Got Metal?

Mostly for myself, but for anybody else who is so inclined, I've decided to post a list of folk/power/viking metal bands that I love listening to and my personal favourite songs by said bands. I will update this as I find more stuff.
In no particular order:

Equilibrium - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoZcY2FWjkU
Finntroll - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeEmUwrznc
Tyr - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I1geB7U5VI
Glittertind - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5_yH9hEUA
Arafel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEfFU-yPgiY
Alestorm - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99a6DaheLqs
Korpiklaani - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBaWQirpurQ
Sabaton - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSzKhkOHKMA
Falconer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzzQDrVt5uk
Dream Evil - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj10ndgLEYo
Eluveitie - http://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=iijKLHCQw5o
Mithotyn - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxZ2m5Sayk
Hammerfall - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkmlujV-TvU
Wintersun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc4WFzl-6Xs
Ensiferum - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T4wmpSFlHg
Blind Guardian - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AfNOKQdY-U
Melechesh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSgIclwhNgo
Arkona - [Just discovered, and loving it. Haven't picked a favourite yet.]
Asmegin - [Just discovered, and loving it. Haven't picked a favourite yet.]
Alkonost - [Just discovered, and loving it. Haven't picked a favourite yet.]

Back from the dead...Or just a long sleep.

But it's been a magnificently eventful sleep! Let me see...my last post was in June, so that means I've got all summer and autumn to fill you in on! Don't you feel lucky? No, I know you don't, that's why I'm only gonna talk about the most awesome stuff.
I have a girlfriend! She is jolly amazing and incredible (and smarter than me) and I love her to bits, and YES, I know I just violated my own rules for this blog, but I don't care. Shut up. I can't imagine life without her now...weird.
Then I started my second year of uni, on a slightly different course to last year's...Sustainable Engineering now don't you know. A lot more prestigious. I moved into a new flat with one of my best homies, Kersh, and some people who we thought we didn't know, but it turned out we did after all, so that was pretty cool. I have my own bathroom! That is one of the best bits. Oh, also the un-proxied Internet...GAMING!
Speaking of which, I also won an Alienware laptop in the ubisoft competition that ran along side E3...score much?
That kinda covers summer...Uni life has really been full of geeking out about game releases, going to raves and random nights out, and yes...some work too. But mostly the afore-mentioned stuff!
I'm still playing the ukulele, (and getting pretty good if I say so myself) and I'm getting a beautiful new one for Christmas! I will post pics of it.
But here is the main reason for my return to blogging - my gig cherry has been popped! Yes it has.
Yesterday I went with my homies to see Dragonforce! "Dragonforce?! What a crap start to gig life!" I hear you say...well shut up. I mainly went for the support, Glamour of the Kill, Sylosis, and... -cream- Sabaton! Jeeeehosaphat's apostrophe, they were incredible!
Glamour of the Kill started off, and I must say, they did exceptionally well, considering not many people had turned up yet. If you've not heard of them, they sound rather like Avenged Sevenfold and the like...you should definitely check them out here http://www.myspace.com/glamourofthekill
Sylosis were up next, and whilst GotK sounded like A7X, sylosis were much closer to Mnemic, Meshuggah and Gojira. I thought they were excellent, the vocals were delivered with just the right amount of violence, and the guitarist was safe. (We were chatting after but I'll tell that stuffs in a bit!)
And then...Sabaton! They opened with Ghost Division, which is my favourite song by them, and they were actually happy to be there! Their energy was infectious and had the crowd completely in their hands. Whilst the lead claimed there'd be no bullshit so that more songs could be played, there were still plenty of tweaked nipples and stuff...They were actually hilarious! Even Joey was sold by them, and he can't stand metal! As soon as they finished, I went and purchased a tour t-shirt, which I am currently wearing VERY proudly.
Everyone I spoke to told me that Dragonforce played terribly live, but they sounded fine to me...I suppose that might be because I'm not a terribly experienced musician, or gig-goer, but I still think they were good. Plus I got Herman Li's pick! Win.
Afterwards, and rather deafened we made our way outside, and I had photos with Oskar and Rikard of Sabaton, then got chatting with the guitarist of Sylosis outside. After a bit, we all went to the pub with Dragonforce, Sylosis AND Sabaton! How amazing is that?! Dragonforce all signed my ticket, bar the lead, but apparently he never goes out...so yes. I am still buzzing, and Herman Li may be terrified of people with dreads for the rest of his life, seeing as I nearly tackled him in the pub...my bad.
By the way, the picture is of me and Oskar from Sabaton!
Also I have dreads. WIN!

It's a scorcher!

Well I don't know about the rest of the UK, but South Wales seems to be on the fun end of a heatwave - it's like a furnace! This is both sweet, and rubbish. Sweet because I get to go out and play with my friends, go cycling, have barbeques, and sort out the garden. Rubbish because it's destroying my front and back. This wouldn't be a problem if I was wearing clothes, but it's too hot for clothes! Don't get too excited, I wear three quarter lengths, but the rest of me is pretty much raw.
I also feel like prattling about yesterday's 360 E3-ness. For me, the highlight of the show was the Assassin's Creed 2 spot. I'm not sure there's much point in this becuase I don't actually have anything constructive to say about it, but it was incredible - I just hope the in-game graphics are up to the same standard! (on a sidenote, I immediately preordered my Black Edition of it xD)
The rest of the show blew me away too. Splinter Cell Conviction is shaping up for a September release, and looking rather beautiful aswell.
Modern Warfare 2 (which I fondly call cod 4 2) impressed everyone with it's gameplay footage. It opened up in a stunning moutain setting, with two operatives climbing an ice fall. This carried on for a while, but thankfully Infinity Ward skipped to the top, where the agents proceeded to look around a blizzard torn enemy base. This rapidly led to a fire right, and culminated in the agents steeling skiddoos and throttling off down the mountain. It was hot.
Bungie also made an appearance and showed some gameplay of ODST, which makes use of th unreal engine this time round. It still managed to hold onto it's Halo esque style though, and even reintroduced the Halo 1 pistol, which many of us hardcores missed in both 2 and 3!
Wait for it though, they also revealed a secret project.
Suspense building....
Halo: Reach!
Hell Yeeeeeah! A game covering the fall of Reach! Expect multi-spartan combat! I personally can't wait, but it's set for a 2010 release.
Woooah I'll be 20...I feel so old.
Anyways, the latter part of the broadcast was given over to NATAL, some sort of motion sensory, recognisey, camera software. It's hard to tell where they are at with the developement though, as the main example by Peter Molyneux, was prerecorded and not live. This obviously opens it up to claims that it was all staged and scripted. If it's real though, it's going to be awesome.
Also promised for xbox live before the year is out is Facebook, Twitter and "free" Sky, although for the latter I expect you will need prepaid cards or something. Apparently it doesn't require any additional hardware though.
Right, I'm done geeking, gonna go play some GoW2 or something.

In the middle of the ride.

Well so far I've managed to prove a fellow blogger wrong about becoming addicted to this blogging lark. Over the course of the easter break I pretty much forgot about updating, and it's only now that I have lots of revision to do that I am back to procrastinating!
So far it's been a pretty awesome week back.
The day before I travelled back, I purchased a lovely green ukulele. It's a rather cheap one but as I'm a beginner, and a student at that, it's perfect for me.
Since then I have been endlessly picking out tunes, and one of my closest homies at uni has jolly kindly lent me the very beginner's book that was the basis of his awesomeness on the uke.
Nearly a week into playing the slightly exotic instrument, I can play all the major chords, and a few of the minors, though I don't actually know which minors, seeing as I learnt them whilst playing Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours". I'm pretty sure one of them is G#m though, which sounds lovely and complicated, and makes me feel better about my small amount of skill!
On the down side, I haven't been able to feel my fingertips since Wednesday.
I have also had my first exam!
-cue obligatory questions on how it went-
It went very well, thanks for asking! I woke up bright and early...a little too early actually, but bright non-the-less.
I've long held that revising on the day of an exam just makes you more nervous about what you don't know, so instead I read my book and played the uke for an hour or two, which really chilled me out. I felt rather calm as I wandered over to the building...until I remembered it was open book, and ran back to get more notes!
I don't think I'd have needed my notes though, the maths questions were differentiation, integration, and matrices. Let's face it, that's a piece of cake.
The other two questions were on electronic equipment and their power supplies, and methods of heat transfer (I accidently wrote heart transfer then...pretty heavy sustainable course that would be!).
Three hours later, I walked out with a nasty headache, but a rather satisfied feeling.
I really should get on with studying duty of care and negligence now, but I'll leave you with this rather beautiful song.

The art of not doing much

This is the first time I am using my blog for the purpose it was made...procrastination. I really can't be arsed to revise for my sustainable practice exam a week on Tuesday, so instead I have decided to play around on here!
I've cunningly decided that it's easier to revise during the day because it feels less like its encroaching upon my time, seeing as I'd usually be in a lecture of some sort.
The problem is it's also the holidays, so my brain thinks it deserves a break, and therefore refuses to focus on anything work related. Couple that with the sudden boom in hype for Assassin's Creed II, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Good grief, even now I'm procrastinating to put off my procrastination! Curse Facebook...
On the flip side, the rest of the holiday has been pretty cool! Several bike rides with Tom, a party or two, and general relaxing. The kitchen is rather a mess though...
Ahhh student living.

Cats don't have nine lives, they have phone insurance.

Over the past few weeks I have logged onto that fiendish time stealer Facebook, only to find that someone else had lost their phone, and was acting like it was the end of their comparitively small world.
I have slowly come to the conclusion that losing your phone, automatically and IMMEDIATELY causes your life to shutdown. But it doesn't end here, oooh no. Your life is then rebooted, as it were, upon the acquisition of a new a mobile telecommunications device.
This...hypothesis...died today, and was reincarnated as a fully fledged and oh so beautiful theory, when I logged in and saw that my friend (oooh let us call him Johnny for ease of understanding) had set his status to "AHHH New Phone, New start!!"
Now anyone who knows "Johnny", also knows that he always has at least a pot and a half's worth of super-strength hairgel slathered over the insulation on his cranium, causing it to stand to attention.
On a whim I checked his profile picture and low and behold, NO HAIR GEL!
I believe this realisation will help me to send the suicide rates of this country to an all time low.
If your life just isn't worth living, forget potholing down an empty lift shaft, buy a new phone.

Ganja Smoke

Well I think this week has been a week for firsts. The first time I managed to juggle 3 snooker balls whilst tipsy, the first time I managed to juggle 4 whilst not tipsy, the first time I offered to buy someone from CU a drink (not including Joey), the first time I've kicked a football in about 6 years, and the first time I got passively stoned.
And most of these happened on the same day!
I do feel extremely hypocritical though, as I was offered weed the day before and told them that it'd screw them up. In my defense I did say no to this weed, which is why I stressed the passive part!
We were sitting outside my halls at about one in the morning, scoffing pizza, and chatting with some guys we'd just played football with. Everyone was slightly tipsy, so the conversation was flowing and a jovial mood reigned.
My mate and his flatties offered us spliffs, but we said "Naaah" and just carried on talking. They lit up, and cos we were all sitting around a small circular table, the air became saturated with ganja smoke - we were too tipsy to notice, and probably wouldn't care if we did.
After that memory, it's all a blur and slightly colourful.
Wasn't unpleasant, I just won't be doing it again!

Swinging 60's?

I think I have gone slightly retro in the last couple of weeks. I rather enjoy wearing loud, contrasting colours, I've started to listen to the oldies stuff like Del Shannon and Simon and Garfunkel, and my hair is taking a distinctive hippy turn!
This doesn't particularly bother me, so long as I don't start saying stuff like "groovy". If that happens, I may have to take a short drop with a sharp stop.
I was contemplating this latest twist on my rollercoaster of life whilst in the middle of a Sustainable Practice lecture, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, as working out what my chinese lecturer is saying takes up at least three quarters of your concentration, before you even begin to try and understand the content!
I was jolted out of my reverie by the words "flying mattresses". At first I panicked, as I thought someone had beaten me in the race to invent airbourne beds; that is until my brain kicked into gear and translated the offending phrase into "multiplying matrices", which in my opinion is just as useful as a flying mattress.
Not very, but suspiciously satisfying.
I had better go and eating something now, for if I leave it any longer I will be slightly worse than useless when I go to the gym with Joey later.

The Genius of Simon and Garfunkel

I can't believe that I have only just discovered Simon and Garfunkel's work to be honest. I remember when I was about 12, I asked my friend of then seven years what sort of music he'd been listening to recently, and he said something about Fleetwood Mac and Simon and Garfunkel, and I just dismissed it, because as far as my childish mind knew, they weren't "in" and therefore I wasn't gonna make many friends by listening to them; how shallow.
In hindsight, my friend was so much more cooler than me, or anyone I knew!
I've found the dulcet tones to be rather soothing, and it stops my flatmate from banging on the wall to turn the music down in the evenings. Win-win much?
Having said that, I'm now playing The Offspring rather loudly...old habits die hard, though it's more because their song "(Can't Get My) Head Around You" has been chasing around my skull since the service this morning, where Daf was talking about how God "isn't the same god of other religions but with a different name". I found myself accidently humming a few bars, before remembering I was in church.
Admittedly it doesn't really have much of a connection, but hey, I have a strange mind.

This blog has an alternate reason for existance; I'm going to post the comics that mon homies and I have been dreaming up, using what one of my friends from home calls a headnoise.
So yeah, Sweet Procrastination strip one I suppose...