SiderBox

I’ve not done a full album review in some and honestly I don’t feel like doing one today so going to deliver some quick thoughts on the music I’ve recently purchased instead.

• Demon Hunter – World Is A Thorn: Loud, Heavy, Good.
• Citizen Cope – Rainwater: A good album that could have been great if it had more than ten songs, mind you tracks nine and ten were acoustic versions of two other songs on the record.
• Eddie Vedder – Into The Wild: Actually a soundtrack, but it’s all Eddie Vedder.  A lighter acoustic sound that is easy to drive to.
• Vampire Weekend – Contra: Airy, the jury is still out forming an opinion on this one …
• Gorillaz – Plastic Beach: This album has a ton of guest artists once again including De La Soul.  It’s defiantly a Gorillaz album, I’m still forming a detailed review.  I like it, I’ll end up writing more about this one.

Signing off.

Well I bought Final Fantasy XIII for the xBox 360 on Tuesday, I’ll be popping it in later today for the first time.  I hope it’s not awful.  I’ll let you know …

Long have I thought about getting a laptop, anymore I don’t generally like being chained to one singular space … I like the idea of mobility.  One of the other ideas I like is the idea that things should be simple and easy to use.  Mind you I’m a Windows Server Team of Lead of six Windows Administrators, I’m not supposed to like Apple products or something to that nature.  I think they’re probably supposed to turn my hands green.

I did a lot of thinking, comparing, and waiting before I bought the Mac Book Pro (2.8Ghz Dual Core, 500GB Hard drive, 4GB of Memory, with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB Video card).  I’ve had the laptop since Saturday evening, I didn’t turn it on until Sunday morning.  Since then I’m completely happy with this new setup.  I’ve only had one problem and that wasn’t the laptops fault, it was the sales guys for handing me the wrong DVI adapter for my external monitor.  That was exchanged today for the correct one.

I’ll be writing up something more in-depth very soon.

I is very happy with teh lappy.

Well if you’re a “regular” to www.Blocguild.com then you’ve been redirected to here … the personal blog of the GM of Bloc, a guild that resides on the US-Perenolde of the game World of Warcraft.  The demand for the guild website declined so it made no sense to upkeep it anymore.  I still have all the pages and content should we launch it again.  If you like it here, please continue to visit.

I’ve decided to take a break from raiding in WoW, I don’t currently have the passion or desire to do it.  I’m having more fun grinding rep and leveling toons then spending hours in an instance banging my head against a wall.  Our guild is continuing to progress, I just need some time away.  At some point I may catch the raiding bug, but until that day don’t expect me in too many raids.

God gave me my own free will.

I make my own decisions, learning from my successes and failures.

I will never be perfect, nor will I ever try to be.

In the coming days I’ll be reviewing the following albums:

• The Dead Weather: Horehound
• Passion Pit: Manners
• Pete Yorn: Back and Fourth
• Kasabian: West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
• Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Talk to you then.

I’ve only recently discovered the Decemberists, shame on me.  I picked up The Hazards of Love last week while out with friends.  The album can be best described as a concept album telling a story of young woman, Margaret who fell in love with shape shifting beast, William.

As I’ve read other review most if not all have the same theory:  you must list to this album beginning to end …  I whole heartedly agree, this album is amazing.  They dabble in harder rock sounds while staying true to their folk roots, the guest female vocals of Becky Stark and Shara Worden are simply lovely.  Do yourself a favor and buy this album!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Track Listing – The Hazards of Love

1. “Prelude” – 3:04
2. “The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)” – 4:19
3. “A Bower Scene” – 2:09
4. “Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)” – 4:07
5. “The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)” – 4:26
6. “The Queen’s Approach” – 0:29
7. “Isn’t It a Lovely Night?” – 3:39
8. “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid” – 6:27
9. “An Interlude” – 1:40
10. “The Rake’s Song” – 3:16
11. “The Abduction of Margaret” – 2:07
12. “The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing” – 3:56
13. “Annan Water” – 5:12
14. “Margaret in Captivity” – 3:08
15. “The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)” – 3:22
16. “The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)” – 1:31
17. “The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)” – 5:57

Yesterday brought us the new WoW patch and as usual the servers were absolutely jacked up.  As far as the details of the patch and the glorious content pertaining to it, I won’t be able to say till tomorrow if it’s rad.

Have you ever been somewhere and heard a song and could not remember the name?  Then buy an iPhone and download the free app Shazam … or maybe download it for one of the many options that it supports.

It’s a little quirky when it comes to background noise but it works well otherwise, it will allow you to save the artist and song for later review.  It’ll let you throw out a sweet tweet, buy the song, or watch the video.

Shazam for iPhone

Now that everyone is gone and the dust is settling I wanted to take a look back at Bloc Party.  I want to first thank everyone who came to this past week and weekend, you defiantly made the party a huge success.  Also for those who read this, I’m using real names and WoW names so those in and out of the game can put two and two together.

Tuesday, July 28th:

We made our way to the new Indianapolis International Airport to pick up Nick and Becky; they were on time so we luckily didn’t have to wait long for them to make their way to baggage claim.  Liz spotted them on the escalator and we made our way to exchange all the fun pleasantries.  Becky presented Liz a Barrel of Monkeys as they used to barrel dance in Karazhan together, they also brought us a few souvenirs from Colorado.  We made our way to the car and headed to our house, we drove them through downtown Indianapolis to see some of the city.  We unloaded and then decided to grab a bite to eat; we headed to BW3’s to grab some wings and beverages, which I might add were fantastic.  We made our way back home and hung out on the back porch playing with the Barrel of Monkeys and Phase10.  It was pretty late by the time we finished so we headed to bed.

Wednesday, July 29th

Becky wanted to experience some authentic Indianapolis spots, so we headed to Long’s Bakery for breakfast, which was delicious.  On the way back to the house we drove through Broad Ripple Village so they could see where the magic happens.  We also drove through the Butler University campus and made our way to Starbucks for some wake up juice; once we got back to the house we waited on Brian a.k.a. Snow.  We decided we were once again hungry so onward to White Castle we went, after we down some sliders we stopped at Best Buy and drove through downtown Carmel.  While at Best Buy I picked up the following albums:

• Pete Yorn – Back & Fourth
• The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
• The Dead Weather – Horehound
• Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
• Passion Pit – Manners

Review coming soon!

We felt the wrath of the Castle and lounged a bit at the house, for dinner Becky and Liz made a delicious spaghetti and meatball meal.  Later we made our way to the spectacular Brockway Pub to have a nightcap, we had a good time in the night air and then came home

Thursday, July 30th

I took the ladies to their massage; we had to deal with U.S. Senior Open golf traffic as it was being hosted a few miles south of our house.  I got them there on time and later we picked them up and then headed to Ocean World for lunch.  After our delicious sushi we went to explore downtown Indianapolis, starting at Monument Circle.  We walked around a little and then headed into Circle Center Mall, once we finished up there we were right next to Jillian’s, however they acted like they were bothered we were there, so we headed to Dave and Busters instead.  We played games and eventually raced against each other, the race is on video somewhere, I’ll have to post it at some point as it’s pretty hilarious!  We headed to dinner at Bazbeaux’s Pizza on the Monon in Carmel, after we made our way to Coldstone for some delicious goodness.  We started to tackle the beast that is Phase10 when Davis a.k.a. Kday arrived, we made it to Phase 7 before it got pretty late and we decided to crash for the evening.

Friday, July 31th

We woke up and started out the day with some video games on the xBox 360 in the basement, we played Left 4 Dead and Beautiful Katamari.  The day was pretty relaxing, we were expecting Nate a.k.a. Saabaton, Rob a.k.a Robthered, Sean a.k.a. Dryx, and Liz Sean’s wife to arrive later in the evening.  We watched Role Models and around 11:30 or so in the evening they arrived, Liz and Rob quickly exited to find more beverages they made their way back and everyone was talking and enjoying themselves we made our way to the basement partaking in beverages and playing RockBand, at some point around 2am Liz and I crashed out and headed to bed.

Saturday, August 1st

The big day started with Liz, Nate, and I heading out buy Panera Bagels and Starbucks coffee, we also brought back 4 cases of beverages to partake of.  Everyone was up and moving by Noon when my father-in-law Mark a.k.a Milliki, brother-in-law Joe a.k.a. Yeobeer, and sister-in-law Amanda showed up.  We headed outside to the patio, deck, and backyard where we brought out the tailgating game staples Cornhole and Ladder toss, which I might add I’m not very good at.  We started drinking around this time and fired up the grill and started cooking, some of the guys broke off and started playing board games.  By the early evening it started to really get going I guess you might say, the amount of beverages drank was impressive and by the evening we were inside playing video games, Fluxx, and Apples to Apples.  I think Apples to Apples was by far the biggest success in terms of getting everyone involved and having fun.  At some point the night was gone and it was pretty late.

Sunday, August 2nd

Liz and I got up and made breakfast for everyone consisting of an egg based casserole, bacon, and cinnamon rolls.  Davis was the first one who departed as he made his way back to Michigan before departing to Connecticut the next day.  Nick and Becky met up with local family and went out with them, the rest of us went to Kona Grill for lunch, we made our way back and the Chicago group of Nate, Rob, Sean, and Liz (Sean’s wife) headed out.  It was Liz, Snow, and I just chilling in the front room talking till Nick and Becky made their way back.  We eventually made our way down to the basement for some movies; we watched the 40 Year Old Virgin and Tropic Thunder.  We all crashed out for the final time.

Monday, August 3rd

I headed off to work this morning and left around noon, grabbed some lunch and helped Nick and Beck pack up the car.  Before I left to take them to the airport, Brian left to head back to Knoxville.  Liz is currently back to work this evening.  The house is strangely quiet and I already miss those who were here this past week and weekend.  I really had a good time, no matter the stress and the planning that went into making this party fun, I would do it every week to see the friends I’ve made in the game that some I’m sure scoff at.  For those who didn’t get to attend please check out the pictures I’ve uploaded: Bloc Party Pictures!

This is the first Bloc Party of hopefully many; we hope to see more next year!  Thank you all for coming!