My Metal Story (Short Version)

This year marks my 25th anniversary of being a "metalhead". Back in 1983 when I was in the 6th grade I discovered heavy metal. Back then heavy metal was exploding with bands like Quiet Riot, Dokken, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Ratt, Dio, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and so on. Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" is the album that pretty much got me heavily into metal music back in 1983. After that album I pretty much searched high and low for every metal band I could find on vinyl and cassette. A few years later I would discover heavier bands like Metallica, Megadeth, King Diamond, Savatage, Anthrax, and of course Slayer.

For a few years Motley Crue was my favorite band. I just couldn't get enough of "Shout At The Devil". I swear I wore the grooves out on that album. One band made me pretty much forget about the might Crue. That band was Metallica. In late 1986 I heard "Master Of Puppets" for the first time and was floored by it's heaviness. Of course I had figured that I would be a Metallica fan for life. My first ever concert was Metallica on the Justiice tour with Queensryche opening. My love for Metallica ended when I heard an album called "Under The Influence" by my STILL favorite band Overkill. I could devote many blog entries to Overkill, but I'll spare you for now.

Thrash was definitely my main choice when it came to metal, but I longed for some heavier stuff. Don't get me wrong I loved bands like Overkill, Nuclear Assault, Kreator, Death Angel, Testament, Exodus, Metal Church, Coroner, and so on, but I knew that somewhere out there there had to be heavier bands.

One day while looking through a Metal Maniacs magazine I saw album covers that were just evil and scary looking. I knew I just had to have the albums pictured! My first introduction to Death Metal was the band Deicide. I bought their self titled album used for cheap. This was sometime during the summer of 1990. I remember this because I had bought a Sony Discman around this time when I was working a crappy Burger King job. What came out of my speakers at the time sounded like shit to me. LOL It wasn't untill my birthday of that same year that Death Metal would takes it hold on me. A friend of mine bought me Obituary's "Cause Of Death", and I was hooked. I had to have more of this brutal sounding Death Metal, and I had to have it now! From that point on my friend and I would read thank lists from every Death Metal band's cassette inlay card to find more bands that we could check out. We didn't have the internet back then, so it was a lot of looking at band logos, and pics of the band on the backs of cds and cassettes to determine if they could possibly be what we were looking for. Sometimes we'd come up with crap, but most of the time we would hit death metal pay dirt!

Those days were awesome. Those days were fun. Now the scene is stagnant as hell...in my opinion anyway. I still pay attention to all of the bands that I like, but rarely bother checking out new bands. After 25 years I've pretty much heard it all before.
I'm rarely ever excited about anything by a new metal band these days. That's pretty sad, BUT I still love all of that old stuff, and listen to it regularly. I've got 25 years worth of stuff I love to listen to, and I'm fine with that.


E-LIMINATION!

Controller Throwing

First let me just say that I'm generally NOT into throwing my gaming controlers no matter how frustrated I may get playing games. I know that many gamers have though. Years ago I was a controller thrower, but never to the point of breaking said controller. I doubt if there is anyone out there who hasn't at least thrown a controller down in frustration. Once in a while I'll get pissed off at a game and toss my controller down on the couch. A few years back I used to throw my Sega Genesis controller on the floor, but never broke one before. These days they are just to damned expensive to be breaking them anyway. I'm not about to slam my $50.00 360 controller on the ground.

Back in early 1994 I worked at a car wash with this guy named Mike Langan. We became friends after a while. I would go over to his house and we would play NHL94 on the Genesis. I've always been really damn good at all of the EA hockey games. I would play them religiously every day for months at a time. None of my friends could ever beat me, and the scores would always be lopsided. Mike was a controller thrower. Let me rephrase that. Mike was the master controller destroyer. One day we were playing and I was beating him really bad. I probably had like 12 goals to his 1 or something like that. He was getting sooooo pissed off. He kept throwing his controller on the ground saying things like "THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!" or "STUPID FUCKING CONTROLLER". After a while enough was enough. He stood up and slammed the controller on the ground so hard that the controller exploded and the buttons flew all over his apartment. Can you say anger issues?

If you're reading this I want to know if you are a controller thrower or have ever thrown one out of frustration.


Very Stupid Angry Gamers.

Mmmmm Pumpkin Ice Cream & Other Crap

It's that time of year when Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream is made. YUM! I love pumpkin pie, and I love pumpkin ice cream. It's heavenly, I tell you! I'm tempted to buy a ready made pie shell and just put this ice cream in the shell for the filling. I don't even feel bad eating it because it's LIGHT pumpkin ice cream which means it's way low in fat. You wouldn't know it by eating it though.

I picked up the new album by The Hold Steady entitled "Stay Positive" today. Man, it's been a long time since I bought an actual cd. I usually download all of my tunes off of soulseek unless it's a band that I love and/or just plain can't find it to download it. I listened to the first tarck in the car. My wife hated it, so she ejected it and handed it back to me. What does she know? She had me buy her the new Kid Rock cd today. BARF!

I also finally got around to picking up Iron Maiden's Live After Death dvd. It's actually two dvds. The first dvd has the famous Long Beach Arena show from the World Slavery Tour. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this on dvd. Live After Death is easily my favorite live recording from any band ever.

I start my vacation in two weeks! WOOT! My nephew will be staying that week. We'll be playing tons of video games. We're also taking a trip to Indiana, so we can show down at the Essen Haus. The food is to die for.

Watch this crazy bastard almost get swept over the Niagara Falls.

Pure Demo = Pure Fun

I was looking to kill some time tonight after playing RSV2 and STILL being stuck in the same damn level. I started browsing the 360 dashboard. I then got a bit excited to see there was a demo for Pure. A while back I expressed how awesome this looked in one of my blog entries. After playing the demo this is a buy for sure. It's got fun pick up and play game written all over it. The track I played on was beautiful. It had zero frame rate issues. It ran smoother than butter. For a high speed racer I'm happy that there were no frame rate issues. 30 frames per second never looked so good. Yeah, that's right ONLY 30 frames per second. You'd never know it though.

Hopefully people on my friends list will be picking this game up as well. I think online multiplayer will be a blast.

One Of THE Greatest Songs Ever!

RSV2 Is Killing Me...Repeatedly

Months ago my wife bought me RSV2 on the day it was released. I thought the game was awesome. I was having a ton of fun with it. Then I got stuck. All through the game you get two soldiers to go through the levels with which in this game you pretty much need. At least I'm learning that I do! I've been stuck on the level where for some ungodly reason the game developers have decided to take my soldiers away and make me go it alone. Man, is this level a BITCH! Of course it's a dark level with tons of barrels and obstacles in your way, so it's tough to see your enemies. Even with night vision and thermal heat vision it's tough. On top of all of this your enemies are nearly perfect. Funny how it seems like they can always see me even though I can't see them. The worst part of all is that every time you die you go way back to the last checkpoint. You have no idea how bad this level is pissing me off. When it comes to shooters I'm definitely not a n00b, but this game is starting to make me feel like one.

There Are Certain Movies I Can Watch Over And Over

After deciding not to play any video games thanks to a massive headache I decided to watch a movie. I still own several movies that I haven't watched yet, but decided to go with a movie I've seen at least 20 or so times. That movie being my favorite movie ever, What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I don't know what it is about this movie, but I can watch it over and over again. I probably watch it at least twice a year. Johnny Depp and DiCaprio are just amazing in this film. It's not often when I can seriously say that every actor involved did a top notch job.

Other movies that I find myself being able to watch over and over include...

High Fidelity
Revenge Of The Nerds
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
The Last American Virgin
Good Fellas
First Blood
Rocky 1
Rocky 2
Rocky 4
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Exorcist
Risky Business
Better Off Dead
Rain Man
Beverly Hills Cop
Donnie Brasco
Casino
The Breakfast Club
Youngblood
Airplane
Caddy Shack
Mask

Those are the ones off of the top of my head. You get the idea though.

Classic Scene From Better Off Dead

September Is Finally Here!

Holy crap it's September already. I know I'm happier than a teenage boy watching his first porno because of this. I hate the heat. I hate bugs. I hate having to lather on sun block. I hate the fact that there isn't any hockey to watch. I hate having to see chubby/fat women wearing next to nothing...these women actually think they're sexy. Summer sucks ass. It's my least favorite season. Bring on fall! It's my favorite season of all.

The only thing that sucks about September is that I'm going to be a year older when the 21st rolls around. I'll be 36. Ugh. I'm really NOT looking forward to my late 30's.

As soon as October hits I have big Halloween themed blog ideas. Get ready for 31 days of spooktacular blogging frights.

The summer video game drought has hit me. I am still having fun with a couple of games, but damn it I want those triple a titles now.

Watched "Drillbit Taylor" last night. I expected it to be lame, and it was. Me and my nephew were bored, so we said what the hell and checked it out.

Metallica can kiss my ass. It seems they are trying to be "metal" again. Too late, homos! You've sucked since the black album was released in 91. You still suck! Only a moron with shitty taste in music would buy your new album.

Last but not least I used Google image search for the word September. The second image was the world trade center on fire. Man, it's lame that the month of September has be known for that day. BTW I decided to go with the above picture even though it has nothing at all to do with September. I think I made a great choice. She has talent!

September