So life is pretty miserable today... lots of sneezing, bloodshot eyes, veins burning, head pounding.... YEP!... IT'S SPRING ONCE AGAIN PEOPLE! Time for my allergic reaction to flower pollen to make my life hell... ugh...
Anyways, in other thoughts, steam is acting pretty weird today, requiring me to log back in to it to "re-authenticate steam ticket" every time I try to download the dumb L4D SDK beta. I'm kinda miffed with valve for ****ing things up so much with a game that could have spawned an extremely productive and promising online community, but no, I think it's too late for that.
I feel as if too much time has passed and that they're just going to have to make it up to the community to regain the respect and admiration and unadultered worship they once had from me, friends of mine, and people like us.
But that's also probably because I got bored of L4D after playing it for almost 300 hours, in fact, more, I think, but yeah...
Maybe they can recover some face with L4D.... but they'd have to release a FULLY FUNCTIONAL SDK AND a nice new campaign to do that in my books.... whatever...

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/cat_stevens_accuses_coldplay_of_plagiarism.html

Wow... just, wow!
This is getting pretty ridiculous.
In my personal opinion, no artist should sue another for anything. Just period.

I tend to agree with the people saying things along the lines of... well, you've only got twelve notes to start with, max, and then keys, and chord progressions aren't exactly a new thing, yatayata...

I think everybody needs to just sit down, shut up, and focus on making music instead of trying to get attention and potentially get some money and publicity out of it. Perhaps Satriani was serious about it, although I've had my doubts, but this is just getting to be contest of stupidity. Who can get further in a case against cold play?
I used to listen to them, honestly, yes, I did.
I don't like them much anymore now, but that's because tastes change and refine and sometimes you can get sick of something like that.
I don't think it's "bad" music, per se, although I have a pretty hard time defining "bad" music...
But I DO think that this is wrong... to start jumping at a band's throat simply because they're becoming popular, even if they did almost directly steal your song, suck it up, you know? If it was such a good idea, why didn't you get your own self famous by making a song out of it?

*sigh*

If every party involved was truly interested in adding something to the world through music, which is why we as intellectual, emotional human beings make music, after all, then they would make amends for their ill thought out idiocy and get back to proving that they deserve to have someone steal something from them.

Ok... so I just recently watched this music video of "Waking The Demon" and had some interesting thoughts while watching it. Now, as a pretense, I want to say a couple things;
First: The part of the video where the guy gets his "revenge" is stupid... a lot of music videos end up being stupid in some way even if the song is awesome, like here, and parts of the video are cool. So yeah, just take from it what's good.
Second: here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pthqce7HUKQ
Third: Please, let go of your prejudgemental opinions and mindsets, or you will not appreciate this post very much.

So basically, I was thinking, while watching the video, I kinda wish I was like the guy being portrayed. You know, not that it would be fun or anything, oh no, it would be hellish. But you know something? People who go through torment at school like that... they take something home with them. They take this incredible energy of anger home with them. And some of them? Well, some vent it in ways that land them straight into a juvenile justice center. But others? Others find ways to channel it... productively. Others take it out on 6 strings, a board of wood, and a pick. Those people are driven by this incredible desire to achieve something with that instrument, and show all those who shat on them over the years that they can be so much more; that all the discrimination and ostracizing of them simply because they dressed different and embraced a different psychological mindset than most of their school's population doesn't mean anything when it comes to what they can be. Those people become bright, aspiring musicians, with real talent and burning aspiration, and full fledged emotions. The "real deal". Those people are real musicians... they grew up into it the hard way, not easily, with no burning inspiration, a good ring of friends and a place in school society that left them unharrased virtually all the time, like me. See, sometimes I wish I could be more like that, with something...

Ok, this has to be the ultimate lineup:

IRON MAIDEN:
The Thin Line Between Love and Hate
The Legacy
For The Greater Good of God
Dance of Death
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Paschendale

Metallica:
Disposable Heroes
Fade To Black
The Day That Never Comes
To Live is To Die
Dyer's Eve

Trivium:
Of Prometheus and The Crucifix
Tread the Floods
The Crusade
Shogun
Detonation

Dream Theater:
Home
The Spirit Carries On
In the Presence of Enemies
Octavarium
Take The Time
Hell's Kitchen
New Millenium
Overture 1928
The Ministry of Lost Souls
Stream of Consciousness

I just bought it tonight, preorder, for $45!
I think this is the best deal, especially as opposed to getting it for a console, because there will be free updates for the PC version, mods, and cheats! WOOT! Plus the online crowd is MUCH cooler on PC than on 360, for the most part.

It appears that valve is at it again, creating awesome videos to showcase (potentially, hopefully) awesome games.
Go to the main page in steam and you should see a little clickable picture advertisement for the new Left For Dead Trailer. If you don't, then just go to the Left For Dead section of the steam store and you will find a link to the video.
It's also available for download on Xbox Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sJnPrhn3bU
Trivium Guitar Gear
Matt Pups = Dimarzio D Sonic in Bridge, Air Norton in Neck
Corey Pups = Seymour Duncan Dimebucker in Bridge, '59 in Neck

Dream Theater Guitar Gear
Petrucci Pups = D Sonic In Neck?

Metallica Guitar Gear
EMGs both ways

Making its way around the Internet is an intriguing new rumor related to Guitar Hero World Tour (Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii). This rumor is made interesting by the simple fact that it's supposed to be the full set list for the game.

According to this rumored set list, the game will have 73 main tracks, along with 14 bonus tracks and three guitar battle tracks. The game also appears to have seven sample songs, which we assume were placed in the game for track creation purposes.

In any event, we expect to hear more on this from Neversoft and Activision when they're good and ready to talk about it. In the meantime, take this set list as rumor.

Eagle Rock High School Tour:
"Dope Nose" by Weezer
"The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World
Encore: "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins
Big City Kids Tour:
"Roland" by Interpol
"Santeria" By Sublime
Encore: "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers

Feelin' Nostalgic Tour:
"Take It on the Run" by REO Speedwagon
"Hold the Line" by Toto
Encore: "Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol
Vixens Tour:
"Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar
"All Around Me" by Flyleaf
Encore:"Misery Business" by Paramore
Undertow Tour:
"Stinkfist" by Tool
"Lateralus" by Tool
"Schism" by Tool
Synchronicity Tour:
"Guitar Battle Vs. Sting" (Guitar Career Only)
Encore: "Every Breath You Take" by The Police
Fight the System Tour:
"The Kids Aren't Alright" by The Offspring
"The Good Left Undone" by Rise Agaisnt
Encore: "Bleed it Out" by Linkin Park
QQ Tour:
"Face Down" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
"The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars
Encore: "Thank You for the Venom" by My Chemical Romance
Rockin the Carnival Tour:
"Dammit" by Blink 182
"When You Heat Stops Beating" by 44
Neva' Forget Tour:
"Jumpin Jack Flash" by The Rolling...

Dang, just watched some SWEET videos of Left 4 Dead. It seems that no matter what Valve wants to do, what kind of game they want to make, they always end up striking gold! It looks friggin' sweet and I don't know of any other intelligible way to describe it. The video made me look to the future with great expectations.

I recently discovered that my information was bad and that there will be no Episode 3 preview at E3 this year. I know, it sucks... hard. But valve has always been faithful will filling our screens with tons of preview trailers and sneak peeks so it's not unreasonable to expect something sometime soon, maybe later this year or early next?