mentalrage

So I got a shiny new laptop the other day to replace the creaking and quite annoying thing I was using.
I got it the other week from Curry's whilst I was killing time on my dinner break just browsing at the different
models they had there. A salesman type approached me and unlike the several other sales people he didn't have the look of a greedy bountyhunter on his face so we got talking and I ended up getting something in the sale with 200 off. Not being the sort of person to piss away a wedge of money on a whim I was firing questions at the guy for a good half an hour at least.So I'm pretty pleased with it really, I'm still a bit puzzled by Windows Vista and my internet is a bit on the twitchy side at the moment but aside from that it's a vast improvement on what I had before kind of like going from playing Streetfighter II to Halo 3.


My old and distinctly creaky laptop


My shiny new if a little confusing laptop


I'm about halfway through the Thrill-Power Overload book that I got for my birthday. It's interesting finding out the origins of so many classic characters like Judge Dredd,Strontium Dog,Slaine,Rogue Trooper,Durham Red,ABC Warriors and more recent additions like Sinister & Dexter. It's also interesting to find out that artist and writer didn't share the same views on some characters like Rogue Trooper for example with Dave Gibbons having an immense dislike for the direction that writer Gerry Finley Day took the story from the start. For Christmas I got the first four books in the Ciaphas Cain series by Sandy Mitchell "For The Emperor","Caves Of Ice","The Traitor's Hand"&"Death Or Glory",which I've been meaning to pick up for a while like the Gaunt's Ghost's series by Dan Abnett. Alongside that I got the latest book in the Horus Heresy series "Descent Of Angels".



I've also got some new music in the form of

Arch Enemy Rise Of The Tyrant



Which I have to say is a little dissapointing really and is the kind of thing that I'm glad I got as a present 'cause I'd be a bit annoyed if I'd bought it myself.

KMFDM Tohuvabohu



The latest work from Kapt'n K and his crew is impressive, as anyone who's into KMFDM will know the reason for their long lasting appeal is probably the same as James Bond films, you know know pretty much what you're going to get but that's why you like it. "Superpower", "Looking For Strange", "Tohuvabohu" & "Saft Und Kraft"are all top tunes and have more in common with some of their older material rather than the more blatantly"metal"approach of "WWIII".

Emigrate



This really surprised me, usually solo projects are invariably dissapointing attempts at reproducing a bands sound. Here Rammstein's Richard Z. Kruspe has fashioned an impressive collection of styles ranging from the industrial stomp of "This Is What" to the unashamedly pop sounding "Temptation". While the trademark Rammstein teutonic crunch is evident in places most notedly on "In My Tears" which incorporates a riff which seems like it was taken from "Stein Um Stein" this is impressive stuff and highly recommended.

Soilwork Sworn To A Great Divide



While some will moan on about them "selling out" Soilwork never cease to impress with their material and this the latest collection is no exception to the rule.Vocalist Speed shows off one of the best voices in metal whether it's the facemelting fury of "The Pittsburgh Syndrome" or the soaring melody of "Martyr". Consistently impressive throughout in a way that most scene darlings like Avenged Sevenfold wish they could be.

Work's been pretty much insane over the Christmas period, witnessing the hordes of people waiting behind the shutter stood waiting to come in on the 23 of December was a bit surreal, it was somewhat like Dawn Of The Dead with people literally crawling under the shutter to get in. Another good thing about the Christmas is all the student types are back so I get to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while which is always good. The only downside is I get used to there being people around who not only actually know what I'm on about but want to talk about it so when January comes 'round it's a little hard to adjust to the whole not really anyone to talk to state of things. Something happened the other day at work that just really pissed me off
I swapped shifts with my friend Jay so he could go out Friday night, Saturday comes 'round and he comes in 45 minutes late looking distinctly worse for wear after apparently having a massive domestic with his mrs in the club infront of all his friends, which is how I know before he got there. He then has an hour for his break instead of half an hour which is the kind of thing I don't really care about as long as things are okay and the management don't find out but things weren't okay and the management did find out and just to make matters worse this all happens on a day when my manager isn't in so now he's going to get told that we don't do any work when he's not there and that we're incompetent or something. It really pissed me off, I mean if you don't
give a shit about your job that's fine but don't make me look like shit in the process. He doesn't seem to acknowledge the amount of stuff he gets away with 'cause I let him 'cause he's a mate. It's got to the stage now where he just seems to take advantage of that. So my last day with one of my good friends from uni at work who I'm not going to see for several months ended on a really downer with a bad atmosphere between the 3 of us.