I'm on a nice safe bit of high ground, but I just went for a drive past a nearby creek and there's piles of dirt and weed all over, and fences and signposts are all knocked flat over.

It doesn't look good again for Brisbane, or parts of NSW. We should be okay where we're at, but apparently with the incoming tide our storm-water drains (they're connected) may overflow and cause some flooding.

Yeah it's not a great summer. I'll probably be doing disaster relief work for the next couple of weeks.

Went to a place called Gravity Hill today, it's where you put your car or really anything that rolls at the bottom of this hill and it'll roll up it by itself, it's pretty crazy.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.ph ... 0941236479

I've been fine in Sydney - raining and windy, but nothing bad. My uncle is in Mullumbimbee and is alive, but has lost power and is from my understanding basically flooded in.

What happened to "Friends don't let friends get friends haircuts..."?

If that's Jerry Cantrell then I'm heartbroken.

Regarding the floods - I've got family in Hervey Bay that are alright, but they're boxed in by the floods in Maryborough and Bundaberg. Does anyone know how bad the flooding is in northern NSW, if there is any? Most of the news I've seen is solely focusing on what's happening in Qld.

Filled in the national student survey the other day and got a £10 voucher for amazon for doing so. It took me three minutes tops. Gonna get British Steel and Stained Class for three minutes work.

Jay-Z is an incredible rapper, from Reasonable Doubt to The Blueprint 3. Reasonable Doubt is basically second only to Enter the 36 Chambers.

Damn I need to start listening to some Jay-Z. Also have you heard the GZA's solo album 'Liquid Swords'?

Yeah, I've checked out their album and it's pretty good. Their singer tries a little too hard to be King Diamond, but overall a neat band.

so tired, greasy and gross. Sight seeing/exploring a country is super awesome, but travelling itself is one of the worst things going.

Siberia was good btw Napero (in response to your question a few pages back). The most intense place. I'll upload a heap of stuff on fbook- the landscape thread when I get home

A long time ago, when I first got into Wu-Tang, but I didn't really like it. My taste in hiphop has evolved a bit since then though, I should revisit it. I have a lot of respect for Jay-Z for a few reasons: His debut album didn't come out until he was 27 - 28, and already made a fortune selling drugs. The life experience is reflected in his (truly poetic) lyrics, especially on those early albums. Then he went legit and made even more money. He started his own record label and has been self-released since the first album, one of my favorite lines of his: "I don't get dropped; I drop the label."

As his career went on he got better at writing radio songs (short verses, catchy hooks, maybe a bridge) but on Reasonable Doubt he was very much doing his own things, some of the songs on that album have verses that go on for minutes.

Damn, sounds rad. I'll download The Blueprint when I get myself out of bed.

There's now a "Black Flag" and "Flag," neither of which involve Rollins or Dez. That's not necessarily a dealbreaker for me as there are original members still involved in one incarnation or another, but this is looking awfully dubious.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2 ... _to_e.html

I'm on day one of a self-imposed two day vacation before starting a new job. What I've done so far:

Listen to Savage Grace's Master of Disguise (most perfect speed metal drumming ever?)
Listen to Manowar's Into Glory Ride (Last two songs are world destroyers)
Listen to Sortilege's s/t EP (as classy as trad steel can get I believe)

If everyday was this good I'd have no frame of reference and probably wouldn't enjoy it as much.

Tell me about it. I made a trek across California over winter break with hardly any money at all. When we got to Santa Cruz I had food poisoning from food bank bread and had to lance an infection on my foot myself. Not fun

Liquid Swords is my favorite Wu solo album. Ghostface is my favorite individual rapper as he is more consistent with his albums. Ironman, Supreme Clientele, Fish Scales and Apollo Kids are great albums. Would like to get Uncontrolled Substance by Inpectah Deck as it's really hard to find.

Anyone dig Gravediggaz?

I'm not really into that kind of Hip Hop, I mean, other than Wu-Tang. I prefer stuff like Aim, or Aesop Rock.

Yeah, Six Feet Deep is pretty kickass.

They're making a sequel to Insidious.

Jesus Christ.

Not sure about this. While I would rather it be Keith or Henry, at least they got a singer who was in the band at one point. My gut reaction is that they should just let a good thing die. Black Flag is one of my favourite bands of all time, and I'd rather them not risking a lame reunion album, decades after they released "In My Head". Hopefully they can turn out something good, but at this point I only think a reunion with Rollins would be a good idea, and still then that could have turned out lame.

Same here, big fan of Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, El-P, shit like that. I'm into Wu-Tang too, but I find a lot of the more popular/modern acts barely tolerable (no disrespect to them or their fans).

Eh. My older cat died Friday evening without any warning. She was about eight or nine years old and seemingly healthy other than being slightly overweight and having a bit of a ligament or tendon problem with her hind leg. We were giving her medication for the pain but only as prescribed by her vet. According to my mom, she was just laying on her little perch and began growling enough to warrant driving her to the vet. She stopped breathing on way to the veterinarian's office. It feels so fucking shitty that I wasn't at least with her when she died- especially since she would specifically come to me when she was scared or being attacked by our other cat. The feels

my gf texted the bottom pic to Sakis which he thought was awesome

Mommy, whats a Gravedigga?

That album is awesome, fucking hillarious. shame their other albums are nowhere near as good. I'm slowly aquiring the early-period Wu-related albums, still got a fair few to go though. Lately I've been really into Cannibal Ox, Company Flow, Vast Aire etc.

Just came back from a youth group church meeting after being promised cool discussions and free food and drinks. The promise was fulfilled, but I also feel like I have been among robots for the past couple of hours.

Most unheralded Wu release: Killarmy, Dirty Weaponry. Also the best part about Wu is how many incredible records they released in a short span of time. Tical, Purple Tape, Ironman, Liquid Swords, Return To The 36 Chambers are all awesome and dropped in something crazy like an 12 month span. And that was after 36 Chambers. Wheels really started to come off with Gravel Pit though. Oh man. Gravel Pit. SMDH.

Man, the problem with Killarmy is they get AMAZING production, but Killa Sin is so much better than all the rest of them as far as emceeing ability that it isn't even close. It eventually becomes uncomfortable when you just want to hear 2 guys out of a huge posse.

I just shut it out because, honestly, the songs on that disc are awesome. Its like complaining about Cappadonna with the Wu - he's killed it for what, one verse ever? Otherwise the dude never seems to totally belong on anything, even in limited doses on posse songs. But you get through it.

Yeah but Capp being weak is a huge minority (some might throw Masta Killa or U-God in the underwhelming column) whereas it's the exact inverse with Killarmy. Don't get me wrong I still own all their albums except one, but I'm usually holding my breath until its time for Killa Sin or Dom P to rhyme. Rza's little brother or cousin or whoever sounds just like him, with even less flow. It's bonkers.

Yeah I thought about saying that about U-God and MK because, hey, they're along for the ride too, but Cappadonna sorta came in as a substitute Wu member and you know, nobody likes Curly Joe, you feel me?

Actually, you know what other kinda-Wu related disc was real good? La The Darkman's Heist of the Century. Killa Priest's Heavy Mental was pretty good but I haven't spun it in forever.

(also did I mention I really like Wu-Tang Clan because I really do like Wu-Tang Clan)

:head explodes:

MK is underrated if anything. The only verse he had on 36 Chambers he killed it. He had never rapped before that. His verse on Snake on Return to 36 Chambers is also killer.

I definitely second Heist of the Century. Such a great album.

http://media.nuclearblast.de/bands/Spla ... index.html
And not one with alternative artwork. Are Suffocation so far removed from general feedback that they genuinely believe fans want that design on a t-shirt.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/victorville-part-five





http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... #printMode

The same guys who made a killing off the housing bubble are now snapping up the very same houses at bargain bin rates to collect rent on them for the rest of time. There's your American dream of home ownership.

Damn after reading this page I remembered that MA has a surprisingly extensive rap fan base. I always usually thought the two genres had opposing fans or something but I guess not.

There is no style of music which does not have a strong contingent following on MA. Everything overlaps somewhere.

I created a second user on my computer so I could open up a new iTunes. I'm adding all of my non-metal music into the iTunes, and foobar2000 (for the lossless files). I even set up a scrobbler and everything for last fm. I was getting overwhelmed trying to wade through mountains of metal albums in my folders to get to non-metal albums.

I feel like for the past year or two metal has completely dominated my time, and my music preference. I want to have metal be separate from the other music, because there's something about metal that's 'different' than other music. Getting into metal only leads to more metal. All of the genre is kind of closed off from other music. There's hardly any noticeable influence with a metal band that doesn't come from other metal bands. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't help when I want to be into more music than just metal.

Although I love the genre, and I feel like I've dug so deep, I found gems that only the extremely hardcore, such as a lot of the users on this site (I presume), and myself only into. My idea is to start with a clean slate, except I can still come back to my old library any time I want. I barely have any non-metal albums to listen to. I think seeing them all in iTunes already makes it a lot clearer, and it will be easier for my eyes and mind to fill in the blanks once I get to finding new, non-metal albums to add to the library.