Celestial Dreams

Metallica is back, and it's been a while since they released anything remotely close to the quality of "old Metallica" that people speak of. (Not only in my opinion, but shared widely). Their previous release, St. Anger, was their low-water mark and many thought for sure Metallica was a band of the past. (Wow, that sounds so professional).

Listening through Death Magnetic for the first time, I believe they have released some pretty good shit, bringing them back up along bands that "play good music" once again.

The first thing that strikes me is that solos are back. I'm not a huge fan of solos, I think they've overrated and I can do well without them, but they have been a part of 'tallicas career since before they started, so when they were left out of St. Anger, that alone made them sound funky (in a bad way).

Musically, lyrically, technically, enjoyally (if that's a word) -- Death Magnetic kick St. Anger around so bad it wish Death Magnetic didn't kick it around so bad. Death Magnetic is what Metallica should have released back in 2005 to keep their faces, but I suppose St. Anger was their outlet of emotions towards each other and themselves and they had to get it out of their system before they could produce anything worth listenting to.

I'm really enjoying this album. Not one song is shorter than 5 minutes; most are over 7 minutes long and one is close to ten minutes. It's pretty sick, but, it does however add some "dead time" to the songs. Stiff bridge-riffs, sometimes just pounding the drum playing along on one note on the guitars, to divide the verses. It's nothing major, but stuff like that kind of get in my face and is hard to shake off.

Spite that, it's a great album. If you liked what Metallica released 15-20 years ago, but have frowned upon their releases since the Black Album (much like me), then Death Magnetic will redeem itself worthy.

(I just now realise what a poor scan I made of the cover, but I can't be arsed fixing it).

To start of in a good mood, here's a short little story*:

A while back a mate and I discussed Myspace. He loves it (somewhat - he probably wouldn't use that word, but then again, he just might), and I didn't give much for it. Thinking (knowing) it was just another spawn of the devil-type community I never cared to join up. (Actually I tried once, but it kept sending me in circles so I gave up - it just didn't want to make friends).

Anywho, he argued that being friends with all kinds of bands made it easier for him to keep track of new releases and other fun info from the various bands he had befriended. And recently I have come to agree. Well, sort of..

Moving on, this story really has little to do with Myspace, other than the "follow bands I like" part. Actually, this has to do with Youtube, thus ending the story-bit, somewhat..

* If it didn't leave you in a good mood, write me a comment about it!

I'm subscribed to Nuclear Blast Europe's channel and every so often they serve me with delicious (and sometimes not so delicious) bands to explore. A while back they slapped Die Apokalyptischen Reiter playing Es Wird Schlimmer on the front page, demanding my attention. It happened to be the first track on their album Licht which were due for release a few weeks later. And now, a few weeks later, I sit and listen to the album, and I like what I'm hearing...

Licht is a mixture of rock and folk-metal with some rather nice melodies. I'm not usually much for the German language, and I usually want to know what bands are singing, but Die Apokalyptischen Reiter has something special about them making them a fine exception. And the girl playing guitar is pretty hot! (As most girls playing guitar are. Most..)

Slipknot return with their fourth studio album, and it's safe to say, the hope is nowhere near gone.

Taking their experimenting one step further, Slipknot are keeping their heavy and scary approach but mixing in softer elements, acoustic guitars and cleaner singing that could be taken straight from Stone Sour (singer Corey Talor sing in both bands, after all). It's a bold move, and frowned upon by many, but I like it; it's not the constant pounding, your ears won't bleed as much as before giving you more time to enjoy the music. You'll still feel the need to jump around, however.

The special edition comes packed with three bonus tracks and a DVD. One of the new tracks is a remix of Vermillion pt.2 that appeared on Volume 3: (The Subliminal Verses). While not bringing any new material to the Vermillion "saga", it brings new depth to it; it's a great remix.

The DVD features a 35 minute long documentary called "Nine: The making of All Hope IS Gone". It contains shots of the band members playing their instruments or singing mixed with some behind the scenes-clips of the video to the title track. There's however no interviews and hardly no spoken words, which I would have found more interrresting. I felt like I could have done well without this extra disk, but being a sucker for digipacks I couldn't pass it up. ;-]

While there aren't all that much to keep track of (ok, so there is, but so far I'm only working on full hours) it's a bit of a pain to remember how to tell time in Japanese.

Most of the pain comes from not memorizing the numbers 1 through 10 in a good way. Yesterday my brothers girlfriend mentioned making a memory-game out of stuff you're trying to memorize, so that's what I'll do.

I also found a little game that not only test your knowledge in hours, but also your hearing -- some of what they say is a little hard to hear, at least for me. It's a bit childish looking (quite a lot so, in fact) but gets the job done. :-]

Ten years ago, a bizarre phenomenon appeared in Tokyo. Three days later, two types of humans with supernatural abilities appeared: emotionless 'dolls' that only do what they're 'programmed' to and wield the ability of surveillance, and powerful 'contractors', feared and hated by the humans that know of their existence. Rationally self-preserving and without the feeling of guilt, it's not long before contractors are used as ideal assassins and weapons of war.

Unable to analyze the phenomenon that created these beings safely, it's decided that a huge wall be built around it, called "Hell's Gate." PANDORA, an international research group, protects this wall and analyzes what little they can, while the government struggles to suppress dangerous contractors and the publics' knowledge of them.

In all the police force's efforts and doll-assisted surveillance of the city, one contractor continues to evade them. 'BK201', as the police force knows him, stands out as an exceptional killer, while those in the syndicate who know him as 'Hei' see him as a powerful, yet strangely irrational contractor...
- Shamelessly copied from anidb.com.

For the longest, the mask that Hei is wearing put me off wanting to see this serie. Dunno why, but it looked kind of.......silly, I guess. In the end I gave in to the plot though, and I'm glad I did - DtB is an awesome show, and I had heaps of fun watching it.

DtB is devided up into two-episode blocks, putting the focus on one of the characters in each block. The last three episodes plus an OVA is the exception, where they try to wrap it all up and (halfarsedly) tie up the loose ends.

- I'll add more here, I just had to get this written or I'd stall forever. -

Or actually, an addon is helping me with kanji. While browsing for some Firefox addons I stumbled upon Kanju-lish which replaces the first letter of a word with the corresponding kanji (with a few limitations). Pretty cool, and pretty straight forward. Read becomes 読ead etc.

The only drawback I have come across so far is that the text is too small to properly display the kanji. Some of them look cluttered, lines that go close to each other mix together making it hard to read.

But still, a pretty nifty addon, none the less. I'm not currently practising kanji, but I'll run it now and then, just for the heck of it. :-]

Tales from Earthsea is loosely based on a series of novels about the world Earthsea; hundreds of islands surrounded by a vast, uncharted ocean.

I can't think of a good way to sum up the plot of this movie, one'd almost have to know about the Earthsea universe to fully understand -- a few things that happen seems to be taken out of context. The story feels really short, almost to the point where I wonder why they even bothered making this movie.

The king is murdered. The killer - none other than the kings own son, prince Arren - flees the palace by horse, bringing his fathers sword along. Shortly thereafter Arren find himself surrounded by a pack of wolves. Trying to defend himself, Arren realise he can not unsheathe the sword, and thus prepares to die. Instead he's suddenly resqued by a magician; Sparrowhawk. Accompanying Sparrowhawk, they set of towards the city of Hort where Arren runs into Therru, a girl chased by slavers. Arren fends the slavers of, but Therru runs away without saying a word. Later that night, the slavers return in greater number and capture Arren.

Yeah, I'll stop with the plot there. I could tell more, but it'd basically be giving away the entire movie, the plot is pretty...thin, to say the least.

Animationwise however, Tales of Earthsea is really beautiful, everything seems to be alive and every movement is really smooth. I especially like the architecture of Hort, a magnificent looking city, even though it's really run down. The voice acting is also pretty good, no complaints there. There's a song somewhere halfway through, sung by Therru, that's pretty nice.

If you're a fan of Studio Ghibli movies, I suppose this one's a must see (not really), but if you're just looking for a movie to waste some time on, I'd suggest one that ain't so bland. I'm sorry. This movie was bland, and you'd really be -wasting- your time..

I haven't touched the Wii much lately, dunno why. Console games aren't as fun when played alone, I suppose. Anyhow, I'm looking forward to Mega Man 9, which are to be released as Wiiware, meaning you pay a few quid and download it straight to the Wii. In other words, no huge arse games. Mega Man 9 will feature graphics and sound resembling the games released on the Nes. But I'm rambling..

I decided to have a look around the Wiiware shop, just to get a feel for what they're currently offering, and found a platformer that looked promising -- LostWinds. This won't be a proper review, I've only just tried the game for 10 minutes...

Once you start the game and decide which save-file to play you're immediately thrown into the game. Litteraly. You play as a little fella called Toku, and after a little stroll in the woods, the ground crumbles and he falls into a cave. While trying to get out he encounters the wind spirit, Enril, who lends the power of Gust, a power that will Toku fly to platforms that are otherwise out of reach. Using Gust you can also interact with various objects, such as fruit and torches. Also, just about anything will blow around a bit if you move the cursor over it, the wind blowing through bushes makes a pretty realistic sound.

The graphics are really cute with warm colours and controlling Toku is heaps of fun. I'll sit down at some stage and play through LostWinds and write a perhaps more proper review (or edit this one, who knows)...

If the title of this movie had been any much longer, I would have been in trouble.

I'm quite a fan of Tim Burton. I've fallen in love with Corpse Bride, been frightened (albeit not overly) by Sleepy Hollow and touched by Edward Scissorhands (maybe scarred would have been a better word, hehe).

Teaming up for their sixth movie together (which reminds me I have yet to see Ed Wood), Burton brings us Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Johhny Depp in the lead as the barber, Sweeney.

Based on a musical by Stephen Sondheim, it tells the story of Benjamin Barker, a barber falsely charged and sentenced to a life of hard labour in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusts after Barker's wife Lucy. Fifteen years later, under the assumed name "Sweeney Todd", Barker escapes the penal colony by sea. Upon arrival in London, Todd returns to his old flat above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop on Fleet Street. There Lovett tells him that his wife took poison after being raped by Turpin, who then adopted Todd's daughter Johanna as his ward. Todd vows revenge and reopens his barber shop in his upstairs flat, with ill intent in mind.

I loved it! While I'm not a huge fan of musicals, this one was really well made. The sceneries in this movie are breathtaking, portraying London in the 1800's as a dark yet very much alive city, shrouded by mystery and romance. When I first heard that Johhny Depp would be singing I had my doubts, but he's doing a really good job, his voice and tone really fits the character.

It's a bloody tale, but one that enchants. So how's it gonna be? How about a shave?

I decided to grab hiragana by the horns and have a go at it, learning a few of the phonetic characters at a time. Figured five or so characters every couple of days might work, but I'll see how I do.

There's 46 basic hiragana syllables (shown on the right), and I started from the top with A (あ), I (い), U (う), E (え), and O (お). So far, あ has been a bitch to write, the last swirl never turns out right. I think it's partially because of my otherwise pretty sloppy handwriting; sometimes I'm having a hard time reading what I wrote myself (which probably means I should have opted to become a doctor).

I don't know how far my brother got in his studies, but when I get about that far (in terms of the reading and understanding), I'll drag him along. It'll be more fun doing this together with someone. (Back to school, let's compare notes!). :)

(I had a hard time figuring out how to get the Japanese characters to display properly, at first they only came up as ?'s for me, but then I realised the database was set for Swedish chars... Silly thing.. You may have trouble seeing the chars properly unless you have Japanese support installed).