Ah, the end of November is upon us, and it's both excellent and tragic.
Bad news first, eh? Well, seems I failed to complete two articles per month during October and November, as I expected might happen. The drive just isn't there. But I did add a lot of little things in October, and I was pretty blog-happy during this last month, so it all kind of evens out.
So then why's the end of November excellent? Simple: it means the beginning of December, and bar the snow and cold, December is an awesome month. Firstly, it's holdiay time. While the world is now almost entirely non-specific about it, I'm getting psyched about Christmas already, and with the Xmas comes the themed goods. I've got an article almost ready to go up (should be done tomorrow), and it's gonna kick off the TE Christmas season. I don't know how many seasonal articles I'll do, but there will be at least this one and the yearly Xmas haul overview. It all depends on how much red and green coloured crap I get my hands on. Chances are also good that we're going to be seeing some sweet Nintendo Wi-Fi action here pretty soon, so there's gonna be that to write about too. My brother's really spearheading that operation, and even though I tried to resist the Mario Kart, he's had his way with my self-control and well... Tony Hawk's American Sk8Land is also a must-have, but that can wait for now. I think that's everything that needed to be said. You might also see some minor changes in the main page's colour scheme, but that's just a "possible, not probable" at this point.
Ryan's been a little sick lately, but nobody wants to hear about that. I just needed a starting point, that's all. So during the last couple days, I've been listening to a bunch of new music, mostly stuff that doesn't even resemble the current rotation. First off is probably the first techno band I've ever liked, Rabbit in the Moon. As far as I can tell, they mostly do remixes and stuff, but it's good stuff. Not too technoey either. I'm not sure where it would really fit, but whatever. I've also picked up on a couple punk bands; The (International) Noise Conspiracy and Refused. One of my friends actually suggested both of these bands to me a few years ago, but I never caught on. I never catch on until the fad is over. But they're both awesome bands anyway. Lastly is a goth metal-ish band, Lacuna Coil. I generally try to stay away from goth metal, fantasy metal, and anything else that falls close to that tree, but I do make exceptions every now and then. I actually even have a torrent (right-click, save as...) for this one. I particularly like "Heaven's a Lie".
That's about it for today. Chances are good that if you chack out the old Last.fm page, you'll see these guys popping up all over the place among the regulars. I recommend them all, even though they're all in their own acquired taste subdivision. So yeah, at least chack out Lacuna Coil's website. It's really neat.
Just a couple diversions today.
Sweet Revenge - A My Chemical Romance flash game. It's pretty sweet indeed.
It seems that everyone does, in fact, play World of Warcraft. Even pornstars. (SFW)
The Masturbation Survival Guide. Amateurs.
Firstly, I made a small addition to the old CD collection page. I think that the best part of this little project is that it forced me to dust off some great CDs I haven't listened to in years.
Next off, there's been so much great stuff happening on the internet lately, but I can't possibly link to it all. What I can link you to, however, is the new best thing ever. That site was a bit slow for me, so I'm hosting the file as well, as I consider it the pinnacle of entertainment and also the exact moment when I knew that Family Guy is without a doubt the best show ever.
As for today's plug, enter the Scary-Crayon. This website literally has something for everyone. There's regular reviews, an audio review, toy adventures, comics, cooking experiments, and even poetry. If you've never been there, shame on you, as I've linked there a handful of times. While the site is essentially the closest X-E clone going (someday I'll best you Wes, someday...), it's got a charm that's very much its own. It may be a little more cultured than most of you are used to (book reviews, people), but that's not a bad thing. So check out the Scary-Crayon next time you don't know what to do with your internet. Or check it out right now. I have no shame.
Hey! Check it out! I wrote me an article yesterday. Admit it, you knew it was gonna happen eventually.
In other news, I rented Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Turns out it's not so bad after all. Who'd have thought a 3D Castlevania would turn out good? So I have to go play that now. Laytah.
The Special dEaD - Sometimes Heroes Ride the Short Bus
And if that's not enough to satiate you, here's the Stubbs the Zombie soundtrack. If you want a review before you download, there's a short review in my Last.fm journal. Had to use the thing for something.
I don't have a lot to report today, but I do have a couple things lined up for you tomorrow. Today, however, there is a nice big plug.
It's been a longtime favourite of mine, and it's even got its own little spot on the sidebar there. Overclocked Remix is a site dedicated to remixing video game tunes. Sure, it's not for everyone, as some people will look at you like you're retarded if you tell them you like video game music. But me, I practically bathe in the stuff. If bathing were the act of listening to stuff all the time. But I digress. You may think that the site would be full of techno, right? you're horribly wrong. There are remixes of all genres here, from techno to rock to latin jazz to rap. There are even a few songs that have full vocals to go with the tunes. If you're looking for somewhere to start, I recommend "A Rose for Zelda", "Da Black Market" and "The Atomizer", the former two are currently on the main page, but you'll have to look up the latter. And if you feel like a more in-depth experience, the site features torrents of a huge amount of songs, as well as "remix projects" that take whole soundtracks and remix them entirely. All in all, even if you don't like video game music, chances are that you'll find something you enjoy here.
First off, there's been an ample amount of submissions to my deviantART gallery. A few scraps, some actual drawings. All on horrible lined paper. I need to use white paper more often.
Secondly, the Child's Play banner is back. It's an excellent cause, and I highly recommend donating. Do it for the kids. It's the only charitable thing I do all year, so I figure it's worth calling out.
And now, the main course. Today we plug Filler: The Space Killer. It's a sprite comic made by some chick I briefly had a little back-and-forth with on MOA. As you'll quickly learn, she's also obsessed with MegaMan, possibly even more than myself. So anyhow, the comic is generally pretty good. Sometimes it's even had me in riotous laughter. The only thing is that sometimes you might need some prior knowledge of the MM characters to truly enjoy some of their antics. Thus is the downside of using established characters. The site also features a second comic, sprite sheets, and links. It's also still being updated semi-regularly. For the record, I'm not a big fan of sprite comics, but I'm not going to get all hot and bothered by 'em like some people.
You know what's cool? This is almost perfectly accurate as far as what goes through my mind during a day. Especially the Lucky Charms bit. You have no idea how often I forget the Lucky Charms jingle and spent hours trying to remember it. And who would put Reese Witherspoon at #100 on a list of 100 girls you want to sleep with? She's gotta be at the very least around 15 to 20. In any case, it's kind of a relief to know I'm not the only one who has entire conversations with my brain.
I've been thinking about buying webspace lately. It's become a serious thought, even though my site has no visitors and such a venture would end up being a huge waste of money. But first, I need a domain name. And while I'm currently drowning in options of webhosts and domain name providers, I have a much more troubling conundrum. What should I use as my domain name? I seriously have no idea. "Torrentialequilibrium.com" would be too long and hard to spell (sadly, many of my friends are horrible spellers), and I don't really want to use my name at all. It's a very important decision that will require much thought and many opinions. This would be a question well suited to be posted at a certain message board, but alas, said message board is long dead.
Hearts, stars and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons. Something about a rainbow, then a red balloon. I'm sure an internet query would solve my dilemma for good, but then I'd have one less thing to do with my free time.
Incase you're wondering about today's slightly-more-random-than-usual post, I've decided to stay up all night, and anything that passed through my mind that I deem important will end up here.
To answer another question that may be floating around in your noggin, yes, I do actually have a day planner where I've written down what I should be doing with the site each day for a couple weeks in advance. Currently it's just a text file, but someday I hope to acquire some piece of technology that will be able to perform a similar function.
I don't know how this will go over, but I've come up with a new genius scheme to attract more visitors. It came to me a while back when I linked to the Sneeze and I checked my referrers page to see that he had visited my site from his referrers page. So for the next however long, I will be making regular plugs to various sites in hopes that their webmasters will check my own. This will work as long as you make sure to click on any link I post. And I promise that no more of them will lead to anything potentially scarring. Sheer idiocy, or pure genius? You make the call.
Lastly, I've signed up for a deviantART account... thing. It's a lot easier to upload stuff there than it is to add to my handmade galleries. Oh, right. The link. There's also one on the sidebar.
In comemmoration of my hit counter reaching 3000 (in slightly less than 3 years...), I've replaced the long-standing Torrential Equilibrium banner. It also reflects how awesome this November is for Viewtiful Joe fans, as not only one, but two new VJ games have come our way this month. Red Hot Rumble was released not 5 days ago, and I have to say it's the most action-packed fighting game ever. The second, Joe's first DS adventure, Double Trouble, is due out on the 19th, and looks like it's gonna be another great game in the series. Now if only a Canadian network would pick up the show, I'd be set for a long time to come...
Bonus for all you BitTorrent users tonight. The We Love Katamari soundtrack! It's not quite as great as that from the first game, and most of the files are unnamed, but there are a few gems in there that are worth downloading it for. Enjoy.
Like throwing a hotdog through a hallway. Not even remotely safe for anyone, anywhere.
But I thought it was neat.
If you're not satisfied with what's on the other end of that link, however, I've written up the next entry for the CD collection page. Find it here. It's F-f-f-f-antastic.
I was just sitting around today and decided it was time to bring back an old favourite. Enjoy.
Other business includes telling you that Sunday's episode of Family Guy was awesome, and here's a clip. Also, there was a reference to Doom, which was freaking hysterical.
Lastly...
"We hold our nuts with pride"
I said I'd post an article yesterday, but I had it written all out and after thinking about it a little, I didn't like it very much so I trashed it. Yeah. It just wasn't up to where I want my material to be. And considering that 90% or so of this site is utter bullhock, you've gotta imagine it was pretty bad for me not to run it. So today you get links! Links to my favourite sources for celebrity gossip/bashing/nakies!
What Would Tyler Durden Do? - A good place to hear anything that might be important or funny. Honestly though, most of the humour is less about teh celebrities than it is just from the dude's rambling. Also, the source of the aforementioned nakies.
Go Fug Yourself - The best site I've read as far as celebrity bashing goes. I recommend starting on the Britney Spears page. There's nobody more fun to laugh at than good ol' K-Fed.
Unmasked: RP's Blog - Technically not centered on cleberities, but it's written by Ryan Perry of GorillaMask.net, so if the old GMask (before it turned into a link dump) is any indication, there'll be some good dirt in the future.
Before we get started, I just thought I'd mention that about an hour after I got my network set up, it went all iggldy-biggldy and even after spending several more hours trying to get it back, it's still broken. I guess I'm just not meant to have a home network... Until I buy an access point! That will work for sure! Money down the toilet!
This month's band is the third band I've reviewed that partcipated in the 2004 Nintendo Fusion Tour, but the only one that I was listening to before said event. I stumbled onto the Lostprophets way back in the day when WinMX was still the best P2P on the market. I just happened to be looking for ninja music (as odd as it may sound, I kid you not) and came across a song called "Shinobi vs Dragon Ninja" which turned out to be a really good song. But who were these Lostprophets that were credited with the song? I searched up a couple other songs, "Still Laughing" and "Ode to Summer." I liked, but wasn't taken enough to really look into them much more than that.
Lurch forward in time to early 2005. I'm shopping for CDs, and come across a band I know very little about, Lostprophets. I'd heard a little about them recently due to the NFT'04, and remembered that "Start Something" was a pretty decent song. $20 later, I walked out of the store with the CD in hand. And that's my story. Also, somewhere in between the second and third paragraph, I'd heard the song "Last Train Home", which helped make my decision. Should have mentioned that before.
So the band. Yeah, they've released two CDs. The first, The Fake Sound of Progress, came in 2001 and I never noticed. However, Start Something managed to catch my attention nearly a year after its release. As far as the fans are concerned, it's pretty much a split between those who like Start Something and those who hate it. I'm in the former group. Those who hate it say that the first album is infinitely better, but since I've never listened to most of it, I really can't pass judgement.
Start Something, however, is a totally different story. I think it's a great album. Rather than run down each track, today I'll just mention a couple high points. Firstly, I'd like to point out that the Lostprophets do a really good job of moving from one song to another. Most bands will finish a song and then movce onto the next. On this CD though, there is a segue or interlude between nearly all the tracks. It's not a huge thing, but it's a very nice touch. As for songs, I'm stuck between "Burn Burn", "Goodbye Tonight" and "Sway" when it comes to my favourite song. They're all distinctly different; "Burn Burn" is strong and offering a unique sound, "Goodbye Tonight" is a technically slow song, but ends up being really heavy and emotional, and finally, "Sway" is... Well, it's "Sway". It's so soothing and atmospheric. If there is any one song you need to download from this CD, that would be the one. Not to mention that at the end if it, they go into another instrumental piece that counjures thoughts of a movie with a tragic ending.
Definitely a sweet band, check 'em out if you like the kind of new wave rock/emo/screamo business that I seem to enjoy so much. Though emo is a harsh word to use. It's more of a civilized punk sound, as much as that seems like an oxymoron. Regardless of classification, the band is good. I shouldn't have to say it a third time. You know, it's odd. I can't shake the feeling that I've reviewed these guys before...
After, oh, five minutes of tampering, I was finally able to set up my home network, and now I have the power of internet in my room! Expect swarms of locusts and a blood-red moon anytime now.
So with that in mind, not only can I write articles in my room, but I can also post them! Ha... ha.... Yeah, it's not going to make a difference. All it's really good for is keeping me off the family compy so that others may (hopefully) do more productive things with it. The only downside is that I haven't been able to unlock the mysteries of file sharing, so all the SoulNet (as it has been randed) is good for is internet. Which is still plenty damn good. I have an article ready for posting soon, but not today. Tomorrows will be the BotM and maybe the next day I'll give you an article.