Sideshow & Syrana

I originally did this post on my Genealogy site due to a weekly meme that another blogger creates on Saturdays, but I thought it was a good post to get people to think about their answers. I won’t make you go visit my site to read it, since it’s not that exciting unless you’re into family history research, though I’m not stopping you.

1. What is your all-time favorite song? Yep, number 1. It’s hard to choose sometimes. If you made your favorite all-time Top 40 music selections, what would be #1?

2. Tell us about it. Why is it a favorite? Do you have special memories attached to this song?

My favorite song of all-time is a pretty simple choice. It’s something I have thought about in the past. It seems I’m constantly trying to figure out my favorite musicians and songs. Overall, it’s a tough thing to choose, but my Top 1 or 2 are usually pretty well cemented. My taste in music is probably a lot heavier than most of the genealogy community, but even though my favorite band is pretty heavy, the song is not.

(continue reading…)

Considering I haven’t logged into WoW a whole lot recently (no, I’m not quitting, just… it’s summer ‘n stuff and -Oooh shiny!) and I have yet to check out the new changes since Patch 3.2 dropped yesterday… I figured I’d go for a more real life-ish post today.  Plus, I totally meant to post something after the Korn concert, which was a couple weeks ago.

Ink'd

For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you are already aware of my new ink.  It almost didn’t happen that night though… (continue reading…)

So… we don’t have any “fresh off the cam” videos to share, but this one has not been featured on the blog yet.  I love Metallica, but please… a fair warning… the lyrics get a little butchered.  But! It’s all in classic BBV style that is still good, wholesome fun.

Also, it is one of the first.  I think I’ve presented the videos in a backwards progression… this is back when we had worse lighting issues (we’re amateurs, what can I say?), the voxman was not very loose in front of the camera, and Sideshow is in it!

We were going to make a new video the other weekend; however, Sideshow couldn’t find the charger for the video camera and it was dead.  D. E. A. D.

I thought I’d make an appearance today by putting up my review of Guitar Hero: Metallica. It merges two of my favorite things, Metallica and video games. I was a bit skeptical at first. I was not very impressed with the Guitar Hero: World Tour release. They seemed to decide to do everything different from Rock Band, who almost perfected that style of game. The song selection in GH:WT was a bit weak and some songs were really boring to play as a band.

Obviously, the song selection on Metallica is not weak. As said in a few reviews that I’ve read, they really did a good job at converting the song into the video game instrumentation. The songs are fun to play on every instrument and can be extremely challenging, too (I’m looking at you Dyers’ Eve.) All Metallica fans will find something they like from Kill ‘Em All to Death Magnetic.

If you’re a long-time Metallica fan, you will notice the extreme detail that Neversoft went into to bring Metallica to the game. Details like James’ movements while singing or the stage setups and locations. I see something new every time I play.

Like Samodean at Hardcore Casual said in his review, “They’ve changed the advancement system. Now you unlock new venues and songs based upon how many stars you’ve earned. So, if you can’t get past Disposable Heroes, just move on.” It’s a nice touch and it lets you get to the songs you want to play even faster instead of requiring you to finish up every song in order. Even some of the other songs on the disc were fun to play and I’ve found some newer music that is really good. Like lesser known bands to most people such as Kyuss, The Sword, Corrosion of Conformity, and Samhain.

If you’re a Rock Band fan or a Guitar Hero fan or even just a metal fan, I’d definitely recommend this game. It’s fun from novice to expert and you’ll get to interact with some great music from the last 25+ years.

Verdict: BUY

So, Syrana is making me do all of this work coming up with name inspiration and 10 things about myself. What is this, school? I jest. It’s about time I post something on here, right?

What’s in a Name?

Sideshow – I’m not 100% sure how I got this name. I usually ended up getting nicknames based around the letter “Z” due to my last name, like Z-Dog or Z. I like ‘em, but they’re kinda boring. For some reason, while playing an FPS with some friends, they started calling me Sideshow, so I starting using it in that game. When I created my first WoW character, I decided to use that name and designed him with that in mind. This is why Sideshow has crazy, circus-freak hair.

Zideshow – No inspiration there, really. Created originally to be a bank alt, but I had fun playing the mage, so it stuck. It also happens to be my Xbox Live gamertag since Sideshow was taken and Zideshow is a nice “Z”-based version of it. See what I did there?

Zod – Completely and shamelessly stolen from Superman II’s own General Zod. I was really hoping to PvP a bunch in the beginning to unlock the “General” tag on the Horde side, but alas, I couldn’t farm PvP like you needed to back then. Now, KNEEL BEFORE ME!

Gertbee – My dwarf hunter. I was looking for a not-so-serious, jolly kind of name. I remember finding the name that Christopher Walken’s character in Joe Dirt chose to go by at the end of the movie hilarious, so it stuck. Turns out that it was really Gert B. Frobe, instead of Gertbee. But, mine is funnier.

The rest, I think, have been random name generator names or taken from books, history or fantasy to try to at least capture the feel of the type of character it was. Like: Luminthia (Priest), Gudrott (Orc DK), Heks (DK), and Archiluras (Warlock).

All About Meeee..

10 things..hmm.

1. Huge Metallica fan (and most metal, in general) They were the first band that I really attached to growing up and they will always be at the top of my list. As cool as it is to hate them for most people, I will always enjoy what they release and what they’ve done. I had the opportunity to meet James Hetfield, the singer and Jason Newsted, the ex-bassist in 1997.
2. When I was in sixth grade I was playing basketball with my friend J.R. and slam dunking the ball off of a crate. I slammed it and hung on too long and fell off backwards and busted my left wrist out-of-place, it was shaped like an “S”. Then 4-weeks later on the second-last day of school at the roller-skating rink with my class and I fell backward and busted my right wrist. So, two broken arms for the summer.
3. I really got into Genealogy when my Grandpa died in 1999. I thought I’d work on it before any more people who had the information were no longer around. My grandpa’s family is still one the elusive lines that I’m stuck on. Figures, huh? It’s really cool to unravel the mystery of where you came from and without the Internet I definitely wouldn’t be as far as I am. I regularly blog about it on my genealogy site, Zalewski Family Genealogy.
4. I can be really outgoing. It depends on my mood and where I am/who I’m with. But, usually I’m pretty quiet. People always think I’m mad or bored. But, I’m rarely mad (but maybe bored.) I found this t-shirt that says, “I’m really excited to be here” on it, which usually works pretty well.
5. Born and raised in Wisconsin and against popular belief, I don’t only consume cheese, brats, beer, and milk. Well, not all the time or all at once.
6. Syrana and I originally met online, Yahoo Personals if I remember right. My grandma once asked if we met in the “Same Birthday” chatroom.
7. I have a short attention span for a lot of things, including gaming. I’ll jump around to different games. I’ve figured out how to jump around enough to not get really burned-out from a game, like WoW. Currently, jumping around to WoW, Eve Online, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Left 4 Dead.
8. I bought and played WoW the first time without even trying it. My friends at work always talked about it. One day I just perused the website and decided to get it on my way home. The guy at the counter said, “Nice knowing you” when he gave it to me. What did he mean by that? Silly cashier.
9. I’ve been developing and *cough*designing*cough* websites since somewhere around 1996-97. It started with my days using the BBSes and then the good ‘ol text-only Lynx browser. (Are we Lynx-friendly?) Now, get off my lawn!
10. Ten is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2 and 5. Ten is the smallest noncototient, a number that can not be expressed as the difference between any integer and the total number of coprimes below it. It’s also how many fingers I have.

[Updated to add links to photos, etc at the bottom]

On Monday night nothing else did matter, not even WoW (or my hearing for that matter.) After months of waiting, Syrana and I got to see Metallica live at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. For me, this would be my sixth show since 1996 (I came in late cuz I’m a young’n) and I think Syr’s third. It took me back to the same place I saw them for the first time and it ranks right up there with that show.

We got there a bit earlier since we decided to come straight from work. We somehow had gotten our hands on some really nice seats. We were in row A (Section 202) right near the corner of the floor-sized stage. So, when the show started and we stood up, we had absolutely nothing blocking our view since we were a few feet above the floor crowd.

The first opening band was The Sword. They’re probably not too well-known outside the metal community, but gamers may know one of their songs. The had their song “Freya” in Guitar Hero II. They got the crowd warmed up and as Syrana said, the singer had such a huge voice for such a skinny, little man.

The next opening band was Machine Head. They’re a little more popular and their fame may spread a bit further out of the metal community. They also had a song in Rock Band, though it was from a download pack, called “Aesthetics of Hate.” They did even more to get the crowd warmed up. I think they did a really good job of getting the crowd involved and really seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

We then had the standard 20-minute wait while the stage was officially prepped. They had a cool stage setup. It was almost as long as the arena floor with mics at six places around the edges. Up above the stage they had these big light rigs shaped like coffins (to match the theme of their latest album, Death Magnetic.) During the show, the four coffins right above the stage would drop down and rotate at certain points.

Then, as with any Metallica concert, the lights go out, the crowd goes wild and “The Ecstasy of Gold” starts to play. Once that was over you heard the heartbeat which was the sign that the first song would be “That Was Just Your Life” from their new album. After saying hello to Milwaukee, they went straight into their second song “The End of the Line.”

Sadly, after being beaten senseless with a barrage of bass drum, lead guitar and growling vocals, I’ve forgotten the exact setlist. Though, they did play a nice selection of their massive discography. I’ve always wondered how difficult it was for them to pick songs knowing that they easily have over 100 songs to over 25+ years choose from. As expected, they played a good chunk of stuff off of their newest album, but that’s fine since that album rocked. They ended the night with a flashback to Kill ‘Em All with Seek & Destroy. On unique thing that happened on the last song which I haven’t seen before is that they dropped huge Metallica beach balls from the ceiling for everyone to kick around (or deflate and take home) while they played it.

All in all, it was one of the better Metallica shows I’ve been to and I never regret going to them. Even if you’re stuck in pre-1990 Metallica, you only like a few songs or you, for some reason, still aren’t over that the whole Napster thing, I would always recommend a Metallica show. They were built for live shows. They’ve mastered them. For being in their mid-40s, these guys can still rock harder than a lot of the bands around today. \m/

Update: Photos from the show on their MySpace page. There are two more after that one. And also Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s review of the show. You can also see more photos, the setlist and even download the show from LiveMetallica.com.