Let's Meet the Neighbors

Granted my first reaction when there's new neighbors these days is to crawl further into the shadows and stare suspiciously out the window through the blinds... Yes, I'm kidding, sheesh... But you finally get to see some of Foamy and Germaine's neighbors in the newest Foamy installment. And thankfully, creepy pizza-delivery guy (I'm completely blanking on his name here for some reason) is still nowhere in sight. I have to admit, though I am kind of missing all the episodes where Germaine rips him a new one for being such a creepy stalker. Hopefully this new guy turns out to be better if she hits it off with him...

Random Music Artist of Today: QNTAL

I've decided that today is going to be my Random Music Artist day, don't ask me why, I don't know. But today's winner is QNTAL. This is the moment where a lot of people stare blankly at the screen and go "WHO?!" QNTAL is a German band that started up back in 1991 and are an "electro-medieval" band. Yet again, this is your cue to look confused when I say the term "electro-medieval." Just to save everyone a lot of headaches and curiosity, this is what electro-medieval sounds like...

P.S. This is one of my favorite songs by QNTAL...

Plainly speaking I love their singer, Syrah's, voice and she is one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen. She's so elegant, especially when she's on stage, and even pictures (see to your right) of her will have you going "Wow!" See what I mean? O.K. enough of my drooling, back to the rest of the band... 

So far QNTAL has six full CD's currently out and plenty of other singles and EP's. Most of the time they sing in Latin or in medieval German with some Galician-Portuguese thrown in there. In later albums you hear a bit of English sung too, but no matter what the songs are amazing. Their most recent album was QntalVI: Translucida which came out in 2008. Personally, I can't wait until their next one comes out. The band's still together and shows no sign of stopping now. Go ahead and check out their site to get more info on them and to get some of their music. Happy listening my little gothlings! 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

This post is going to disappoint a lot of people and frustrate a lot more, and for that I apologize ahead of time. For those of you who haven't kept up with my blog, I already expressed my initial... let's say distaste, for the fact that a movie I loved was being remade for American audiences. And I'm not going to lie, it really started to irk me that the main defense for the movie came from the fact that it was being directed by David Fincher. Is he a brilliant director? Yes. Are his films usually amazing and gritty beyond all expectation? Yes. BUT previous work means nothing in an industry where a director can crash and burn his own career into ashes (-cough- M. Night Shyamalan -cough-) within the span of about two films. And after hearing "But it's directed by David fucking Fincher" so many times I nearly wrote off seeing the thing entirely out of pure spite. After much deliberation, I decided that I would go to see it in theaters, if for no other reason than to prove that I had grounds for disliking the remake. Then I happened upon an eight-minute clip of the movie that was released about a month ago. I figured I might as well watch it to get a good taste of what was in store for me. Believe it or not, that one little clip actually gave me some hope for the film. At the end of it I was sitting there and thinking to myself, "Well that looks pretty damn good, Mr. Fincher."   So when I took a look at my phone when searching for movies for me and Pat to go see today, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo immediately caught my attention. Once I had confirmation for approval and the time, we were all set to go see it. The opening credits kind of confused the hell out of me, not going to lie. It looked like some kind of weird techno music video, soundtrack was kick ass though. The rest of the movie was pretty intense. And I don't mean a gradual build-up and then intense moments, the whole thing is intense, it varies in severity. But honestly, I don't really know what to make of it. The plot varies in some pretty significant ways in certain areas so I can't really treat it as a genuine remake, but its still stuck in my mind as such. I'm going to have to watch it again and give a better review after the second viewing... Sorry guys.

A Song of Ice and Fire

This is a series that got started back in 1991 by George R.R. Martin. It didn't get published until 1996 and the most recent book A Dance With Dragons just came out a few months ago. And frankly, this series kicks ass! Martin manages to pull things off that other writers would shrink away from the possibility of. Now you'll have to bear with me here, there's a lot of information just in the first book alone and it's nearly impossible to talk about it without either 1) confusing the hell out of people or 2) revealing major spoilers about the plotline. My friend Mike (a huge fan of the series, huge as in he created a DND character based off of Robert Baratheon) constantly taunts me with his knowledge of the later books. I've only made it through A Clash of Kings so he knows a lot more about the series than I do. Before this I was only watching the HBO TV series that came out back in April and it blew my mind. I'm not kidding, after the 8th or 9th episode I sat there, staring at the screen, mouth hanging open, and completely unable to believe what had just happened. And no, I'm not going to tell you what happened, that would completely destroy the point of taunting you with the knowledge until you read or watch the series for yourself. But if you want a little intro to it here goes...

It takes place in the Seven Kingdoms, the Hand of the King has died so King Robert Baratheon goes north to find Lord Eddard Stark, his oldest friend, to ask him to take up the post. The King's biggest problems are dealing with the children (Denaerys and Viserys Targaryen) of the previous King, who was killed by Robert's brother-in-law Jaime Lannister, and dealing with his in-laws and wife, Cersei Lannister. Stark owns Castle Winterfell and has five children and one bastard son, John Snow, who's desperate to become a man of the Night's Watch. Stark finally agrees to take the post after learning that the first Hand was murdered. Before they can even leave to return to King's Landing, Stark's younger son, Bran, "falls" from a window and nearly dies.

Did you manage to keep up with that? I'll be amazed if you did, and I've even left out some information, like Tyrion Lannister, the Queen's dwarf brother (my favorite character), and Khal Drogo, the Dothraki horselord Denaerys marries to help her brother forge an alliance to get the crown back. You have to be confused by this point if you haven't read the series. You should definitely check it out though. The book lineup looks like this...
1) Game of Thrones
2) Clash of Kings
3) Storm of Swords
4) A Feast for Crows
5) A Dance With Dragons
Happy reading/viewing!

I'm a Humbugger... And So is Foamy!

As I've previously alluded to, I am not the type of person to get head-over-heels into the Christmas spirit. If anything I am one of those people who can only be increasingly annoyed at those who insist on getting into the Christmas spirit so much they feel the need to go and run down children to get at the last Monster High Doll on the shelf. When the Christmas spirit involves being an asshole to almost everyone around you, I will so incredibly content in being anti-Christmas spirit I might as well be on cloud nine. At least Foamy understands...

Adrian's Undead Diary

Anyone who knows me at least decently well will not hesitate to tell you that I get tired of zombie movies really quickly. Reason being? Zombies don't scare me anymore. I'm serious, when 28 Days Later came out everyone was going on and on about how "It's the scariest zombie movie ever!" That alone kept me skeptical since Hollywood hasn't been able to produce a single zombie movie that's even managed to make me jump since I started getting into the horror genre. And when I finally managed to watch it, my reaction was thus... "Oh, ok, naked guy in a deserted hospital. Why is he not getting attacked, oh wait there we go." Repeat the second statement about a dozen times and you have my full review of the movie. Not to mention the nearly endless series of Resident Evil movies that continue to plague the theaters. Yes, I like Milla Jovovich, but there's only so many movies you can make out her being badass with superhuman powers and killing zombies out of hatred for her old employer for opening this can of cannibalistic worms in the first place. Yeah, call me desensitized to all hell but zombies do not scare me. They make me laugh hysterically. Yet, my friend Mike has rejuvenated my love of the walking dead and shown me the delights of a blog called "Adrian's Undead Diary." Basically the entire thing is set up as a journal of a guy who is trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse. But instead of it being filled to the brim with the who, what, where, when, and why as to how the apocalypse came about, it gives a more realistic twist to it and throws its hands up in the air and says "We give up! There's zombies running around, so get a gun in your hand and run your ass off in the opposite direction!"  Even the CDC can't pinpoint the origins of the disease. The whole thing is told from Adrian's point of view, who you don't know that much about other than he is a big man with a lot of tattoos who knows how to handle himself around violent situations. Granted I'm only about four journal entries deep so far, so maybe that changes later. Nevertheless, go and check this thing out. The entire site has the full archives of the entries, fan art, and even merchandise. It's pretty damn cool.

What Do 99.9% of Females Have In Common?

Yes, it is true, I have figured out yet another thing that Abovegrounders and Undergrounders alike can enjoy and find common ground on. Or at least the female section of both parties. Sorry guys, stereotypes dictate that you get left out of this one. And the one thing that 99.9% of females (whether goth, nerd, prep, etc.) is...

Yup... Chocolate. This thought suddenly came to me when I realized that my own problems from today would be solved with the half-slice of delicious chocolate cake that my mom left for me on the counter. And seriously, go out and ask any woman, odds are she's going to say that chocolate is amazing and will fix almost any problem. Yeah, there's going to be those rare few .1% that say they don't like chocolate (I do not understand you people), but nevertheless, whether the chick wears eyeliner as black as night or wears the brightest pinks she can find, she is probably going to love chocolate. Forget about the whole release of endorphins it produces to get you into a better mood anyway, there is something magical about chocolate that turns the world into a total utopia for that brief time that you're eating it. And yes, I realize the total irony of a goth chick saying that the world can be a total utopia while the vast majority of the population still inhabits it, but let me have my moment all right?

Something I Don't Get About Retail Dress Code

That's right, I don't get the fascination that a lot of retail chains seem to have when it comes to their dress code.  Maybe this is just my usual fashion sense kicking in, but honestly, I think that khaki pants are some of the ugliest pants I've ever seen in my life. Yet retail chains like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart seem to be fascinated with them, because all three of them require their employees to wear khaki colored pants. Now aside from the fact that I hate the word khaki to begin with (it sounds like someone hocking up a fur ball, or like their kuck, either way), there is no official color for khaki pants. I've seen so many different types of pants that all require as khaki, it's frankly confusing. Because my own retail job requires it I do own some khaki cargo pants. Now cargo pants I can at least live with because they're comfortable, but these dress pants that are khakis just make me cringe. They look like someone went and but them on the stove to cook and then took them off either too soon or too early. And most of the time they look as stiff as a well-done piece of bacon. And gods forbid they have wrinkles in them, because then they could be a well-done piece of bacon. There's something about the whole color that makes wrinkles even more noticeable than your average color pant. Like jeans or black dress pants, you get a few wrinkles in those and no one notices or even cares for that matter. Yeah, this is a rant, sorry, but it's something that's been rolling around in my head for at least a few days. Not to mention it directly contrasts with my ideal as far as dress codes go.

Everyone has a Secret Nerd

Now whether people like to admit it or not, everyone has something they do that would safely fall into the category of nerdy. Deny it all you like, you know it's true. Now my main question to the vast majority of society about these nerdy habits follows as thus: Why the hell is it such a big deal? When The Lord of the Rings trilogy was released about ten years ago (dear gods I feel old now) I got so obsessed with it that I started wearing my hair like Legolas. I'm being completely serious. My hair was really, really long and I had the side-braids and everything. I can almost guarantee that I was mocked for that and more when I was in junior high. And to be honest, I didn't give a fuck, except for maybe that one time when a little douche named Howie decided to embarrass me in front of the guy I was crushing on at the time while I was talking to him. Anyway... back to my point. Why these nerdy things that we do have to be a big secret? Granted some of the stranger crowds not only have no problem in accepting these weird things that their friends might do, but they are also completely comfortable in admitting to their own nerdy tendencies. I mean, come on, I still get crushes on fictional characters, most of them anime characters (L and Sebastian Michaelis make me swoon). Seriously people, if you really feel the need to go and tease your friend all because he decided to read The Flash comic book, you need to get over yourself. I can guarantee there's some kind of proverbial skeleton in your own closet that you wouldn't like anyone to know about. Lesson: Being nerdy can be fun, and everyone has their own secret nerd, so rejoice in it and live life.