you never really know what it’s a picture of, until you complete it.

Just a random thought I had, staring at my screen a second ago.

Revisiting “Nightmare Revisited”

When I first heard some of these cover versions I had a gut reaction of dislike.  It could have been from being accustomed to the originals, or something else.  Only way to know for sure is to let time pass a bit, which I did.  What do I feel about this album, after letting myself stew on it for awhile?

First off, Sparklehorse’s (ugh) ‘rendition’ of Jack’s Obsession is still the worst noise I have ever heard in my life.

Secondly, all the instrumentals still rock.  The vocals?  Ah, that’s where the rub lies.  My playlist of songs on this album does NOT include:

2.  Opening- intro by Elfman.  Not really a song anyway, but mostly took it out because it slowed down the flow of songs.

 7.  Town Meeting Song-  This one is terrible.  The original version is 2:56 long.  This version is 8:55.  WTF.  How anyone could think a good revamp of an original is to triple it’s length is beyond me.  By the time they even start to sing it’s already been a minute and eighteen seconds.  That’s almost half the originals total length!  It’s so ungodly slow, I feel like Jack: “And as hard as I try, I can’t seem to describe, like a most improbable dream.”  Luckily I’m not singing it the way it is in this version, or that simple remark would have taken me sixteen soul-numbing seconds.  This one heartily earned it’s ‘Shall never be played again’  status.

 9.  Jack’s Obsession – This…this thing…this (for lack of a better word) ‘version’ is so terribly bad it could have meme’s attached to it for years.  Ytmnd.com, prank calls, gag gifts, annoying cell-phone-songs-as-messages, vanilla torture.  You name it, this unholy audio clip can do it.  In fact, this could very easily be the evolution of Rick Rolls.  Imagine the surprise of clicking on a youtube video only to be pelted with this steaming pile.  You were doing fine and dandy wasting time at work then *BAM!* 

Speakers crit you for Your Sanity! 

Next thing you know, your face is permanently stretched out like victims in The Ring.  Fortunately, I don’t even think a deaf person could stomach making a “Spark Roll”, knowing the chaos and agony it would cause on the masses.

16.  Poor Jack- It didn’t jive with me.  The vocals aren’t exactly emo, they aren’t exactly whiny…but, I just don’t like ‘em.  A throaty monotone does not a song make.  Elfman had emotion, great music, the whole package.  This one just seems…lacking?

19.  Closing- Again it kills the flow…and I prefer Picard’s version ^_^

Originally This is Halloween, Jack’s Lament, and What’s This? were also on that list, but have sense forged their way onto my playlist.  Reasons being:

This is Halloween is just a rehash of his version from years ago.  Not that it’s bad, it’s quite good, but it’s the same.  How is this “Revisiting” if it’s just a copy/paste?  Lost points for repeated use, but still a good song so it passed.

What’s This? almost didn’t make it due to the ever-increasing ‘idea’ of stretching out a song longer than it has to be done.  All the new versions I like on this CD are either the same speed or faster than their original, this being the only slower one I still listen to.  The only reason I still play to this one is that I really like her voice and style, I  just wish it was sung at a more brisk pace.

Jack’s Lament was originally in the same boat as Poor Jack, but it grew on me.  I was on the fence with this song for awhile as I like the band, but hearing their version I thought they could have done more with it.  I’m not sure if I have warmed up to the song, or simply got used to it.  Either way it’s on my playlist and I think it’s a good addition.

To summarise all the negative changes on this album I disliked:

• Slowing down these classics does not make you a revolutionary.  It makes for a bad song.
• Monotone is not the desired placement for your voice when singing emotional (happy, sad, etc) songs.
• When making a song your own, try pushing the envelope a little, while avoiding the two previous ‘ideas’.

All in all, great CD with more good surprises than bad.  I likey.

Reseach 102: Google FTW!

I don’t know why I find writing about writing so fascinating. To me, the writer, my perspective is different than you, the reader, this I understand. But for some reason, just seeing what I’ve researched today for a few hours trying to write makes me seem like I’m poking my head behind the scenes and taking note of clues that might affect…something. Even though there is no curtain to peek behind as I’m just looking at what I typed today. Maybe typing as different characters is making be skitzo. Hee hee hee. Anyway, here’s ten things I looked up today on wikipedia.

1. A-10 Thunderbolt II
2. Ancient Rome
3. Chain Gun
4. Drinking Straw
5. Formaldehyde
6. Gatling Gun
7. Plastic
8. Rome
9. Straw
10. Vulcanization

Research 101

Still looking up things to finish up my project, both to further explore and to make sure I’m not accidentally ripping off other ideas.  (There’s already a guy that pretends to be a bat that fights crime?!  No wai!)  My searches lead me to the classic bad guy, Venom.  I’m not the comic genius, admittedly, so thankfully I got the Cliff’s Notes version from wikipedia, as usual.  Everything was typical super dramatic storyline and ’shockers’ here and there, until I read down to minor hosts the symbiote joined with:

Angelo Fortunato

Angelo was the youngest son of Don Fortunato, a prominent Mafia capo of New York’s criminal underworld. Due to his frail physique and shy attitude, Angelo was frequently bullied and humiliated by his father. Tiring of his son’s weakness, the Don brings Angelo to a supervillain auction, where he purchases the Venom symbiote from Eddie Brockfor $100 million. Eddie warns of the dangers inherent in the symbiote to which the boy answers that he had nothing to lose in a life of non-stop ridicule.

Like Spider-Man, Angelo becomes the only other Venom host not to have a protruding tongue. Once bonded with the symbiote, Angelo learns the secret identity of Spider-Man, and plans to destroy him to prove himself worthy to his father. Angelo attacks Peter Parker during a high school reunion, injuring many bystanders in the process. They engage in a ferocious battle which brings them out into the streets of New York. Learning how to use the symbiote’s mimetic abilities faster than anticipated Angelo takes the advantage in the fight. However, when Angelo kills an innocent civilian he mistakes for Spider-Man, the superhero stops holding back and beats Angelo into submission.

In defeat Angelo’s old cowardly ways show through and he flees while the symbiote berates him for his cowardice. Irritated by the boy’s lack of resolve, the symbiote ruthlessly abandons Angelo in mid-leap, letting him fall to his death. Ironically, Angelo’s name translates from Italian into “Fortunate Angel”.

Venom quotage

Epic maneuver, Venom.  Epic maneuver.

My eyes…they bleed.

I’m trying to wrap up the ending to my current project and the human thought-process being what it is, ended up having me look up Trigun on google as I was looking up info on one of the Gung Ho Guns, and one of the pages I stumbled on was this one right here, and I can say that after scanning the page for the text I was looking for, finding it, and then mentally ‘clicking’ that the page is bright red I literally yelled “OW!” and just had to post about it.  I still see green ’shadows’ on the screen as I type this, sheesh.

Nightmare Repulsion (Revisited)

I was going to type something up eventually but this just…wow.  Very few things surprise me, but this cover CD certainly has for all the wrong reasons.

I don’t have the time to cut the garbage into manageable amounts, so I’ll just post a link to the worst thing I have ever heard in my life and call it a day:

 

In case you are at work so you can’t access it, or simply can’t take the pressure of having one of your favorite cult classics destroyed; it sounds like a female version of Tiny Tim singing “Jack’s Obsession” in the style of William Shatner, and constantly out of breath.

Not all the artists were terrible though.   Amy Lee, Marilyn Manson, Korn, Rise Against, and several of the instrumentals were pretty nice.  But others induce a sort of hearing gag-reflex, almost akin to how your brain says “hot” when your finger gets too close to an open flame.  When your ears get too close to the lack-luster tracks your brain says “bad.”

Christmas, She’s-a Here!

Well, looks like snow’s-a comin’.  It hasn’t started to fall yet, but it’s due any time now.  Skilling took a little jab at other weather persons and said “If you were expecting the snow to mess up rush hour on your way home today, you didn’t watch our program because this snow is moving right along schedule.”  You tell em Tommy, friggin’ weekend weather men ain’t got the cahones to tell it like it is, you tell em Tom!

Then he showed the map of what’s expected, and he paused it during the morning rush hour and said “And this here is…well this is just a mess” with such a straight face and professionalism that it made me laugh just typing about it.  But that’s enough about The Weatherman for one night.

After hearing his predictions for the night I, for some reason thought about decorating outside with lights.  Be it the fresh snow to get me in the Christmas season, or lack of fresh air getting to my brain due to all this central heating as it’s some 10 degrees outside, I was on a mission.  So I sent my Dad outside to get the lights.  (It’s cold out there!)

So now I sit and wait.  Can’t do the lights yet as I got a plan for them that involves the supposed foot of snow we are expecting here.  Hopefully it’s not the wet and heavy snow, but just snow, then ice after it falls as that would be excellent for what I have in mind.  Just gotta wait a few more hours for it to be about half done falling…

As for crafts, I made my girl friend’s friend and ex-boss a shrinky dink key chain.  Thought of and completed it in under two hours.  I did plan on making him something, especially after his fiancee’ got all druggy emo on my girl friend a few days ago.  (“I’m not addicted to drugs!  I just smoke pot!”  Well if that isn’t sound logic…)  Start out as a shrinky dink key chain but the hole I made ended up being a smidgin too small and my girl friend ended up breaking it while trying to take it off the chain itself.  So I turned it into a coin.

As for the rest of the crafts…eh.  Time is running low, methinks some gifts will be belated.  I finished the main gift I had planned for awhile now for my little lady, but I had another planned that might have to wait for her birthday in February.  I feel like I could have done so much more for people this year, bah.  Probably need to do one final round of gifts before wrapping time.  If I can afford it anyway.

X-Men Origins Impresses

Took a break from painting sun catchers and cross stitching to check out what Comcast is telling me is news.  Blagojevich, blah blah, Ellen and Britney sings carols, Tom Cruise isn’t nutty anymore, new X-men movie?  There’s something actually interesting.

Heard about this one, supposedly has Wolverine teaming up with Gambit to take on Deadpool, and based on the video I like.  X-men 3 had it’s moments, few and far, but it had it’s moments.  Two was all right…the first one was the best,  but again only in moments.  I guess you could describe the whole series by saying: “Special effects and nostalgia do not an epic movie make.”

I had to look up Deadpool because I’ve never been a big comic buff, my dad was really into Marvel and mostly Spider-man (got my sister into SuperBall…who changed drastically into Penance semi-recently.  I liked Ghost Rider back then as in typical male fashion skulls, motorcycles, chains, and fire are all badass.  I was also much younger then, but I still defend my appreciation to the guy, something the makers of the movie sharing his name certainly did NOTdo.)…that was a long run on.  Anyway, Deadpool sounds like he’s pretty cool.  Gambit looked a hell of a lot like a mix of a My Chemical Romance music video spliced with Clockwork Orange and a mop of hair.  Also I thought this guy was French?  Didn’t sound like it/didn’t show him enough to know in one watching of the preview.  But all in all the preview did it’s job; I’m interested in seeing the movie when it comes out.

Making Christmas Gifts, Finally

After quite a while, my gifts are finally underway.  So far I’ve completed two gifts, and spent the past few hours on the third one which has a bit left to go, but the fingers are going to be in pain tomorrow.  Much like when ‘breaking in’ your digits while gaming on your system of choice, my fingertips are achy from several hours of forcing a blunt needle through several layers of fleece.  I do not own a sewing machine, and while I prefer to make all things by hand (even making whipped cream by wisk instead of electric beaters) after today, if I ever plan to make more of these things and sell them on Etsy or something, I’m very willing to at least borrow someone else’s machine to do them. 

Or offer both hand-made and sewing machine options.  The items would generally look the same but hand-made items would be twice as much as machine made ones, as the time involved is quite high.  Several hours of pointer-finger numbing work is enough to make anyone ponder about better, faster, and less painful options.  I can’t say exactly what I’m working on lest the receiving person stumbles upon this, so all I’ll say is the deviantart user Clearkid has a tutorial for it, and it is quite helpful.  (The link there is your spoiler warning, potential person that may receive a gift from me.  And no, Joe, that’s not for you in case you are wondering…though I doubt you are as this is nearing 300 words and you probably just skimmed to the link anyway, ha.  GL in Naxx tonight, told you I wouldn’t get in there…and my ISP decided to shut off for like an hour just before raid time…yay.)

Oh, and while I was sewing I had Colbert and Daily Show on in the background, and just now watched the recent Daily Show interview that talked about blogging that said blogging is all about emotion and spontinaity, which is far from what I’ve done in the past.  Generally I think of something I can try to make interesting and then work at it a few hours until I’m happy, then hit Publish and spend the next hour editing things that just don’t sit right with me.  Hell, my articles for Hammer took me a good two days each, so I’ll try to do more posts like this that take less than an hour, woot. 

Note to self:  Schedule time to be spontaneous.