Since i did’t update this space for quite some time, this site has reduced to be a place of my maps i made for the selected games in the far past. All recent posts are just about records I’ve bought. Let this island of the olde interweb still exist as long as I pay for it ;)
If you are for some reason still interested in what records i’m buying, just click here and you’ll be covered.
Nice additions in the end of this fine spring:
This is the most severe summer I’ve experienced during my entire life. Two full months of merciless heat is quite unbearable. Lucky me that I managed to flee for two weeks В to Morocco where the chill winds blow from the Atlantic ocean and there’s no smoke from theВ wood fires. I’ll post some selected pics taken in Morocco here later, when I’ll be able to think clearly again as it’s impossible at the moment due to lack of oxygen and high temperatures.
To bring some good stuff into the post here’s long awaited Land:Fire – “Shortwave Transmission” CD that I got before the vacation but was too fried to write about. Once again this is nice mix of industrial and ambient. Sometimes spacey, sometimes harsh and dark electronic sounds create trademark Land:Fire atmosphere of impending technological collapse.
I’ve returned from the nice trip to Suzdal yesterday. This is small town 185km from Moscow filled with Russian history. First mention about it is dated 11th century. This is church-monastery town, there’s so much churches that whenever you look you’d see some random church head. Actually there’s nothing more to see apart from these religious buildings and castles. Crowds of tourists from all over the world roam its streets and enjoy russian foods in quite a big number of restaurants. Weather was also merciful to us, it was contrast hot sunny and heavy rainy weather but generally it was pretty warm – proper russian mid-summer. Enjoy some pics.
Finally re-visited this cool city. Last time I been there was like 20 years ago and it doesn’t actually counts as I been there only 1 full day and didn’t see much. I liked SPB really much as it has its special atmosphere despite crowds of tourists all over the place. If to deviate a bit from the main tourist routes you might end up in the silent streets and squares. Early spring was also merciful with sunny and warm weather. We got to see Peterhof’s infamous fountain complex as well. Gonna return to this awesome city one day to see more.
Though tired and have little time to do something apart from work these days. Our company is on the edge of the crevasse before the release. There’s closed beta stage now. So we’re all sweating and working saturdays and all that nice crunch time game development madness is happening right now. So, this post is about nothing, just telling that I’m trying ot survive this hard winter and return to normal life closer to the spring.
Quite alot of time have passed since the last update. The reason is ismple: lack of time and inspiration to write something. Or you can call it general laziness. Anyway, the May turned to be unusually cold here, we were trying to survive chilling winds and rains here during the last two weeks, but seems things slowly turning back to normal summer schedule and one can go outside without thermal suit. And it seems nothing is able to push me to restore my photogallery back… I know the real reason of this, apart from laziness, I just don’t have new pics to show, so I really hope when I get new ones during my vacation two months later, I’ll just have no excuse not to revive my gallery. Until then, take it easy :)
But the point of this update to tell you about the last 4 recordings I’ve got recently. All of them (except DI6) came from the grim Southern Lord records. Lately, I became big fan of stoner rock and ordered some music of this kind. Southern Lord is considered the father label for such type of music and projects like Earth and SUNN O))) are the flagships of this genre. The first CD is Earth “Hibernaculum”. This is very slow rock, yet it’s heavy and moody. The first track is very catchy, it embedded itself to my head quite seriously, so i’m now walking with it sounding in my head looped all the time. Very nice album in general it also suits for the cold spring which passes beyond. There’s also compaion DVD with the interview and some bits of live of the band. Might come handy later when I’ll be serious fan of Earth.
Next CD is SUNN O))) – “Black One”. One of their top albums, very dark, slow and heavy droning… The music that fills everything within you with thick riffs and hellish darkness. This type of music always touched me by its primitivism and grimness. It’s not usual type of industrial electrodrones, it’s guitar based noise, which is always more alive you you can tell so. And if it treated with proper touch this guitar drone might become really heavy and nice sounding. I think I’ll start gathering SUNN O))) bit by bit in the future, though I’ll select carefully their albums as they’re quite varied by nature.
The next project atteacted my attention just because it features two types: Lee Dorrian of Cathedral and Stephen O’Malley of SUNN O))). This toxic mix resulted in uber heavy doom project. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine – “Rampton”. The music is the extra slow and heavy doom, that sometimes goes to kind of infra frequencies and destroy my ears. Lee’s vocals also add that special Cathedral’s atmosphere of bizarre. There are just three very lengthy tracks with somewhat funny titles like “New pants and shirt”, but it’s kinda hard to connect the music with such a funny title. Very cool project with just one single album. I think there’s no need for the second album as it will be impossible to outmatch the original.
And the final CD is by the good old Death in June – “The rule of Thirds”. This last album of the DI6 is quite light. I mean there’s just guitar plus some additional handmade thumps and sounds and of course nice vocal of D.Pierce. There’s no noises and all that stuff, just pure neo folk without any additional spices. Quite good and relaxing album for the DI6 fans.
Just a little note to those who’s wondering where the heck is my photo gallery – I took it offline because I ran out of space on this miserable hosting (just have 400megs) and not sure where to put my pics at the moment. Also, there was nothing new for the long period of time and that was another reason I took the gallery off as the old pics bored me immensely. Sorry to those who came here from the other sites that have links to my gallery…
With the release of WordPress 2.5 I decided to post in this dusty “blog” and test new WordPress which is now looks so leet that I feel out of place. Anyway, since the last site’ update almost 2 months have passed and it feels like 1 week. The life is quite monotonous work-home cycle here, with sporadic fun blasts like parties with friends, etc. I’m pulling myself out of the winter with the last effort. The spring is always quite depressing period for me as I fight two things: from the one side I’m kinda tired of the dark cold winter but from another I feel approaching summer sunny hell. And I’m not sure what to do to survive this collapse. The snow have melted. The mud, dirt and dust is now uncovered and lay all over the city, making me feel even worse. I’m craving for cleaning rains, but I know that there won’t be any heavy rain soon. Just sun that exposes all the old dirt making me feel sad. I wish this weather condition ends soon, making green leaves and grass cover ugliness of the world. But everything will be properly green in May or something, so it’s entire month or more to wait yet.
Living under these circumstances I’m still enjoying life as much as I can. I’ve finally read Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” which proved to be very close to the movie thus making movie indeed brilliant. I like Thompson’s style and enjoyed the book a lot. The book I’m reading now is Douglas Adams’ “Hitchiker Guide to the Galaxy”. This one is also very funny book with proper English humor which I’m fan of. I have a desire to re-watch the movie too.
In the gaming part of my life there’s hardcore raiding in WoW. We‘ve entered Hyjal Summit and Black Temple dungeons and raiding them constantly, which is really challenging and fun. I’m also very glad that there’s all Unreal Games available on Steam now. I was unable to buy UT3 here as it’s only russian version available (i hate translated games), but Steam gave me possibility to try proper UT3 and replay classic old Unreals if I ever will have spare time.
So this is basically what’s happening now at this end of the sewer. Nothing seriously exciting but not boring at the same time. Months sneak by while I’m busy performing my daily routines…
I’m not celebrating this x-mas as it’s different date here in Russia. I’m sitting at work and found free minute to update this empty and useless blog just to cheer up my capitalistic friends and tell them ‘Hello and marry x-mas, bastards!’.
Nothing interesting happened here last month. I’ve finished Bruce Campbell’s “Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way” book. Which was funny and easy reading. It’s somewhat adventure story about Bruce’s acting profession, featuring chases and beating. If you’re fan of him you might find this book amusing. China Mieville’s “Iron Council” was put back to the shelve as I found it very hard to read, so I’d rather wait for the proper hardcore fantasy mood and assault it for the second time. Really, this is very hardcore book, I’d rather read hc sci-fi than this one. I have to order new pack of the books, btw. So, going to the 2008 with the calm mood, see ya there…