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6 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I drove down to Brooklyn on Saturday for a quick trip to see some friends and meet my buddy's fiancee. His band played a set at some little popup show in Tompkins Square Park yesterday, and as I was watching, it dawned on me that it was the first live metal I've seen since Covid hit. Fuck. The park really delivered, there was a solid handful of crazies. One lady was twerking and doing splits right in front of the band, kept trying to grab the mic, took a 2 liter bottle of soda from someone and poured it down the front of her shirt while she pissed herself. I miss the city a bunch.

I've always loved that one person who enjoys a concert just a little bit differently to every one else. They could be hidden in a group or more often they stand out by themselves. There doesn't even have to be music for some of them.

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Ah doctor receptionists gotta fucking hate them.  They're actually worse than doctors in my experience (and I work with doctors and their receptionists).  Like priests, they have delusions they are guardians of the gods despite often barely having a high school education and having all the customer service skills of a prison guard in a Soviet gulag.

Tried booking an appointment for both me and the kid at the same time.  "Oh no, you can't do that," says the soulless worthless cunt at reception, "you have to book separate appointments."

"Can I make them consecutive, ie one after another?  I don't mind paying for two" I ask.

"No, we can't do that."

"Why?"

"The doctor would get angry."

"Why?"

"it's the rules.  If you did it everyone else would do it."

"So I have to book two separate appointments on at separate times and possibly on separate days?"

"Yes those are the rules."

"Why, they don't make sense?!?"

She mumbles on something about again that everyone would be doing it.

At which point and in the first time in my life I flipped my lid and called her a whole heap of names and essentially told her she was bureaucratic, greedy, uncaring and implied she is a worthless cunt.

 

I then hung up and wished her cancer or a  nasty car accident with seatbelt failures and that she would be unable to get access to medical care in my head.  Still do. 

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That doesn’t make sense, or maybe I’ve just had good Fortune with clinics because I’ve always been able to share appointments if needed.

Fortune with clinics because I’ve always been able to share appointments if needed.

 

Anyway what’s on my mind is that one. I answered my own question from the other day, and two. I accidentally stumbled my way into writing a new riff wow trying to play the chorus of crystal Mountain… Good thing I play in C sharp or death fans would immediately pick up on it. 

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I used to share appointments with people I didn't even know. My old doctor would make 4 x 8am appointments and jump between rooms. I don't know how late he did it for, I always took an 8am because getting to see him later than lunch time was impossible, he was always behind time. When we used to run the farm with him we used to go in at 2 or 3, he'd book us in for an app and sit us in one room while skipping between his other room for the actual appointments that wanted medical treatment. Of course there was no double dipping and fiddling medicare in his clinic!

 

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Bloody hell! I just spent the last 3 hours trying to change the details on my life insurance plan. The plan was set up so long ago it was done on paper (maybe even stone and chisel) and I've just spent the last 45 odd years paying it when it's due. About 15 years ago it was set up as direct debit and apart from a yearly statement that's the only communication I have with the insurance company. Now after all this time I want to change banks where the money comes from and while the staff at the company can see the account, can see the payments and can see the statements they can't access it and can't set me up with online access too it. The online world would be so much better if it worked :)

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47 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Bloody hell! I just spent the last 3 hours trying to change the details on my life insurance plan. The plan was set up so long ago it was done on paper (maybe even stone and chisel) and I've just spent the last 45 odd years paying it when it's due. About 15 years ago it was set up as direct debit and apart from a yearly statement that's the only communication I have with the insurance company. Now after all this time I want to change banks where the money comes from and while the staff at the company can see the account, can see the payments and can see the statements they can't access it and can't set me up with online access too it. The online world would be so much better if it worked :)

If you'd just hurry up and die already old man you wouldn't have any need to change your payment details or spend 3 hours on the phone. And not only that but your family would also be able to take a nice overseas holiday with the proceeds of said life insurance policy. Or at least they could buy each other some real nice Christams prezzies. Try thinking of someone besides yourself for a change. 🤑

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Plumber finally came by this morning and hooked up the gas line to my new stove, but now we can't find the burner grates for the one side. We do have one side and the center griddle cover so I can use the stove to cook on now. But it just irritates me that I've been walking around in circles looking for that other missing box for 45 minutes and it just doesn't seem to be here anywhere. Did we misplace it, or did the stove just ship without it? I can order a replacement grate online for about $75 but I'd be pissed off if I did that and used it, and then the original one turned up. 

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2 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Ordering a new one is the sure fire way to find the old one.

 

Ain't that the truth. I found it though, hidden in plain sight. The box was on the concrete counter right next to the sink where I've been putting all the cups and glasses to dry. Got so used to it being there I didn't even notice it. Grabbed a couple of petite sirloins to celebrate having an actual stove again.

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Man, that really shits me. I was looking for some paperwork yesterday and the whole time it was hiding in plain sight. I'd used it to write notes on while I was on the phone a few weeks back and just left it near the phone. Took me ages to find it, then when I did it really didn't help me with what I was doing anyway!

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Man, I'm toast. Out late last night walking around with a couple of my once and future bandmates. It's Folkfest weekend in Lowell, our biggest event of the year, finally back after two years off. Four stages scattered across downtown, a bunch of streets closed to car traffic, food vendors everywhere. Thousands of extra people descend on the city, trash the portapotties, and keep our restaurants afloat. Highlights this time were the creole and Memphis soul groups. Low points were the cash-only beer tents and previously mentioned portapotties.

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I'll honestly never understand why people will go on to a website like Metal Archives and leave bad reviews for albums/bands that play styles of music that they're clearly not going to like just based on their music history.

While making my best of list for 94, I happened to look up Bestial Warlust - Vengeance War Til Death and the rating sits at 67%. Looking into the bad reviews (the one 10% and one 0% are what really tanked it), one reviewer declares himself a big black metal fan, yet the majority of their reviews are for cleanly produced prog bands. The only black metal they've bothered reviewing is one album each from Deafheaven, Dimmu Borgir, Enslaved, and Mayhem. Want to guess which one of those bands got a 35%? Other reviewer isn't quite as bad, but it's pretty obvious he's a thrash/heavy/death guy who barely dabbles in black metal outside of stuff like Behemoth and the like.

I get not being familiar with bestial black metal/war metal, and yeah...it's a shock to the system if you're expecting it to sound like Belphegor or Behemoth, but if you're not familiar enough with the genre to know what it's going to sound like, you're probably not familiar enough with the genre to do an evaluation of the album either

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Reading the "misplacing" things posts above reminds me that my copy of my decree absolute should arrive from the county court this week after I plain old lost my original at some point in the last decade or so and the first time I needed it (to register the planned marriage in October) was the first time I realised it was gone.  Not even the usually fool proof method of putting it in an envelope with the word "DIVORCE" plastered on the front of it could secure it's safety.  Man, fuck having to be grown up and responsible with documents an' shit!

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1 hour ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I'll honestly never understand why people will go on to a website like Metal Archives and leave bad reviews for albums/bands that play styles of music that they're clearly not going to like just based on their music history.

While making my best of list for 94, I happened to look up Bestial Warlust - Vengeance War Til Death and the rating sits at 67%. Looking into the bad reviews (the one 10% and one 0% are what really tanked it), one reviewer declares himself a big black metal fan, yet the majority of their reviews are for cleanly produced prog bands. The only black metal they've bothered reviewing is one album each from Deafheaven, Dimmu Borgir, Enslaved, and Mayhem. Want to guess which one of those bands got a 35%? Other reviewer isn't quite as bad, but it's pretty obvious he's a thrash/heavy/death guy who barely dabbles in black metal outside of stuff like Behemoth and the like.

I get not being familiar with bestial black metal/war metal, and yeah...it's a shock to the system if you're expecting it to sound like Belphegor or Behemoth, but if you're not familiar enough with the genre to know what it's going to sound like, you're probably not familiar enough with the genre to do an evaluation of the album either

Yeah, admittedly it was the dude's first attempt at war metal and it wasn't for him, "a mess of noise" as he put it so he gave it a 10%. That album was one of my earlier attempts at war metal in the oughts because of the KK Warslut connection. And I have to admit at first I didn't get it either. Took me quite some time to come around to that one. Think I'd gotten into some other war metal first and then went back to it a few years later with a different perspective. I would probably give that album a score in the low 70's myself. Good, but there are certainly war metal albums which I like a whole lot better.

But personally I often find those 0% and 10% reviews to be quite funny and entertaining, even if they're for albums I like a lot. And in this case I reckon these two jokers' overreactions were probably pretty typical of most metalheads' reactions, because even most metalheads aren't at all familiar with this sub-genre nor do they wish to be. We both know that to most people (even metalheads) war metal does sound like nothing more than noise and I think we can understand why. I don't ever take it personally when people rag on the shit I listen to or if some album I really like a lot gets a 10% review because this tells me they're not into it so of course they couldn't be expected to understand. 

So I don't really mind having a broader cross section of reviewers adding their two cents by submitting M-A reviews good, bad or indifferent because if all the albums on M-A were only reviewed by superfans of that band or that style then it'd be one big love fest where everything gets a 99% and those gushing type reviews aren't always all that helpful either. If I see an album has like three scores in the mid 90's and a 65% or a 55% then I'll go read that lower score first to see what the album's problems are from a non-fanboi's perspective. I like that one dude Autothrall's reviews, he doesn't give everything he likes an 85% or a 90% he gives a lot of scores in the 70's or 60's and gives a much more balanced accounting of an album's strengths and weaknesses.

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Sadly I'm not surprised by the reviews anywhere, not just on M-A. However just one look at the threads on M-A are evidence that haters get more and more vocal these days. Be it a thread about the new Megadeth album, the new Blind Guardian album, a Pantera tribute tour, it doesn't matter, the results are pretty much always the same. The thread quickly gets populated with people who hate the subject matter. It's not just people who jump in with 'yeah listened to the new song and it's not for me', it's people with comments like ' haven't listened to anything the band has done for 20 years and wont listen to this because it's shit'.

Telling people you don't like something is fine, we all do it from time to time, but to seek out a discussion just to tell people how shit you think the subject matter, and do it every time there is a new response to the thread seems like a pastime of 90% of M-A users.

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45 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So I don't really mind having a broader cross section of reviewers adding their two cents by submitting M-A reviews good, bad or indifferent because if all the albums on M-A were only reviewed by superfans of that band or that style then it'd be one big love fest where everything gets a 99% and those gushing type reviews aren't always all that helpful either.

I disagree...just because everyone has an opinion doesn't mean every opinion has the same value, and just because you're a fan of a style doesn't mean you automatically like a particular band or a particular album. You just said it yourself, you'd have probably given that album a score somewhere in the 70's...and that's kind of my point. People who understand a style are in a much better position to evaluate it's strengths and weaknesses in comparison to someone who is new to a style or outright doesn't like it. I mean, yeah...you could go on there and write a bunch of 10% and 20% scores and tank the average for whatever techdeath album you clicked on out of morbid curiosity, but do you really think yours is the best perspective to evaluate an album if fans of techdeath band want to know if the new one is worth their time or not? There's a difference between shitting on an album because it's a bad representation of a particular style, and shitting on an album merely because it exists

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2 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I disagree...just because you're a fan of a style doesn't mean you automatically like a particular band or a particular album. You just said it yourself, you'd have probably given that album a score somewhere in the 70's...and that's kind of my point. People who understand a style are in a much better position to evaluate it's strengths and weaknesses in comparison to someone who is new to a style or outright doesn't like it. I mean, yeah...you could go on there and write a bunch of 10% and 20% scores and tank the average for whatever techdeath album you clicked on out of morbid curiosity, but do you really think yours is the best perspective to evaluate an album if fans of techdeath band want to know if the new one is worth their time or not?

No of course not. While I may make an offhand disparaging comment about prog metal or tech death or some other shit I don't like either on the board here, or on our text thread, I would never think to submit an official review to a website or blog somewhere for an album that's well outside my comfort zone because that would mean I'd have to listen to the whole album and I'd rather avoid that if at all possible. I guess I could imagine myself leaving a very low scored review (not a 0%) for an album from a band I loved who maybe I thought had released a real stinker, although I never have.

I'm just saying we're talking about Metal Archives here, and I've learned to temper my expectations accordingly. I've never really explored their forums myself but by most accounts I hear it's somewhat of a free for all where members can be quite savage and intolerant towards anything they don't like. M-A is also an interactive information and database site where just about any swinging dick is free to come edit a band's page or to drop a review. You've gotta take some people's opinions with a grain of salt.

I agree with you in principle that 0% reviews are fucking stupid, but I think we all have an idea of what kind of people are busy banging out their scathing 0% reviews for war metal or black metal albums or even for "classics" like Master of Puppets or whatever. So it is what it is, and like I said I have learned to find entertainment value in some of the ridiculously low reviews. Because who doesn't like to have a good laugh?

If I'm looking for a serious evaluation of an album from someone who's actually into that particular band or sub-genre, those kinds of reviews can be found on there as well. I haven't found it too difficult to tell the difference between the serious and informative reviews, and the fanboi reviews, and the hater reviews.

So at the end of the day what we're really complaining about here is an album's aggregate M-A score and how unfairly low scored reviews can impact it unfairly. Or in some cases with albums that've only received a couple of scores, one 10% can tank it completely. Just like a bunch of 98% fanboi reviews can skew an album's aggregate score unjustifiably high. I reckon it probably all evens out in the end and I just don't get that worked up about stuff like that. I've seen heaps of bands' M-A pages where their albums have been scored and ranked in ways that I don't personally agree with. I've seen sub-par albums with scores that seem way too high to me as well as what I'd consider far above average albums with lower average scores which can happen even if they haven't received any silly 0% or 10% reviews. Whatcha gonna do?

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