I previously shared a very whacked out dream that involved Samodean, Chris Metzen, and a live action zombie demo.  I had a LOT of details to share since I wrote it all down as soon as I could after waking up.

More commonly I remember snippets, if that.  What I’ve noticed more lately is that waking up is part of a quest chain.

I’ve had dreams where hitting the snooze button is a repeatable quest.

I’ve also had dreams that the “A” button was the snooze button.

Dreams are weird.  And yes, that’s a scientific term.

Ya know, I think this is why I love to slow time down when my Sims are sleeping.  Usually the game will auto-speed up time when the entire household is asleep.  I mean, they are sleeping, you don’t have anything to manage after all.  But, I like to slow it down just to watch the dream bubbles.

Hmm.

I never realized just how creepy that was before.

This is the kind of post I don’t like to write and most “how to blog” guides will warn you to never write.

Well, screw it.

I’ma do it anyway.

I apologize for my hiatus, it lasted MUCH longer than I expected.  I only anticipated being absent from the blog and Twitter for a few days while I played through Heavy Rain.  (I even had to miss an episode of Polygamerous!)

Unfortunately, a mix of work craziness (it is seriously kicking my ass right now, but I’ve complained enough through minimal tweets over the past week, me thinks) and not feeling well meant almost zero time getting intimate with my home PC.

*pats monitor* I know, baby, you were getting lonely.

Thankfully, Sideshow had my back and cranked out a few posts to keep this place from looking like a completely barren wasteland.

I’m still going to have some ups and downs until work calms back down.  I was just going to start this week off with a post and act like I hadn’t been MIA for nearly two weeks, but I love y’all more than that.

It looks like I have a fan on the Alliance side on Eitrigg. I’m so flattered. I ran across him when doing the cooking quests during Thanksgiving with my Alliance rogue.

Check this tag for my other “Songs of the Week” posts.

Hopefully, it’s a good chance to hear some new music (or old music) and get my take on it. I do tend to lean towards Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, so most songs will probably be in that general area, but I will veer from time to time. I know music is very much like religion and politics, so I’m not pushing anything onto you. If you don’t like something, I respect that. But, if you do, I’m more than happy to get you more info on it, just let me know.

Most entries will have a Wikipedia and Last.FM link at the end for you to get more information and listen to other songs at your leisure.

Monday

Machine Head – Aesthetics of Hate – Machine Head’s last album “The Blackening” got great reviews and rightfully so. This song was one of the first singles and probably the first Machine Head I got to listen to the most. It was available in one of the first metal track downloads for Rock Band and it’s still one of the songs I have trouble finishing on drums on Hard or above. The song itself is a response to an article written about the death of Dimebag Darrell of Pantera. The author of the article wrote that Dimebag was “an ignorant, barbaric, untalented possessor of a guitar” among other things. I’ve heard of Machine Head before this point, but I needed more! We also were very lucky to see them open for Metallica at their Milwaukee show in 2009 and they put on an extremely energetic performance. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Tuesday

Black Tide – Shockwave – Black Tide is another band I had no idea about until we downloaded one of their songs in Rock Band. They do a great, classic metal sound reminiscent of Metallica and Megadeth. What is somewhat unique about them is that 2 brothers founded the band in 2004 when they were only 11 and 14 and they play very good metal. Their cover of Metallica’s classic “Hit the Lights” is pretty good. This song also goes down as one of my favorite songs to play on drums in Rock Band. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Wednesday

Lamb of God – Laid to Rest – It almost seems like the theme this week is songs I became fans of because of rhythm video games, but it’s not. Not to be confused with one of the titles that was given to Jesus in the New Testament, I was aware of Lamb of God before I heard more of them when this song was in Guitar Hero II and then later in Rock Band 2. I picked up a few albums and thought they were great with a great “groove metal” feel to them, in the vicinity of Pantera. This is another one that I love to play on drums in Rock Band. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Thursday

Lacuna Coil – Spellbound – I’ve listened to Lacuna Coil for a few years, while never becoming a massive fan. I enjoy it here and there. Though, they are usually lumped into Goth or Emo music due to the fact that they have a female singer, I would personally put them in Hard Rock and possibly Metal, depending on the song. The mix of Cristina Scabbia’s great vocals and Andrea Ferro’s deeper vocals, make it a unique sound. Just to follow the supposed accidental theme, they do have some songs in Rock Band. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Friday

Dethklok – Murmaider II: The Water God – Nothing completes a weekly list like a cartoon death metal band. All cartooniness aside, Dethklok’s music is extremely good. Brendon Small knows what he’s doing when creating these songs. We’ve had the privilege of seeing them live when they toured with Mastodon last year and they put on an amazing show. When you get to have metal royalty like Gene Hoglan play drums in your live band, how can you go wrong? Plus, the fact that they are also stars of one of the funniest cartoons I’ve ever seen just makes it better. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

I thought I would grace you with my presence since Syrana is taking a short hiatus and removing the sick germs from herself. What have I been up to? I bet everyone is waiting with anticipation.

Last I posted about WoW was when Syrana asked me to answer a few questions. One of those questions was about what I wanted to accomplish in 2010. I basically said that I wanted to get both the Salty and Chef titles. Looking at what I had left, Chef should be simple to grab first. It turns out that I got Salty first. I really didn’t spend a lot of time trying to catch that rare fish. I usually just logged in on my laptop during football games on Sunday and fished while I watched. I’d say it was probably 4-5 hours total until I finally caught that Dark Herring in Howling Fjord. I’ve read comments from people who’ve taken almost 40 hours to catch a rare fish. Crazy. Sadly, I still haven’t got the Chef title yet, but I really haven’t tried. I did take a quick WoW break for a few weeks to play other games.

The other games I played during this time were Mass Effect 2 (which I finished and posted about), Eve Online, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (bought it on Xbox Originals), Heavy Rain, and..I hate to admit it..even some Harvest Moon: Animal Parade. This doesn’t include a bunch of games from Gamefly that I tried like Prototype, Halo 3: ODST, Guitar Hero 5, Infamous, and others. I also did some more genealogy research, which always takes up some time. Nothing major was found, but I did organize a bunch of my source information and scan a bunch of old documents and photos, which is good for future research. Exciting stuff.

Now that I’m back to playing WoW a bit more, I’ve been trying to level up some alts that I’ve had for awhile. Liviya, my Night Elf rogue, on Eitrigg is one of them. After I transferred my Alliance off of Eitrigg to another server, I had none left. It turns out my father-in-law is playing Alliance more often over there, so I created one to give him someone to play with here and there. She is currently at level 41 and spec’d Subtlety since I dabble in BGs while I level. I also have a level 46 Human Warrior that is mainly my bank alt for my Level 80 Hunter, Gertbee. Her professions are Enchanting and Tailoring so I can DE all the gear he gets, etc. Unfortunately, now I’m getting gear that is too high for me to DE. I finally got her professions up to 300, but now I need to hit 50 so I can learn the next level. So, I’m trying to do that. And then with my 80 Hunter, I’m just mainly doing the Tournament dailies so I can get my rep up. I also jump onto Sideshow for a few hours and do a few things on him. I am an officer over there and there are some good people, so I can’t just completely not play.

Yesterday I jumped onto Gertbee to see when the next Wintergrasp was since I just needed 30 more Stone Keeper’s Shards until I hit 300 so I could buy a Black War Mammoth. When I logged in, as always, the battle was in progress. Fortunately, it looks like it just started. I jumped in, grabbed my quests, and ran towards the fortress since we were attacking. Less than 5 minutes later we were in the door as I got [Within Our Grasp]. Talk about luck. It was actually amazing that I even finished some of my WG dailies since we handled it so fast.

Jumping between these keeps me interested and keeps me from getting too bored. Plus, a good injection of other games and hobbies keeps me busy. Anything exciting you’ve been playing?

Check this tag for my other “Songs of the Week” posts.

I enjoy music, as most of you know, so I thought I’d post a song everyday during the week using my Blip.fm station and tweet it at the same time (if you wanted to follow at home.) Every week, I’ll recap my choices and write a little blurb about them.

Hopefully, it’s a good chance to hear some new music (or old music) and get my take on it. I do tend to lean towards Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, so most songs will probably be in that general area, but I will veer from time to time. I know music is very much like religion and politics, so I’m not pushing anything onto you. If you don’t like something, I respect that. But, if you do, I’m more than happy to get you more info on it, just let me know.

Most entries will have a Wikipedia and Last.FM link at the end for you to get more information and listen to other songs at your leisure.

Monday

Redemption – Peel – Redemption is a progressive metal band, similar to Dream Theater. I was introduced to them when they opened for Dream Theater during their 2007 tour. The group includes previous members of Fates Warning, who were very influential to the progressive metal genre. Basically, if you enjoy Dream Theater or Fates Warning, than you should enjoy Redemption. This song is off their latest album, which is very good, “Snowfall on Judgement Day.” [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Tuesday

Dirge Within – Force Fed Lies – We were introduced to Dirge Within when they recently opened for Trivium in Milwaukee. They are similar to Trivium and Five Finger Death Punch. I like them because of the great musicianship and they have the raw metal sound, but without being too screamy. We were able to understand their music live, which is usually tough to do with metal bands that you’re not familiar with. I currently have their “Force Fed Lies” album in my car and it’s very good. [ Last.fm ]

Wednesday

Halestorm – What Were You Expecting? – Halestorm is a female-fronted hard rock band. I like her voice since it’s tough and is a very good, clean, strong rock voice. I would personally compare it to Theory of a Deadman or possibly Nickelback, in terms of sound and attitude. Last.fm mentions close similarities to The Veer Union and Burn Halo, but I’m not familiar with them so I can’t say for sure. It’s not technically amazing or very heavy, but it’s good, simple, fun rock music and sometimes you need that. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Thursday

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Santo Domingo – This is one is sort of from left field. Rodrigo y Gabriela “are a Mexican musical duo who specialize in playing fast, rhythmic acoustic guitars.” I’d say my interest in them comes from my enjoyment of the guitar as an instrument. What usually amazes me about Rodrigo y Gabriela is that they do everything on their two acoustic guitars (for the most part) including the percussion parts. They came together due to their love of thrash metal, so it started well, too. I originally came across them when I found an amazing cover they recorded of Metallica’s “Orion” instrumental. If you like the guitar and amazing sounds that can be made from it, check them out. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

Friday

The Sword – The Black River – I first ran across The Sword when they had a cover version of their song, “Freya”, in Guitar Hero II. But, more recently, we saw them open up for Metallica in 2009 and this song was also included in the Guitar Hero: Metallica game. They’re definitely heavy metal, but I would also describe them as having a “retro metal” sound, almost Black Sabbath-like but with a more modern feel including the very dark and crunchy guitars. Most places put them in the doom/stoner metal genre. Also, a lot of their songs and albums have a fantasy/sword-and-sorcery theme and feel to them, especially the latest album and its Conan the Barbarian theme, which made them great to play when doing Sons of Hodir dailies. [ Wikipedia | Last.fm ]

And you are right.  I’ve been a bit absent from much of anything related to the internet since Tuesday.

You see…this game that I’ve been anxiously awaiting has been released.  It’s very important for me to moonlight as a detective and catch the Origami Killer.

I’m closing in on him too… I think.

I hope.

Anywho, first playthrough should be complete soon, then I might hit up a second one this weekend.

We’ll see, because I have to play nice and let Sideshow get some time in too.  (And not spoil things.  It’s really hard for me to keep quiet ’round him, but I’m doing it so far!)

Expect clear skies with scattered tweets and posts next week.

In the meantime, if you would like some Sideshow & Syrana-y goodness…

We got the opportunity to hang with the /2 Podcast crew last Friday and it was a blast!  Sideshow and I let loose on Episode 26.  Or at least, I let loose after I stopped trying to censor myself and remembered /2 is full of mature language, hehe.

(I blame Krizzlybear, who’s been doing a lot of song parodies this month!  This one is based upon Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day [Lyrics] [Video])

I walk a lonely road
The only zone that I have ever known
Don’t know where you are
But it’s fun for me and I quest alone

I quest this empty zone
On the Barrens Road of Broken Dreams
Where the centaur sleeps
and I’m the only one and I quest alone

I quest alone
I quest alone

I quest alone
I quest a…

My mini-pet’s the only one that travels with me
No recruit-a-friend to keep me company
Sometimes I wish someone would group up with me
‘Til then I quest alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I’m heading north this time
Can’t decide which quest chain to follow
On the border now
Of the Barrens and Ashenvale, wait

Who’s coming at me
I fucked up and flagged myself and died
Time to find my corpse
Resurrect again, and so I quest alone

I quest alone
I quest alone

I quest alone
I quest a…

My mini-pet’s the only one that travels with me
No recruit-a-friend to keep me company
Sometimes I wish someone would group up with me
‘Til then I quest alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I quest alone
I quest a…

I quest this empty zone
On the Barrens Road of Broken Dreams
Where the centaur sleeps
and I’m the only one and I quest alone

My mini-pet’s the only one that travels with me
No recruit-a-friend to keep me company
Sometimes I wish someone would group up with me
‘Til then I quest alone…

Generation 2: Aerissa and Caleb

Shortly after things started to calm down on the family compound, tragedy struck again.  This segment of the family’s story will be best told through screenshots of the emotions and thoughts alone.  I’m not sure there is much I can add to the description other than… Death likes to party.  (Yes, this one will be a bit screenshot heavy.)

Yes… that was Darcy that passed on in front of her grandchild…while she was tending to her.