So yeah, my wonderful, splendid, utterly gorgeous angel of a fiancée got me an Xbox360 for Christmas, so pretty much every waking moment - and even some unwaking ones - have been spent in the worlds of Fallout 3 and Fable II. Even here at work a little part of my brian is turning over what stats to work on and which perks to get next.
Some of you out there have Xboxen too, I know that much. Please feel free to add me to your friends list - my GamerTag is Tommi Starr.
See you in there,
–c.
Well fuck my old boots, it’s been a truly incredible year for rock music.
Who could have possibly imagined, back in the wilderness years from ‘94 to even 2003 or so that I could be writing an end-of-year rock review here in 2008 which encompasses storming brand new albums from Extreme, Whitesnake, AC/DC, Metallica, The Quireboys, Mötley Crüe, and even… yes, who would have dared to even dream it, Guns N’ Roses. What is this, 1991 again? Seems so, and I love it.
What follows here, then, is my rundown of all the decent rock and metal albums to have graced my ears and collection from 2008 - that is albums released in 2008, which is why Airbourne’s “Runnin’ Wild”, Crashdiet’s “The Unattractive Revolution” and VR’s “Libertad” don’t make the list, awesome though they are. (There are 17 mini-reviews coming at you, so you may want to fetch a beer or such before you dig in - this is going to be a long post.)
Some might think I’ve been pretty generous with my ratings, but bear in mind all these albums are here because I like them, or else I wouldn’t be reviewing them. I’m not doing this for a job, or being sent things to review, so you’re unlikely to see any 1 or 2 star ratings. All albums are marked out of 5 stars (though I reserve the right to use half stars) and I can tell you that out of them all, there is only one to which I have awarded the full 5. (I guess I’ll save that one for last, actually. If you don’t like suspense you can happily scroll down…)
I shall take the rest in alphabetical order by band/artist, which brings me first of all to…
Jesus Christ. This reminds me why I usually shun online delivery services in December. I know if I was to have words with either service in question, or the postal service, I would be told “We are experiencing an unusually high volume of post at this time.” Yes. It’s December, hence Christmas. It happens at the same time every fucking year. You might want to think ahead.
Benders.
–c.
6 glam metal/hard rock bands you may not have heard of, and if you have any interest in this music, you should check out immediately:
Get on it.
–c.
Yeah I know, I keep crapping on about it. But it’s great!
Anyway, a mate in NZ popped up on twitter the other day saying that my Rockia ringtone (which is me playing the Nokia “Grand Valse” tune on my guitar) had taken his office by storm. Excellent, thought I. Wonder if there’s an easy way to make an iPhone version?
Turns out there is, so I did. And in addition to that I made a few new ones. Here they are, feel free to download any of them and use freely!
And as a special bonus, and because it’s my favourite, here is Mr. Stephen Fry excerpted from his podgram entitled “Compliance Defiance”:
If that one doesn’t raise a smile, I don’t know what will. Just don’t let it go off in church.
–c.
Podcasts! They’re great, I reckon. No, really. My commuting listening habits have switched from constant hard rock to lots of funny things. It’s smart!
Favourites:
You’ll mostly find me chuckling on the tube.
–c.
One of my favourite things about the iPhone is that you keep discovering little extra things about the interface as you go along. It’s not things you wish you’d known and berate Apple for not pointing out before, it’s little extras, little things that are like the icing on lots of tiny gorgeous fairy cakes.
Just now I discovered, entirely by accident (I was cleaning the glass while listening to Phill & Phil’s podcast), that while the phone is locked and you’re listening to audio, you can double-press the main button to access the ipod controls - volume, next, previous, pause - without unlocking the main phone.
It’s just a nice little tweak, and it’s stuff like that which keeps me in love with the thing.
–c.
Testing photoblogging from the jeebus phone. Here’s a hungry cat.
–c.
Don't give me any crap about having a blog, either. I've been doing this since 1998, before "blogging" existed.
Yes, really.
"Talked to my soul today but I couldn't keep my brain away"
- American Pearl
(from "Automatic")
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Dec | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
You can email me on stuff at this domain.
