Okay, I have SO run out of money now, but life? Life is GOOD.

( Six things that have made me happy this week! )

So yes, that's what I'm currently being happy about. I hope you guys are all good, too. *attempts to hand around the happy in case anyone would like some*

Laters,
Rath

Just for the record, I am so in love right now with Bai Bang's cover of the Sweet's X-Ray Specs that I may actually explode from joy. Man, the Swedish glam scene is awesome. Here, have a random pic of their bass player, to demonstrate just why the idea of this band being able to see through people's clothes can't be all bad... ^_^

Meanwhile, anyone who reads here but not LJ should probably refer to this post for important State of the Rath information. Also, I've been to Wacken if that sort of thing is of any interest - full review later!

Sorry if I missed anything while I was gone - if you need me to see anything, please let me know! Hope everyone is okay. Now, since it's four in the morning, I crash. Night guys!

Laters,
Rath

Writing! I'm going to take it as a good omen that I was feeling creative enough to dash this off. ^_^

***

( Possible futures. )

***

Laters,
Rath

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

"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

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

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

Or possibly memes with ketchup. (What? I'm hungry.)

First, one from sternenstaub! The aim of this one - you comment, and I give you five words/concepts/things that I associate with you. You then trot back to your own journal with these thingies, and write about each of them in turn. Then do the same for anyone who asks for five of their own!

( Here are my five! )

So, er, yes, those were fun, thank you Lupie, anyone who wants to play please comment below!

I was going to do two memes in one post but I think I'll split them... this is getting long...

Laters,
The Navigator

I didn't post this when I got in last night in the end because it was late and I was exhausted. So Friday's six, first:

1. Finishing work for the holidays! This is very important, obviously.
2. Getting a pack of the bracelet-type glowsticks on our table at the Downing Christmas dinner! And being very amused that all my colleagues were too, ah, mainstream to know what they were and how to make them work. *g* I stole two green ones in honour of DX, and a pink and a blue one just for the hell of it.
3. The fact that the puddings at said Christmas dinner CAME UP THROUGH THE FLOOR. Murray Edwards College (aka New Hall), where we were eating, has a servery area that can be raised through the middle of the dining hall floor, and they used this to bring up the dessert plates! Dimmed lights, sparkthrowers on the corners of the counters, and the James Bond theme as an accompaniment (O_O) - it was a fantastic piece of spectacle. Whoever came up with that one deserves a bonus.
4. Managing, early in the evening, to hit the DJ with one of those long balloons that you blow up and let go of and they go flying across the room. SCORE! (I wasn't even aiming for him, but don't tell anyone.)
5. Playing air guitar to Status Quo in front of all my colleagues. Admittedly that was the only thing they played at the disco that called for air guitar at all, but still. And the video was up on the screens (Rockin' All Over The World, for the record) and my gods, the Quo boys were adorable when they were young. ^_^
6. Stopping off on the way home to lie on the grass out on the fens, just basking in the knowledge that I was free for the next two weeks. I love the night, and the sky, and being alone just sometimes.

Admittedly (lj)naranek stood me up for said dinner, but you can't have everything. *pokes and grins*

And today, ie Saturday:

1. Being on holiday, which is still making me happy!
2. The epic success that was the Triad early-Christmas-dinner. I made a full roast dinner with all the trimmings and ate until I can currently barely move. No fewer than FOUR kinds of pudding were involved. I rock.
3. Getting awesome Christmas presents from my friends, the absolute pinnacle of which has to be the pageful of chibis that deepbluesquee drew for me. There are no words for how thrilled I am with this.
4. Decorating the Christmas tree(s) and getting tinsel all over everything and everywhere, including on my own head (where it still is).
5. Spending the evening belting out Twisted Sister, Lordi, Zodiac Mindwarp, Blue Oyster Cult and Whitesnake. I fucking love proper hard rock. I love feeling my heart lift and my feet tap and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. And I love how easy it is to do anything from cooking to dishes to cleaning when I've got something to sing along with, too. Best of the night had to be Whitesnake's Saints and Sinners, which was one of the first rock albums I ever owned (taped for me by my cousin when I was only about fourteen) and I always love to hear again. I'm such a sucker for good memories. ^_^
6. The simple delight of hanging out with people I love... and who can reduce me to laughing until I think I'm going to turn inside out. Never underestimate the joys of daft, perverted, and completely deranged friends.

So yeah. Good day. Gooooooood day. *contented sigh* How are you guys?

Hail Slaanesh and happy Christmas,
The Navigator

Tuesday's post. Today started out with a certain degree of fail, but has improved along the way. So:

1. As I was walking to work, passing a guy who was just starting his car. As he turned the key, the stereo came on along with the engine, sending a huge deep thumping blast of bass and guitars echoing into the hitherto silent street. It was just... exhilarating. Thanks, unknown guy!
2. Crossing Parker's Piece after dark, and seeing the ice rink had purple light-pollution glare above it instead of the eerie orange that I'm more used to. The big bright blue-white lights that illumine the rink must have been scattering really brightly off the ice to make that effect happen and it was gorgeous. The entire world needs to switch to blue-violet streetlighting now please!
3. The German Market, again on Parker's Piece. It's a whole lot of little faux-log-cabin things strung with lights, selling wooden toys and reindeer hides (which are all stroky and soft!) and strange candy and honey and who knows what else. Absolutely magic, especially after dark when the lights make it look like fairyland or something.
4. Getting #2 of Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch. Which was apparently written by someone who was aiming to make me, personally, fall over and die. That perfectly matched to one of my emotional hot buttons. Hell yeah!
5. On my way home, seeing A Car. I don't know what it was, though my brain is saying Dodge or Mustang (I am not as hot on IDing muscle cars as I should be, and it was dark) but anyway. Big, matt-black with no badging or decals of any kind, those beautiful hard brutal lines that you just don't get since they invented wind-tunnel design, jacked up painfully high at the back end. Massive bulge in the hood for the air intakes (this is the car equivalent of a roll of socks down the front of a pair of very tight pants), old silver-and-black license plates (which I adore) and an engine that sounded even at near-idle like something monstrous snarling for blood. Guh. I'm fairly sure the driver saw me drooling and I honestly don't mind if he did. Best part? Really heavy traffic on Newmarket Road so I got a good long stare at it instead of just a quick one-eighty and a "whoa!" as is so often the case with cars like that. Yay!
6. Getting chatted to at the Calling by someone I actually really quite liked. He was a nice guy, older than me AND still has long hair which is an automatic several point bonus, and danced to almost all the same stuff as me. Cool! ^_^

Oh, and a bonus 6a for Oliver's Calling set which was awesome and included Harsh Generation, Raising Cain, All Along the Crooked Way...

Right, sleep. NOW. Goodnight everyone!

Laters,
Rath

PS Bonus #6b, also, for the WWE After The Bell video of Matt and Jeff from Armageddon (warning - spoilers, obviously). Triple H hugging Jeff! And Edge doing the ZOMG-wide-eyes face over the announce table! (Yes, I admit it, I love the fights but I'm a total sucker for the fluff. *g*)

Hey, it's my kind of meme. This is Sunday's post, since I always fuck up my datestamps by being awake late. (Monday's, all being well, will consist of me flailing about WWE Armageddon... oh my gods can't wait... ^_^)

Six things today that make me happy:

1. Seeing my friends when I haven't seen them in too long.
2. Realising that I CAN get the high part in Never Have More - I just need to have my hands warmed up enough to have proper circulation.
3. Playing Never Again. I cannot get enough of that song.
4. Lordi's cover of Accept's Midnight Mover, which I have a terrible song-crush on today. *swoon*
5. The way my hair is just the right length to swish across my face like flying silk when I bang my head (as a result of #3 and #4 above). It feels gorgeous.
6. Authors who can tell a good story without making more mistakes than I feel obliged to fix to earn my keep. *happy copy-editor!*

(Why six? Because. ^_^)

Love,
Rath

Dingo, House Without A Name - I would never have heard of this song if Lordi hadn't done very evil things to it. Thank you Lordi, as ever!

Domination Black, The House of 1000 Eyes - someone, somewhere, will love this song as much as I do. Right?

Also, I have succumbed to temptation and now own a DX belt buckle, as an early Christmas present to myself. Ah, DX shinies - the ultimate mixed message. "Yes! I'm a rebel - and I have twenty bucks worth of corporate merchandising right here to prove it!" ~~God knows god knows I love this perfect world...~~ ^_^

Rath

Just saw a Youtube video for Sonata Arctica's The Worlds Forgotten, The Words Forbidden. However there was an unfortunate grocer's apostrophe inserted, so as to make my initial mental parsing come out as:

"Sonata Arctica: The world's forgotten the words."

Much as laughing at that cheered me up, I still feel that the poster deserves the Captain America icon for it. And to all the people saying we should let the misplaced apostrophe pass as "correct" and simply call it a change in usage - this sort of thing is why I disagree with you.

In other news, I finally cracked and subscribed myself to several wrestling fan comms over on LJ. I'd been trying to avoid this as I hate doing the thing where I drift in and out of fandoms and pick up a whole long tail of comms on my friendslist in the process, but it sat on my head until I didn't have a choice. Sigh. Still, maybe I'll make some new friends. ^_^

Finally, after sorting out my situation as much as I can - bad news, folks. I can't afford to keep the Lyndon any more, and this time I'm serious, there is no way out of it and I'm not getting my money's worth out of her anyway. :( So if anyone is interested in, or knows anyone who'd be interested in, buying a part-renovated, late-seventies 25' GRP river cruiser (working engine, safety certificate for the next couple of years, perfectly functional and usable but cosmetically in need of some more work), please do get in touch! Given the current economic climate, price is "make me an offer" - though for the record I paid £6,000 for her and would be very grateful to recoup that at least.

I don't want to do this but I'm going to be grownup about it, dammit. She deserves someone who can take better care of her than I can. :/

Laters,
The Navigator

I'm having a clearout. And one of the things that's going to get cleared is a bunch of my old homecopied tapes, and some CDs I don't need or that are duplicates or whatever, and a bunch of books. Plus random craftbits and possibly a few stray plushies, bath things, nail polish and shit like that.

Does anyone want grab bags? I'm happy to send people parcels of Random Stuff They Might Like, at no charge, just to clear some space and get my stuff good homes! If you're interested, please post below, saying what you're interested in (in particular, if I don't know your musical tastes, tell me what you like - the available stuff will mostly be old classic rock and metal, a few bits of goth and maybe a bit of more extreme stuff. Also, TELL ME IF YOU CAN PLAY TAPES, cos I know not everyone can any more!)

The books, of which there probably won't be too many, are likely to be trashy horror and fantasy for the most part plus a bunch of true-supernatural-tales and similar coffee table junk. ;) Nail polish, craft stuff and jewellery - many colours of paper, wool, trimmings, and similar bits and bats.

All takers, sign below! I'll distribute stuff till I run out of it, so I can't promise who'll get what and how much, but hey, it's free stuff, no?

Cheers,
Rath

(crossposted to LJ!)

Overheard last night:

navigatorsghost, frowning at a large sheaf of paint swatch cards: "I want something pretty to stare at while I'm in bed." *pause* "So since I'm single, I'll have to paint the ceiling."

In related news, I am apparently still a teenage metalhead. I've been trying to work out what colours to paint my room and I've told myself "not black, it's too much of a bitch to paint over and the landlord will hate me." Because I am trying to be grown up. Unfortunately it turns out that every colour scheme I know how to do a decent job of uses black as a base colour...

I think I have an alternative scheme now, but just in case anyone here is a frustrated Changing Rooms star... what colours should I paint my room? Answers in the comments please!

Laters,
The Navigator

I have a new bed - well, sort of a bed. It's actually a large bean bag that was given to me by deepbluesquee, and Koi took a photo of me curled up in it with my nose sticking out of the duvet, and... well, see above. ^_^

Interestingly, though, it seems to make me sleep a bit differently. More lightly, I think, to be precise. I seem to wake up in the middle of the night more often (which is cool, as the full moon has been shining straight through my window for the last couple of nights and it's absolutely magic getting to see that at five am when nobody else is awake). But the one difference I've really noticed is that I seem to be dreaming more than I was, and this is a good thing because when I don't dream, I feel wretched when I wake up and am well below optimal levels of functionality for the rest of the day.

Does anyone else notice what effect their dreams have on their wellbeing, out of curiosity? Or am I just weird? (If Freddy Krueger ever shows up, of course, I'm proper screwed...)

Meanwhile, in other news, I went in Body Shop yesterday and treated myself to some new bath things. Their Christmas range this year (amber/cranberry/vanilla) is fantastic. Especially the Vanilla Spice body lotion, as it's got gold shimmer in it and leaves you sparkling all over like some kind of demented Mary-Sue while also being incredibly good for your skin. I shall definitely be using this more.

Now, though, I'm stuck at work and miserably bored. Entertain me? Anyone? Please?

Laters,
Rath

PS And in the news today: Obama's new Secret Service codename is "Renegade". I like it. ^_^ Meanwhile, there's finally a proper sighting on a planet orbiting Fomalhaut... iä, Cthugha!

Because it's frankly awesome to realise that you're watching history in the making... I would just like to raise my glass *lifts, er, a McDonald's soda cup since that's what I currently have* to President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama II. Congratulations to the man who stole America's heart, and may he take good care of it now he's got it!

*applauds*


And now a meme, since everyone else is doing it. From deepbluesquee and raisedbymoogles:

One little compliment can make you feel amazing.

So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal, so I can return the favor. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag so that when you are feeling down, you can go to that entry for a quick pick-me-up and a smile.

Backhanded remarks, friendly insults, and general abuse are also okay because, hey, I know some of my friends have issues with the idea of ever being overtly nice to another sentient being. *grins*

Laters,
The Navigator

PS Is anyone else who also uses Livejournal finding that their clever security checking measure for their new "find a friend" feature is killing their browsers? I mean, at least they're trying to do what their membership want (ie, allow people to opt IN to intrusive data searches rather than OUT) but nul points for the coding, right there...

I'd never heard this song before today, but I picked it up while Youtube-surfing and suddenly found myself with my eyes stinging: Belinda Carlisle, Summer Rain. Usually in my life, when I've been lonely it's been because I was missing one particular person who I already loved... but this song?

Just makes me wish I was in love at all.

And wish I was in America, but that's kinda a given with me. *s*

Though speaking of America, the other song I've been falling in love with today (for the millionth time, but, y'know) is Black Velvet, which I link here just in case there's one person left in the world who doesn't know it and happens to be reading my journal. I don't feel up to articulating right now why I love this song so much, but I really do.

Hmm. Looking at my journal, I note that of my last ten posts, more than half have been locked "private". This is not the way I used to do things. Guess I don't feel like sharing at the moment... I'm in the kind of mood lately where if you met me face to face, I'd be distantly moody and kicking at small stones on the asphalt and not really able to explain why. Halfway between not feeling sure I want to say anything, and not being convinced that anyone wants to hear it anyway.

Oh, well. When we can't speak for ourselves... that's what music's for.

Laters,
The Navigator

I feel really quite ill today. The muscles in my jaw and forehead are aching and I feel like I'm dragging my brain along by the scruff of its frontal lobe. Thankfully I can go home in about half an hour.

...also, I swear I'm going to EAT my colleague for that awful eight-bit-style classical piece she's got as her cellphone ring. I did not need that right now. *whines and clutches head* Everything seems to be so nuts at the moment. I just want to go outside and curl up on a bit of abandoned blacktop somewhere and sleep in the sun for about a week. At least my sis deepbluesquee is back on Monday, I've missed her. :/

In other news, does anyone not have, and want, a copy of Lordi's The Arockalypse? I... might just have kinda sorta cracked and bought the special edition yesterday, so my old copy is now free to a good home. >.>

Argh. Ow. Brain. Sod this, I'm leaving work early. *splat*

Laters,
The Navigator

Mostly for zeldenthuis, but if you need a Navigatorsghost:

( What I am doing this month. )

Laters,
The Navigator