|
I've given it some time to grow on me and... it's not very good. First, the positives -- this is Metallica's first metal album since the black album. That's pretty much it. The lyrics are easily the worst Hetfield has ever written; I think the average Mystic Spiral song has more depth. The drumming is atrocious; Lars should just give it up. Or at least use acutal drums instead of paint cans. The bass work is simplistic and boring, since Bob Rock filled in. Coincidentally, Bob apparently forgot he was supposed to be producing the album too, since the whole thing sounds like it was recorded on a 4-track in sombody's garage.
On the plus side, the 'rehersal' DVD with Rob on bass sounds miles better than the CD. The lyrics are still poor, the drumming still inadequate, and the overall sound a bit sophomoric, but it makes the album overall pretty listenable.
-apon
|
|
|
Before a PGA strip takes its wonderous CG form, it starts life as a sketch. Behold!
-apon
|
|
Random Musings
St. Anger was made to suck on purpose. (It in fact WAS recorded on a crappy 4 track with ancient mics ON PURPOSE... artistic styling and such).
Mentioning NWN... I just picked up the expansion. Let me know if you ever actually play, and maybe I'll join in. I'll have to recreate my characters anyway (I decided not to bother moving save files and such for NWN to the new machine... you know, the one hooked up to my TV... hehehehehehehehe).
Apon: Did you ever get the 16x9 code for ATV2 to work? I tried to send it via ICQ, but ICQ isn't always my friend at work.
Hot Topic now sells Adult Swim shirts. Unfortunately, no Harvey Birdman shirts yet, but I picked up a nice ATHF shirt.
The Hulk... "You know what this movie needs... a BIG SUPER-VILLIAN! Let's tack one on, no matter how much it sucks!!!!!!" Thanks, Avi Arad (I'm sure he was the advocate for that movie-killer). Worst tack-on story since AI's "happy ending." (should I use spoiler-type? Nah). On the other hand, NICE Hulk rampages. Forget the plot, watch the Hulk trash things. He's green.
More rants to come!
--DuckPuppy
|
|
|
Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel. I guess I'm happy that Hetfield isn't responsible for the terrible lyrics, and the thing sounds like kids in a garage on purpose. That gives me hope that Metallica might still have the ability to turn out another quality album in the future. On the other hand, I feel a bit bad about them selling me this thing on purpose. Oh well, at least it was a decent bargain at $10 for a CD, DVD, and online downloads. And the CD-R I made from the Dolby 2.0 track on the DVD is nice for car listening. But still...
-apon
|
|
Where are the tabs you ask? The link to the about page? Blame Justin for making a theme with a fixed width. It's too damn narrow for today's comic (and many of my comics :-/), and breaks the theme, so I had to revert to the old one. If I actually had an ftp login or a shell login or something (grr), I could make a theme that had tabs and was wide enough. Please join me in yelling at Justin...
-apon
|
|
|
NWN: With positive responses from Patrick and Hank, I think I'll be picking up the expansion soon. Justin shall be left out in the cold!
PCs and TVs: Hmm, 1280x720 @ 60Hz makes DVDs and Xvids and the occasional game look very pretty in my living room as well. (My understanding is that NWN can support 16:9 mode as well; I might have to give that a shot...)
ATV2 codes: WIDESCRN works wonders. To quote my ICQ to you after I got it working, "WIDESCRN did the trick, thanks. at 480p 16:9, i have to say that atv2 is the best looking ps2 game i've seen. too bad only the gameplay is 16:9, the menus look goofy stretched. :-) (i'm quite surprised that this code isn't on the net at all)"
Hulk: Hmm... I'm still going to give Ang Lee the benefit of the doubt and go check it out...
-apon
|
|
|
|
*sigh* It's a bad day for freedom and equality. Could everyone please do me a favor and please start voting libertarian? It will take some time, but it sure would be nice to start down the path of setting things right...
-apon
|
|
| Ok, I'm moved-in now, but the cable guy won't come out until friday... or maybe wednesday or thursday if I can get one of those off. I wish my boss would come in to work, so I could ask her...
Stuff uploaded to 'rants' gets put in /comic/rant-images/, but I think I'll change that to /comic/rants/ whenever I get internet access at home. So put your stuff up in rant-images for now and I'll change the rant references by hand later.
If you have solved the problem of tabs on IE & Firebird with variable-width pages, e-mail your solution to me, and I'll make a theme with it... sometime :)
I just got an idea for such a theme, so don't work too hard on it.
--regolith
|
|
| Because they're so easy to make (with George Foreman grill), I don't know why I'd make anything else to eat! Nosir!
I worked on a variably-sized tabbed page last night, and while it doesn't look quite perfect in either browser, it's probably good enough. IE makes it much wider than it needs to be, though... Now, to get internet access!
--regolith
|
|
|
Firstly, cheese is bad. Lots of fat and not much in the way of other benefits. (And aren't you lactose intolerant?) The burger itself is a lovely source of protein, but you have to watch how much fat you intake, so eating them all the time is not the best idea. And if you're putting them on a bun, that adds a decent amount of calories and a big chunk of carbs. It's really easy to overdo the carbs if you aren't paying attention.
I'm not sure what on earth the problem is with a variable width table and the tabs at the top, but then I haven't really looked at how the tabs and such are being accomplished on this site. The way things stand, doing anything not directly through the admin interface is either very difficult or impossible. Funny that. BTW, am I imagining things, or did the links switch from being ordered by who ranted first to a default order?
Also, food poisoning sucks. I thought I had just been inattentive when I prepared the last piece of chicken from this bag in the freezer, but I guess the whole bag must be tainted or something. Who knew purging your digestive system could be so exhausting?
To switch topics rather completely, I've been invited to a camping-type party over the Fourth of July weekend, and I'm not sure whether I should go or not. On the one hand, I'm not a particularly outdoorsy guy. On the other hand, Sarah (my cousin who is throwing said party) is a good friend. On the first hand, I wasn't really planning on going to New York for the holiday weekend. On that other hand, it will probably be a lot of fun. Decisions, decisions...
-apon
|
|
| I dunno why the links are being ordered like that. Mysql seems to be ordering them by our id numbers, though that's not what I wanted...
... There, I fixed it by removing the primary key and replacing it with a normal index.
--regolith
|
|
|
I wasn't actually complaining about it (a rarity indeed!), just making an observation. But yay or something.
In other news, I still hate AIX 5.1. More specifically, the license management tool that refuses to properly upgrade. Pitty me.
-apon
|
|
| The link sections are in the right order on the rant editing page but not on the homepage... garrr!
--regolith
|
|
|
While I've been waiting for the AIX upgrade to finish and/or fail (better not fail! :-[), I wandered over to a nearby Borders. They had copies of Megatokyo Vol 1 for sale, which was pretty neat (didn't know they were showing up in real stores now). I would have picked one up, but they had these horrible price/barcode stickers plastered on the covers of all three copies that were in stock, so I passed. And that is my exciting story for the day. I certainly hope this damn upgrade works for once...
-apon
|
|
| Matt will do 2 comics in a row! hehehe...
I have finally run out of hamburger, so I'll have to start delving deeper into my hotdog supplies... I will also have to go get some garbage bags as my single bag is getting a little full now. Who am I kidding, I will probably starve or be buried alive in trash within a week... Then who will be there to press the dead-man switch that holds back the earth's destruction?
--regolith
|
|
|
I was afraid of that...
If anyone happens to know how to get a Serial DASD adaptor / set of disks recognized and available under AIX 5.1, I'd sure love to hear how. If it's not one thing it's another with this machine...
As for tomorrow's comic, I'm making no promises. I have no idea how late I'm going to be here tonight trying to get to a blissful state of upgraded and all disks available (right now the tape backups let me choose one or the other).
-apon
|
|
