Empire 20th Birthday Portfolio

Here is an amazing set of photos of some of the more iconic actors of our time. I thoroughly enjoyed it I hope you do to. Photo Collection

It looks as though we are being replaced.

Crack the Skye

Here is yet another one of my music reviews.

Crack the Skye by Mastodon was released in March of 2009. The First time I heard of Mastodon was on a video game review for the most recent Guitar Hero. At the time I thought nothing of it. As I started working this summer I happened to hear a song on a local radio station. The music was nothing terribly new, at first I just passed it off as another Black Sabbath type metal band. As the song continued I was completely sucked into the story and I had to know who this band was. After a few minutes of searching the web, I found that the song was Oblivion.

I quickly acquired the album and have listened to it at least once every couple of days since. ITS AMAZING!

As a drummer I appreciated the percussion in this album because the guy never stops. Even though the drumming isn't really flashy, it's very interesting to listen to. I am also a person who is very emotionally connected to music, for example: some music can make me cry.* Along that vein of thought, this cd has an amazing urgency to it, even though it sounds/feels very ethereal it is always forward moving.

The real hitter on this album is its lyrical content. This was very different from the band's 3 previous ones. All seven tracks fit together to tell a three tired story. The use of metaphor is hugely important, the album it self is dedicated to the lead singer's sister Skye, who committed suicide a few years ago. The 7 tracks demonstrate the seven stages of grief that people go through after the loss of a loved one.

The most obvious plot line in the album is a story of a paraplegic boy who travels around in a state disconnected from his body. He accidentally looses his connection to his body and gets sucked into a wormhole. He ends up meeting Rasputin and together they attempt to get the boy back to his body along the way they run into various obstacles. I'm not going to spoil the story and say if they are successful at this or not.

The final plot aspect in this CD is a artistic look at the fall of the last Czar of Russia and the rise of Communism. All of these metaphors run through the entire album making it a very interesting listening experience.

Pick it up, enjoy it!



*If you can find out one of the songs that makes me cry I'll give you something. (might be money, might be a hug, might be a punch in the stomach depends on my mood) It's not a song from this cd or band by the way. If it was that would be strange

I will post something of my own soon i promise.

the effect of advertising on our children

A thought on culture.

SOOOOOO It's summer and the job search continues, even though it could be argued that I have one. With the economy being in such a silly place people are either hiring like mad or they won't hire anyone. That isn't what I wanted to talk about today though.

A few Sundays back the pastor at the church my parents attend gave a few interesting stats on population growth and culture spread. Essentially what he was trying to point out is that in roughly 40 years Europe will be a Muslim continent. This is due to the fact that the ratio between Muslim and non Muslim children born, is 8 to 1.

The pastor wasn't trying to scare the congregation with these stats. He was merely trying to point out that this world will be very different in the next little while and our children with have to live in that world etc...

The way that he described it was specifically in terms of a loss of western culture in our country and Europe. Again it wasn't intended to strike fear but by the reactions of many in the congregation would be what I consider to be fearful ones. This made me think: Is the loss of western culture such a bad thing? I will admit that the portrayal of history in Europe may change which I think is sad that they may loose their heritage but that happens for example: any of the great conqueror races of the past.

Really, do we want to be holding onto this terribly materialistic and anti religious society? Most Muslims are more accepting of Christians than most westerners are. I am talking about the non-extremist ones; most of them share values that are similar to a Christian style of value system. The Muslim culture is suffering the same problem that the Christian culture is, many are in name only. In Turkey the giant mosques that used to be full all the time are nearly empty.

I do not think this spread of culture is necessarily a bad thing. It may in fact open even more avenues for the Christian message to be spread.

Anyways that was just something I have been pondering over a week or two. Here is a link to the stats I was talking about.

Muslim Demographics

I guess instead of saying have a good day it will soon be safety and peace be with you.

YES!