It would be easy to turn this into the all-Sabaton, all the time channel, but they don't release stuff quite that often. That said, while I am still not a fan of the growl/scream vocals, this cover of "82'd All The Way" is actually pretty good. I like the effect of mixing the lady's voice with the guy with the more 80's metal voice. For what it's worth, 82nd is vying with "Devil Dogs" as my favorite song on the album. Oddly, the first track here, just like on The Last Stand, is my least favorite, and the second…
In his post on Supervillany, Brian discusses our ruling elites, Kevin Spacey, and the utter lack of accountability. The whole thing is worth a read but the following jumped out. Ask most people their opinion of pre-democratic societies, and aside from a few D&D nerds, most will decry the monarchies and aristocracies of yore as tyrannical nightmares. The king and his barons--possibly with some oversight from the Church--made all the important policy decisions, and the common man got no vote. If you got saddled with a mad or wicked ruler, you had to wait for him to die…
I generally avoid Netflix, Disney, and so on. There's very little to watch outside of the classics that's actually worth the time, and I've gotten back to spending more time reading. Nevertheless, with the holidays, and spending time with family and Christmas parties in a purple zone, I got more than a little exposure to what is currently popular or "funny." Yes, I know, libs have no real sense humor. The problem is that they think they have one. Yes, I also know a lot of words have been written to that effect, but I realized something else, tangental, but…
You can consider this the inauguration of a series - to insofar as possible, commemorate the events behind Sabatp's song on the anniversary of said events. I haven't mapped all of them to a calendar yet, so things may be incomplete for a while, but I've already seelcted dates for each song in The Great War. Today marks the anniversary of one of the first raids conducted by the Arabs in conjunction with T.E. Lawrence "of Arabia" against the Ottoman Empire. Incidentally, the story of Lawrence is arguably a major influence on the story of Dune.…
I'd become accustomed to the dazzling variety of metal genres out there. Old school 70's metal, acid metal, black metal, death metal, speed metal, thrash metal, symphonic metal, power metal, folk metal... Filed under not quite as "what the hell did I just watch" as my introduction to BabyMetal, it turns out there is, indeed, a capella metal. Or the next best thing to it.…
I keep tabs on Bruce Charleton's blog, and so the recent post on Phil K Dick caught my eye. In the past couple of months I have read/ listened-to a dozen Philip K Dick novels, and most of the Exegesis - his philosophical and spiritual journal written during his last eight years. I haven't enjoyed a fiction writer so much, in such quantity, for several years. Certainly, I appreciate his work more fully this time round than when I read a batch of his novels more than thirty-five years ago (triggered by watching Blade Runner - one of the half-dozen…
It's been an interesting year. Some of it has been personal matters I won't dredge out here. Some of it is also work related, and changing how that's gone about in a way that, in the long run, should make things better. All in all, after dealing with various family losses and one elder with dementia, it's been a year of retrenching and getting things sorted. But mostly, it's that, having achieved my first goal - to post consistently, I deliberately backed off, and it definitely shows. There's also no point in promising "I'll post more." - I'll simply have…
Christmas itself was good. Family and children back home, food, chilling and hanging out together, board games, and so on. We had a good Christmas dinner, everyone was safe and healthy, gifts were exchanged, games were played, and we went on several family outings between Christmas Eve and Christmas day including the family dog, who, as dogs are wont to do, had the best day ever. The evening outing was pleasant - a local county festival/faire that's been running for the last week, and even Christmas eve. It was crowded, but relaxed. Even on Christmas Eve people working the…