Randomization

Huzzah! Lamb of God released their new one to day. So far, it's fire as usual. I've known it was coming and have been listening to the back catalogue to prepare myself. I also then did some googling about them. The band historically had two brothers in it, Willie the guitarist and Chris the drummer. These last two albums have been without Chris though as he had reportedly had a motorcycle accident and couldn't drum anymore. He has recently come out with the truth. Turns out he was fine after the motorcycle incident within three months. The issue is that he has a condition in his foot with the nerves that cause them to fire backwards once in awhile. He basically had to reteach himself how to lead with this left instead of right foot. Normally, this condition is a death sentence for a drummer so he kept it quiet but started hearing other drummers coming out with it so figured he'd set the record straight. He got this thing, won a Grammy with Megadeth, and then the band se...

You ever want some Heraldry? Like the ancient knights? You can get one, here in Canada, but it costs more than it's worth for someone like you and me. I've researched them before, just as a curiosity here in Canada. They are per person, but can be passed down in many cases. I've always though, how do you decide what to put on it, but you get to just choose cause it's for you, not your family. There also isn't a law saying you can't make your own as long as you don't claim it's real and don't use any of the official symbols of Canada. So lets make some! First off, the coat of arms is generally for a shield so it is flat on top but with a pointy bottom. Nuts to that. I would much prefer a round shield and since this isn't an official arms, that is what I will use. One of the general rules is that you have parts that are metal coloured (silver, gold, white, etc) and then the painted sections. I like this. I'll stick with it. In the center, there...

Trying not to write another post on history this time. I'm still all in on the podcast I've been listening to. All you learn in researching history is that Hitler was by no means the worst guy. That said, he wasn't even the worst guy in the Nazis. So, what else to talk about? Nothing much happening in my world lately. I guess, the gals are out in Alberta this weekend for derby so it's just me and the dogs. PARTY TIME! By which I mean I will be napping on the couch in the afternoons. Might watch some TV. Or just put on YouTube and let it play. Also, the cat will be around but she never goes near the dogs. Just pure venom between them all. Literally the caricature of dogs chasing cats. Ppppffftthhhhhh. Blog. Bloggity blog blog. Writing a blog. Olympics are over. Thanks to the curling teams for letting slip that Canadians are actually all assassins. Double tap. Pokemon is 30 years old today. So, that makes me feel old. Go Sandshrew! Oh! This isn't about history, I prom...

I wrote about some history a week ago as I am currently into a podcast called "The Rest is History." It's a couple of British guys that host it and they do a really good job. One thing I like about it is that each episode is about 45-60 minutes and they will often go over time. I recently listened to their one about Custer, which started as a three part series but each week they came back with more info and it turned into about eleven episode going past Custer and to the death of many of the big name first nations we know of (Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, etc.) One thing that struck me, that I never thought about, was the timeline. I always thing that for America, there was independence, the extermination of the first nations, and the civil war. But Custer fought in the Civil War. People he attacked were still alive in WW2. All of that stuff is remarkably recent and more intertwined than most realize. Plus there are a lot of things that get left out of general histories, esp...

Gene Simmons. Yeah. He's in the news again. This time talking about whether or not Rap music should be in the Rock 'n Roll hall of fame. He makes two points: 1. It's not my music, I don't like it, it's just spoken word over a beat, and 2. It's not Rock music so why is it in the Rock and Roll hall of fame. Regular listeners of this blog probably know where I stand on these. For number one: Fuck you, Gene. I don't like your band. but I'll still admit they've done enough influencing to be in the hall. For number two: I mostly agree with you, but I see that the Rock 'n Roll hall of fame has morphed into just straight music hall of fame. And, as Chuck D said in a reply, that's what the nRoll part is for. Plus we'd have to dig into the conversation of what counts as Rock and/or Roll and where to draw the line and I don't want to touch that with a ten foot stick (Rap counts as rock music, Gwar belongs in the folk hall of fame). My daughter a...

I've ran out of new music and don't feel like listening to old music so I swung back over to podcasts this week. I'll skip the bitching about how Apple has separate apps for music and podcasts and just talk about what I've been listening to. I've listened to three historical events/items so far but each has been 4-5 hour long episodes so they have gone into detail. The first was about the Iranian revolution in 1979. My wife is Iranian and her great grandparents were part of the regime that was booted out. So, it was good to listen about it and it also made me aware of many things I wasn't aware about. For example, the government is based on the Qur'an so women get a lot of freedoms taken out, but it doesn't say they can't be doctors. So there are lots of doctors. It also says you can't be gay, so that is punishable by death. But it doesn't say you can't have a sex change. Now, there's way more to it than what was int he episodes, but ...

I little while ago I wrote a post about re-reading the Rama series of books. I'm a fairly quick reader, but I tend to take long breaks at random times. This means that in the long run, it can take me a long time to read a book if I walk away from it for awhile. So, this week, I decided to pry myself away from the shitty news cycle and finished up the second book and started the third. It starts about nine months after the previous books when the main character has her baby and an alien space ship. She also remembers some things from the past nine much, such as recording a video for her daughter she will never see again that is left on Earth and then rewinding the tape......in the 2200's. This made me giggle a little. Tape still has it's uses, but it's mostly for long term storage. Not a record to be send by radio waves type use. The Rama books do pretty good on this front. They are more about explaining the advanced nature of the alien ship than they are about human tec...