The thrash metal veterans that are Darkest Hour released their latest album, The Eternal Return, last Tuesday to great acclaim and praise. The band was generous enough to let the public preview the album the day before on their MySpace.

It was amazing.

Their previous album, Deliver Us, was, to me at least, a strange step forward for the band. Seeming to leave behind the speed and intensity that made earlier albums so great to listen to and replacing it with a slower pace but with greater technical musicianship. The Eternal Return takes the technical aspects of Deliver Us and merges it perfectly with the speed and intensity of The Mark of Judas and other early albums. It truly is a marvelous album.

Although it is a tad short with only ten songs, a few of which don’t even break three minutes, it is a nonstop barrage of thrash from start to finish that really fulfills the soul when you listen to it. If you’re a fan of thrash metal, definitely check out their MySpace and see what the new album is all about.

~Nate~

Quote of the Day:

So serene is the bleached white scene,
Of a thousand crimes you will never see on TV,
Swept away only to pave the new way,
This misinformation age is upon us all…

Darkest Hour ~ The Misinformation Age

Yesterday morning, a great cultural icon died. Billy Mays died at age 50.

Best known for his boisterously loud salesmanship, Billy sold such great products as OxiClean and Orange Glo to great success. In recent months, his show Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel has become an instant hit, showcasing the process of going from idea through testing to success of a homemade helper product.

From all reports currently available, it appears Billy died of natural causes and foul play has been entirely ruled out by authorities at this time.

My sympathies go out to Billy’s family and friends in this time of mourning. He will be greatly missed.

UPDATE: Today in honor of Billy Mays and his legacy, the world is wearing his characteristic blue as a tribute to the late commercial salesman.

~Nate~

RIP Billy Mays.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen premiered on Wednesday and I had the pleasure, or displeasure to some degree, of seeing it on its opeining night along with the rest of the western half of the state. I’ll save me displeasures until later and start with the good parts.

The movie was amazing from start to finish. Coming in at somewhere close to three hours, the movie was definitely a long one but every minute was justified. Probably the biggest thing I heard about the first movie was that there simply wasn’t enough robot on robot violence, excluding the climax of the movie. The second movie definitely brought a whole ton of fighting amongst the Transformers, which was part of the reason for the length.

The plot was perfectly paced and included its fair share of tragedy and triumph. Optimus Prime had himself more than his fair share of against all odds fights in the movie that he handled like only a true Autobot leader could. The humans did an excellent job as well, pretending to react to imaginary robots fighting overhead and moving the plot along as only they could.

My one complaint is that, even with the introduction of new Transformers on both sides, there was really no expansion on the personalities of the Transformers from the previous film and no real introductions for the new ones. Other than that, it was three hours of pure awesomeness for your brain.

While I was at the theatre, there were so many things going wrong it was almost criminal. It really raises a number of questions when a theatre, who has held its fair share of premieres for blockbuster movies, still makes beginner mistakes when the premiere arrives. Not enough ticket booths open, overselling the showing and insufficient staff at the concession stands were some of the things I saw. I was particularly annoyed when the movie started and at the entrance ramp there was a growing crowd of patrons looking for seats together but could not find any. My annoyance grew when I could hear one of the staff from the theatre attempting to direct them to single seats all over the theatre, which they were having no part of as they wanted to sit together.

Another thing that really, really pissed me off was that there were way to many families with children under the age of six in attendance. Now when I was that age, I could hold my own in some of the most violent of films but in today’s age of pampering and spoiled brats, too many kids can’t handle a loud explosion or a hero’s death. This was exactly the case as I was surrounded by families at the showing I attended and not one of them was capable of holding back the tears or screams as the explosions began.

I’ve never wanted to punch a kid until that moment,

~Nate~

Monday night was certainly an interesting night for my friends and I. We were involved in a little “inter-clan name-calling war” while we were playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. To be honest, it was extremely juvenile from the start and progressively got increasingly more childish as the night continued.

The whole “war”, if it can even be called that, when my brother, the host of the match, kicked a player from the opposing team for using a weapon/armor combination in conjunction with a faulty connection to repeatedly headshot our entire team while glitching past all of our bullets. It was pretty easy to see that he had a lagging connection when he would flash back and forth in front of you while firing the entire time. I personally stood directly next to him as he was reloading, at least I think that’s what he was doing, and fired fifty-two P90 rounds into the side of his unarmed chest.

He didn’t die.

After he was kicked from the server, a number of his clan members who were behaving similarly but not as significantly as the banned were left on the opposing team. These members proceeded to spam my brother with various homosexual advances and then extended them outwards to my brother’s clan, of which I am a member. Before long, they had devolved into insulting everything from our mothers to our lack of “love lives” to our gameplay in a manner that more resembled that of my eight-year-old cousins.

To say the least, I was pretty fucking pissed.

It’s a shame that people out there refuse to take the time to play a game without a weapon that is essentially shoot and headshot, I know because I have used it and felt like less of a man. Not only does it give a bad name to anyone who uses that weapon or similar weapon but it also devalues the server, driving away players who are constantly being killed with no chance at survival in a game with already dwindling numbers.

Needless to say, I threatened their lives once and ignored the additional spam for the rest of the night,

~Nate~

Quote of the Day:

“If you’re not nervous, then you’re  not excited.”

Kyle of Breath Carolina