Your pointless thoughts & observations

  On 12/1/2024 at 9:58 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I appreciate the Met reminiscing.  It's interesting to me the amount of vitriol the Black album gets from the Metallica fans who were into them in the earlier days.  Enter Sandman was one of the songs on Much Music that got me obsessed with music when I was 9.  I had no frame of reference for anything heavier than that, hadn't heard anything else from them, had no sense of their history or what it stemmed from.  All I knew was that guitar tone was one of the most bad ass things I'd ever heard, the vocal delivery, the guitar solo... the whole thing was just fascinating to my malleable kid brain.  When my cousin caught wind that I was really into that song, she dubbed everything from RTL to Black album onto cassette for me.  So I was listening to their whole discog minus Kill 'Em All and Garage Days when I first got into Metallica.  And I loved all of it, Black Album included.  Still do.  I think i like it for the same reasons the old school die hards hate it.  The songwriting and production are both extremely polished.  The riffs and choruses are anthemic and instantly memorable.  And there are a lot of cool instrumental arrangement things thast you wouldn't typically get in a heavy metal album (like the orchestra in NEM, or the sitar in WIMR, or many additional guitar overdubs that would be impossible to include (entirely) live.  They managed to make a classic album that almost anyone can appreciate regardless of whether they typically enjoy metal or not.  As a songwriter, I can't help but marvel at how well composed the whole thing is, riffs, melodies, and solos.  And as a producer, I'm in awe of how clean the mixes are.  Every detail was laboured over, and it shows.  The vocal performances throughout are about as solid as they could possibly be - I'd rate the Nothing Else Matters vocal performance as a top 5 for all time... and it was probably cobbled together from 100 takes.  That's Bob Rock.  He nailed the production and mix.  The raw angst of past albums may be missing, but the guitar tone is the heaviest they ever got it.  I seem to recall they went with Bob because they were impressed with the guitar tone on Motley Crew's last album, Dr. Feelgood - they liked the cock rock cheese already.  Anyway, I think they'd exhausted the 6+ minute ultra heavy ultra complex formula they'd been honing for almost a decade, and they needed to go somewhere else artistically.  Black Album was it, and it ended up being the biggest metal album of all time.  Nothing to scoff at. Sandman and Nothing Else Matters both have over a billion plays on Spotify, which is just staggering.  But it's really interesting how polarizing it is for so many.  Even the Pantera guys were saying how the album felt like some offensive betrayal - and those guys share that same mastery of songcraft and pop sensibility, despite how heavy the delivery of it is.  It surprised me to hear that same reaction from them.  But it just goes to show how personally imprinted on people a band like Metallica is.  I don't include Black album in the album vs. album contest, because it's a whole other category from the first four albums.  The things I love about the first four albums are missing, but the songwriting and production is on another level - definitely striving for the universal appreciation rather than metal allegiance.  We have Slayer for that.

St. Anger is a true abomination though.  I can't think of a more extreme example of diminished standards from any musical artist.  It's pretty much the antithesis of Black album.  Garbage songs, garbage production, garbage performances.  SKOM does in part explain why it exists - need to watch that again.

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i do like this version though. 

but i get it.. you were 9 and it made an impression and all that. one of my friends liked it... i made fun of it forever and all the videos too.  worth mentioning that when the black album came out all previous metallica records lived in the top40 or top100 for like 4 years or something. it catapulted them into mega sales stardom.  

  On 12/1/2024 at 7:13 PM, ignatius said:

i do like this version though. 

but i get it.. you were 9 and it made an impression and all that. one of my friends liked it... i made fun of it forever and all the videos too.  worth mentioning that when the black album came out all previous metallica records lived in the top40 or top100 for like 4 years or something. it catapulted them into mega sales stardom.  

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MMB singer has the craziest gurgle voice.  Their cover of Detroit Rock City is the one that always sticks in my mind.

Enter Sandman's impact wore off pretty quick once I had the albums.  It's the one song I'd be tempted to skip over, except cassettes made that more effort than it's worth.

If they'd released Escape as a single instead of For Whom the Bell Tolls, I think that one had the potential to take off in a similar way (as Sandman).  It wouldn't have been nearly as big, but I think it would have charted on most rock stations.  FWTBT was such a weird choice - the intro's over 2 min long!  Probably my least favourite from RTL when I first got into them.

The dream.

  On 12/2/2024 at 4:27 AM, ManjuShri said:

The dream.

 

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  On 12/1/2024 at 2:27 PM, Crazing said:

There's a new type of clout chaser

The war influencer

Taking it on themselves to cover conflict for clicks and clout. 

Putting themselves annoyingly amidst the fray to bask in the warm glow of misery

Warfluencer

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it feels like one of those "I've met Zelensky, you know" talks to his grandkids and friends, adding more to the list of "being an incredible man"

people are unbelievably stupid and naive to the world around them

back @ home

  On 12/5/2024 at 9:18 AM, cruising for burgers said:

back @ home

time 2 fire one up!

  On 12/5/2024 at 6:50 PM, zero said:

time 2 fire one up!

I'm off cause I might be tested because of all that commotion in the 1st world problems thread... I have a lot cause my sister is staying at my house when I'm ashore and she growed quite a lot and I was really stressing how would I be able to resist it... surprisingly enough it's been one week and I've not touched it... it's my 1st time since I was 20 that I can get it and I don't touch it... detox baby! little trouble with sleeping but I will get there... 

What do you call a teacher who doesn't fart in public?

A private tutor.

  On 12/20/2024 at 4:47 AM, ManjuShri said:

What do you call a teacher who doesn't fart in public?

A private tutor.

whe need a facepalm lol emoji papa?

stop stalking, it's getting creepy... 

i can feel the radioactive iodine working in my neck.  got the dose friday. a big pill.  last night i felt some tightness and a bit of swelling.. this morning a bit more. radiologist said there's often some swelling but nothing major. the lymph nodes and any residual tissue will uptake the iodine which then kills the cancer cells. it's weird af to think about.. but apparently it's working i guess. 

a gameshow where great photographers/cinematographers go to the safari to see who can get the best photos/footage 

  On 12/24/2024 at 1:49 AM, bluelechg6 said:

a gameshow where great photographers/cinematographers go to the safari to see who can get the best photos/footage 

one team decides to trick the others into being bait for lions.. then they sit back and wait until the attack happens.. inadvertently make a faces of death type nature film. 

I got the idea from this video

^video better with sound off

I'm thinking each photographer/cinematographer would have a team/cars equipped with cameras like in video/etc to assist on their journey

These washed up celebs doing online casino and sports book Ads are absolutely pathetic. 

I just asked chatGPT if Steve Sanders was mentally retarded

  On 12/22/2024 at 7:23 PM, ignatius said:

i can feel the radioactive iodine working in my neck.  got the dose friday. a big pill.  last night i felt some tightness and a bit of swelling.. this morning a bit more. radiologist said there's often some swelling but nothing major. the lymph nodes and any residual tissue will uptake the iodine which then kills the cancer cells. it's weird af to think about.. but apparently it's working i guess. 

This sounds tough so hope you're okay. 

  On 12/27/2024 at 3:46 PM, Rubin Farr said:

These washed up celebs doing online casino and sports book Ads are absolutely pathetic. 

Matt Damon doing superbowl crypto ads after narrating the inside job doc. Amaze. 

  On 12/27/2024 at 8:36 PM, Crazing said:

This sounds tough so hope you're okay. 

thanks  not too bad. very inconvenient because the low iodine diet leading up to the dose and also isolate afterwards because i'm essentially radioactive. will be able to hang w/friends NYE so that's good. had follow up scan today so hopefully will get some good news.  all things considered it's a pretty mild cancer treatment.. nothing like hardcore chemo or radiation. that shit is rough. 

It was a little over two months ago I discovered Vimto the soft drink. About a week ago I discovered there is a pure syrup concentrate version. And today I found out the latter comes out nearly identical to the former when mixed with Sprite.

Captain hindsighted cliché here.

Alcohol is such a double edged sword. Some of the people I bonded with because of it are the people that I end up escorting home because they literally hit the pavement after saying goodbye. Well into middle age but still dealing with this bullshit. I’m an idiot for thinking that there might be such a thing as excess without consequence. One persons’s last drink headache might be another’s concussion. 

  On 12/27/2024 at 11:37 PM, ambermonk said:

It was a little over two months ago I discovered Vimto the soft drink. About a week ago I discovered there is a pure syrup concentrate version. And today I found out the latter comes out nearly identical to the former when mixed with Sprite.

That shit is like crack - similar to lucozade - i used to drink before running and could go for days until i started getting the nervous inability to sit still

  On 12/27/2024 at 9:53 PM, ignatius said:

thanks  not too bad. very inconvenient because the low iodine diet leading up to the dose and also isolate afterwards because i'm essentially radioactive. will be able to hang w/friends NYE so that's good. had follow up scan today so hopefully will get some good news.  all things considered it's a pretty mild cancer treatment.. nothing like hardcore chemo or radiation. that shit is rough. 

cancer is a lightning strike...just bad luck most of the time...traumatic but hopefully life affirming

  On 12/28/2024 at 1:04 AM, user said:

Captain hindsighted cliché here.

Alcohol is such a double edged sword. Some of the people I bonded with because of it are the people that I end up escorting home because they literally hit the pavement after saying goodbye. Well into middle age but still dealing with this bullshit. I’m an idiot for thinking that there might be such a thing as excess without consequence. One persons’s last drink headache might be another’s concussion. 

one of the things id change about my youth...no or waaay less alcohol...it helped nothing for me....british culture was / is so focussed on social alcoholism

yeah fuck alcohol.

but frankly, fuck even more the people who will not enter recovery. They cause a lot of injury, and the only chance to stop is an act of will from their side.

sorry if that’s insensitive but I have a close relative, a narc and drinker in full denial, that’s continually being a rather destructive force to anyone getting near them.

It’s not the alcohol, that’s just a liquid, it’s the people.