Music

posts about that which can sooth even the most savage of beasts

Holy long time without a post batman!

 

it has been 7 months! seven… S-E-V-E-N… I ought to be ashamed of myself!

but then, I am not, I’m just lazy. So there, now you know it.
What you can do with it? Idaknow… shout it to the world? or perhaps write it on some paper and mail it to me, so I am reminded of it?

anyways, a lot of things have happened since the last post in March(hell, with the time passed I could almost claim the last post to be in the last millenia or something…. perhaps I should ask some archaeologist?).
I can’t remember all of them even if I wanted to, so just a short summup of what I can actually remember:
– I went to this new LARP called Aragnes. It is a nice concept they are making there; instead of getting points at the end of an event(which is rather the standard) you don’t get them, instead, if you want to learn a new skill, you actually go and request a teacher(or kick one of the other players who can teach it) and you practice on it for 3 days, and then you can use it. I know it doesn’t sound reasonable for a thing like that to be that short, but you have to strike the balance between realism and playability as you only have 2 events a year(quests not counted in). it also has a food system, eg. you have to get 5 food by the end of a big event, or else you will starve!(not OC, but IC of course). anyways, went to the event in may I believe and I liked it, but not sure what to think of it. and a couple of weeks back I had the second event, and now I absolutely LOVED it! They did this end boss ‘battle’ which was the most awesome one I have ever seen and the best part: hardly any fighting involved! only 2 mobs(for me) in the beginning, after that only traps and the final encounter. which was very awesomely done(can’t stress that enough). Kudos to the NPCs and Gamemasters!
– I went to the Summoning. it’s the biggest LARP in the Netherlands(afaik) with about 500 players(so about 700-750 people in total if you count everyone else working on it, if not more). now on this scale a lot of things shift, you can forget the person to person diplomatic crap, now it’s group vs group. A lot more diplomatics(and I mean a lot more). Bluff-checks(you don’t know what the other can do, are you ready to test it?(read: to every kiddo you do the Dirty Harry’s(Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?) thing and see if your bluff get’s checked(which is loads of fun, and I seem to win a lot of them, strangely enough))) and just Big Cojones esé! Best part: Playing a Khaladan there! We are a tight group of 11(or as we are now: 15) and we have the habit of picking the stupid most idea(not to be confused with suicidal, which we don’t do…mostly) and execute it. and we get away with it, why? see the bluff-check for that. example: one of our team was stricken down by 6 man. I storm at them(that is, with shield first, weapon drawn and in a heavy armour), position myself in between them and bluff them on attacking me. which was an awesome action. not the best of ideas, but hey it worked, I won that fight without even dishing out a blow.
– work and all that jazz is same old, same old
– Kung Fu Panda 2 and X-men: First Class were as enjoyable as my partner in crime was(we really ought to pick a new movie some time)
– Music was found
– Lost
– and found again
– Epic Rap Battles of History
– and much, much more.

Now, On to ze music Maestro!
Imma starting with a Disney song(yeah, Disney) because my partner in crime posted a reference a few days ago that made me find it… plus, it’s too happy 😉

Next is another Disney song, cause everybody wants to be a Cat:

now, above song made me want to listen to that kind of jazz, behold: Louis Armstrong vs The Duke(Ellington that is) and It don’t mean a thing:

Found this one some time ago, Rondo Veneziano – Musica Fantasia:

and through above one I found Emma Shapplin, and her song Reprendo Mai Più

and I found this old classic again: Margaret Singana – We are growing:

I can remember this song(dunno how I found it again, but it was lost to me a loooong time) from my childhood. An older friend at the time(read, me being 4 years or so, he was the son of some acquaintances from my parents) made this tape for me and My First Sony because I always pestered him about these Synthesizer songs to be played when I was over at theirs. Theme from Rain Man(originally composed by Hans Zimmer, not sure whom played this particular version):

and to close off: some more rock-y songs, because I wouldn’t be me without them 😛
Billy Talent – Devil in a midnight mass:

One of the most awesome songs ever, by Queen:

don’t ask how I found this one: Five Finger Death Punch(kudos for he(or she) who knows the reference) – 100 ways to hate:

and thanks to Salvi(you metal bitch! m/): Sabaton – Ghost Division:

and I close this post with a classic(seriously, that guitar♥): Still got the Blues for you – Gary Moore

Sleepless noise

 

So, I hereby grace you all with a post like in the old times once more, random and after a long period of nothing.

Reason for this gracing is a sleepless night on my side, all thanks to something unsaid by a certain someone. oh, and the fact I went too bed with energy too burn might not have helped.
I so hope I can settle this thing soon once and for all, hopefully in a very good way too! Then I can make a post which explains a few things posted on here 😉

In the mean time in my life…. nothing really earthshattering has happened. Life has gone on in the same boring old fashion. Work has been the same, personal life pretty much has been the same. oh and the SPSD came back together after laying low due to RTW(makers of APB) going bankrupt.
The initiator has been Oriagi, faithful Oriagi. I only came accross the reactivation a few days after the post, something in me called me towards the site to see if anything changed, and boy did it.

Suddenly those old boards jumped too life again and folk are on it daily, even though APB isn’t coming out for another month or two or so(by another company and different paymodel).
In the mean time we play Minecraft and Battlefield Bad Company 2, those games are fun!

Minecraft is graphically one of the least attractive games but the possibilities it offers is just staggering. you start in this world made out of so called blocks, these blocks can be ‘mined’ and if done by the right tools you can reuse said block to make it into something else, like a house, some stairs, a new pickaxe or, why the heck not, the USS Enterprise(not made by me, mind you!) . Basically anything you can possibly imagine is possible in one way or the other. I have set up a private Minecraft server, so if you have the game(paid version!) and want to join give me a holla and we will see if you get the details or not 🙂  On a sidenote and for the record, I still try to convince Ashley to come play this game as well, all attempts so far unfruitful.

On Battlefield Bad Company 2(BC2 hereafter), it’s good old Battlefield as I knew it! So far pretty much all versions of the game after Battlefield 2 where such utter crap I became to ignore the series in total, until Salvi(of the SPSD) mentioned it to me. Boy, am I glad she did. the game is absolute fun and I sometimes sit in cover counting down to jump out and start blasting the mofo that kept me sitting in cover. not always succesful in either killing or surviving, but that’s a price you pay. I love it. also, should you happen to have it, make sure you set the mediocre sound from Hifi to Wartapes! I don’t know why on earth they decided not to use that soundmode, but hell, it now sounds like your in a real war! soo much better. an explosion now really sounds like and explosion! it just doesn’t go boom, it goes BOOM on a different level!

As for the music(there will always be music, for why have had we be graced by ears if not for listening pleasure?) I have made a selection which I can only describe as Noise and more Noise.

First off is something Salvi showed to me, apparently hers and her brother’s favourite song(and mine too!). I must, however, give the warning to all listeners that this piece is best described as noise and that thus a warning is appropriate. other then that, enjoy the Metal m/ song is by Strapping Young Lads – Detox

Second off is Rammstein with Rosenrot, because it is awesome. A little bit less noise.

Third is another Rammstein song, this time more noise with Zwitter

Fourth is a song out of another genre, it’s Fall Out Boy with This Ain’t A Scene, This Is An Arms Race

Lastly I conlude with a song out of yet another genre of music, totally different from all above and definately NOT described by the word noise, classical is far more accurate, it’s also a two part piece(15 minutes, but sit down and enjoy this masterpiece) Ravel – Bolero (sidenote, the director doesn’t kill people, I swear!)
Part 1: 
Part 2: 

Pastorale

 

Last one for today, I promise 😛

I just came accross this Dutch song, and I had to post it here.
Even though most of you won’t be able to understand the singing, the music should still sooth you 🙂
Ramses Shaffy and Liesbeth List – Pastorale:

You can find the lyrics if you continue to read(translated as well, even though not too accurate it correctly translates it) Continue reading  

Yet Another Update

 

indeed, another update!

basic reason is that I am at home and to sick for work, but too clear in the head to lay in bed and hallucinate the day through.

so while I’m getting bored out of my head with 38.7 Degrees(Celcius) I might as well do some update work I was thinking(see post below).
When that was done I was pondering what I could do next, and guess what? it was blogging.
I have quickly browsed through my posts and found two things:
1. I had said I had found a song long ago but there wasn’t an online version of it, well, there is now!
2. I happened to notice that I failed to give you an update from Pascal after the second LARP I went too, Omen.

So, to start off with the Omen thing:
As I have said we went there with a party for a Mercenary group. The group consisted out of 4 folks: Me, Steven, Arjan(met him at Dwaler) and Wim(a neighbour/friend of Steven).
I had the ‘faithful’ job off tank, Steven was my polearm damage buddy, Arjan the plate meatshield and Wim was our healer.
We weren’t liked by the camp(IC) as it’s a refugee camp and we charged coin for our services, you can imagine why. Still, we got an assignment. We were hired by the local Cemetarykeeper Jacques (don’t ask where/how he got the gold, it was solid :P) to march with others to a nearby town off Stoppeldorp, which was said to be raided by Satires(half-beast, half-men, protectors of the forest). So we were dispatched to find out along with a warband. We were in charge of the band as we had the most military experience, but halfway another small group took over (not without discussion I might  add) and as they did the band became uncertain and such.
As we approached the village a dark looming presence took upon us and send us to be paranoid and with a short fuse, yet we carried on. It was not for long until we found out that the village was now in the hands of the Undead and that they had prepared necromancers and Death knights to counter our band.
As we faced them we were uncertain what to do as the bickering over control was still going on, needless to say we were completely butchered, but somehow a good few of us got away. It was also at this point things became hectic, and in the middle of the figth we lost sight of Steven, thinking he was captured/wounded by the enemy we made our way back(carefully) to see if we could find him. It was then we found out that he had some accident involving a sword catching him(by accident) in the eyes, at which he sat dazed on the side of the figth, so ICly he was still with us.
At that point we decided to take the OC shortcut back to the camp as it was warm, it was here that things became unpleasant. The head necromancer and some of his party cam walking by with their hands up(meaning they are OC and not there ICly)but those hands went down as they spotted us. That was point number one. Next we were captured and converted to their God Kalitee(not loved back in the camp) and then we were escorted back on the shortcut to the camp.

It is here that the biggest point comes(and the reason of the long story above): The headnecromancer told some Elves(OC!!) that we were converted, and with that information the Elves used IC!! to hunt us. This thing is called META-gaming and is a VERY big nono in LARPing. Yet it happened. But what’s just as worse is that even though we could be saved by a ritual the Organization pushed the Elves to kill us.
Which happened.
I still can’t say how pissed we were about this fact. In fact, coming event(next week) is a make or break for us. The reason we still try it is because of the setting and some of the guys we met(Jacques and Mok/Count Gray/Mok being the biggest ones for me)
This all happened halfway the Saturday, so I rerolled a different Character: Sanders. An Ice Mage. Not much to say about him as I am not very reluctant to deepen him out for obvious reasons.

but let’s not hang at the sour thing that is the META-gaming. Music Meastro!

Let’s start off with the song I promised you:
Junkie XL vs Saffron –  Crusher

The second set of songs all come from Vienna Teng. She’s an artist discovered through Ashley, the Elven Maiden I referred to a few posts back.
I’ll start off with my favourite: Eric’s Song

Next up is Antebellum:

Third off is My Medea:

and she has lots more! and all jsut as awesome, be sure to check her out!

enjoy!

New site, new times, no old posts

 

aaaand we are back in action, oh faithful readers!

Took a long while, but here we are with a new and improved site(if I say so myself). I’ve switched the backend from E107 to the well known WordPress.
This also allowed me to pick a few neat things. for example,  images will be shown with a lightbox(you’ll see soon enough what I mean 😉 ) the gallery now is fully integrated(albeit as empty as the post history, for now) but what’s more nice for me, I don’t have the need to ‘hack’ the database to insert YouTube™ videos! and for you faithful readers I picked a theme I think looks real nice! if you don’t agree with that….well… guess you’ll have to live with it! 😛

but enough about the site, time for some real life update, you lot can’t check it, but the last blog was old, 6 months to be precise. Life has gone on without much exciting updates since then, a bit to my dismay, but it’s going steady I guess.

The news I do have however is LARP. Coming sunday I’m going to do a Quest(basically an afternoon LARP event) which I am looking forward to, I’m also nervous about it as the level of performance is, from what I have heard, rather high. So me as a newbie don’t want to screw it up!
the character I am going as is Egul. Egul is a warmage in the Lands of the Pharaoh and is currently a bodyguard to Bram Teunissen, Mastersmith of the Tradeguild of the Four Winds(dutch: Bram Teunissen, Meester smid van het Handelsgilde der Vier Winden), he will be, through his Master, a member of that Guild(I hope). Egul came from a small town in the Kingdom of the Pharaoh, he was trained in the arts of magic from when he was young, but they soon found out he was more adept at infusing Runes to items then conjuring spells out of thin air. and as such he continued his training as a warmage instead of a Dragonian or Griffon(‘normal’ mages). He wasn’t the best of his class but he was adept enough to be deemed ready to venture out at a rather young age. He eventually became friends with Bram Teunissen, which he guarded after a while. Also of note is the fact he doesn’t particularly like Elves(yea there are Elves in the setting, think of them more like (former) slaves) and only for his Masters sake he tries to keep his mouth shut against his wife, which happens to be an Elf.

The week after that I have The Dwaler again, a full weekend event, the same one as we started out at, but this time I will play a Mage/healer. I can’t say much more about the rest as it might ruin some of the plans we have(our ‘opponents’ may read this blog). Then we have it relatively easy for two weeks until we hit ‘Omen 10’ where I play a Watermage named Sanders(Pascal the merc died there after making a bad decision of not killing some bad guy and selling his soul off to him).
Three weeks after that we have the full event of the Keeper of Dreams(Lands of the Pharaoh 3) where I can hopefully continue Egul’s life 😀

so that’s about it 🙂

oh! music! I almost forgot that(not ;)):

First I’ll start off with my current favourite:  One – Swedish House Maffia ft. Pharell

Second is another one of Pharell, but this time with his own band:  Hot’n’Fun – N.E.R.D

and to top it off, an oldie I rediscovered: Omen III – Magical Affair