Three Good Things

[rowyn]

1. Prog metal.
2. Having an income that exceeds my outgo.
3. Plushies. Many years ago, I bought a six-legged smiling plush crab, while out shopping with aminita. Despite being a crab missing two legs, it is a very cheerful plushie. For a long time, I had him at work, as my "If I don't have to be crabby, neither do you" reminder. Then one of Toddler Bank's directors exiled all personal items from our cubicals and offices (seriously? Seriously) and he went home. Recently I realized that this was another of the stupid rules I was following even though it no longer applied. So now Happy Crab is back on my desk at work. Smiling at me.

*smiles back*

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

*giggles at the crab*

[rowyn]

Happy Crab ♥ you!

[grammar-kommie.livejournal.com]

*suddenly waking up*

What prog metal? Where? I NEED TO KNOW

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

\m/

[rowyn]

Is that your headbanging icon?

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Huh. Guess my original response didn't stick. Bleh.

But pretty much, yeah. :) It's great for IRC and IM! I actually had this conversation in work IM one time, after coming back from a week-someodd vacation one September:

Me: Hey coworker, can you set me up with temp access on your servers so I can check something?
Coworker: I thought you were on vacation! How do I know this is really you?
Me: \m/
Coworker: Taking care of that now!

[rowyn]

*laughs!*

[rowyn]

Prog metal here!

More usefully, alinsa was asking me what kinds of music I liked and when I told her, she said, "You sound like you would like prog! HERE HAVE SOME" and dumped a 5.5 hour prog metal sampler on me. So I have been listening to it a lot lately, trying to figure out which ones I want to buy vs delete. I've been listening to Nightwish for a long time, but my favorites from the sampler (so far) are Amaranthe, Avantasia, Ayreon, Blind Guardian, Delain, Dream Evil, Edenbridge, L'Âme Immortelle, Northern Kings, Sabaton, Sonata Arctica, Within Temptation (♥) and Wolfstone.

... yeah that's a lot of of prog metal. And some of it's probably not firmly in that category, granted. But you get the idea.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Well, more "interesting stuff to see what you would like" than prog in specific, but it so happens that a huge amount of what I like is prog metal, so the sampler was weighted that way. :) Wolfstone, for example, doesn't even approximate prog (but are lovely nonetheless).

I'm quite happy you're finding things you like, too! Finding prog metal as a genre (which pretty much went Nightwish -> Rhapsody -> A ton of other stuff) was basically like completely rediscovering music, for me (and took music from a "hey, I like that band" type of thing for me, to an actual important part of me). And though the genre probably doesn't have quite that effect on you, I'm quite happy to be able to pass on the gift...

(... I really need to work on sampler #2! Muahahahaha!)

[rowyn]

Ooh yeah, I didn't mention some of the obviously-not-prog artists that I like from the sampler (David Arkenstone and Phoenyx) but missed Wolfstone. It's still *mostly* prog metal, though. :D

[grammar-kommie.livejournal.com]

(sorry for the late reply, I got a little anxious structuring it, need more practice and daring)

Wow, that's a great event! I'm so jealous :)

I see, this is a quite diverse bunch indeed. I must admit the bulk of the names are new to me and I haven't even listened to everything I recognize, but I already see there's some stuff which I honestly wouldn't even think of applying a prog label to, including WT (although I agree they sound nice). I was rather thinking of Ayreon-like music (very glad you liked it!), or maybe something heavier. I used to explore alternative music some years ago and have kept a little soft spot for a certain type of prog metal from those days, but I keep failing as a hipst... uh, I mean as a proper music fan not enjoying this medium quite often and quite carefully, so I still don't know much about any high-brow music in general. Anyway, if you're curious, what I happen to like is more in the vein of this, this or this. But I've got a feeling it's not exactly your kind of music; if I were to give you a music advice, I guess I'd have to pick something more dreamy and melodic (but still metal) and I'm unfortunately not very fond of that combination myself.

[aminita.livejournal.com]

I still have my crab too :D he sits on the headboard with all the other other I have collected. By the way did you see my last nail post think I did pretty good on this one. Got something new want to try for the next one but got to get some practice in first.

[rowyn]

Oh I was wondering if you still had him! That's good to hear. :) I did see your latest nails, they look terrific. ♥ I want you to do mine! :)

[aminita.livejournal.com]

Let me know when and what kind of design you might like so that I can practice a little. By the way just a little heads up. If you have a picture or maybe an icon type thing you wanted for a con. Reduce it to the right size print in on the water decal paper and you can then put it on your nails. I have not tried it yet one of the many things on the list. :-)

[rowyn]

I like your monochromatic stylized designs, like this one: http://aminita.livejournal.com/39274.html , and the way the curves of the shape sweep down one side of the nail rather than being centered on it or covering the whole nail -- it's a lovely use of white space. So I'd want something like that. :)

[aminita.livejournal.com]

I'm sure we can come up with some thing. This is one of the designs I want to to try could do it just as easy on white back ground if you wanted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRx1ff_yZOk

[rowyn]

That's pretty cool too!