Synthesis

I've just bought my first hardware synthesizer, a second hand Korg N1R from the late 90's. Obviously I don't have much experience with it yet, but it seems pretty cool. It's a rack module style synth, i.e. it doesn't have a keyboard of it's own and needs to be hooked up to a midi keyboard. (As it happens, we have an old Kawai keyboard in the house, dating from the mid-90's, with midi features, which seems to work fine for the purpose.) There are hundreds of preset sounds to explore, and lots of potential for editing sounds, if I ever get around to learning the art of synthesizer programming... Okay, it is more than ten years old, but some of the sounds are still impressive, and I'm not sure a vintage sound is often a bad thing in general, either.

Earlier I've used pure samples, with tracker software, for similar purposes, and experimented with software synthesizers (such as ZynAddSubFX), though I haven't really done much with those as of yet. (Oh, and there's that old Kawai of course. I used that on a couple of old four track recordings back in the 90's, although it's own sound is rather inferior.) It's nice to actually own a physical synth, though. I have a large selection of at least decent sounds available in one straightforward package, no need to mess around with a variety of software. And it's a name brand, of course. With my ESP guitar (albeit from their cheaper LTD line) and Korg synth I'm almost starting to feel like a real musician.

If only I was a little better at playing keyboards...

I Want My MTV

I've never been a big watcher of MTV, but these days when I happen to surf to it, it only seems things are getting worse and worse. Honestly, all they show these days is reality TV crap and hiphop videos. Didn't they use to have actual music on? (I should mention this is the Finnish version I'm speaking of... I don't know how much it differs from other regional versions...)

Even Headbanger's Ball has gone down the drain. The show used to have a presenter and guests, but now it's just videos. Which might not be bad in itself, if the videos weren't such crap. Last couple of times I've watched the show, I've seen plenty of rap and electronica. This is Headbanger's Ball, for ****'s sake! Of course it's still mostly metal, but most of it is boring nu metal and death metal... Apologies to anyone who likes that, but it just ain't my thing. Ever heard the saying "variety is the spice of life"?

On top of everything, half the screen is covered by unbelievably stupid SMS matchmaker applications. All I can say's "what's the world coming to?"

Another Filler Post About Music

Well, in the couple of months that I've been listening to Nightwish, it's overtaken Queen to the number one slot on my most played list at Last.fm. Which is quite impressive.

Since I wrote about Rhapsody of Fire a while back, I've been growing ever more fond of it. While in that post I considered some of the problems with concept albums, it must be said that Rhapsody's music, with its epic fantasy sagas, is unique among concept albums. Yes, it is a different kind of experience compared to, say, Nightwish, but no less wonderful. Particularly to a fantasy geek like me.

Having received a little money from translation work, I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I now own all the studio albums by Nightwish and Lordi, and all but the latest by Rhapsody of Fire (which I'll try to obtain soon). My income being what it is, I've favoured libraries, friends and the Internet as sources for music for a long time, but some albums you just need to own in physical form, because the listening experience just isn't complete without the additional aesthetic and informative content provided by the covers and booklets. This is especially true for Rhapsody of Fire, as the booklets contain not only artwork, but also additional narrative, maps etc. vital to the story.

I hope to receive my next paycheck soon. This one will be spent on the new guitar. I'm kinda excited about that. And rather impatient.

Expanding into Music

Update: New music website opened.

I have just opened a new homepage for my music projects. The site will list works that are available, with background information, lyrics and links to downloads.

I have made this website independent of the main site in order to have information available in a clear and concise form for anyone potentially interested in my music, and also in order to better tailor the aesthetics of the site to suit the content.

There's no real new content yet, but I have been hoping to do something in the not-too-distant future... I won't say any more about it before I actually have something to show, though. (Which, knowing me, may be a long while yet...)

The Concept of Concepts

I've just been getting acquainted with Rhapsody of Fire. It's not half bad. The singer isn't quite my cup of tea, but he's not particularly annoying either. (Like I've said earlier, the vast majority of metal for me is ruined by vocalists I don't care for. Well, the same applies to any genre really.)

Now, this type of music seems to rely heavily on the idea of the concept album. Rhapsody of Fire has taken this to the extreme by creating an epic fantasy saga spanning multiple albums. This has its pros and cons. The idea of a continuing saga is pretty cool, but it means you really need to listen to the entire work as a whole, and it is harder to really get into.

Nightwish, on the other hand, while it can be seen as working in the same genre, symphonic power metal, doesn't do concept albums (or at least such themes are much more subtle). Songs are complete in themselves, which means they hook you in a very different fashion. It was a single song by Nightwish that got me interested in them, and the whole symphonic metal genre. And after that single some came another, and another, and another... great, anthemic songs you can just listen to over and over.

Whether it has something to do with the different approach to songwriting, or simply a result of different personalities and songwriting skills (not to mention the very different style of vocals), it's hard to say, but I don't think this type of music can ever have quite the same appeal to me that Nightwish, for example, has. The same applies to most concept albums, in all genres, not just Rhapsody of Fire and other metal albums. Take Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm, for example. While there's much to speak for it, it just doesn't hook me in the same way that the albums before and after it do.

Oh But I Was So Much Older Then

Building on the theme of the previous post, a little more about me and music. It's interesting to look at how my taste in music has developed over the years.

As a child I started out mostly listening to music from the 50's and early 60's, Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles' earlier works... In my teens I proceeded to late 60's psychedelics, particularly The Beatles' later works and The Byrds. In my later teens I discovered a few artists from other decades that carried on the feel of the 60's in some way: Tom Petty, Tracy Chapman, Dire Straits... Of course there were also later recordings from artists who begun their careers in the 60's.

The first major change came at the very end of my teen years when I discovered anime and japanese video games. Video game music became a defining feature of my listening habits in my early 20's, though all the all favourites still remained strong. I also discovered demoscene music through getting acquainted with tracker software, originally from a desire to create music similar to my video game favourites. Also in my early 20's I got very interested in progressive rock, particularly Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant. It could be said that my main musical interest proceeded from the 60's to the 70's.

Now, in my later 20's, I've witnessed my musical interests becoming ever wider and wider. While at some point I might have described my taste as mostly 60's and 70's rock music, I'd have to describe it as rather eclectic these days. Particularly interesting has been the addition of more modern genres that I had very little interest in, even an aversion to, previously, namely various forms of electronica and heavy metal.

My taste for both probably mostly grew out of my taste for video game music, as well as other soundtrack records (and maybe demoscene music as well). I discovered these kinds of music worked very well in certain contexts, and gradually certain artists begun to appeal to me outside of specific contexts as well. I should put emphasis on 'certain artists'. I don't really listen to any genre for the genre's sake. Each artist has it's own, special appeal, and in most cases I'm not particularly interested in the majority that a genre has to offer.

It's almost like I'm growing younger, beginning with a taste for the oldies and progressing gradually to more current music... In any case, it has been an interesting journey, and has resulted in a wonderfully varied (but still rather picky) taste in music.

Concerning Blacksmiths and Metal

Generally speaking, there are very few examples of Finnish music and cinema that appeal to me. There are probably many reasons for this. One is that, having an English father, I was exposed to a large variety of English (and American) music, literature and cinema from a young age. English is the language of music for me. It's not that I disrespect music sung in Finnish, it's just never been a part of my life, so it sounds wrong to me.

Another reason, which applies particularly to cinema, lies simply in my nature, the type of story and aesthetic that appeals to me. This isn't, at least in whole, a result of my heritage; I'm sure a lot of Finnish people, especially of younger generations, share similar tastes. I've always been mainly attracted to fantasy and science fiction, epic stories often of a highly visual nature, and we simply don't have the resources to make that kind of movies in this small country.

And this is obviously the part where we come to the exceptions to the rule. I just watched Jade Warrior for the second time, and I still think it is a brilliant movie, both in story and visual aesthetic, and not only in comparison to other Finnish movies. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Lordi movie Dark Floors, but of course that has so few specifically Finnish elements that I'm not sure it even counts as an example.

The story of my taste for Finnish music, on the other hand, is inseparably entangled with another story, the story of discovering metal music. I grew up listening mostly to 60's music, and others who carried on the tradition (like Tom Petty, whom I discovered through other artists who begun their career in the 60's). While I greatly enjoyed some harder rock, such as the Rolling Stones, and later Queen and AC/DC, I steered clear of metal music for a long time.

In the late 90's I discovered Japanese video games and through them the world of video game music. This also opened the door for electronic music in general. Then came The Black Mages, an album of music from the Final Fantasy games re-arranged as metal. It was a great album and together with the later Black Mages albums remains among my favourites. I came to the conclusion, that musically some forms of metal music had a great appeal for me. However, most of the non-game metal I heard was ruined by unappealing, even annoying singers, and an overall attitude that tended to be so over-the-top in its supposed darkness and wickedness that it ended up being ridiculous, and not in a good way. No offence to you metal afficionados out there, that's just how my taste is.

Fast forward to 2006. Our own Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest. I found their tongue-in-cheek humour and horror movie themes to be appealing in a way that the majority of heavier rock artists I'd heard had never been. It took a year or two to really get into it, but these days I'm a big fan.

Now, I recently saw a hilarious YouTube clip of misheard lyrics to Wishmaster by Nightwish. I happened to be in a mood for some suitably atmospheric heavier music, so I figured it was about time to get better acquainted with this domestic giant. And I discovered I enjoyed it greatly. Musically Nightwish is just the kind of metal I seem to enjoy, epic, often fast paced, yet atmospheric and emotional symphonic/power metal, not unlike The Black Mages and other Japanese video game music. The frequent fantasy themes are also right up my alley (although I must admit I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to much of the lyrical content yet).

It's curious that, video game music aside, the two examples of heavier music I've most enjoyed thus far are both Finnish. And just as curious that pretty much the only examples of Finnish music I enjoy represent the heavier side of rock.

To end this longish post, I should perhaps make the clarification that the fact that I've lately been painting my nails black does not stem from heavy metal or goth style, but rather from glam style and artists like The Ark.

Continuing Adventures in the Music Player Trade

Rhythmbox, which I've been using to play music for a while, is pretty good, though it has a few issues. Probably more out of desire to try out new things (and procrastinate) than anything else, I decided to give MPD a whirl. And I don't think there's a going back.

MPD isn't actually new to me, I used it for a good while before getting my MacBook and getting sucked up by that fiendish device of the Dark Lord (known to most by the rather innocent name iTunes). For those not in the know, MPD (or 'Music Player Daemon') is a daemon that runs in the background and can be interfaced by various clients, both graphical and command line.

Picking a client to use is difficult, though. ncmpc is a rather good console application. The only real advantage that graphical apps have over it is the ability to show cover artwork. The UIs of the couple of graphical clients I've tried so far haven't really made a big impression, however. So does convenience and simplicity beat eye candy? We'll see...

Still with the Simplifying

Continuing with the theme of the previous post, I decided that Amarok 2 was simply too buggy for use, and I wasn't sure if the interface was really the best possible in the first place, so I ditched it.

Right now I'm trying out Rhythmbox, a music player for Gnome. First impression: the GUI is rather simple, no eye candy, clear iTunes influence, no features out of the ordinary, but... it simply works. Right from the start.

OK, so it doesn't look very fancy. Well, it's a Gnome app, so selecting a decent looking GTK theme will instantly make it a lot more elegant. Like Amarok, it doesn't appear to support the Album Artist tag I used in iTunes to group multi-artist albums. But it's search feature works better than Amarok's, so I can just type, say, 'csi' and instantly find the CSI soundtrack album and play the tracks in correct order.

Artwork's always a problem, as pretty much every player I've tried seems to handle it differently. Rhythmbox doesn't support embedded artwork, but it should support covers saved in the album folders, which might, in fact, be the best solution. It also has an automatic artwork fetching feature, which downloads covers for each new album I play. Only the cover for the currently playing album is shown, in a little box in the corner, so this'll do fine for the time being, no hurry to instantly get artwork for all of my hundreds of albums. Of course this isn't as fancy as, say, iTunes's Cover Flow, but of course it also eats up less resources, only having to show one little pic at a time. In the long run, if I stick with this app, I'll probably download better quality images to save in the album folders, but there's no hurry.

Rhythmbox also has a pretty good command line remote control interface, which can be used for scripting. I've already set up a global hotkey to pause/resume playback. The only little downside I've noticed so far is that, while it has built in Last.fm scrobbling support, it doesn't apparently support the 'listening now' feature. The only reason this matters to me is that I was using a 'now playing' script for the irc client Irssi which used this.

Settling In with Music

Carrying on from my last post: the first days living with my new Debian installation. One of the major apps I need is obviously the music player. I've been a slave to iTunes for too long. There's the proprietary software thing, for one. But also the fact that depending too much on its features can make switching to another application a real pain. Not all those features are really standardised.

I installed Amarok 2. It's showing potential, and I'm getting accustomed to the rather different interface, little by little. It's not without problems, though. First thing: none of the album artwork I added in iTunes is showing. OK, Amarok has a pretty nifty 'fetch album cover' feature, and a lot of that was corrected in a matter of minutes. Of course a good few covers were wrong, but they can be corrected individually, it's not an acute issue. (Except saving individual covers seems to have issues, some of the covers have reverted back after restarting, some haven't...)

The most serious problem, though, is handling albums with multiple artists. More precisely, they're not really handled at all. Each artist is listed separately, which is incredibly annoying. There's an option for tagging albums as 'various artists', but it is very buggy, the settings are apparently lost each time the music collection is re-scanned. I really hope this gets corrected soon.

ID3 Tags - The Bane of the Perfectionist Mind

When it comes to ID3 tags, I'm a real perfectionist. It's a curse. I have to get them just right or I can't even listen to the tracks. Decent ID3 are necessary for many reason. The way modern players like iTunes sort music really requires accurate tags. As do services like Last.fm, where particularly the artist tag is crucial.

So here are a few of the hardest things about tagging tracks:

1. For artist tags, should you give priority to composer or performer? This applies particularly to soundtrack albums, which often include a song or few, composed by one person, the overall composer for the work, but sung by one or more singers.

2. A related issue is guest artists singing duets on albums by another artist. How to tag them? Guests should be credited, but then Last.fm won't count the track towards the main artist's play times. That's probably not so crucial, but of course there's the question of how to format the attribution. Consistency is nice.

3. Genre is often a very difficult question. So many albums just don't neatly fit into a particular genre. Particularly difficult is the distinction between rock, hard rock and heavy metal. Take some albums by Queen, Jethro Tull or Alice Cooper, for instance, which can contain elements of all these. I'd prefer to tag genre for entire albums, however, rather than single tracks, as I like to take the album as a complete entity.

4. Capitalisation. Some people spell articles and prepositions and other small words in lower case. Many don't. There are no real rules for it, each publisher can have their own guidelines. But I like consistency.

And Song Number 10,000 Is...

10,000 plays at Last.fm since joining February 2007. I guess that's worth a blog post, if nothing else. That's an average of 16 plays a day, apparently. A lot of those plays are from this year, though, since I only started to accumulate a proper collection in electronic form after getting my MacBook last autumn, and it took a while to move my data from the old computer.

Whether keeping track of what you listen to actually affects what you listen to is an interesting question. Of course you don't need Last.fm to do that. iTunes counts play times for each track, as other modern players do, I expect. But of course Last.fm has a more holistic way of presenting that data. My MacBook has had a greater impact on my listening habits, though. Having a computer that's convenient enough to have turned on at any time, anywhere, with enough disk space for my music collection has made CD players obsolete for me.

For the record, track number 10,000 was Run Down the Devil by Alice Cooper, from the 2005 album Dirty Diamonds. Which, a little surprisingly perhaps, is one of Cooper's best, in my opinion.

Thirity One?

What is it with people who submit album information to CDDB and the like? Just how hard can it be to spell song titles correctly? Or pick a genre that fits even remotely to the music?

There's hardly an album I rip that I don't need to make corrections to. And with today's media players and services like Last.fm, correct tags for music files are absolutely crucial. So if you're unable to read and write, or just thick enough to think no one else can, you might bloody well consider not making others suffer from your mistakes, thank you very much.

If You Take the Music Out of a Soundtrack Album, What's Left?

I'm just listening to the CSI soundtrack. This is, sadly, very typical of how many soundtracks are these days. It's mostly tracks by various artists whose music has (I assume) been featured in the show, and just two tracks of John M. Keane's actual original music for the series.

There are way too many soundtracks like this these days. The Buffy soundtracks are good examples. Many action movie soundtracks are the same. Many of the songs on the albums aren't actually bad (I've even found several artists that have become big favourites of mine through the Buffy albums), but when I listen to a soundtrack I'd like to hear music that really represents the sound and feel of that show or movie, i.e. original music composed for it, not a collection of random pop songs, even if they perform an important function in a particular scene of that production. (Sheesh, how's that for a long sentence.)

I love the atmospheric, electronic music Keane's made for CSI. It fits in the show perfectly. I think it'd work well as background music for some RPG session, as well. But I only have ten minutes of it to listen to. What's the sense in that?

I Had a Shoggoth

Another very quick post. I Had a Shoggoth is the funniest song I've heard in ages. Warning, for geeks only.

Jesse Jane

Just a quick comment. I'm just listening to some Alice Cooper, and don't you think the lyrics to The Saga of Jesse Jane are just the best ever?

Bloodthirst

I just read the Lordi comic Verenjano. It was quite fun, with a couple of clever ideas too. I'm not used to reading comics in Finnish, but Mr Lordi's northern accent really made my day. The art, while perhaps not the best ever seen in comics, was nothing to complain about either. Now I've got to try to find the first issue as well... (And I still haven't manage to see the movie. It'll have to wait until the DVD is cheaper.)

Lordi is a rarity for me in several ways. First, it's one of the very few Finnish groups I listen to, if not practically the only one. Lordi's image and style aren't particularly Finnish, of course. Second, it's one of the few modern groups that I like with a heavier sound. I do like a lot of older hard rock music, like AC/DC, and many bands that combine harder rock with other styles, like Queen, Jethro Tull or Alice Cooper. Later groups, and especially metal groups, rarely appeal to me. It's usually the singer that spoils it for me (and that applies to many other genres as well). I'm very picky about the singing styles I like (ok, so Lordi's singing voice isn't exactly at the top of my list, but it's still better than many). But often it's also the image and attitude of the bands, which tend to be overly negative and aggressive, to an extent which just looks ridiculous even when intended to be serious and dark.

Lordi's different. It's intentionally over-the-top, I think, in a tongue-in-cheek way. Lordi's music isn't anti-social, and certainly not satanistic, but rather a homage to horror movies and comics. Which certainly appeals to a horror fan like me.

In Memoriam: Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley has passed away at the age of 79. He was one of the first great rock'n'roll artists, alongside people like Chuck Berry, who formed a new sound that wasn't quite blues and wasn't quite the cleaner white rock'n'roll. They gave the developing new music the rougher edge it needed to really, well, rock us.

Bo Diddley is one of those artists that I love and respect, but have never quite gotten around to listen to enough. I don't really know why that is. Even so, Bo Diddley was one of my favourite songs as a teenager and I was often playing it in those first years when I was learning to play guitar. It's still one of the best guitar riffs ever, in all its simplicity

The people who created rock'n'roll are a dying breed. I was lucky enough to see Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry in joint concert about a decade ago. And they still rocked an arena full of people. So catch the ones that remain, while you still can!

Restructure and Reshuffle

Update: Restructuring RPG sections

No new content, just slightly restructuring and tweaking the RPG Resources section. Namely, I've integrated my old campaign information page that was under the Elcalen's Homepage section into the current RPG section. I should have done that when I first created a dedicated RPG section, but naturally I was too lazy.

Any other thoughts that come to mind seeing as I am blogging? Well, I've been listening to a lot of music on shuffle during the past few days. I usually avoid this. I see the album as a whole which is meant to be listened as such. The songs lose something when taken out of their natural context. However, listening on shuffle I get to hear some neat tracks I rarely listen to. I've just got too much interesting material on my hard drive.

Of course the same goes for my CD rack, and there are many interesting CDs I haven't ripped on my hard drive, but you can't listen to an entire CD collection on shuffle... So, to sum up, it's refreshing, but it's not something I would want to do all the time.

Something Wrong With This World Pt 4

I'm just watching the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final. And I honestly can't believe it. No, it's not any worse than any other year. But somehow every year it manages to be a shock.

Does no one in this world have any notion of taste any more? As always, awful, tacky dance numbers take turns with unbelievably boring ballads and the odd very badly written comedy number. Many of the performers sing in English, and invariably pronounce it very badly.

This, more than anything else, proves that I must be living in another universe altogether. No one, I mean no one, could actually like these performances, can they?

Edit: There's a nightingale singing outside. Now that's more like my world.

Getting Muddy

Nothing really to post about. Just don't want to look dead to any potential readers (not that I believe there really are any). The new Mudcrutch album is just out. In case you don't know, Mudcrutch was Tom Petty's band in the early 70s. They never got as far as making a record back then. They broke up, and half of them went on to form the Heartbreakers. Now they've reunited and made an album. And a pretty good one at that. If you like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, it's a sure bet that you'll like Mudcrutch. Many of the songs sound like they could be straight off of a Tom Petty album. Others are a touch more country.

Been reading a little Moorcock (Revenge of the Rose, an Elric story). It's been way too long since I've actually read a novel. That's the curse of the Internet. You spend so much time just staring blankly at a screen, feeling there's something you ought to be doing that's much better for you, and more fun...

Favourite song at the moment, Tim Minchin's Rock 'N' Roll Nerd. Some of the lyrics feel disturbingly familiar.

Songs Can Be Funny Too

Just been watching videos of Tim Minchin on YouTube. He's an Australian musician and comedian. Many of his songs are quite hilarious. I heartily recommend getting acquainted. Inflatable You is as good a place to start as any. (And, just FYI, I discovered this guy via Neil Gaiman's blog. Cheers once again to good old Neil.)

Speaking of Neil Gaiman connections, I've also been listening to Tori Amos a lot this week. Not as funny as Minchin, I must admit, but a wonderful singer and songwriter. Right now it's just past midnight and I'm sitting in candle light listening to Amos on headphones. That's really the only way, isn't it?

Games That Could Have Been

This isn't actually news, but I haven't advertised it a whole lot.

As you may or may not know, I've been interested in electronic music created with tracker software for quite some time. My interest lies mainly in music inspired by old video games and also demoscene music (although I've never been a scener myself). Some of my own tracker creations have been available under the Elcalen's Homepage section for years.

Sometime last year, however, I registered as an artist at Last.fm and uploaded a selection of MP3 versions of my early tracker tunes there, creating an album titled Games That Could Have Been. The tracks can be listened to online or freely downloaded. (If you're a tracker enthusiast, the original mods can be found on my website.)

My artist profile at Last.fm can be found here.

You can listen to the tracks in question here.

There is also more information about the background of these tracks here.

Now, these tracks are likely to appeal to a fairly limited audience, primarily those interested in old video games or old tracker music. But go ahead and give them a go. It'll cost nothing. In theory I should be able to get royalties for tracks streamed over Last.fm (but not from MP3 downloads). However, the amounts are likely to be so small that I think these tunes will never see enough plays to make a single cent, let alone the amount needed to actually collect money.

Roads That Lead to Music

Lots of experimentation lately with new kinds of music. (The listening variety, not creating new music.) And I find myself finding new music through strange routes.

I'm a big Buffy fan, as I've recently mentioned. Buffy introduced me to an interesting, experimental group called Cibo Matto. Through Cibo Matto I discovered Sean Lennon (son of better known Lennon). Who I've been listening to a lot during the last couple of days and liking a lot. Actually, I also discovered country singer Alison Krauss, whose songs I've been listening to a lot since last autumn, through Buffy.

Early One Morning

Still no updates, but I thought I'd write a few words here anyway. My website has too often stood dead for half a year or more, and I'd like to avoid that in the future. So, if I have nothing better to say, I'll just do some idle blogging every now and then. Not that I expect hardly anyone to be reading this. But, just in case someone does find their way here, I might as well try to give them a reason to come back. (I don't really read a lot of blogs myself. The only exception lately has been Neil Gaiman's wonderful blog.)

Haven't gotten around to playing more games, mostly because I've been re-watching Buffy most evenings. I started with season 5, which was where I left off when I was previously watching it last spring, and now I'm halfway through season 7. I can watch about a season per week if nothing gets in the way... And you would be correct in deducing that I'm a huge Buffy fan.

Still listening to lots of music. Queen has been my favourite of late. Oh, in case anyone would happen to be interested in what I'm listening to, I'm registered at Last.fm. You can find my profile here.

(It is not early in the morning as I write this. Fellow Buffy fans should get the reference.)

Too Old to Grow Up

Truer words than this were never uttered. (Wow, I'm actually commenting on something I found on the web, like in a real weblog.)

Since the comic strip may not be online forever, here's a summary:

Nemi: I've been press-ganged into looking after you, so you've got to eat your cabbage so you grow up to be big and strong!
Kid: Not before you give me one advantage to growing up!
(Nemi thinks, then tosses the cabbage away.)
Nemi: Get out the jelly beans!

Though, frankly, the last thing I want to think about right now is sweets. My snacking habit has been getting a little too wild lately. Time to turn a new leaf and start living healthily... uh, yeah, right.

Right now I'm working my way chronologically through all of Tom Petty's albums (I've been a big fan of his for a long time). I'm up to Southern Accents (1985). And my hands smell of rosemary...

Welcome to My Nightmare

My first ever review of a PS3 game is now online. The game in question is The Simpsons Game, which, being a Simpsons fan, I enjoyed very much. The PS3 certainly has lots of potential, but it remains to be seen if it can deliver such a mindboggling number of great games as the previous two PlayStations have.

Apart from playing games, I've been listening to lots of music lately, discovering Alice Cooper and Alanis Morissette, and rediscovering many old favourites, from ELO to Roger McGuinn. The Stones' Undercover is playing as I write this. I'm also hoping to get my sleep rhytm fixed (I've been staying up till three or later as a rule lately, and that's not doing me a lot of good in the long run). And that's about it. Haven't really been up to much.