The USS Quad Damage

The Tally

Tuesday night Hapkido resulted in the following:

- Severe carpet burn on my foot
- Bruised forearm
- Hit in the groin
- Abused elbow joints
- Brief spells of dizziness
- Picking on a 13 year old little girl

So, a normal class for me, really.

Thanks to my iPod and long commutes into the city, I've been able to do a lot of music listening as of late. Below is what I've been listening to lately. Yes, I realize that most of those links go to Flash-filled abominations that shit all over what the web is supposed to be about.

Boa - Not to be confused with the J-pop BoA (which I cannot stand). I looked for their music after hearing Duvet as the title song for Serial Experiments Lain, a wacky show about the internet or drugs or something like that. I'm not sure what it is I like about them. I was surprised to find out they were an English group, which brings up an interesting point. Somehow, when singing, unless a person's accent is very thick, it's nearly impossible to figure out where they're from.

Lacuna Coil - Think Evanescence, only add a little more metal, and then take away all the silly angst or whatever it is kids today want in their music. Oh, and make it cool. Similar to above, I didn't expect the group to be from Italy. Well, at least I guessed close, since I assumed if it's metal, and it's good, it must be from Europe. I have only heard their album Comalies, so I hope their other work is good also. Hint hint, Sunny.

The Dissociatives - A strange pairing of that guy from Silverchair, and some guy I've never heard of that does dance music. Well, not that I've heard of anybody anyway. It's just really strange nonsense. That guys voice mixed with really psychedelic music... I like it.

Coldplay - You've probably heard of these guys. Well, here's the thing - I never listen to the radio, so my only exposure to their music is whatever promo Channel Ten happens to be running at any given time. Sunny, a long time back, summarized it perfectly as being "Simple". To my totally untrained ears, their music does nothing clever or crazy, it just does whatever it does really well. I've liked what I've heard, but somehow I feel that when I get around to actually listening to the words, I'm going to end up hating them with a passion. I suspect their slow, bittersweet music/melody/tune/Idon'tknowthisshitwhatamIsomekindofmusicprofessor is coupled with really depressing lyrics. We'll see.

Something For Kate - Read what I said above about Coldplay, only tone it down by about half. I like Echolalia, but I fear that after another listen, I'm in for some very depressing music. We'll see.

Fuel - I liked Sunburn, so I, after many hours (minutes) of rummaging through my brothers exhaustive but very much scratched CD collection, found Something Like Human and Natural Selection. With the exception of a few tracks, I didn't really like those two CD's. Maybe I've just listened to their first album so much my brain just can't handle the idea of any more than their original 13 tracks from Sunburn. Christ, I even ripped that CD onto Michael's Xbox so I could listen to it whilst playing Sega GT 2002. Honestly, that CD makes perfect driving music (next to Eurobeat, anyway). Well, not that I'd know about driving, but I think it does.

The Crystal Method - If they have any other albums besides Vegas, I sure as hell couldn't tell from their confusing website. I like very much - also very good driving music. And yes, by driving music, I mean when I'm playing GTA or NFS:Porsche 2000.

Garbage - Garbage and 2.0 were creepy good. Beautiful Garbage, however, is mostly creepy bad. Just what I mean by that I don't know how to explain - I guess you'd have to be me to get it.

Metallica - Just kidding. I just felt like mentioning that after listening to St. Anger, I honestly haven't listened to anything of theirs since. And that's saying something, since I'm in the minority of people who actually liked Load, Reload, Garage Days and S&M. Metallica is perfect music for Quake. Yeah, remember that game?

Darling Violetta - I've never come across any of their CDs, and have only found a few tracks on various file sharing networks. When I one day get a credit card, I plan on ordering their CDs - the few tracks I've heard have me sold, even if I don't end up liking the rest of their work. They did the kick arse theme song for Angel, which perfectly sets the tone for the 44 minutes of awesomeness that follows the intro.