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

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

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! 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

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