Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Rath, the Ghost of the Navigator's InsaneJournal:

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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
9:57 pm	By all the gods, this is awesome! So, as those of you who read (lj)faithinfire will already know, yesterday I was formally diagnosed with depression. This is a good thing, arguably, as it gives me some framework for handling the overwhelming sense of "oh shit, universe falling to pieces" that I've been suffering for the last few weeks and assuming was somehow entirely my own fault. So while I was at home feeling sorry for myself and very small indeed, koilungfish went out and came home with lookingforsigns, and they brought me presents! ♥♥♥ There were cookies! And Seiber bought me pizza! And... and, and, and... There were also a whole five booster packs from the Pirates CSG that Seiber and me have been fangirling over lately! Including one from the "Fire & Steel" expansion that has the gorgeous Switchblade and Scorpion miniatures, which have tiny moving parts! Blades that turn on miniature plastic cogs! Now, Seiber had been lucky enough to get a Switchblade ship, HMS Salient, in our very first packs of boosters and I'd been profoundly jealous. But... As I tore open the Fire & Steel pack, I saw the glint of silver. My eyes widened. Silver-stamped cards! Black super-rare corner tags! All of them! And... ...three entire cards that went to make up a great, pale, hideous monster of a ship. Grey and black and dust white, the pallid shade of old skin and the rotten muted red of dead, stripped meat. And dazzling, silver, twin scythelike blades... A super-rare, Cursed-fleet Switchblade. Oh. My. GODS. Her name is Skin Flayer and she is gorgeous. I cannot believe that a random booster pack my friends grabbed for me as a "please cheer up!" present could manage to be the single most coveted set in the whole expansion - witness the bit of paper that fell out after the Skin Flayer (not to mention the Silver Coffin, the Soul Mark treasure card, and Tabitha McWarren, the Cursed pirate girl who joined the crews of the damned when she threw herself from a clifftop for the sake of a dead pirate lover): a note that read "Congratulations! You just dug up the most sought-after treasure chest in the Pirates of the Cursed Seas Fire and Steel pocketmodel game! It contains every super-rare game piece in the set!" I mean, how extraordinary is that, in those particular circumstances? I think something out there loves me at least as much as my friends do. ♥♥♥ Laters, Rath Current Mood: loved Current Music: Amorphis, Divinity (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
2:20 pm	(Very short) dialogues with the infinite. "Universe," said I, waving a hand from the depths of a half-proofread treatise on analytical theory, "everything sucks. I'm feeling bitter and resentful and nothing looks fun. Cheer me up!" "No problem," replied the universe, riffling through its box of LPs (which, as we all know, is of infinite dimensions and contains every song ever written in all possible realities). "Here, you might try this." "^_^!" "Also, for the record, Gödel's incompleteness theorems are exactly the kind of kneecap-shot theoretical result you love. Go look it up." "^____^!!!" "You're welcome. ^_^" There we go, all better now. Who says there's no benevolent Providence? ^_^ Laters, Rath Current Mood: loved Current Music: Bon Jovi, Judgement Day (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
4:07 pm	Also, America, your president is awesome. (Film at 11, I know...) Apparently Obama wrote a note for a girl who skipped school to see him at one of his public meetings, to get her out of trouble with her teacher. Story here. Dude. I thought heads of state only did things like that in children's stories... ^_^ Laters, Rath PS: Her name was Kennedy. Heh. Current Mood: admiring Current Music: Still Sonata Arctica... (5 Comments |Comment on this)
2:57 pm	[Music] *IS DED* *IS TEN THOUSAND TIMES DED* Oh my... I cannot articulate how much I love this, mostly because I am laughing too hard. But seriously, this has just given me an entire year's worth of joy in the space of five minutes. Okay, everyone knows The Wind Beneath My Wings, right? Here's Michael Ball's version, which I happen to like, for reference (excuse the Xena, but this was the only version of it I could find on Youtube). Classic, slow, sentimental, much loved song you can play at weddings, funerals and your Dad's sixtieth birthday bash. You know the one. Now, here are my beloved, beloved boys Sonata Arctica (YES, the Finnish metal band, for those of you sitting at the back) doing their version of this pop classic. I... am INCOHERENT, seriously. Oh, my BOYS. This is simultaneously utterly and soaringly gorgeous and the funniest thing I have heard ALL DECADE. ~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~ Dear power metal scene, and Sonata Arctica in particular, I love you very, very much. Please do not ever, ever change, and in particular please do not ever develop ANY sense of how you look to people whose senses of the ridiculous have developed beyond the embryonic. Please keep doing wonderful, ludicrous, utterly unselfconscious things like this for ever and ever, because the world could more easily spare a million scoffers than it could spare one band THIS AWESOME. ^_^ ...I would totally dance to this if it ever got played in a club. And if they play it live next time I see them, I bet I cry. ^_^ Laters, Rath Current Music: ....YES (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 15th, 2009
9:45 am	Y halo thar, Monday morning... I just got a spam with the subject line "For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide". I... yep, it's definitely Monday. ( Random update. Cut for length (work, weekend, and general stuff). ) And (lj)lonescorpion just left me an email with hints on how to do the fourth mission in DoW, so I think that's my evening sorted, then! So. How/what/who is everyone else doing today? ^_^ Laters, Rath Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: Firewind, Falling to Pieces (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
11:30 am	[Music] So that's what Raths like! Okay, does anyone feel like helping out a Rath? I need music recommendations, because I think I have just noticed an odd quirk in my musical tastes, and I want to see if there is a real pattern here or just an illusory one... The thing is, W. was kind enough to give me the first Eisbrecher album (and the second one, but I haven't listened to that one as much yet) and I've been devouring it enthusiastically. My favourite tracks are, without question, Willkommen im Nichts and Fanatica. Schwarze Witwe is hanging around third place, tieing for now with Herz Steht Still (which is gorgeous but being left aside for now cos it doesn't fit the topic under discussion). Now, what's interesting about these three tracks? All of them are quite heavy, quite crunchy, solidly rhythmical, but they have - either in the backing vocals (Schwarze Witwe), the main vocals (Willkommen im Nichts), or both (Fanatica), a bizarrely conspicuous pop influence. The prechorus of Willkommen im Nichts has a brilliant looping, dipping pattern that really does sound like a pop chorus in a horrible, black, spiky, grinning disguise, and the English chorus of Fanatica probably wouldn't sound out of place on a chart single if it weren't backed by distorted synths and being powered from underneath by a vocalist who sounds like he's snarling through a static generator. Which got me thinking, now, what other bands and songs do I like that feel like this? And the list is interestingly long. Lordi - are a melodic hard rock band with a harsh lead vocal, using a lot of pop and rock lyrical concepts with a dark twist. Devilish Presley - feel like the Fifties like the Fifties never were, twisted sideways by Johnny and Jacqui's sneering snarls and skewed lyrical concepts. Marilyn Manson covering Sweet Dreams. Children of Bodom covering Bed of Nails. Carpathian Forest covering the Cure. Power metal versions of ABBA songs. W.A.S.P. ballads. The list goes on. And as far as I can nail down, the mystic link between them all is the combination of pop/rock melody structures and/or mirrorverse-style twists on mainstream musical ideas, with vocals that are theoretically too harsh for but nevertheless follow the conventions of the melodic structure. So. Dear flist, do any of you have any songs that sound like they fit this description (any genre from metal to electronica to goth to whatever, guitars not obligatory!) that you think I should hear? Caveat: I still tend to strongly dislike filks, "novelty" covers or pisstakes, some of which would fall into the description above. Some degree of straight face and musical integrity has to be involved, so the band in question has to be doing this style because it's what they want to sound like, rather than because they're looking at the audience going "are we funny yet?" But that aside, I'm sure there must be more Stuff That Sounds Like This, so if anyone has any, please wave it at me? Thank you! In other news, a) I am going against the trend and actually kind of gutted at what happened to Jeff Hardy at Extreme Rules (and I really hope his shoulder and finger heal up quick, best wishes Jeff!), b) I think I have a cold, and c) I need more sleep. >_< How are you guys? Laters, Rath Current Mood: inquisitive Current Music: Mono Inc, Planet Shame (20 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
10:48 am	Viruses, malware, trojans and other bastards. A quick crosspost from my LJ, for those who only read here, concerning various nasty redirect attacks that I've either run into myself or know my friends have had (including the Google Redirect Virus - if your Google search results don't go where they ought to, you've got it). Just a quick PSA, basically. Right, BRB, going for a banana. Laters, Rath Current Mood: hungry Current Music: Eisbrecher, Heilig (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
3:17 pm	ASDFGHJKL NOT A BUNNY I just found out that RRW has, in an email to a client, referred to me as his accounts bunny. 'BOOTS!!! I need to borrow your icon! And I possibly also need a lawyer! [Update: Oh, okay, apparently I'm allowed to be the accounts ebola-infested-flesh-eating-lizard instead. Fantastic, I can live with that. And so can he.] Laters, The Navigator Current Mood: outraged Current Music: The Who, You Better You Bet (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
12:20 pm	Fire & Forget! Just in case anyone's reading here but not on my LJ... behold, Fire & Forget on Youtube! Camerawork by (lj)ironlord (thank you!) and editing/posting by (lj)lonescorpion. So yes, this is us. I am mostly invisible behind our singer, but you can see me from time to time... Enjoy! Love, The Navigator Current Mood: excited Current Music: Fire & Forget, Michael (Comment on this)
Monday, May 18th, 2009
10:41 am	Today is a good day to... everything! Yesterday was a definite day of downswing. Mood, luck, Stuff, all rock bottom. Today? Is less than halfway through and already feels like that moment on the way up to the top on a swing, when your insides go over with the force of the lift and the iron frame around you shudders and lurches as your weight and momentum tug on its anchoring, and the wind and sun hit you in the face and it's all too exhilarating to be frightening even if it does feel like you're about to fall off. Today, so far, is good. And this news article on measuring quantum effects without them realising that you're looking is just the icing on the possibly-existent cake. Apparently, if you can manage to observe reality without changing it, you discover that it is EVEN WEIRDER THAN YOU THOUGHT. Somewhere in the back of the universe, I can hear laughter. ^_^ In other more local news, it's so good to be awake and alive and not half dead with exhaustion for a change. ^_^ I even have a story blocked out in my head, which is great as I've been utterly useless at getting anything into pennable form lately. And today there will be pub food, and useful work, and friends, and also Judgement Day pay-per-view over at Mark's... yep, stuff is good. Life++. Laters, The Navigator PS Also, new best thing ever: Body Shop's brazil nut body butter. I have no idea how it goes from smelling of warm and creamy and, well, brazil nuts in the jar, to smelling like WKD-Iron-Brew-over-hot-charcoal[1] on me, but the fact that it does is frankly just fantastic. Win! [1] You will learn strange things from pouring alcoholic libations over a disposable barbeque. You may also discover the most unimaginably wonderful caramelised-sugar smell in the world, seriously... ^_^ Current Mood: flying off the edge of the map Current Music: Eisbrecher, Heilig (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
10:46 am	Morning, everyone. A propos de rien, except that sternenstaub mentioned the Eurovision, I've just found the bestest photo of Lordi that I've seen in ages. Castle + monsters = win. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WUS last night was completely off the sanity chart, since we got a prog set and a weird covers set right after each other. Word to the wise: don't cover Megadeth. You do not sound like Dave Mustaine, and consequently absolutely nothing you can do to the vocals will do anything but detract from the awesome. On the good side, I did get to headbang myself into rapturous oblivion to the Children of Bodom cover of Alice Cooper's Bed of Nails, which is one of the most brilliant things ever. There's this one moment in the chorus where the lead guitar line collides absolutely amazingly with the note Alexi's singing and it makes the back of my neck tingle every time. Eeeeeeeeee. *shivers* There were also two (that I picked up) weird Manowar covers in there and now I have a terrible urge to listen to Manowar a lot. Okay, I don't think that's so terrible, but I bet everyone else does. Meanwhile, I am so dead of tired right now. Luckily I am off work this afternoon. Downtime plz... Laters, Rath Current Mood: weird Current Music: Children of Bodom, Bed of Nails (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 11th, 2009
1:49 am	Wasn't looking - found this. Bon Jovi, Heartbreak Eyes. This apparently is a lost demo from the first Bon Jovi album. The user who posted it has a ton of similar outtakes, demos and so on (man, gonna be here all night!), but Bon Jovi has a particular place in my heart, so this is something a little special for me. Cos... one of the fucked up things, for me, about the invention of sound and video capture technology is that even while it gives us chance to have the past at our fingertips, it really rams home the fact that you can't have it all, ever. There's more material already on record than any one person could ever sift for everything they wanted to hear, and much of it locked in vaults or forgotten in attics where you couldn't get to it anyway; and that's before you start asking for the stuff that wasn't caught on the magic reels, the one-nights-only that nobody taped, the old episodes that the BBC threw out. The rehearsals where someone achieved that one perfect riff while the deck wasn't running. And even what we do capture and get to general release, is never the same as being there. This is why I love eighties hair metal videos and watch them with tears in my eyes; they're like tiny perfect splinters, sent shattering to the winds when the nineties put a sledgehammer through my sonic birthright and sent the pieces flying through time on the precarious wings of VH1 Classic and fans' old tape collections. And somehow, miraculously, they survived until now, twenty years later, they can embed themselves under my skin and dump their small cargos of preserved light and sound and beauty into my veins. I'm staring through a Youtube-sized, pixellated window into an age that doesn't exist any more and probably never did outside the daydreams of a pack of fluffy-haired adolescents in tight trousers, and it hurts so much to know that it was broken before I ever got there - but I can never stop hunting for more pieces. ...maybe some part of me still does believe that one day I'll find them all and be able to put it back together. *soft smile* Rath Current Mood: wistful Current Music: Bon Jovi, Heartbreak Eyes (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
3:43 am	Or, alternatively, I could just show you all this. I was originally here to stuff a post on the religion filter which would basically have just been me rambling about stuff for my own enjoyment, but seriously, nobody needs to listen to any more of me being an irritating little ball of obsessiveness so I've locked that one down. Instead, here is something beautiful: Lord of Nightmares, by Dianae on Devart. Seriously, this is breathtaking. Go look. And even better, the development of the picture is all here on her forum thread so you can see all the layers of work underneath the final version. (Also, the final version on page eight of that thread is a bigger and better version than the devart one.) How awesome, seriously? Laters, Rath Current Mood: impressed Current Music: None, I've apparently run out. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
10:04 pm	On movies! Okay! Prompted by rumblings from tribe sternenstaub's general direction, here is a list of Thirteen Films Rath Loves And Will Show At The Slightest Provocation (there are more, but I thought I'd limit myself a little...) Trick or Treat (being the definition of what one certain strand of the eighties was ALL about, yes. Featuring Sammi Curr, the greatest fictional rock god of all time.) Streets of Fire (rock opera. Only not. Only gritty and badass and snarky and slashy and amazing. This film makes me want to explode for joy. With added Jim Steinman songs! And Willem Dafoe in black vinyl!) John Carpenter's Vampires (is sleazy and rough-edged and politically incorrect, violent and sexy and has an old priest, a young priest, a fantastic vampire, and James Woods being utterly brilliant) Ghosts of Mars (because I want to see it again dammit and nobody ever wants to watch it with me. Primarily a visual-spectacle flick, recommended for anyone who likes glossy-edged, darkish, vaguely incomprehensible SF and anyone with a kink for sharp objects/piercings/body mods/black leather/pain.) Last Action Hero (anyone who loves the way stories and worlds fit together should see this film. As should anyone who likes their villains intelligent, well dressed and dangerous. Warning: contains Arnold Schwarznegger sending himself up, which is dangerous levels of adorable.) The Ninth Gate (I normally don't do the Johnny Depp thing, but when he's playing a complete bastard of a book dealer who's chasing down a book co-written by the Devil? Hell yes. Also, Frank Langella does his Bad Guy routine in this to wonderful effect. WIN.) Batman Forever (because it's so slick and nineties and glossy and ridiculous and eye-candy, and I cannot get enough, ever, of this version of Two-Face and the Riddler - seriously, seeing is believing.) David Cronenberg's Crash (I love this film and it's a lot more than just the shocker it was made out to be on its release, but just about everyone who has ever reviewed it has managed to make me go "What, no, YOU HAVE NO CLUE" so I always like rewatching it. But it's one that not many people I know have the stomach for, sadly. :/ ) Dracula (the 1979 version, for my money the finest portrayal of the Count ever, courtesy of Frank Langella. Beautifully sensual, ambiguous, subtle, and gorgeously shot, this is a lost classic of the highest order.) Mortal Kombat (I will not try to be coherent about this film, never going to happen, seriously. Characters/design/fight cinematography/music/EVERYTHING++++++) Ghost Rider (...obviously.) Sin City (makes me cry and ache and cheer and gasp out loud every time. Best comic-noir movie ever made except, just possibly, Watchmen.) The Shadow (most gorgeous America-that-never-was in the universe, Mongol warlords, and Alec Baldwin hamming it up. I love this film not so much for what it straightforwardly is, as for everything I can see just off the edges of the frame.) If anything on that list sounds like something you want to see/resee/geek about, please leave a comment below and I will see what I can do! :) Love, Rath Current Mood: geeky Current Music: Koi playing the Advent Children soundtrack (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 27th, 2009
11:37 am	Do you feel lucky, punk? ...why yes, yes I do, actually. ( Cut for Rathfail. ) So I feel pretty damn lucky, because if fate had looked the wrong way for half a second there, I totally could've been typing this from Addenbrooke's. I'm very grateful that I'm not. ^_^ Laters, Rath PS And apart from that I had a really good evening and seem to have played about a ton of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, which may actually be my favourite console game of all time. Yay for weekends... ♥ Current Mood: grateful Current Music: ASP, Teach Me War (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 24th, 2009
12:15 pm	Dammit, gotten possessed again. If you can hear this sound somewhere in the distance: ./~BURN DOWN JERUSALEM My wish is your command...!./~ it is almost certainly me singing along on the astral plane loudly enough to be actually audible. Cannot... stop... listening... to Dream Evil's Crusader's Anthem. And every time I play it I seem to be turning it up another notch. Have not felt like this since was seventeen and playing air guitar while standing on bed listening to Dio and Manowar. Currently not sure which of mp3 player, heart, brain, and universe is going to explode first. \m/^_^\m/ ♥ ♥ ♥ SEND HELP. AND BIGGER SPEAKERS. The Navigator Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: ...YES. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
2:04 pm	[Meme] That bang you just heard was me exploding. It's all good, nobody panic. Praise the storm gods, it's FINALLY raining. I got joyfully soaked on the way through town and I feel so much better for it... life is good today, people. And you know what that means: a round of the six things meme! ( Six things that make me happy! ) Laters, Rath PS And I have another two things that didn't quite make the cut for the list, but: - I went shopping yesterday and found candles that burn with coloured flames! Including purple ones! How cool is that? - And this morning, I drank an entire can of Relentless Inferno on an empty-but-for-a-bit-of-chocolate stomach and am now consequently convinced that I CAN CONQUER THE UNIVERSE FROM HERE. Man, this stuff kicks ass. *_* Current Mood: happy Current Music: various songs listed above (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
3:26 am	Late-night linkage! ...and I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of Man; A motion and a spirit, that impels. The above from the immortal William Wordsworth, but delivered into my field of awareness by being on the back of a Relentless can (yes, I do drink energy drinks at twelve o'clock at night, you think I got this way naturally?) Thus inspired in more ways than one, I seem to have gone off collecting pretty things - so here, I share! ( Slaanesh-themed art links. ) (If you're commenting on this btw, please be invited to add art links of things that you love (any subject at all) - I want there to be as many beautiful things in this post as will possibly fit. ^_^) Laters, Rath EDIT: I have just discovered the source of the Wordsworth quote above, namely "Tintern Abbey". Which OF COURSE would also be the one with the line about: Knowing that Nature never did betray / the heart that loved her, wouldn't it. Of course it would. ♥ Current Mood: bewitched and becaffeinated Current Music: Hammerfall, Dreams Come True (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
1:31 pm	This post has pretty things in it. Mostly for sternenstaub. Lupie? Saw these and thought of you! (All SFW, the worst thing here is a lot of bare male torsos. *g*) Servant of Tzeentch. Apparently one fairly high in his lord's favour, as well, to look at him. I absolutely love this. Someone's version of the King in Yellow, whoa. I have no idea if this actually looks like him or not, btw, but that face(s) gives me the shivers. O_O WOLF! Necromancer type thing. One in scarlet and one in white, which are so gorgeous I couldn't pick my favourite, and demonstrate exactly what you can do with a simple recolour. ♥ Meanwhile, as a matter of completely unrelated public record, I am currently listening to Hammerfall's Riders on the Storm and trying very hard to stay sitting down because it is a bloody awesome song. "Riders on the storm - one with the wind, defenders of creation-!" Laters, Rath Current Mood: happy Current Music: Hammerfall, Riders on the Storm (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 9th, 2009
10:40 am	Links to odd things! First, a link to the world's fuzziest form of graffiti! I admit I am mostly posting this in the hope of giving people like raisedbymoogles and sternenstaub and deepbluesquee ideas. ;) URBAN KNITTING! Secondly, mostly for W. because I said I'd find it but also for the bemusement of other passers-by, why Hitler didn't bomb Blackpool. Logical I suppose - what's the good of taking over the world if you can't keep all the fun bits intact for your own use? In other news: lookingforsigns, apparently my copy of the Batman Legacy set is on its way to me... are you doing anything next weekend? ;) Laters, Rath Current Mood: interested Current Music: Fatal Smile, Out Of My Head (9 Comments |Comment on this)