amazingadrian

It seems like every time I really get into a band, they break up!  We can now officially count Stratovarius among that number.

Timo Tolkii, the band's songwriter, has officially disbanded Stratovarius. He claims that the other band members were slowly growing more hostile to him, which he says was motivated out of greed. Since he was motivated by the music and artistry, and a band driven by greed does not  reflect the message he wants his music to have, he decided to close the band.

The remaining members of Stratovarus wish to continue, though Timo thinks they are driven by evil now.  Timo is starting a new band, named after what was going to be Stratovarus's next album: Revolution Renaissance. After exchanging some nasty statements with the other members of the band, he ended up severing himself completely from the Stratovarius name, signing all his rights, the name "Stratovarius", and all of his royalties to the remaining band members. He says he doesn't care if they wish to continue on without him; that the music will speak for itself.

So now I'm really  torn here. Do I follow Timo, or do I follow Stratovarius? Can I follow both when Timo thinks Stratovarius has become evil? How can I give my support to either band in such a situation. Timo seems like the more earnest of the sides, but Stratovarius is the band I was following.

What the fuck guys, what the fuck?!

Sorry about not posting the last of my countdown on Christmas Day, but I got my Dad The Witching for the PC, and he borked the system pretty badly trying to get it to run. After discovering that the drive failed to be recognized by Windows, he uninstalled the software and reinstalled it, searched for updated drivers, restarted the computer half a dozen times, and eventually resorted to plugging the dvd drive into another PCI slot on the motherboard. That did the trick, though by the time this was all done we fond out the keyboard wasn't working. Now we've got a fancy wireless one, and I have to type real slow, or else it will start skipping letters. :/

I had a good Christmas at home with my family. As usual, I got some of what I wanted, but most of what I hadn't put on my list, but were cool gifts anyways. :)  I got Kingdom Hearts 2, DragonBall Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, Mega Man ZX Advent (DS), a cookbook, a crank flashlight, both expansions for Oblivion, and a World Of Warcraft calendar. Oh, and the typical loads of Christmas Candy! Everyone liked the gifts I got them this year, which is absolutely wonderful! I just wish the game I got Dad wouldn't run so choppy, but I know it's his hardware screwing up...Man, I am never ever going to put my own computer together after this. Dad and I, our computers are about at the same level (technology wise; mine has a bit more storage, but processor capability should be about the same), yet Dad's runs so very very poorly compared to mine. Mine was store bought too. :/

I also got Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which I already had; so today I went into town to exchange it. Picked up the appropreate Vice City Stories game that Dad intended to get me but got mixed up. I guess he didn't look hard enough, since we found the title right there in the same store.  Went to Rainbow Records from there to browse their selection and got "Minitues To Midnight" by Linkin Park. I also lucked out and fount "Intermission" by Stratovarius in the bargain bin!  After some deliberations, and getting the opportunity to listen to Dream Theater's new album (also in the bargain bin), I'm sorry to say (mremaknu), that Stratovarius just does it better.  Also, what is with Dream Theater? Did they get a new lead singer or something? They sound almost completely different on this new album...a bit edgier, I'd say.  Speaking of edgy, I can tell that Linkin Park had difficulty putting together their latest offering.  The album has some great LP style songs, and a few that seem slapped together. There are a few that are just ladden with cuss words, and sound like they were put on the album just to get it that little advisory sticker to make it seem edgy, and not elegant, like the rest of the album sounds like. *shrugs* I like enough on it, so I'm keeping it. Their brand of technically advanced rock/rap has grown on me over the years, and I don't mind the emo as long as they keep sounding good.

Tomorrow I'll probably go back into town and blow the rest of my Christmas money. :p  I intend to pick up Adema's "new" cd, and possibly another DS game to help pass the time. Don't think I'll have enough left over for the Orange Box like I was hoping, but I can always get that later when it discounts.  

Oh yeah, and I got your card gebohq! It was awesome! :D

So...In all my time of collecting music, I've never encountered this problem before. Some of you who read this may recall my mentioning that I ordered a cd on my birthday; "Destiny" by Stratovarius.  I received it in the mail when I went home on Saturday.

The disk turned out to be manufactured and marketed in Mexico, as it had a promotional inlay and stickers printed in spanish.  No problem there, right? It was the disk I ordered, after all...But then I went to play it. It turns out the disk has a frusterating, yet unique, print flaw: All the songs on the disk are in the wrong order. I know the disk is not a bootleg; it came factory sealed in a gloss digipack, all in high quality, with the correct album cover and everything.  The music itself plays fine, with no interruptions. It's just that some of the tracks on the album have been unintentionally rearranged. Track 3 became Track 10, for example, and so forth. Music is still crisp, and the cd has played in every player I've put it in so far...There's just that one annoying flaw...

I sent Sanctuary Records (Stratovarius' publisher on this side of the ocean) an e-note inquiring about it.  It's possible I got a bad disk from a known batch of misprints...or it could be that they have no idea one of their factories in Mexico is misprinting some cds...or it could be that I just have a remarkably unique compact disk.  Either way, I figure it would be something they'd want to know about, in case if it is a failure of quality control somewhere.  It's quite surprising, because usually when there's an error at the printing/factory level, the resulting disk fails to play at all. Music will end up cut off or jumping around, or songs will bleed into each other...A working album with the flaw I've got  must be pretty rare. So, yeah. At this point, I'm still waiting for a response from them.  I'll probably get some kind of washboard response or a dismissal; but...eh. *shrugs*

Oh my God, I can't beleive that online practice test on Microsoft Excel took me two hours to do.. I feel like a frikken vegetable. I think I need to take a nap perhaps, and come back to the computer later.

Before I do that though, allow me to share some random junk with you all.

First off: How to Abuse Zen. Ever wonder why shaolin monks are always at peace? It's because they know they are better than you.



Then an AMV someone showed me. This is pure awesome, and this theme fits Super Android 17 rather well. If DBGT puts you off, please listen to this just for the music at least, because it is just that cool. These guys are listed as Stratovarius, but they sound exactly like Dream Theater, and one of the songs listed as theirs, "Hunting High And Low" is also a title of one of Freedom Call's albums...so I'm not sure if this song is attributed right. Anyone out there know?



Also, the best drum solo evar!