Oooh, been a while since we’ve all attended class, hasn’t it students?

While I was scrolling through the dark, dank catacombs of my music folder each folder that contained metal seemed to look at me with disgust; “Why haven’t you written another entry? WHY?” their glares seemed to say to me. So to appease the metal gods and keep my music files from performing some odd coup de grâce where they start deleting each other I’ve decided to write an update for you guys. As you’d imagine, under such tense circumstances, this entry will be quite slap-dash, off the cuff and on the fly. The only intended plan for this post is to simply scroll through my music folder and pick out some bands which cause my nerdy fibers to tingle.

‘A’ is for Alestorm. For those who haven’t heard of these guys they’re a pirate themed folk/ power metal band hailing from Perth, Scotland. Having discovered these guys when they were still under the name of “Battleheart” I’m finding it quite hard to adjust to their latest name change, so I may end up referring to them as Battleheart. Pirates (being far superior to ninjas) are instantly geeky– geeks far and wide, even at the merest mention of pirates find themselves either acting like a pirate screaming “ARRR! YE SCURVY CURR!” or end up making a reference to “The Angry Pirate“. Either way, Pirates are cool. Period. Pirate metal? Even cooler. Relatively new, Alestorm have managed to make a name for themselves amongst the mainstream, being one of the few bands to fall into the sub-genre, recently managing to support such bands as Turisas and getting a demo on Metal Hammer’s “Battle Metal V” CD along with other such bands as Týr, Firewind, Hammerfall and Blind Guardian.

Alestorm - Captain Morgan’s Revenge

Finnish metal band Amorphis are up next. Not typically seen as being considered geeky, proving that geekyness can come in many forms, Amorphis finds itself in the list simply because of how bloody hard they are to define, genre-wise. Starting out as a Death Metal band in 1990 they soon evolved into a band which incorporates influences from many different areas of rock & metal. Combining clean & growls in a unique non-screamo style (shocking, I know) the band has managed to stand the 18 year test of time.

Amorphis - Against Widows

Many-a-metal head will wince at this choice, but they have to be noted: Brandon Small’s Dethklok.

Starting out in 2006 on Dethklok Metalocalypse the cartoon gained popularity with their Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle growling at you in a commercial, they were an international success; garnering many hits on youtube and many-a-snerk from metal-fans worldwide before the show had even aired late-night on [Adult Swim], the cartoon made many references to death and black metal (for example, a super market called “Finntrolls” and a fast-food chain called “Dimmu Burger”), as well as managing to get a hold of many well know metal celebs such as King Diamond, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Devin Townsend and ICS Vortex to record voices for various characters. After gaining such monumental popularity and having his/their song ‘Thunderhorse’ included in Guitar Hero II Small decided to team up with Ulrich Wild and produce The Dethalbum, compiling and re-recording all of the songs onto one record. Due to the sheer amount of work that Small does (voicing most of the characters, singing and playing most of the instruments) for the show is worthy of the bands mention alone, however Small’s cartoon phenomenon deserves a mention due to the fact that this virtual band holds the record for the highest chart position for a death metal album! That’s right, a cartoon band. Then again like most comedy bands it’s probably only a gimmick… think how much of an impact Spinal Tap had on rock today, now think how much anybody gives a damn about Spinal Tap. Nevertheless, I dig Dethklok, regardless of what people say, the show is entertaining and so is Small’s piss-take of typical Death/ Black Metal bands.

Dethklok - Mermaider

Although not strictly metal, I’ve decided to include a favorite band of mine in the list: Skindred. Hailing southern Wales, Skindred came to be after the members formed from the broken remnants of their old band ‘Dub War’ in 1999. After earning their wings in the underground scene the band eventually went topside, supporting some more mainstream bands such as Soulfly and Pitchshifter and gaining a lot of popularity for their unique style, mixing genres such as Reggae, Punk, Hip-Hop, Dub and Metal to create “Ragga-Metal”. Releasing two critically acclaimed albums Skindred have left their mark in the alternative scene. With their heart-pounding beat-downs, fast riffs and Benji’s ability to switch from a higher reggae tone to deep growls Skindred make for an unrelentingly entertaining band.

Skindred - Nobody

On that bombshell I’m going to wrap things up. Keep it short and sweet as they say.

Another lesson will be on it’s way next week/month/year. Hope to see you in class.

HOMEWORK - Learn the Toxic Waltz.

In such tradition I have celebrated it by creating a crappy doodle.

Happy Birthday you old git.

In more important news, today’s Iron Man’s international release date. So go get your metal freak on, y’all.

• Ars Technica - Wikipedia coming soon to a (German) bookstore near you!
• Instructables - How to make: Portal/ Rick-Roll Cake… The cake really IS a lie! ;_;
• Instructables - How to make: Pirate Ship Cake (apologies for the double-shot, but this cake was too awesome NOT to link)
• Autopsy Babies - Think living dead dolls, but WORSE (WARNING: Gore! Do not look if you have a weak stomach, the gore-fiend in me had to link this due to the incredible craftsmanship).
• JoBlo - More Virals for The Dark Knight
• Wired - History’s Five Best Interfaces
• Kotaku - XBOX360 ‘Wii Remote’ Rumors.
• College Humor - Tesla Coil + Electric Guitar = Auto-Cool
• SearchMe - A really neat visual search engine. Type in what you want to search, it will produce the categories in which your search would fall into for more efficient ways of surfing the net. It’s in the beta stages so forgive it for having some kinks.

Latest Hellboy II: The Golden Army Poster, ganked from Superherohype.

This week Grant, Dave and Super Ugly take a journey through the murky underbelly of television, film and comics to compile a list of villians sure to send chills down your spine! Along the way the guys squabble over who wrote Red Red Wine, the ‘villianous’ Ben Linus and Nazis being popculture’s most endearing villians. Oh, and we announce the commentary contest winner a week early ’cause we’re weird!

Outro by our man Neil Diamond.

Click here to listen.

• Geocities (eiw) - Army of Darkness Choose Your Own Adventure (I cannot stress enough how fun this is)
• CNN - Love-struck Hacker Proposes Via Bejeweled
• JoBlo - GI Joe’s Scarlett… rawwwrr
• Sillof - Oh Sillof, you sly dog. Steampunk Star Wars. OH EM GEE! (also check out the currently unfinished Star Wars 1942 set)
• Instructables - How to make: ‘Fresh beats’ using 5 Nintendo Gameboys
• Chronicle - Computer Scientists to Congress: Don’t Tell Colleges to Install Filters on Networks
• Wired - Analysts Doubtful As Google Quarterly Earnings Approach
• PC Advisor - Cisco to kill Linksys sooner than expected!
• Space Daily - Milky Way’s Giant Black Hole Awoke From Slumber 300 Years Ago. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Sagittarius A* Milky-Way wgah’nagl fhtagn!!!

The second is the long-coming dreaded remake of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.” I know what you’re thinking, “But ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was a remake of ‘Seven Samurai’ and that wasn’t terrible.” True enough. In fact there are even a few things in John Sturges’s western that I like better (James Coburn is in it, for example). But here’s what TWC has in mind: “Seven Samurai” will start shooting in the fourth quarter for release in 2009. The cast will feature American, European and Asian stars, and a director is in advanced talks with TWC.

Guys, NO! What are you doing? Do me a favor from now on, and remake movies that had promising stories or concepts, but which failed to deliver excellent final products, okay? And by this, I absolutely do NOT mean that you should do the following:

Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Entertainment has acquired the screen rights to Japanese manga “Ghost in the Shell,” and they have plans to adapt the cyber-punk thriller as a 3-D live action feature. The film will follow the story of Motoko Kusanagi, a member of the covert operations section of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission, which specializes in technology-related crime.

GAH! Somebody bring me a drink.

In the most unfocused episode ever, the guys set out to respond to forum posts and wind up talking about their favorite non-geek hobby: sex. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, they also get pimp slapped by the Ho Slayer, go over their recent reads, the travesty that is American Idol, and the film ‘The Ruins.’

In this episode, the guys take a tour through their days as two-bit criminals. Somehow Dave and Ugly come out smelling like roses as Grant drops possibly the most disturbing story in Geek Savants history.

WARNING: Listening to this episode may result in a boner to the face!

Thanks!

If you want the petition now, it’s here.

I basically haven’t had time to enjoy the internet, much less add to it. We should be returning to our regularly scheduled geekery sometime soon.

• Moviehole - Bill & Ted Remake? “ATOMIC GORRILLLAASSS!” *air-guitar solo followed by disappointed sigh*
• Joblo - Newly released Dragonball pics. It’s official, our low expectations of this film are coming to fruition.
• Yahoo - Latest Hellboy II: The Golden Army trailer *drool*
• Kotaku -’The Church of Gamers’: Why the Term ‘Gamer’ Needs to Go
• Daily Mail - Volcanoes Belching Poison Gases Wiped Out The Dinosaurs?
• Telegraph - Baby With Two Faces Worshiped As Hindu God
• Wired - German Fans Create Real World of Warcraft Armor (images here)
• Instructables - How To Make: Weighted Companion Cube Tissue Box (it won’t threaten to stab your nose)
• Wired - Sex and Financial Risk Linked In Brain
• Escapist Magazine - The Charismatic Stallion that is Yahtzee reviews Army of Two

This is completely unrelated and not very geeky… It’s just plain weird.

You all remember as a kid getting those little toy-filled capsules from those vending machines at your local store, right? Yeah, they were the equivalent of crack to a 10-year old.

Well myself and a couple of friends decided to get some of these capsules to try and relive the days from when we were little. Oddly enough my friend Kirsty got a puzzle in hers, even more odd was what the puzzle was of. I managed to nab the picture and scan it:

Can anyone tell me what on earth is going on here? The only thing I can relate it to is the “ITS GOOFY TIME!” meme.

Take a moment to remember your first computer… it’s how you ended up here, after all.

Click here to enlarge.