MTG Salvation

On my honeymoon in Cancun. We'd gotten in the night before, were tired from traveling, and had gone to bed fairly early, so we were up pretty early on the morning of the 11th. Nothing was open yet on the resort we were staying at, so we figured we'd hang out in the room and channel-surf for a while... and then we hit CNN. We caught up with the news right before the second tower was hit. The effect of the whole moment was pretty surreal, especially given where we were - out the window of our room is the Caribbean, palm trees, and everything's peaceful, and on the TV in front of us is the complete chaos going on back home.

Hudson Hawk. It's basically solid cheese from beginning to end, but I love it. The banter between Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello is great, and the musical numbers are fantastic. It's one of the few movies that, if I happen to be flipping channels and see that it's on, I'll sit and watch it to the end.

Just.... no. I tried to watch it, and even attempting to not take it at all seriously (and the fact that that's become the only way to stomach these kinda bums me out a bit), I couldn't make it through the whole thing. If I had to point out a single good thing it would be that I thought Marky Mark was miles better then Shia TheBeef, but beyond that - crap. As a kid who grew up watching the cartoon and reading the comics, it would be nice if it actually felt like there was some connection to the history laid out back then, rather than feeling like whoever's doing the writing for the movies is just dredging up names from the old series because they sound cool, and using them on characters that don't resemble the originals at all. I shudder to think at what'll happen if Bay gets it in his head to tackle Unicron.

Quote from GRP17 »

I wonder how much longer their gonna keep the series going. Who knows, maybe next they'll try a revised cartoon version.

I would love it if they could actually go back and adapt stuff straight out of the cartoon series. Maybe start with a slightly updated version of the original animated movie from 1986, and use that as a starting point to move forward. Unlikely, but still.

I realize that I'm putting the whiny fanboy vibe out there fairly strong. Sorry about that.

Before the dust has settled down
Before the spiral turns a twist
Before the numbers of your bank account
Are carved into your wrist
One by one we'll walk away
And watch the towers fall
Before the season old in Winter cold
Makes cretins of us all
- Dead Soul Tribe, "The Coldest Days of Winter"

And since I've seen a few other people include full songs...

Farewell old friend
A season ends
And your conscience lends
All your lies at hand
Because you're a star
And you'll go far
You stand in the flame
Just to make a name

You glance at the ceiling
Buy another round
Lonely, but for feeling
I can hang around, yeah
I can hang around, yeah

The clock I know
It takes time to fall
As the fall I'll do
If only for you
And the chance to run
Has left me spun
Run around the core
Of what I need you for

The disaster
And after all
I need you to remind myself
But it's my fault
It's not my fault
I can't hear the pain
Well pause no more
I've never prayed before, yeah
Never prayed before

You glance at the ceiling
Buy another round
Lonely but for feeling
That I can hang around
I can hang around
- Big Wreck, "Prayer"

I enjoyed it at well, Dimir, although...

Either way, I was happy with the season as a whole. I was kind of either-or on Matthew McConaughey before seeing this, but the show definitely made me a fan. Very curious to see what they do with the second season.

I've seen a few episodes of this. Not too bad.

There's also another English show called Whitechapel, which is set in the same area but in a present-day setting. There have been three seasons that I'm aware of, the first of which dealt with a series of copycat Ripper murders, and the other two had a similar vibe. Also a pretty decent show.

Saw 'The Matrix' 5 times (at least, possibly more that I can't remember) in theaters. Where we lived at the point when it was starting to drop out of regular theaters, there was a $1 theater a few minutes from us that had picked it up and ran it for quite a while, so that became something cheap to do on Saturday afternoons. Other than that, I've got a handful of movies that I've seen in theaters twice.

Saw a solo performance by Chris Cornell a couple months back. During his set, he did a cover of 'One' by Metallica, but sung to the tune of 'One' by U2. Sounded like a weird mix when he was introducing it, but it turned out to be really cool.

New albums from both Meshuggah and Opeth this year. Plus there's a good chance my wife and I will get to see Billy Joel next month, which is pretty freakin' cool.

"The Tide", from Neurosis' A Sun that Never Sets always gets me. The song starts fairly quietly, building over the first few minutes, and when it breaks it's nothing short of breathtaking.

On the Deftones' "B-Sides & Rarities" collection, the covers of Sade's "No Ordinary Love" and Duran Duran's "The Chauffeur" are both killer. There are others on there, too, but those two really stand out.

And going back to the OP's mention of covers that Maiden have done, there are a few others that I think really bear mentioning. Their version of Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown" is pretty solid, and their cover of "Cross-Eyed Mary", originally by Jethro Tull is, in my opinion, far better than the original version.

Music wasn't really a topic of conversation in my house growing up, but there was almost always something playing somewhere. My mother listened to a radio station that played mostly 50's and 60's pop and Motown, and was also a Doors and Joplin fan, and my father listened to a lot of country. As for whether it shapes my musical tastes now, I really don't listen to a lot of what they did (although my wife is a huge Beatles fan, and I listen to the Doors a lot), but I can definitely say I have more of an appreciation for those styles of music than I may have had I not been introduced to them when I was young.
My wife and I have a 5 year old son, and almost always have music on around him, either in the house or in the car. Not to the point where we're forcing it on him, mind you, but more like letting it be an ambient thing that he may or may not notice - and he usually does. He has his own playlist in iTunes on our computer, and the music in his list includes everything from Spongebob's greatest hits and Devo to the Deftones and Sabbath, and he listens to all of it, which is incredibly cool. He's been to two concerts so far, both by his request: one was the Fresh Beat Band (a kid-oriented music group from a NickJr show), the other was Alice Cooper. If he can manage to maintain that kind of open-mindedness towards music as he grows older, I'll be thrilled.

Marilyn Manson's cover of 'This is Halloween' from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter. That was all sorts of fun to watch, especially seeing the Civil War battles with human soldiers from the north fighting vampires in Confederate uniforms. Good times.

I know there's stuff I'm forgetting, but Big Wreck's 'Albatross' and Meshuggah's 'Koloss' are pretty high on my list. I've seen the forthcoming Neurosis record mentioned on here, and that will most likely place pretty high as well.
If EPs and singles count, Ephel Duath's 'On Death and Cosmos' is pretty sick. Not sure if the new album is coming out this year or not, but whenever it does, it'll most likely be in my 'top albums of [year]' list.