- Now THIS is an interesting cover album. Most cover albums
are lame recreations of works that may or may not have been that good to begin
with, but an upcoming release built entirely of metal covers of Florence + The Machine songs is just the sort of bizarro musical
mash-up that the world need more of. Titled “Florence + The Sphinx,” the album
is set for release in mid-may via Sumerian Records and features tracks from Periphery, Stick To Your Guns and Ben
Bruce of Asking Alexandria. The 13 metal bands collected to take part in the
project run the range of the metal gamut, with Stick to Your Guns covering
Florence + The Machine’s “Dog Days are Over,” Born of Osiris doing a remake of “Seven
Devils” and City In the Sea doing their own version of “All This and Heaven
Too.” "To me, 'Ceremonials' by Florence + The Machine is one of the most
timeless records to come out in years. The distinctive vocals and melodies, the
orchestration and instrumentation, the production, the mood and the lyrics have
made me enamored with the album,” Sumerian co-founder Ash Avildsen said. “It is
also one of the heaviest records in years to me… not in the sense of metal and
aggressive vocals/guitars/drums, but in how the songs make you feel."
Hearing an executive for a metal label talk about a mainstream pop album being
heavy and forceful is a jarring, yet amusing twist and anyone who can’t get
down with the idea of Dead Letter Circus putting a fresh spin on “Remain
Nameless” clearly needs to expand their musical horizons………
- For anyone who though the world of computer graphics
processing had reached its apex with the advent of NVIDIA's Titan Black, it’s time
to think again. The technology firm has aimed higher and is now looking to
shock the world with the GeForce GTX Titan Z. NVIDIA's latest graphical invention
was announced by CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at NVIDIA's 2014 GPU Technology Conference.
Equipped with dual Z-pack Kepler GPUs specifically designed to operate in perfect
power and performance harmony, this new piece of technology should appeal to
gamers because it can keep cutting-edge games (like those using Unreal Engine
4) running smoothly at up to 5K resolution and on multiple monitors thanks to 12
GB of dedicated memory Yes, 12 freaking gigabytes of dedicated memory…..all for
the low, low price of $3,000. Other than that, there are not many details
available about the new unit. It performs much like a supercomputer and by
debuting it in a controlled setting and keeping details scarce, NVIDIA is both
creating plenty of hype for its new product while drawing out the release
process for as long as possible in order to prolong that hype for as many
months as possible. Tech dorks are always looking to hack and spy for details
and odds are that a few will be leaked in the days ahead, but knowing that they
can throw away $3,000 merely to improve the graphics on their new gaming system
should be more than enough for pale, pasty dorks around the world to get in
line and pay a copious amount of cash for a product that is new to the market
and will certainly have plenty of bugs to work out whenever it finally does hit
the market………..
- Is Sen. Mitch McConnell's latest campaign video even creepier
than the one that saw flash in disturbing smile after disturbing smile at the
camera as serene, calming music played in the background? Hell no, but that
doesn’t mean that the good senator isn't duly embarrassed by what he and his
campaign staff hath wrought. McConnell, like so many in the Bluegrass State, is
reveling in the fact that two of Kentucky’s college basketball teams reached
the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament. With Kentucky and Louisville set to face
off Friday night in Indianapolis, McConnell and his lackeys put together a
video designed to both promote his bid for re-election and tout all that is
good about a state most people don’t ever bother to visit. The video touches on
vital parts of Kentucky culture, including horse racing, bluegrass…and Duke
basketball. Yes, someone on the McConnell staff posted a clip they either
didn’t watch or which proves their illiteracy/ignorance about college
basketball, because it features not the home-state Kentucky Wildcats, but the
archrival Duke Blue Devils celebrating their 2010 national championship. For a
split second, viewers saw the Blue Devils wildly celebrating their title win
over Butler. As soon as the mistake came to light, campaign officials rushed to
fix the video and spin their error. "The ad was intended to highlight
Kentucky's basketball dominance and obviously the web ad vendor has become so
accustomed to watching national championship celebrations in the Bluegrass
State that they made a mistake with one of the images," said McConnell
spokeswoman Allison Moore, a Kentucky graduate. "Obviously we were
horrified by the error and quickly changed it." Way to throw some poor sap
in an editing bay under the bus, Ally. Their/your mistake in no way conjured up
memories of Duke's narrow win over Kentucky in a 1992 regional final, won on
Christian Laettner's improbable last-second shot, which remains a painful
reminder of an ugly defeat that remains a sore spot for many Kentucky fans.......
- Congratulations, Los Angeles Dodgers. You have
officially spent your way to the top of Major League Baseball’s mountain of
financial excess and now, it’s only a matter of time before the sport’s angry
peasants storm their castle with torches and pitchforks. Thanks to the massive
deals they handed out to pitchers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers
have officially bypassed the New York Yankees as MLB’s highest-spending team.
That ends a 15-year streak atop the salary list for the Bronx Bombers, who
simply could not match the Dodgers’ projected payroll of $235 million. The
Yankees finished a distant second with $204 million, followed by Philadelphia at $180 million,
Boston at $163 million and Detroit at $162 million. Greinke can take much of
the credit for the Dodgers’ rise to the top, as he has taken over the mantle as
baseball’s highest-paid player from disgraced and suspended slugger Alex
Fraud-riguez. The pitcher has a $24 million salary in the second season of his
$147 million, six-year contract, but Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti
doesn’t sound like he has buyer’s remorse over any of his big expenditures. "We've
got great ownership and a great fan base, and we need to do what we can to win
games," Colletti said. "I don't think the guys worry about it.
I know we don't worry about it," said. "We're expected to win,
and that's how we go about it. Money
doesn't mean you win. Money just means you have a chance to get the best players." At the other end of the
spectrum, the sure-to-suck Houston Astros ranked last in team salary at $45
million, which is actually a 66-percent increase from their $27 million payroll
at the start of last year. The projected average player salary is between $3.95 million and $4 million, with
the final figure depending on
how many players are put on the disabled list by the time opening-day rosters
are finalized at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Yes, because $50,000 a year makes a big difference for these guys……….
- Who’s ready for some light reading? Here’s hoping there is
plenty of free time in your universe, because the knee-slapper that is the World Death
Penalty Report 2014 is officially out today. A work of supposed fact by Amnesty
International, it paints an ugly picture of countries around the world that are
still offing people for reasons ranging from totally justifiable to “You can
actually execute someone for that?” Among the nations earning plenty of scalps
is India, which has carved out its niche on the execution market by doing shady
sh*t like hanging Mohammad Afzal Guru in secret in Tihar Jail on Feb 9. India
scored major scumbag point by not informing Guru’s family about his imminent
execution and not returning his body to his family for last rites and burial,
in violation of international standards. In its report, Amnesty International
also noted how President Pranab Mukherjee rejected the mercy petitions of 18
other prisoners in 2013, the most rejections by any president in nearly 25
years. That is an impressive show of total lack of compassion, but it is not
unique across the Asia-Pacific region. At least 37 executions were reported to
have been carried out in 10 countries in the region and at least 1,030 new
death sentences were known to have been imposed in 17 countries in the region
in 2013. India did its share by handing down 72 of these death sentences in
2013 and 2014 could be an even bigger year, as an estimated 400 people were
believed to be on death row at the end of the year in India. Pakistan (226),
Bangladesh (220) and Afghanistan (174) all dished out plenty of death
sentences, which should be impressive but clearly is not to Amnesty
International. "The virtual killing sprees we saw in countries like Iran
and Iraq were shameful. But those states who cling to the death penalty are on
the wrong side of history and are, in fact, growing more and more
isolated," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary
general. "Only a small number
of countries carried out the vast majority of these senseless state-sponsored
killings. We urge all governments who still kill in the name of justice to
impose a moratorium on death penalty immediately, with a view to abolishing it.”
Hey Amnesty International bleeding hearts….you can have our death penalty when
you pry it from….well, you know……..
No comments:
Post a Comment