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Now funny you mention that craving; I'm gonna be making ribs for supper tonight; I'd share if I could...even though you might be the closest Runner to me, it'd still be a bit of a long reach.

(of course, NOW I want to make the ribs for LUNCH, not supper. )

Funny thing, I almost did take the exit to Sydney and the ferry yesterday.

You know, people hang a lot of shit on TOOL for being overly pretencious. Well, I agree. A lot of their stuff is so far up its own ass it's gone full Jormugandr. But, the music itself is generally pretty awesome. And, as a big TOOL fan, a lot of the lyrics are kind of exactly spot on. Take two examples, Vicarious and Stinkfist.
Vicarious is all about our culture, how we've lost empathy and become desinsitized to the shit that goes on in the world. Here's the two opening verses, and if there's a better way to explain our news and tabloid fascination I'm yet to see it.
Eye on the TV
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavour
It happens to be like;
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
She used the poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye
That's my kind of story
It's no fun 'til someone dies

Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother
Holds her child
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying
Why, oh why?
'cause I need to watch things die
From a distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all need it too, don't lie

Now let's take Stinkfist. Another song about our cultures need for constant entertainment, as we become (Or became, as it was released in the 90s.) more and more desensitized to everything around us.
Something kinda sad about
the way that things have come to be.
Desensitized to everything.
What became of subtlety?

How can it mean anything to me
If I really don't feel anything at all?

I'll keep digging
Till I feel something.

The lyrics might be a bit emo-seeming at first glance, but is it wrong? As a culture we started taking less and less interest in things, in the world. We let boredom rule our lives constantly needing something, anything to keep us distracted. And as a result we stopped caring, we need to dig deep to find things to care about.

I mean, yeah they're a band that's teenage angst personified, but at the same time, they have a point a lot of the time. The music sounds great and is creative, and they call out the bullshit in our society. I get why they receive so much hate, but at the same time I wish they didn't. I wish more people would actually put aside the instant reflex of "TOOL? Hahahah teenage angst hahahah." attitude and actually listen to the ideas in some of the lyrics.

Anyways, that's my random music thoughts of the day.

Just played the Kevin Bacon game. It says Graham is 4 people away from Mr. Bacon.
Graham > Andy Cownden > Nhi Do > Billy Crudup > Kevin Bacon

I realised that was wrong because Graham should be 3 away as he has been in a video with Wil Wheaton who is two away.

Graham > Wil Wheaton > James Russo > Kevin Bacon

Because I was in the Alex Club Video and I filmed Andy and Alex Musing I am 4 people away from Kevin. Didn't think it would be that close.

I'm just happy that 'crew' doesn't count for that - I was technically a 'driver' (I got paid by the production) for a Hallmark movie filmed out here...with Kiefer Sutherland.

Actually Graham has a Bacon Number of 2 - Wil Wheaton appeared (uncredited) in 1988's She's Having a Baby, staring Kevin Bacon.

the_lone_bard: I feel like some of the disdain for Tool is as a result of their fans. As you say, there's a lot in their music that would be very attractive to an angsty teenager, but also to an adult, who hasn't matured past being an angsty teenager.

So you've got teens, who are expected to like the angst, a bunch of fairly normal adult fans who enjoy the themes of the music, but probably don't stand out, and some adult fans who do stand out, who are holding on to the anger and angst, who (at a guess) probably also didn't develop social skills all that well, either. Which probably explains them being so common in geek circles. I think it's been years since I've seen a Tool shirt in the wild that wasn't on a Magic/40k player.

Master Gunner wrote:Actually Graham has a Bacon Number of 2 - Wil Wheaton appeared (uncredited) in 1988's She's Having a Baby, staring Kevin Bacon.

YAY! My Bacon is three!

As is mine which makes my Erdős-Bacon number 8.

Erdős numbers are the equivalent to Bacon numbers for mathematicians and are named for the prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős. Since there is a fair degree of interdisciplinary research, almost everyone who has published a scientific paper has a finite Erdős number - mine is 5.

I am re-obsessed with Amaranthe. Listened to them so much, new Symphony X album is great, listen to it 4 times, back to Amaranthe. Yet, I just can't ever shake the fact that they are a manufactured band. They have, fast energetic yet hard music. Male vocalist. Sexy female vocalist. Screamer vocalist. Their first ever video was literally a movie. With a budget. Since then they've marketed Elise being hot to hell and back, the music even sounds engineered, buuuuuut, the music is still awesome. So why does it constantly eat at me that they're most definitely created by money?

I like Amaranth by Nightwish.

I did a Tumblr, I'm pretty pleased with the name! BeardedUnicornofLove

Me: "What is going on? The forecast says it's supposed to be 'mostly sunny' all day, and it's past noon, and even the hourly forecasts are saying it was supposed to be pretty clear like two hours ago. I'ma gonna wait until it doesn't look so GREY out there - my pictures won't come out good with overcast..."

Mother Nature: "Awww...when's he gonna come outside so I can show off my sunny weather? Well, I'm gonna stay cloudy and save the clear skies until he comes out..."



Seriously, it started to brighten up maybe ten or fifteen minutes after we set off; by the time we got to Spruce Meadows Park the sun was actually peeking through cracks in the overcast. Took some so-so pics, and then it teased us with lots of warm sun on the walk back.

...joke's on mother nature, tho - we've just stopped off to change into shorts and freshen up and grab some fresh water before we continue! (oh, and make a forum post. )

Merrymaker_Mortalis wrote:I like Amaranth by Nightwish.

The band's pretty good. I also like Nightwish's Amaranth. Amaranthe also have a song called Amaranth, theirs is a ballad though. Also good.


In other news, new Symphony X album is so far, their best for me. I'd guess that their older stuff is still considered better, since everyone holds them up as absolute classics, but they never really hit the spot for me. Good, yes. But Russel Allens vocals always got overshadowed by trying to make him sound more... Electric? That's how I'd describe it. This album still does that, but they aren't emphasizing it, just letting him do his thing, with the same old Symphony X talent backing him. And that makes it absolutely epic in my eyes, well, ears. I can't really see music... At least not without a practically lethal dose of LSD.

Rainy Winter afternoon at the bookstore, drinking my coffee and reading some. I'm feeling quite happy.

Day 1 of new place:
"I might walk to Centrelink today and do what I needa do."
*Starts hailing*
"I might walk to Centrelink tomorrow and do what I needa do."

Welp, all the running around, and taking tests, and above all waiting in line (two hours to process my passed test) is done, and I'm now a full-certified taxi driver.

...now I just gotta grab a quick bite to eat, and then go meet my brother and go see my new employer.

(Hey. Hey guys. 16 days until smooches.)

And three days until the Edinburgh Fringe.

I'll be afk for a few weeks.

Katawa Shouja is a WEIRD game... I got all pulled into it by the main part of the game, then suddenly I'm doing anal with a girl in a wheelchair and the most difficult multiple choice so far is my teacher asking "Got a minute?"

Dark Souls aint got shit on this!

I decided to pick up Cowboy Bebop on DVD, as Walmart had the complete series for $25. Finished the first episode. It was pretty good. It gave me quite a big Firefly vibe. Which I like. And part of me wishes there was some kind of cross-over.

The only thing that really bothered me was the audio balancing. The sound effects and music were often so loud I couldn't hear what was being said. It's also lead to me having to constantly adjust volume to make sure it's not being stupidly loud, but loud enough during certain parts that I'm able to, you know, hear the dialogue.

Edit: Second episode is a lot better in terms of the audio issues. So there's my main complaint gone.

Well Lone Bard, you seem to have taken the same first path I did. I think that one has the most sex, the others only had one scene, but I never finished all the paths, Rin's was weird and I felt little attachment, so I got tired of the game before I finished Alice's as my last path (although I intend to finish it eventually, she looks like the most stable character).

Maybe I should date pidgeons instead

I leave for Vancouver tomorrow morning. Watch out Canada, Ix incoming.

You picked a good time for it - after a hot stretch, it's going to be in the low twenties but probably still nice and sunny. And with the Canadian dollar going so low right now, the conversion rate will be a lot more in your favour than it would've been a year ago. Hope you have a good time!

I began to wonder today how many active users this forum has. Membership count is 28300 currently, but that counts a lot of spambots and people who have fallen away from being active since the forum started in 2004. I know metrics like this are hard to measure, considering things like "What do you consider 'active'?" and "Does reading frequently, but not posting count?"

I'm just kind of curious about the ballpark number of people we have here at any given point. What do you think? Like 50? 100? 200? 400? 1000?