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Good for you. I performed at the Fringe festival back in 92. Went with a fledgling U.S. touring Shakespeare company from Virginia-we were called Shenandoah Shakespeare Express back then. It's actually grown into a pretty thriving institution in Staunton Virginia. Just looked them up, American Shakespeare Center. It literally grew out of a group of college kids from James Madison University and a charismatic Shakespeare proff in the late 80's.

FATALIST - Untitled FERAL LIGHT - Psychic Contortions ASSUMPTION - Hadean Tides

Sounds like a good defense to me! Cheers!

Stupid idea of the week? Staying out till 1am on Thursday night/Friday morning drinking with younger colleagues from work. In my defence I was in Edinburgh which is probably my favourite city I have ever visited and I have not been able to go for the past 2 years because of the pandemic.

Flourishing - The Sum of All Fossils (2011)

I have a cunning plan to avoid that dilemma it’s called move far enough away that I’m not an option as a babysitter, I’m thinking maybe in Norway… Or Denmark…seriously though I need to stick around so that kid doesn’t grow up vegan, or worse a Britney Spears fan Mike her dad

Septicflesh - "Modern Primitive" (album) Brand new album just released yesterday from these Greek symphonic death metal veterans. Loving it so far!

Anvil - "Pounding the Pavement" (album)

That's it. I'm more of a rugby league fan. I've watched some NRL stuff years back on TV and I liked it more than union as its faster paced and simpler. Plus 1point for a drop goal is what I like as that encourages going for more tries rather than winning with kicks. My best mate has watched some rugby league as he's based up north. He likes watching "classy Cass"Castleford play. Not watched much test cricket since it was taken off regular UK TV in 2005 after the ashes win. A few beers watching test cricket was good for sure or a big bag of crisps😋 oddly enough I've probably watched more Australia test cricket than England recently as for a time bt TV package had all the Australia cricket games then the price Went up alot so no more

Facebook's dark theme works reasonably well these days, improvements could be made but lets face it the biggest improvement Facebook could make is not being there. Don't make a big deal about stopping a baby crying to the parents, you'll get handed the kid all the time.

Yeah issues of contrast definitely make a big difference, I took a nearly 2 year hiatus from here for that very reason, also I don’t have Facebook for the same problem though I’m much less concerned about that. In other news I got to hold my niece for the first time today I’ll take it as a good sign that she stopped crying as soon as I was holding her.

Most apps do exactly that, flip light into dark with little regard for contrast because they can't actually read what is being changed. Swapping a background is easy, reverting black to white is easy, actually changing contrast is what makes a huge difference, especially for those with colour perception problems. With a few keystrokes I can change any colour on these pages and with a few more I can make entirely new theme. Small things amuse small minds and getting down to the small details amuses me greatly when I'm bored. FWIW this site looks pretty bad with a red background, blue text boxes and green text

I normally want to hear vocals too - and it doesn't have to be howling and barking but I didn't much like the clean vocals on the CAVE IN - but I agree, it's not a problem with BAN. It's a good album.

I'll end up with Love Drive, Animal Magnetism and Virgin Killer. I never actually had anything before Blackout. Love Drive seems to get the most love-har har. On Kiss, I'm not sure what it was other than the desire to grab their early albums for nostalgia and I think they're fun R&R albums along with the first two Alives.

There are a multitude of apps and browser extensions that will flip any website with dark text on a white background and display it with white text on a black background. I use them on my desktop and on my phone as well. I have a zero tolerance policy for dark text on a white or light colored background. Even that black text on the grey background you have there wouldn't work for me, I want an entirely black page. I've been using these for so long I often forget that others are probably viewing the Metalforum site with a white background right now.

Several of my friends were bitching last night on our ongoing text thread about how the new BAN doesn't have any vocals (at least not any traditional vocals) again just like Hallucinogen didn't. Vindsval is done with vocals they said. Normally that would bother me a bit, the way The Chasm's last album not having any vocals all but ruined it for me, despite the music being excellent. But somehow BAN gets away with it. Hallucinogen was fucking excellent, so good in fact that I don't even miss the vocals on that one. And the new one with the long name I can't remember and the shitty cover art is nothing short of stellar. Can't imagine it being improved upon any with some bestial barnyard noises added in. But don't worry Doc, I know you're just being facetious.

Lovedrive's always been my favorite Scorpions album. Not a bad track on it. I'm pretty sure it was my first. Came out Feb of '79 when I was a senior in HS but I didn't discover the band until the following fall when I went away to college. I bought one album (Lovedrive would have been their latest release at the time) and then quickly started acquiring their back catalog. After Sabbath they'd definitely be my favorite 70's band. I would personally say that as far as 1970's albums go, the 6 that the Scorpions released in that decade are far more worthwhile than anything you'll get from Kiss. And I say that as someone who was a pretty big Kiss fan as a teenager back in the '70's. Never joined their Army though. But I've since moved on, and I haven't felt the need to revisit any of their stuff in a good many years. As always, to each his own. Feel free to rock & roll all night and party every day and drown yourself in cold gin if it makes you happy. But don't call it 'cringe worthy' man, we all like what we like and fuck what anyone else thinks of it.

Firewind - Between Heaven and Hell

Jungle Rot/A Call to Arms Haunter/Discarnate Ails-like this one

CAVE IN - Heavy Pendulum. Very well done but not really to my taste. BLUT AUS NORD - Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses. This is more like it. Murky and dark. Not enough howling and barking on either of these though.

I got bored this morning waiting for my coffee so I kept playing around with colours. It took me about 30 minutes and can only be done locally (it can be done at server level if it's paid for) but I got sick of the pristine white background while my other regularly loaded sites use dark themes. It's not perfect and I'll probably keep playing with it when I get bored again but it's coffee time now.

Blut Aus Nord/The Works that Transformed God-Zack's BAN deep dive has had me spinning this great album which was foundational in my understanding of millennial music. When I think of the albums that shaped my listening in the aughts, they weren't the heaviest albums necessarily but boundary pushing albums. Sure, Leviathon and BWP have to be mentioned, but for my money TWTTG has to be up there. Not particularly heavy, but visionary in its creativity and reimagining of heavy music that in my opinion are hallmarks of the aughts and pivotal to the sub genre stratification, weird ass metal that has come to color my listening. Listening now, TWTTG is not all that weird, not all that dissonant, and surprisingly melodic and dare I say smooth to the ears. But in 2003, this was out of the box and influential.

Anacrusis - An Evening With Anacrusis (Live At Delmar Hall 2019)

Not that anyone's paying attention to my activities, but I've been filling in holes in my discography-some cringe worthy others, just worthy. I started with KISS-yes, Kiss-you wanted for the best, you got the best-OK, well if you weren't a kid in the 70's, that won't make any sense, but there was this thing called the KISS army. Then, I went on a major Motorhead gap-fill and now finishing Queen. Next, time to go on to a most worthy gap fill-70s (mostly)-Scorpions. The only two Scorpy albums I ever owned were Blackout and Love at First Sting. Just ordered: Queen S/T-because Jon demands it and damnit, he's the biggest Queen fan I know. It must be done. Scorpions/Animal Magnetism Scorpions/Love Drive