1. Behemoth – Conquer All (#3, Demigod, 2005)
2. Pan.Thy.Monium – I (#1, Dream II, 1991)
3. Venom – The Chanting Of The Priests (#12, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1986)
4. Marduk – Holy Blood, Holy Grail (#7, Plague Angel, 2005)
5. Battlelore – Touch Of Green And Gold (#11, Third Age Of The Sun, 2005)
6. Ascaris – Spiritual Everyday Life (#10, Storm Of Dilemmas, 2001)
7. Ozzy Osbourne – You’re No Different (#13, Prince Of Darkness, 2005)
8. My Dying Bride – Roads (#9, Meisterwerk 2, 2001)
9. Jucifer – Pinned In Glass (#3, I Name You Destroyer, 2002)
10. Jade Bridge – The Moon Reflected At Second Springs (#10, Ambush From All Sides, 1997)

By far one of the best lists ever, and it gets kicked off with Behemoth! I remember I used the solo from “Conquer All” as a ringtone for a long time a few years back.

I need signatures and scads of paperwork from various officials. And I have nothing.

So, I wrote an e-mail to the scholarship committee, donning my most humble of humble miens, explained that I’m an epic douchebag failure.

I’ve already heard back from someone within the scholarship organization, someone who either works in a west coast office or has a brutally dominating boss, given the timestamp on the e-mail, and it’s all good.

Everything works out. Always. I learn no lessons.

Ever.

However, I was this time fortunate enough to bear witness to a beautifully crafted rebuttal, in which Linux apologists are likened to ditzy whores who are lovestruck with their two-timing beaus.

Every time I hear someone talking about a company pushing Linux on the desktop over windows I think of this woman I worked with who was having an affair with a very financially successful married man. Every few months she would get all excited because the divorce papers were finally coming through and she would be recognized as his wife. Then a few weeks after she would be crying because it was going to be “just a few more months”. Instead of recognizing the situations for what it was; She was just a cheap, easy lay and he was never leaving his wife, she clung onto the idea that she would eventually be his wife. Linux on the desktop is the mistress, windows is the wife, big business is the successful husband and unless the mistress puts a bullet in the wifes head the husband isn’t voluntarily divorcing his wife anytime soon.

Oh, man, burn.

This might be a bad time to bring this up, but have you heard that 2008 is the Year of the Linux Desktop?

If you need me, I’ll be trying to buy a handgun in this ridiculously socialist society I temporarily call home. Although I guess it would behoove me to set up Wine properly, first.

The Telegraph has an interesting, if utterly predictable, article up about this peculiar gentlemen.

“If the suit is too small, larger male crocs may see me as an aggressor and attack me. But if too big, I may scare off smaller crocs. So I want to look like an average sized croc – about four metres long.”

Barr then crawled on all fours towards the den, while enduring scorchingly high temperatures of up 60°C, the threat of being rumbled by the crocs and also the danger of attack by a family of neighbouring hippos.

On his lonely, exposed route to the river, Barr’s weird appearance attracted the curiosity of a herd of hippos.

“This may be just too dangerous,” he says as a hippo and her calf take an interest in him – but they turn away.

“That could have been a very hairy situation,” he says. “And that was before I’d even seen a croc.”

Oh, look at that! The man is batshit insane. If you ask me, designing a “croc-suit” should be grounds for having your PhD taken away.

To Dr. Barr I send my most steadfast salutation: “I wish you no hippos, and crocodiles of the number and dimensions you specify.”

Vocalist MATT BARLOW Rejoins ICED EARTH

I giggled with joy when I read this. Barlow is a metal legend, who left Iced Earth after 9/11, because he felt that at such a crucial time in American history, he should be doing some greater good than singing in a metal band. As if there is a greater good! I remember reading the news of his leaving on the band’s official website. (The website has since been revamped many times, and the original posting is no longer there, but you can read it verbatim here.) Jon Schaffer, guitarist and songwriter, explained the dreadful situation:

Matt called me a few weeks before we started pre-production and said that he wanted to quit the band and pursue a career doing administrative work for the Department of Homeland Security.

[...]

In hindsight I should not have pressured him into staying but there was no way I could have predicted what would happen, Matt had already quit in his heart, yet out of loyalty he was willing to give it a shot. The recording of the vocals did not go smoothly. It was obvious to Jim Morris (producer) and me that something was very wrong. However, we pushed forward and Jim felt that we may have to change the way we mixed the vocals but that we’d basically be ok.

[...]

Here’s the not so glorious burden of being the guy who makes tough decisions: I decided to stop production and shelve the album until I find a new singer. Matt‘s heart was not in it and it showed in his performance. I’m sure that’s hard for some of you to believe but it’s simply a fact. There are a lot of things you can do with today’s technology to make a singer sound better but you can’t add feeling with a computer.

I still hadn’t gotten over this loss when saw Iced Earth this fall. Sure, Jon Schaffer was there, but he was looking old, and Tim “Ripper” Owens added too much flair to the understated, darkly passionate vocal stylings of Barlow.

Here, take a look at what I’m taking about. The first video is from the newest CD, made during the Owens era. Then watch the second clip, a live version of Barlow doing “Melancholy (Holy Martyr).” There’s no comparison. Keep in mind that the Owens one is the studio track, and he still can’t deliver anything like what Barlow does live.

Iced Earth – “10,000 Strong” music video

Iced Earth – “Melancholy (Holy Martyr)” live from the Alive In Athens DVD

No longer must we endure this sacrilege. Schaffer promises a return to the grandeur of what made Iced Earth the ultimate power metal band.

Matt will be singing on Part 2 of the Something Wicked concept CD and we will be looking forward to getting out on tour and delivering a series of Iced Earth shows that will rival any in the history of the band. And there will be a proper DVD filmed from this period, something we’ve all been waiting for.

And he even goes so far as to credit the fans.

While out on the European tour I had several in depth discussions with many loyal Iced Earth fans. A common theme of these discussions was how much Matt is missed. I agreed with the fans that things were not the same and that it was a very special period in Iced Earth’s history.

[...]

I want you all to know that it was you who made this a reality. I have missed Matt’s presence onstage and in my personal life in a big way over the past few years, so I appreciate your honesty in our discussions.

I know that during the show I was at, a chant of “BAR-LOW! BAR-LOW!” broke out, which I can only imagine made Owens feel like a real tool.

Cheers to a new age. And cheers also to Will, for his RSS vigilance.

Cue the Google.

Wait, scratch that. I don’t need Google yet. I know that on Last.fm there’s a group called Programmers – Anyone who writes code. In checking out the group’s Top Artists section, I was fascinated to see how well metal bands were represented. OK, it’s radio-friendly metal like Metallica and Tool and System Of A Down, but nonetheless it’s much heavier than the average taste.

Now, Google. I didn’t find anything about how programmers love techno or metal, but I did find an interesting article on a query for programmers metalheads about how metalheads are smart. Or how smart people like metal. One or the other, I’m sure of it.

Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research.

[...]

Researchers found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent “metalheads” are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders.

Well I’ll be damned.

// Getting_shit_done.odt : base of operations

#include <hot_tea>
#include <chips>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

string homework ("What's all this bullshit right here")	// OK to substitute actual work
HANDLE hMutex;						// Oh man I love mutexes
volatile BOOL cont=TRUE;

pwn main()
{
	while (cont == TRUE){
			WaitForSingleObject(hMutex,INFINITE);	// Keep eyes open
			cout << homework;			// Here's the moneyshot
			ReleaseMutex(hMutex);			// Now anything can happen
		};
	Sleep(14400000);	 				// All I have time for
return 0;
}

I know what you’re thinking: the while statement is unnecessary.

Oh, but it is. Oh so necessary.

Until tomorrow, when madness reigns no longer over the altars of thought.

I turned off my alarm without remembering again. I think I’m going to start playing the two-alarm game, because I always wake up with my phone in my hand, which means I walked across the room, picked it up, deactivated the alarm, then strolled back to bed. That, or I’ve developed Jedi force powers in my sleep.

So I wake up naturally around 8am, which is when I wanted to be at the municipal building, at least 30 minutes away, maybe 45. So I toss on some clothes, wash up, and stuff the necessary paperwork into my bag.

Well, some of it. I couldn’t find my ultra-super-important document folder. Where I keep everything that doesn’t get me kicked out of this country. It’s usually in the top drawer of my nightstand (I don’t know what to call the piece of furniture, it’s a single-drawer thing with wheels under it), but not today. I look under the bed. In my wardrobe. On top of the wardrobe. Scour the archaeological layers of items on my desk. Under the bed again. Nothing.

I wrack my brain and remember that the last time I utilized it was when I had to provide proof of active student status to the housing agency, in order to qualify for housing there. I’d gone with Carl and Alex, and on the way home, it began to snow, so I asked to stick the folder in a backpack one of them had brought. Great! Now to hope they’re not in class.

I call Alex and plead through the fog of his grogginess that he look through his bag, or elsewhere in his room, for my folder. He informs me that it was for sure Carl who had the backpack, not him. My bad.

Call Carl, wake him up. He looks, finds it. Rock. I grab it, and I’m out the door, onto the tram, to the train station, to Marienplatz, transfer to the subway, then jogging up the steps to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat. (I love this language!)

The rest of the my stay in the building was more navigating through a building layout so disastrous, I made me wonder whether the architect had been on peyote the night he drafted it. I waited in a lot of lines, but didn’t have to pay the 80€ fee for the issuance of a visa, as I had my trusty letter from the German Academic Exchange Agency, saying “Get off his balls.”

Thank you, German government.

Oh, and to be clear, the word “Aufenthaltsgenehmigung,” which I know from the days of my internship with the honorary consul of Germany, I think is best translated as “green card.” That’s the word I used in my previous post, but of course isn’t the documented I was to be receiving. The word is totally 1337, though, slightly more so than what I did in fact acquire. The document they slapped in my passport says “Aufenthaltserlaubnis,” which approximately means “residence permit.” It doesn’t say even say “Visum” (the word for “visa”) anywhere on it, but I guess this is just how they do it here.

And that concludes today’s German lesson.