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12 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Talk about a massive commitment - as we want to save up to go to Europe in 2024 for which we need a metric button of cash, I have promised not to buy any new albums in 2023-24.  😳 I have 2 Sodom CDs on back order and that is it for next 18 months!

Jesus. I guess, in that context, it's a good thing you think most new music sucks?

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55 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Jesus. I guess, in that context, it's a good thing you think most new music sucks?

It also means no back catalogue acquisitions!  😢

35 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I’m saving for a trip of my own, though I haven’t travelled since before the pandemic so I am a a lot further along thenI would have otherwise been.

Where are you planning on going?

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We've discussed this before but Vikings Valhalla shows how daft modern casting is.

 

Whilst all the major characters are "ethnically correct" or have a plausible story as to why they are there, the extras make it all look ridiculous.

 

You have:

- Black and Asian Vikings (should be pale Norse)

- Blond haired pale skinned Pechenegs (should be darker complexion, dark haired Turkic people (ala Turks or Azeris) possibly with Asiatic features (eg like modern Kazakhs). 

- Pale North East Asian Byzantines (should be darker complexioned Greeks but also Arabs, Turkmen etc).  There was also some pale skinned Byzantine warriors but they could be explained as Varangian Guard - Vikings and Saxon mercenaries used as Emperor's personal guard.

 

By the way I really enjoyed the show but it was sometimes jarring to watch the scenes where they show Asian and Black Vikings getting riled up about paganism when they would most likely have retained their own religion instead of converting to Christianity!

 

(I also get peeved off at the battle scenes.  The early seasons of the original Vikings show had more realistic combat eg use of shieldwalls and axe men to break the shieldwall down - the newer one has reverted to Hollywood sword fights.  Pre-firearm combat as well as early firearm combat in Europe (and elsewhere) was dominated by polearms like spears, halberds, pikes etc.

The polearm is cheap, has longer reach and requires less training than a sword.

The sword was seldom used as a primary infantry weapon - I think in history only the Romans and Japanese used swords as the principle combat arm in terms of infantry combat.  The sword was primarily a sidearm much like a modern pistol (there were exceptions - Roman legionaries, Japanese samurai, some cavalry, and specialist Zweihander mercenaries equipped with large two handed swords).

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16 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

So combat in Vikings fell victim to the GoT approach in other words?

Pretty much.  

 

Always disappointing.  I much prefer realistic action to Hollywood action (except in Spaghetti westerns!).  It actually implies a lot more personal risk to the characters and it also makes their actions more heroic.

 

I actually generally don't like superheroes.  My favourite comic "superhero" was the Punisher - a violent dude with guns who would get shot, beaten and generally injured.  

Much better than invulnerable Spider Man or Superman or even Batman who literally have no risk when smashing the crud out of badguys.

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1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

The superheros are the ones who walk among us, the ones who prevent crime, the ones who save lives, the ones who.....oh fuck I've been watching too much TV.

 

You're surely not talking about cops.

 

In my experience they're just there to ensure the bureaucratic notion of justice is carried out.  Most of the time they don't even respond to calls in my experience.

They don't even stop drink drivers - I know three people who were caught drink driving and let go without being charged despite being well over the limit.  I was one of those, my brother the second and my best friend of 30 years the third! 

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On 1/31/2023 at 6:08 PM, Dead1 said:

You have:

- Black and Asian Vikings (should be pale Norse)

- Blond haired pale skinned Pechenegs (should be darker complexion, dark haired Turkic people (ala Turks or Azeris) possibly with Asiatic features (eg like modern Kazakhs). 

- Pale North East Asian Byzantines (should be darker complexioned Greeks but also Arabs, Turkmen etc).  There was also some pale skinned Byzantine warriors but they could be explained as Varangian Guard - Vikings and Saxon mercenaries used as Emperor's personal guard.

This kind of thing bugs me to no end simply because it's so transparent. They have a story and setting that would allow for a diverse cast, yet would still make sense within the context of the time period, but they'll totally throw that out the window in favor of some poorly justified historical revisionism about "black vikings" having been a real thing, simply because it wouldn't be the kind of stunning and brave diversity that gets them jerked off on social media. They did something similar in the recent Eternals movie, where they race and gender swapped multiple characters in order to crow to the media about how diverse their casting was, while ignoring the fact that those characters were already quite diverse to begin with....just not the right kind of diverse  

On 1/31/2023 at 6:08 PM, Dead1 said:

I think in history only the Romans and Japanese used swords as the principle combat arm in terms of infantry combat

Not really the Japanese either...When it came to actual battles, Samurai were primarily archers and spearmen. Additionally, because it was as much a sign of their class/rank as it was a weapon, only samurai were allowed to own and use the longsword (katana). Your typical commoner/peon/cannon fodder might be allowed to own and wear a shortsword (wakizashi) for personal defense, but that's not exactly the type of weapon you'd go to war with since it's essentially nothing more than a glorified knife. So spears were the typical weapon of choice for them as well

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8 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

 

Not really the Japanese either...When it came to actual battles, Samurai were primarily archers and spearmen. Additionally, because it was as much a sign of their class/rank as it was a weapon, only samurai were allowed to own and use the longsword (katana). Your typical commoner/peon/cannon fodder might be allowed to own and wear a shortsword (wakizashi) for personal defense, but that's not exactly the type of weapon you'd go to war with since it's essentially nothing more than a glorified knife. So spears were the typical weapon of choice for them as well

 

I didn't know that about samurai - thanks so much!

Long daggers were also often issued to western archers/ranged troops as self defence weapons. 

 

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2 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Can’t wait to escape this unseasonable cold snap, Brisbane can’t be worse then this.

I feel for you... we're currently at 10°F and it's gonna drop another 20 degrees tonight (that's -23°C for you lot) but I imagine that's peaches and cream compared to having a cool day in the middle of an Australian summer :D

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I don't feel for anyone who actually chooses to live in a place where temperatures get cold enough for snow more than once a decade, in fact I think anyone that crazy should be put in an asylum.

While it's currently snowing up on the mountains a couple of hours from here, here it's windy, pouring with rain and only 12 degrees, but I'm still in shorts and a t-shirt.

 

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2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Fuck yes. Just got a ticket for Dead Congregation with Phrenelith, at lovely Ralph's in nearby Worcester (Woostah) this April. Haven't seen either band live before. Good venue, haven't been since the before times, and only my second real metal show in the last 3 years or so. Pumped. 

I'm always curious when people buy tickets for shows ahead of time because I've always just gone down the night of a show and bought at the door. Do metal shows tend to sell out in your area?

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9 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I'm always curious when people buy tickets for shows ahead of time because I've always just gone down the night of a show and bought at the door. Do metal shows tend to sell out in your area?

I really don't know anymore. I have missed out in the past, but the world is a mystery to me since covid started. One of my metal friends up here told me the show was selling fast. Ralph's is not too big. Extra 4 bucks to buy it early online, better safe than sorry, etc.

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20 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Can’t wait to escape this unseasonable cold snap, Brisbane can’t be worse then this.

15°C (59°F) at 8:30 in the morning going up to a high of 21°C (70°F) today is what you consider a "cold snap?" Sounds like a lovely late spring or early summer day to me.

I'm gonna have to turn off the water later tonight sometime after dinner as we plunge down into the low single digits so my pipes won't freeze again like they did on Christmas Eve. I'll turn the pressure tank back on again when it gets back up over 20°F (-7°C) tomorrow afternoon. I've got two 5 gallon pails of water standing by in the bathrooms for flushing purposes.

 

2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Fuck yes. Just got a ticket for Dead Congregation with Phrenelith, at lovely Ralph's in nearby Worcester (Woostah) this April. Haven't seen either band live before. Good venue, haven't been since the before times, and only my second real metal show in the last 3 years or so. Pumped. 

Triple-deckers were once an affordable solution to Boston's housing crunch  — and can be again - The Boston Globe

 

Haha I remember having to go up to Worcester every single holiday and birthday to visit grandma in her 3rd floor flat of a hundred year old triple-decker when I was a kid. I shared an August birthday with my father so I remember being annoyed to always have to spend it trapped in the back seat of the car with my little sister (that 4.5 hour drive seemed a lot longer to me when I was a kid) and then sitting around some little old lady's dumpy apartment for a few days. Biggest excitement was walking up to the Cumberland Farms with a few dollars she'd given me to fetch her milk or bread or eggs or something. I remember it feeling like an old rundown town much in need of some sprucing up. But that was in the 70's, I haven't been back to Woostah since. I remember visiting her in much newer and nicer places later on in the 80's and 90's after she'd moved back to the Boston area (Bedford/Lexington/Arlington) and I suspect my dad must have been helping her with the rent.

Was lucky to catch Dead Congregation a few years ago (2019?) at the Metal Threat festival in Chicago. They destroyed. I came away quite satisfied. Had some video of their set on my phone, but I've long since deleted it to make space.

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1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

I don't feel for anyone who actually chooses to live in a place where temperatures get cold enough for snow more than once a decade, in fact I think anyone that crazy should be put in an asylum.

While it's currently snowing up on the mountains a couple of hours from here, here it's windy, pouring with rain and only 12 degrees, but I'm still in shorts and a t-shirt.

 

That's good to know because I don't think I'd particularly enjoy the prospect of being felt-up by an Orca. 

Personally, I rather enjoy living in a place where we have 4 distinctly different seasons, Fall and Winter being my favorites. I tolerate summer (what choice do I have?) but I don't enjoy it at all when the temps get much above 75° (24°C). I do live in shorts and flip-flops almost exclusively during the warmer months (mid June to mid Sept) but I feel like the enjoyment I get from the novelty of wearing less clothes for a couple of months is quite overrated. Can't say I enjoy when we get down into single digit temps like we are tonight, but I definitely prefer when there's a chill in the air and being able to wear jeans, boots and hoodies. Beats being all sweaty and sticky all the time when it's hot, and feeling like I'm stuck inside in the A/C all the time because going outside feels like being in an oven, that's the worst.

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