The title really says it all. I don't buy a lot of CDs. Not to say that I burn them all (only OC Remix CDs these days...), but music just isn't that big of a priority for me. I do listen to it a lot, but I'm rather satisfied with the library I have now. All I really want for it is to complete my Queen and HIM collections. And a couple days ago, I got one step closer. This here, if you can't read the text on the pic, is HIM's greatest hits CD, entitled "And Love Said No". I can easily say that it is the best CD that I own, and possibly one of the best CDs that I've ever listened to. If you haven't ever listened to HIM, go check them out right now. I know you have the tools to do so.

So why is this CD so great? Well that's obvious. The music rocks. HIM is in a tied spot for my second favourite band (competing with Rammstein, Queen is #1) and there is nothing that could please me more than a CD comprised entirely of their best songs. "Razorblade Romance" was damn near close enough, but it does lack a couple of my favourite songs, particularly The Funeral Of Hearts. "Love Metal" was excellent too, but they both had their weaker points. This CD, as you might expect from a greatest hits CD, is indeed the finest bunch of their songs that you can find. It's even got my three favourite songs; the aforementioned The Funeral of Hearts as well as Your Sweet 666 and Heartache Every Moment.

What's even better, is that there are some totally new songs on the disc as well! Or at least that's what I've been told. The title track, And Love Said No, is in my opinion one of the best songs ever, being possibly the catchiest rock song ever. And that's quite a feat, as rock songs aren't normally "catchy". This is one you'll probably be humming/singing for days on end, if you're anything like myself. The other new track, a Neil Diamond cover by the name of Solitary Man is equally great. The original song is pretty good as far as old-type stuff goes, and HIM's cover just totally blows it away. The only thing that could have possibly made the CD better would have been the inclusion of Endless Dark.

And that's my two cents. Take a penny, leave a penny, whatever. I suggest going out to buy the disc if you know the band and like them at all, or just downloading a song or two listed above to see if you like them and then going to pick up the CD. It's definitely worth the cash, but while I was searching for the cover, I found that there is also a 2 disc version that includes an extra track and a DVD bonus disc. I never saw this while I was looking around at music, but it's not that big a deal. I got what I wanted, and even if I do miss out on a couple videos, I don't mind. I still love this CD.

As for other things that I need to blab on about, I've noticed a couple defects in the site. For one, I don't have a proper logo image. If anyone with any Photoshop-type skills feels like taking a little time out of their day to whip something simple up for me, I'd be very appreciative. I'd prefer to do it myself (I take great pride in being able to create great art), but I don't have the necessary skills to make anything half decent through a digital medium. You've seen my art gallery.

Secondly are some things that I have absolutely no control over. The first is a little trouble that seems to pop up in the Opera browser. When I've table'd an image to the side of some text, it goes back to red, rather than that nice yellowy colour it is supposed to be. I'm not sure if it's got this issue in any other browsers, but it works fine in Internet Explorer, and I'm not about to comprehend the stylesheet just so I can fix a problem that would affect a minimal amount of surfers. and the next problem stems from me using Angelfire as a web host. They've gotten rid of the ads, and instead have forced IE to open the search window on the side of the browser. It'll happen each time you open a page, so you can't close it and be done with it. Me, I've just pushed it as small as it will go and cope with it. After a while, it's not so bad. I'm not sure if this affects other browsers, but it's not such a big deal that it'll cause mass disarray. And that's really about it for today. I'm thinking about posting a nice review of Tales of Symphonia either tomorrow or soon and getting the rest of that Disney stuff out of the way, so make sure to check back regularly.

A couple weeks ago, I went out and for the first time ever, bought myself one of them newfangled DVDs with the TV shows on 'em. Two actually. I'm not really a big TV collection or movie buyer, so this is some pretty big news on my end. While both sets that I bought are worth a solid mention, it's the first one that I'm really trying to sell here. The first season DVD of one of my current favourite shows: Puppets Who Kill.

It's entirely obvious why I love the show. The first reason would be that it's very, very funny. And not that Buzz kind of "laugh out loud for thirty minutes straight" kind of funny. It's more of a psychotic kind of funny. A lot of the humour is in the pain of the characters (that one was kind of obvious), some especially clever one-liners, and just flat out potty mouth and toilet humour. The first time you watch it, you almost wonder who would come up with some of the crazy crap that PWK is just gushing with, but in the end you get this satisfied feeling that leaves you thinking "That was a good show. I should watch it regularly." Well, at least that's how it worked for me. I was hooked after only one episode, at which point I was convinced that it was too good to be Canadian programming. And when I saw that there was a DVD of the first season, I knew that it would have to be mine... one way or another.

But I digress for the moment, as I know that some may have never watched or ever even heard of PWK. The premise of the show is presented pretty well in the title, and explained thoroughly in the opening. Simply put, it's about a bunch of murderous puppets who've been placed in a halfway house for rehabilitation. Ta-da! Not too complex, is it? That's the barebones plot of the series, and if you like the sound of that, wait until you get to the individual episode plots. It may sound like I'm just trying to hock the show here, but I'm being completely honest when I say that every one of the episodes (err... that I've seen) has a unique plot like no other before it. Don't believe me? Here are a few examples just so that I can help to convince. One is about a mysterious testicle thief, there's another about the decline of physical beauty, one centers on the death and replacement of a much-loved safety mascot, and then there's the one about a TV cowboy who hunts puppets for sport. There's even one episode that serves as a tribute to film noir. Not exactly your everyday string of plots. As much as I'm hyping up this part, I can only imagine your surprise when I say that it gets better.

The characters are truly the stars of the show. And while that is a very redundant phrase, it works out perfectly. The characters of Puppets Who Kill are all somewhat stereotypical at a first glance, but after a while you'll get to see that they really are just stereotypes. My personal favourite is Cuddles the comfort doll. He's a very naive little guy, and is easily the one with the least character but... ah hell, I just love his little song and dance. It's just so damn adorable. Then there's Buttons the bear. The ultimate philanderer. He's been able to woo just about every character that he's met, and is quite the ladies' man, despite his being a small toy bear. Bill the ventriloquist dummy is the real troublemaker of the group (not to say that the rest are angels or anything remotely close), cause despite the treatments and all, he just can't stop killing. Or sometimes it's just stealing some body parts. Seems to have a problem with people being alive. Finally we have Rocko the dog. Maybe I just haven't seen enough or his starring episodes, but I just don't seem to like him as a character as much as the rest. He does have a lot going for him, being the badass of the group and all, but he contributes the least to the overall funny of the show. Though as the one that the others usually seek for advice, I guess he does play as large a role as the rest.

Oh, and did I mention that it's not all puppets? Yeah, there's just a single recurring human character on the show, but that's all it needs. Dan Barlow (played by Dan Redican, who seems to be of comic fame) is the guy who runs the show. He's the one that's taken the little devils under his wing in an attempt to help them get over their need for chaos and destruction. He is easily the funniest character, because he's wound around every bit of the show, even while most episodes have those nifty double-plots. He's funny because not only does he have a lot of great lines, but a lot of his tactics to right the puppets come back to bite him in the ass. There are countless episodes that end with him being savagely beaten by some sort of angry mob after one of his schemes goes awry. I should also mention that he's got an impeccable sense of style, and a slight lust for his cousin (though that one doesn't take place during the first season).

Down to the wrapping up, this DVD has a lot to offer. It's got 13 excellent episodes (thought the original opening is a bit lackluster compared to the current) with episode and scene selection of course, and a whole slew of bonus features. There are bios on the writers, producers and stars, a hilairiously funny outtake reel that expands upon those that are shown during the credits, and a whole little thing they put together called "A Day In The Life Of Puppets Who Kill". It's a neat little documentary type thing that has short interviews with all the puppeteers and an extended interview and tour of the set with Dan Redican. Oh yeah, and if you like those commentary things, it's got a couple of those packaged in too. So two discs full of all sorts of great watching and cool extras. Definitely a great thing to buy. And the best news is that it's cheap. While so many of these DVD-TV things are damned expensive, with some priced at over $100 (I'm looking at you, Transformers), the thing only ran me 35 bucks or so. Goods like this at a reasonable price are something you just can't pass up. Unless you suck and don't like the show. In which case, boo you.

I mentioned that I bought two of these collections. The other one was the first pack of episodes from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. It's a good set, but at only the 5 first episodes and 4 bonus "never before seen" episodes, I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting some first season goodness. But in the end, it was only 30 bucks for something that I just couldn't let slip by. Being the TMNT fan that I am, it's kinda something that I had to do regardless of how much I was getting. So if you loved the old show or even watched it regularly, I could recommend this one to ya. The price is right and it's always fun to bring back a little bit of your childhood.

As a first note, I'd like you to know that normally I can get along with my siblings well enough. We don't interact a lot, but it's usually under peaceful circumstances. Lately, though, it has taken a slight turn for the worse. You see, the oldest of my younger brothers is really pissing me off as of lately. It might not directly seem like he's doing it on purpose, but you can only play ignorant for so long. At this point, it seems as if he's directly out to get me.

Now first off is the biggest problem for me. You may not be aware of this, but our family PC has a very, very small hard drive. 6 gigs to be precise. It's really a kick in the ass, because you can't install a whole lot of games that are less than 5 years old. Today's games generally take 500 MBs to 1 GB of space by themselves, and that cuts efficiency in a lot of little pieces. and it really doesn't help that Windows XP is eating around 2 of those gigabytes. So there's virtually no room to do anything once all is said and done.

You can see my dilemma here, and it just gets worse. My own PC isn't much better, but I have a sense of rationality, and can capably choose how I want that space to be distributed. And that's fine, because it's my PC, and I don't have to worry about how much space I take up, cause nobody is going to suffer but me. I complain a lot about how small our family PC's hard drive is, but my sense lends me the ability to not clog it up too much. Now my brother, on the other hand, is a complete poon about it.

What he likes to do, is complain like Hell about the lack of room. All the time, he does it. And you know what the kicker is? He's got at least 500 songs on the damn thing, and he just downloads more every day. not to mention that a good chunk of them, he already has on legitimately purchased CD, there fore adding to his wastefulness of our precious space. If they were songs he didn't have on CDs, I wouldn't mind quite as much, but no, the asshole downloads anything that comes within earshot that could be considered music. Asshole.

Now when the hard drive starts overflowing, and Windows is getting angry at me and giving me warnings, you know who's the one to sacrifice his stuff for the sake of a properly functioning computer? Me. I started out with approximately 200 songs, (with some very small clips from HomestarRunner.com and such), and I've been deleting like Hell to make up the lack of space. And you know what subsequently happens to that space? Filled up with more music by my asshole brother. It really sucks that I can't even install Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, which takes up a rather small amount of space (compared to some), on the only PC in the house connected to the internet (I like to play C&C online...).

All the while, he's complaining that he can't install his games due to a lack of space. the asshat didn't realize that he's the one bogging the damn thing up in the first place, and I suggested deleting some of his crappy music, but did it happen? No. I'd take the matter into my own hands as the computer admin, but the tard somehow figured out a way to keep his stuff out of my grasp. I can access everyone else's files, but not his. So I can't even take action against this bastard.

The other big thing that really pisses me off is that he stays on the computer all damn night. I ask to go on every once in a while, and wait around for him to get off, and after midnight of no results, I wander off to my room to wait for him to retire to his own chamber. But that just doesn't happen. The ass stays on until at least 3 in the damn morning (maybe later, that's the point at which I give up and go to sleep) and then when he has to get up early in the morning, he bitches on and on about not sleeping enough. I always make it a point to laugh at his misfortune, as he causes much for me.

That's really about all of the big stuff, but there are some other things that are getting to me. First off, let it be stated that I don't like to share. I know it makes me a bit of an ass myself, but that's just how I am, but mostly only when it comes to video games. So the night of my graduation and all that good crap, I come home and go downstairs to change. What do I see but MY Chrono Cross game being played by HIM on his Playstation 2. It wouldn't be so bad if we'd gone halfers on it like with FF9, but this one I bought all by myself. Also, I don't like anyone in my room. Ever. And to have gotten this game, he would have had to broken into my room (which is usually locked, with me inside or not), and taken the game. All without even asking. I probably would've been cool with it had he asked, (I don't like to share, but I'm pretty easy to convince), but no. Broke in and stole it. And he didn't even return the thing afterward. Just took it to his room as if he had full ownership of the thing.

Then there's the multiplayer selfishness. See, in MegaMan Battle Network 3, there is one secret battlechip for each version of the game that can only be obtained by battling with someone who has the game. And it takes a long time too. So we started playing, and eventually he got his chip, but mine was nowhere to be found. After he got his, he decided that he'd "had enough" and just up and left, when the original contract was to play until we both got our chips. It took me a long friggin' time to convince him to play again so that I could get mine. I think it's just so that he could say he beat the game before me. And as luck would have it, my game recently "erased" itself as if by magic, (But I really can't blame anyone for that one, as I was playing, turned it off, picked it up later, and the save was gone) so I'm not even going to bother starting again, because I know I'm never gonna get that chip again.

Also, there's the most excellent Four Swords multiplayer game included on the GBA port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. We both bought the game for Four Swords, and after one time through, he no longer wants to play. I guess it was to be expected, but that's not the worst part. My youngest brother, who wants so desperately to play with me, asked to borrow the cart so we could play together. But again, he's an ass and won't let him have the game because of his history of causing game saves to be erased. It would be understandable if he were done the game with all items collected or, you know, still played the damn thing, but he's not even completed the Eastern Temple (got stuck in the first real dungeon. Ha.). So now it's kicking two of our asses.

And the last little thing I want to bring up is an event that occurred not to long ago. My mom had bought pizza buns for us one day for lunch, and I never got around to eating mine, possibly saving it for a snack later. So what happened? The fat bastard ate it. This really enraged me because I love pizza buns even more than I love sandwiches, and almost as much as I love bacon. Hell, they're almost better than real pizza. A popsicle or donut, I could have just been able to brush off, but messing with my pizza buns is like pulling a tiger's tail; you just don't farking do it. Common sense.

Normally, I'm not that bad when it comes to anger, and can usually stop caring after a minute or so, but a chain of events like this an not go ignored. At the moment, I'm thinking up clever ways of revenge. My mom already authorized a kick in the back for the pizza bun thing, and (it's currently like 12:30Am) I've turned off all the lights in the basement and put toys all over in front of his door so he'll have a painful experience when he wakes up. Heh heh heh. Me so crafty. And hungy. I wish I had a pizza bun right now. Or two. Damn that would hit the spot.

Shiat, that's a long one. Longer than the other two anyhow. I wrote this one about three weeks ago, so it's just very slightly out-of-date. In recent days, it's gotten a little better, and I even found a way to limit how much hard drive space he can use. Ha ha ha ha. But he is being quite assholic about trading with me in the newly-acquired MegaMan Battle Network 4 (not necessary this time though, phew) and Pok�mon Sapphire. And that bullet could have been dodged if my other bros had followed my advice and not both bought the Sapphire version as well. Idiots. Why don't people just listen to me? When it comes to video games, I know what I'm talking about. And most other stuff too, for that matter...

You want some links? You can't handle the links...

Peasant's Quest - This game looks freaking amazing. I really, really hope they're not just screwing with our heads about this one. Though it does seem to be too good to be true.

New Weebl and Bob toon - Actually, it was new a couple days ago, but you you can't possibly expect me to stay on top of everything. The difference between me and other sites that feature cool daily-ish stuff is that I don't have readers e-mailing me about cool stuff.

GISH? The Hell...? - New game review is up on I-Mockery, compete with an interview, Photoshop contest and a free demo dowload. Hoo-ray!

While fiddling around on my links right after I put up this new page, I was shocked and horrified by a rather sad event. MadPony.com is giving up the ghost. Yes, it happened about a month ago, but you have to remember that I haven't had a whole lot of access to the net over that time period, what with the trip to the cottage and our connection being down for a while.

While it was never in my site's bunch of links - or even my Internet Explorer favourites, for that matter - MadPony was one of the two (and a half) blogs that I read semi-regularly. The other and a half being GorillaMask and The Sneeze. I never read MadPony with a lot of consistency, but I'd visit once or twice a month to see what was up. It was strange that I was compelled by the idea of being able to see what the world is like through the eyes of female kind. Not something I would normally read, but somehow it dragged me in, as if there was some sort of unseen attraction that kept me coming back for more. As I said, this was a website based on things that I really don't care about; blogging, shoes, horses, and a song called "Hot White Cum".

The site was rife with hilarious (and sometimes sad) stories about the lives of the two girls that ran it. Some included tales of horrible trips to Target, grandiose parties, and my personal favourite, XTREME freestyle bed leaping. Most of it was what you would find in any old run-of-the-mill blog, and that's what's to be expected. And that's what turns me off of blogs (though I know my new site is making me one hell of a hypocrite). I really don't care what people do from day to day, what music they're listening to as they type out their feelings, what has made them sad or lonely or depressed. But somehow MadPony was different. The Mask and the Sneeze don't really have a lot of these elements, so I can read them without shame, but MadPony was just like any other blog.

It's no secret that the girls that ran it are quite hot, but that's not what did it. After a lot of thinking about it (which is another thing I don't usually do), I discovered that indeed, I was intrigued by what happened to these girls from day to day. Perhaps not intrigued by them specifically, but just the fact that I could follow someone's life � la The Truman Show. Maybe blogs aren't so bad? Maybe I was just thrown off the trail of good ones by the legions of punk and emo kids who write their own and complain day to day about how everything sucks and the world is no fair. Maybe all those kids who think we care that they slit their wrists destroyed any interest I might have once had in blogs.

No. Really, I just found MadPony interesting because it provided a nice change in my usual routine of internet clickables. When you spend your days reading webcomics, news about video games, and random blather, you start to long for something different. Just like if you lived your life the exact same way from day to day, you'd need a change, just like in Le huitième jour. Indeed, I'm much like Harry, with MadPony being my Georges. Actually, that reference worked out pretty well. Uh, as long as you've seen the movie, that is. If you haven't, you're boned. So that's about all I really had to say; kinda saddened by the loss of a good website (It's still up, of course, if you wanna read the old stuff), but not in a way that it'll really affect anything.

This sentimental moment brought to you by Ryan's unhealthy lack of sleep. For if he was thinking straight, he certainly wouldn't be writing anything to do with feelings.

There has been a very long pause in productivity for this site, but that's only because it's gotten a completely new look to it. Right away, I know that you're thinking that it looks very similar to the style of GorillaMask, and it should, because I stole all the code (including the style sheet) from there and twisted it into what you see before you. Though I did slack off and leave a lot the same, such as most of the fonts and font colours. But I've gotta learn somehow right? Taking someone else's work and warping it into my own sort of hybrid creation is how I've done pretty much everything requiring work up until now, including web pages, school work, and game coding in VB and RPG Maker. And plagiarism is one of the greatest forms of flattery anyway, isn't it? Well even if it is wrong, at least I'm not trying to pass it off as my own.

Anywizzle, things are changing not only visually, but content-wise as well. No longer are those pain-in-the-ass full-length articles going to be the dominant part of the site. Instead, they will be put over to the side whilst this bloggish thingy jumps into the hot seat. The biggest reason for this change is that the news was the only thing I regularly updated, and I felt as if it needed to be given more of a chance to be an important part of the site. I was always making long news posts about things that I thought you should check out, stuff that happened to me lately (usually as excuses as to why I was writing no articles), and just random babble, rather than having the section dedicated solely to important changes to the site.

I was thinking about saving this change until the site turned 2 years old, but I figured that maybe the sooner, the better. After all, it wasn't exactly the most appealing of websites, and though this one doesn't have that much eye candy either, it at least looks like something that you wouldn't mind looking at. And the anniversary is just far too far away. December is months away, and it's also going to be a busy time, so it's best that I went and got this out of the way during the summer when I've got my days to waste. 'Sides, so many other sites I frequent have been changing, so I decided that I'd hop on the bandwagon and change mine too.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the new name of the site: Torrential Equilibrium. "The Page of Death" was really old and somewhat overused (do a search on Google), so I decided it needed a change. Badly. I'm still not sure how I came up with Torrential Equilibrium. My understanding of both of the words leads me to believe that the name makes no sense at all, but I think it sounds cool. Just like Genius Sonority (although they have a "meaning", the words together are kinda senseless). If you want to try to make sense of the name, go look them up and draw your own conclusions.

You'll notice that one of the most prominent new features is that slick little sidebar on the side (code designed by whoever made the Mask's, and graphics designed by me in MS Paint). It doesn't look all that spiffy right now, as I didn't really need it to, but it does the job. And lemme tell ya, it took a real long time to make it look so perfect, as all the pieces of the border were all out of place. After a lot of time spent on changing the sizes and placements, I finally got it all figured out, and now it looks great. Certainly better than the old bar of links that used to be up at the top. And all my links are on the bar, but the Links page is still intact, in case you'd like to read the descriptions before you click.

So that's really about all I have to say about my "new site". All of the old stuff is still hanging around, and while I probably won't bother changing the pages to match the new look, the important ones like the Articles page and the Links page will still be updated, if just a little less frequently than before. Don't think that this is the end of my website. It's just a new beginning.