Review of 'Scream' by Ozzy Osbourne

(Not mine. Credit due to owner. Found on Wikipedia.)
My Rank: 4.8 out of 5 = a perfect reason to buy another Ozzy CD

Okay, I confess, this is the first Ozzy CD I ever purchased, and I'm not a fan of the man either (yet)! HOWEVER, I will say that this sits right next to HIM's Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice on the shelf of the Best Albums I bought this year. This is all the more reason to check out even more of his music.

I first heard of Ozzy's music on one of my stations on Pandora Internet Radio, and I added him to my Metallica/Black Sabbath station. Then when I saw his newest song "Let Me Hear You Scream," I was hooked. Next thing I knew, I was at Barnes and Nobel in Washington DC, where I put down the Marilyn Manson CD I considered buying and bought this. And good Lord it was worth it. Playing the album 5 times in a row and letting my dad try it out right away showed an excitement I haven't had since I bought Linkin Park's Meteora.

Despite being a heavy metal fan since December 2006, I am still a naive child in this genre. I can't honestly say that this album will please long-time Ozzy fans, because I just got into him months ago and I just bought his latest CD. But I will say that even at 61, this man still makes badass music. A heavy metal legend who is still that awesome has to leave every currently-boring modern metal band in deep mortification.

The highlights I'd like to mention are "Let It Die," probably the BEST song to start an album with BADASS guitars; "Life Won't Wait for You," a hope booster for me; "Diggin' Me Down," a heavy, booming, loud, badass song on epic proportions; "Time," a track I wan't expecting; and "Crucify." Also, the last track "I Love You All" is so anti-climatic that it's hilarious. And though I need every album to have a soft, ballad-like moment to relax, for some reason, Scream really has none of that, but I was so awed and impressed that I didn't care at all.

Overall, I have no complaints for this album. My last words are that if I never became a HIM fan and realized that Ville is a Black Sabbath and Ozzy fanboy, I'd never give this great legend a try. Wether it's Mr. Osbourne's best or not, this left me wanting to buy another one of his albums.

For heavy metal fans, this is a must buy. If someone is too cowardly to buy an older album by Ozzy or even Black Sabbath, then pick this masterpiece up RIGHT AWAY. This is at least a first step.

If I get into Ozzy enough, I wonder if I'll pick up his autobiography...

Final August Update

Summer is [pretty much] over! Good news is, the humidity is leaving alongside with the heat and the green world. It also means that things will pick up and I will not sit on my butt and do nothing eventful. Time will flow quickly with a schedule! Yay!

The bad news? People whining about winter and the cold; being a junior in high school; and just the fact that I'm returning to my high school where I'm stuck with the same kids I was with since fourth grade. I gotta get out of there! But yet, I dread the end of my childhood once I must leave for college.

But back on topic:

1. Since school is starting up soon (not until the week of Sept. 10: WTF is with the delay??) new posts will not be very frequent. It might be once every two weeks or something. But I am thrilled I had so many posts this month!

2. As much as I love my blog, I also joined LiveJournal. Okay, I admit, I only joined to be a member of ValoDaily, a HIM Fangirl's paradise! haha! For those interested this leads to my journal. It will mostly have reviews or just random short messages. This will be saved for mostly my rants or creative sparks (whenever I get them again.) But have no fear! This blog is still my baby. ^_^

3. Be faithful to my blog or suffer a fate far worse than reading my posts, dammit! lol

Enjoy the last few days of vacation or just summer in general. Hopefully 2010 has been good to you at this point; we still have four months to go!

And some last requests: Peace, love, and rock on out!

Review of 'The Last Exorcism'

(CREDIT: not mine. to the owner.)

Rank: 3.5/5 = a good and interesting story, but not the best of its kind

Over and over again most modern horror films are panned and burned mercilessly, but this film proves that it tried and did fairly well at breaking that curse. Heck, if there was an Academy Award for best horror film of 2010, this movie would beat Splice to death with a camera like the girl in this film did to a cat. But I will admit that although I looked forward to The Last Exorcism, I really wanted to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But my dad and I missed the show and had to watch this film. However, we both came out satisfied and eager to discuss the film.

To be short, the story is told as a mockumentary, in which a father sends a letter to this evangelist minister, who has pretended to perform exorcisms, to help save his demon-possessed daughter Nell. The mood of this film is dark, but there are some moments of humor to ease the tension. But what makes the film dark for me is the fact that the atmosphere is so tense with really serious biblical Christian themes that it's chilling. Nothing against the more conservative forms of the faith, but seeing the Sweetzer house have many crosses and religious statues allows me to envision as the perfect breeding ground for questionable sanity. The fact that Nell's father rejects modern medicine and claims that the sunday school wasn't "medieval enough" proves my point even more.

What I enjoyed was that everyone in that small town in Louisiana was in some way messed up or backwards. Perhaps it's because I'm more of a suburb/city chick and I'm biased, but this tiny, old-fashioned town was obviously cut off from the rest of the world. And if Christianity is the accepted religion, you can easily predict what beliefs are a big no-no.

Although it's a huge cliche that with every exorcism movie there is Satanism involved, this movie somehow makes it work. The acting was decent, the story almost seemed believable, and no big action was missed unlike one movie (right, The Fourth Kind, the movie that blacked out whenever something happened?). But as a whole, this movie cannot match to The Exorcism of Emily Rose. That and The Last Exorcism are fantastic, but Emily Rose left you with no final answer that can be explained logically. This movie had an ending that made you believe for the most part that it was a trap, but you still questioned a particular detail about the ritual at the very end.

The only main complaint I have is that the cliche I mentioned in the above paragraph needs to be avoided in future exorcism films. Why not try having a possessed victim who lives in the city and who is not fundamental in their faith? That would be a bit more different and maybe interesting if executed well. Otherwise, I say this film is solid.

I won't spoil everything so I'll leave this review as this: I recommend this film for any horror movie fan, especially if you like ones about demons and exorcisms.

Now all I need is a good movie that won't give me scary nightmares. Ah, the joys of being a horror movie fan...

Review of Linkin Park's "The Catalyst"

(Credit to owner of this image. Found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catalyst)

My Rank: 2.2 out of 5 <- mediocre and forgettable

This is a bit different for me to make this on my blog, but I wanted to review this song. This is done out of fun, because I am a huge music fan, not a professional critic.

The song is "The Catalyst by alternative rock band Linkin Park; and although it was released on August 2 of this month, I just heard it today after Facebook showed me an ad about it. As a [not very loyal] Linkin Park fan, I was very curious. Their last album Minutes to Midnight was, quite frankly, a joke, and no matter how many times I listened, my opinion didn't change much. Not even their singles saved themselves, even "New Divide," which regained some lost dignity, still wasn't worth a dollar on iTunes. With hope remaining, I wanted to give Linkin Park another chance. But once again, my reasonable expectations of wanting a decent song... wasn't met.

I am now seeing myself as an fan of a band that loves the old stuff. Sadly, these people can be seen as bitchy and ungrateful, but now I have more sympathy. Although I got into Linkin Park in 2007, I bought Hybrid Theory and Meteora, which still reigns as their best in my opinion. But even as a new fan, who still doesn't mind an occasional poppy new song by a band I like, why do I still think Linkin Park isn't even trying anymore?

"The Catalyst" isn't horrible by any means, but this song seems redundant. This can be seen as industrial or electronic rock; however, as a fairly avid listener of such music myself, I can see this song as a failed attempt in such a try at that genre. This sounds like a mix of U2 lyrics, the repetitiveness of a Depeche Mode song, dark elements of Eisbrecher, and an atmospheric intro that almost sounds like that of Type O Negative's "Bloody Kisses (A Death in the Family)". And the result is a song that tries to be like HIM's experimental "The Foreboding Sense of Happiness," but only more messy, repetitive, and forgettable (not to mention, LP's writers aren't Ville Valo).

The song does get better from 3:30 to the end, when the singing does get smoother, cleaner, and it's more memorable and kinda epic. But the rest of the song is sloppy and chaotic. If you thought Marilyn Manson or Rammstein be seen as "noise," Linkin Park's "The Catalyst" is exactly that, but just not as heavy and creepy. It's just an annoying almost-6-minute crowd anthem with clashing synths and beat. All that it's missing is catchiness and Mike Shinoda. When he's not rapping, I can't recognize him at all, but I realize that he doesn't rap with Linkin Park much anymore. What a shame, since I loved the rap-rock they did.

I wouldn't buy this song, but I recommend giving it a full listen on Youtube or Grooveshark if you consider a purchase.

Meanwhile, I'll be listening to electronic/industrial rock that actually knows what it's doing...

A Year-and-a-Half Fangirl's Favorite Band Rant

"I love this band." "They have never made a bad song." "This is the greatest band ever!" "They are gods."

For most of my music-loving life, I never understood what people meant when they would say these things. I believed that there was no such thing as the "perfect band" that has no songs to dislike. Every band I listened to, even my old favorite band Evanescence, had many lovable, some decent, and few downright lousy tracks. Just about every album I ever listened to would have songs that I'd skip just about every time. I didn't deny that the fans that said such strong statements about bands were lying, but I had no way to believe that it was possible to say that about something. There has to be things that you don't like about something. Everything has, and nothing can be perfectly pure and exemplary.

I have been a doubter, but I don't deny anything if it makes sense. And what I once believed about the "perfect band" was shattered.

It felt as if it was yesterday when I went on Pandora, played one of my newer stations, found one song that made my mouth drop, looked up other songs by the same band, and fell in love with everything I heard. But when I think of it now, I realize that it was exactly a year and a half ago as of today, August 14 2010. On a day that I least expected something to affect my life, I became a passionate HIM fan on Valentine's Day. It's especially cliche since the majority [if not all] of their songs are about love. It still baffles me sometimes.

My journey in discovering my music taste is a long and detailed one, so excuse me if I stray off topic. And the story changes because it is still ongoing. If I wrote about what I liked five years ago, the me of then would have never thought I would abandon pop music for hard rock and heavy metal. The me of then would never believe I "fell in love" with a band and their music. Honestly, I don't think I ever saw it coming. But now to stop my rambling and actually tell of the beginning...

By 2008, I have given up on pop music and I was enjoying mostly alternative/hard rock (Evanescence and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) and some gothic metal (Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation). It was a bit of an intermission in my exploring music because I enjoyed what I had found through extensive research; I didn't have Pandora at the time, so the process of finding bands was much slower. But I was satisfied with my music library, though small, and I was ready to enter high school with an old friendship that was weakening.

If there was a way that wasn't awkward, I would love to thank one girl in my school. I first saw her wearing an AFI tee at a school picnic for us freshman to get to know each other before our first day. But because my social skills are much to be desired, I stayed with my old best friend and met a few other girls. Ultimately, that girl was in my homeroom, but we never sat near each other or exchanged a word. It was either late September or early October when one day I was at my locker to get my books; while there, I saw her talk with some of her friends. But I noticed that she carried a bag with a strange pentagram-heart symbol and one word, HIM. Seeing how strange it was, I couldn't stop looking, not always directly, but mostly from the corner of my eye. I couldn't grasp my head around the symbol. Was it a satanic statement that a random heavy metal band used to stir something? (I was attending a very conservative catholic school, so that didn't help much.)

The next thing I knew, that symbol and that word, HIM, planted something more powerful than a seed in my brain. I became succumbed by this virus that existed EVERYWHERE on the internet. I was tortured for months with seeing them on Wikipedia; a symbols website I visited for a school assignment; and Pandora. I only mention Wikipedia because I use that site to get basic ideas about a particular band; however, I do know it can be full of lies. One day I saw HIM under the controversy section of a gothic metal article, and I looked them up for the heck of it and realized they're Finnish and that their symbol was the Heartagram. At least I got the symbol fact straight. ^.^'

As I said earlier, Pandora ultimately finished the job. I joined back in December of 2008 just to give it a try, but now... well, it's my "semi"-free largest music library. I didn't have many friends by January, but one in particular had HIM [actually H.I.M. (Finland) to be exact] bookmarked and I finally had the guts to say the words I refused to say until then.

"So, you like H.I.M. (Finland), huh? What are they like? They good?"
My friend responded: "You would love them."

He sent me a link to give a 30 second listen to "Heartache Every Moment." I wasn't too impressed from the short teaser so I shrugged and went on with my life... only to run into even MORE HIM plastered on the internet!

Finally, on February 12, 2009, I made a HIM station to maybe to give that criminal virus some satisfaction. I listened to it about an hour every day to keep my mind open, and nothing really hit me. There were a few good songs, but I still had no opinion of the band. And I felt sane and unbothered... for two days. I was home alone that Saturday and I had time for some music. So, my HIM station was playing and I wasn't expecting anything to happen. Then, "And Love Said No" played; the chorus captured me instantly and my interest was held until the very end. Excited, I logged off Pandora and went on Youtube. I watched about three music videos, one was kinda boring, the second was impressive, and the third, "The Sacrament," was cupid's arrow piercing my heart.
The rest of the weekend cannot be easily recalled, but I know I was excited and anxious to buy a HIM album. After constantly begging my dad to drive me to FYE, I bought HIM's greatest hits album.

Ever since, I spent most of my free time researching the band, watching music videos and interviews, listen to them on pandora, buying CDs, and sharing my discoveries with my dad. He's the only music addict I could talk to without him criticizing my tastes, and I'm glad he was there for me. As for my old friend, she bluntly said to my face that they sucked. Thank God we never talked about music again because she had to disagree with everything I would say. But the friends I have now don't mind what my music taste is, and I am thankful for that.

Other than that girl with the AFI tee, I do not know who else in my school likes HIM. My one friend's ex-boyfriend recognized the HIM shirt I wore at a school show, but that's about it. When you enjoy something so much, you are bound to possibly be the only one who feels that way. As of now, I feel alone and sad sometimes, but I don't regret it. I continue to be me, and if I am in the mood to show off my Fangirlism for my favorite band, I will do so. No one can take my bags, posters, shirts, scarfs, gloves, bracelets, CDs, sweatshirts, locker pictures, Facebook flair, 400+ computer images, etc. without a fight. You can't spell 'Fangirl' without 'Fang' you know. ;)

I now understand the quotes I put at the beginning of this entry. Although the boys have many human flaws and HIM's music is far from perfection, I don't think I want them to be any other way. Let the Fangirl in me go wild. XD

Heartagram hugs, razorblade kisses, and bleed well, dear readers! Farewell and näkemiin (at least I think that's right! ^^')!!

PS - my next objective: learn Finnish and visit the band's Holy City of Helsinki, dammit! XD

Birthday Wish (the thought counts, right?) ^^

As pointless as this post is to some, it's important to me...

Hyvää Syntymäpäivää, Mikko Lindström (a.k.a. Linde, Lily Lazer, and Daniel Lioneye)!!!!

Best of wishes to you, and hopefully your birthday was great! You and the other HIM boys rest well since the Screamworks tour is over! :D

(Photo not owned by me. From this URL: http://www.funstuffonly.com/brhs/him/images/Linde.jpg)

August Update

Is it me or has time moved so slowly? :/

'ello!
As summer is finally reaching its end, vacation will be over along with it within a month. However, next comes my two favorite seasons: autumn and winter! I love the cold: it's a time for sweatshirts, cargo pants, scarves (my lovelies!!!!), boots, and crisp air! I will not be missing this heat and humidity anytime soon!

Anyway, I have an entry to be posted within the next few days, so I can bounce back to my usual one-a-week drill. However, I am unsure how often I will update my blog in the next two weeks. And once I'm done sitting dogs, rabbits, and two devilish boys, who I miss so much, school will be right around the corner. Hopefully my memory doesn't go bad. ^^'

When school starts up, I might have to religiously update only on one specific day due to school work and readjusting. No worries, of course. :D

That is all that is up for now. Ciao. :P


And for a picture bonus from my Europe trip! This was taken on July 3 while my group and I were taking a nice walk up a hill right outside the town of Cahersiveen in County Kerry, Ireland. The walk was tiring, but the view was amazing. Even when every day changed from sun to clouds and rain, Ireland was very cool, pleasant, and comfortable. My kind of weather!! :)

CAUTION!

My next entry is VERY long. If you get through reading it all, I shall give you a virtual hug and cookie. :D

Entries on my trip are coming soon. I still have 800+ pics to go through and EVERYONE is impatient... @_@

So... have fun suffering! XD

Is the Light at the End an Oncoming Train?

Politics, economy, entertainment, music. These four words have brought me nothing but headaches since 2006 and 2007.

I know I'm not the only one who has been pessimistic about the future because of this mess. Why have things gone downhill is beyond me, but the pendulum has to swing back every now and then. I realize that things can go bad, but this is ridiculous. The work to bounce us back to cruising down the middle is just as painful as the headaches caused by the evil four words. Now to why I hate these words now:

Politics.
Do any of you have siblings? You can disagree with them all the time because you two aren't the same. Your beliefs, actions, and behaviors contrast from your sibling. Arguments and fighting is inevitable. However, there comes a time when mommy and daddy or someone else steps in and breaks you two apart before you kill yourselves.

This is the point when someone needs to go to each and every Democrat and Republican, smack them in the face, demand them to stop their crap and do their jobs. No one bothers to negotiate anymore and so radicals on both parties are on the rise. I’m sure by now you know of the many issues at hand, so I won’t dare to repeat them. But I must say…

…must we deal with everything like preschoolers? I can hear nothing but whines that remind me of Bill Cosby's reenacting a three-year-old screaming fighting with his/her older sibling: "MINE! MINE! MINE!"

At this point, nothing is getting done, and no one is encouraged to stand up and demand action. And I'm one of them... I can't help but think that whoever is voted will only be someone who will let the screaming and feuding continue.

Economics.
When the government is unable to get any work done, the economy continues to lie in limbo. No progress but no failure. Houses and cars might be doing better, but unemployment is still miserable. And money is still... going... to... the... wrong... places. Wherever it's going now and making good overall progress... apparently no one has brought any such good news onto the table. Bravo, world. I'm glad to know I'm not the only pessimist full of doom and gloom.

But I shouldn't be so heated on topics that are deadly and poisonous at this point (especially if I come off as ignorant.) Sorry for the rant, but I how I loathe the cat fights and barking while watching the world sink deeper into a tar pit. Bright side is, the middle class and wealthy aren't so broke that people have either lived in boxes or killed themselves. Great Depression of the 1930's anyone?

NOW! For stuff I think I can rant more freely on!

Entertainment.
WTF. That's all I can say.

Why is it that there's no good TV shows and movies that are worth my money? I can only think of three at the top of my head: House, Moonlight, and Inception. The first is a hilarious TV show that I got into thanks to my mom getting the first season for Christmas a few years ago. It might be because I like Hugh Laurie, but man, if House ever ends, it better go out with a bang, because I'd hate to see it leave. As for Moonlight, I think it's the only vampire-related media for adults that I can stomach. But CSB cancelled it thanks to the Writer's Strike of 2007. Thank you, entertainment world. You killed a series that might have had some room to improve for your tastes. (At least the fanbase is a devoted and hardworking one. ^^) And Inception? Watch that movie. It's the only latest film that has made me use my brain enough to restore it from the death it went through with Splice.

But why do I hate the entertainment world? Because they have run dry. Movies this year (other than Inception, Avatar, and a decent few like Prince of Persia) have sucked. But I will have to thank James Cameron for his latest film because he has proved my point. Have any of you seen 3D short films in museums? They were made to make things to be in three dimensions; everything came to life off the screen. So what if the glasses were goofy? It was worth the visual experience. Now, though I saw Avatar in 2D, I can't imagine how phenomenal it had to have been. The standard visuals alone were breathtaking.

And because the movie is the best-grossing film ever, people hopped on the 3d bandwagon and converted their standards to attempt what Mr Cameron spent YEARS on. What we got were Alice in Wonderland 2010 and Clash of the Titans: two films that EPICALLY FAILED to make a third dimension; they made 2D with a slight, blurry bump. That shows what converting does.
NOW Sony wants to make a 3D Tv after their obsession with HD. Really?! How many films are made to be in 3D?! I refuse to buy such a piece of junk unless there is a switch that allows me to chose either 2 or 3 dimensions. Plus, how many people can stomach 3D?

I could go on with celebrities and how they add more to the stupidity of the world, but that is self-explanitory.

But how can I not add Twi-retard-light? Oh, that is a rant for another day. Now to the part that I think I am mourning for the most.

Music.
Are you sure the 80's was a horrible decade for music? Because I think this has so far been a HORRENDOUS way to start the new millennia and century. Might I add that I didn't say decade because I started loathing music in 2006?

Long story short, I never did mind pop music. I grew up with mostly soft rock, some 80's, and mostly late 90's pop music? It wasn't too bad. Even the first part of the 2000's was pretty decent. I think the time I started to turn from pop was when the Jonas Brothers began. I never hated them, but I never thought them lovable. Disney was still okay, and I still watched some of the shows. However, the stuff I liked was fading. My favorite Disney star was Hilary Duff, and she was disappearing along with her show and the show Shia LeBeouf was in. Crap shows with no humor and less substance came around and I began to watch TV less and less. Then... Miley Cyrus came to town and I abandoned Disney and never returned. To this day, all I still have are the old movies and my only two Hilary Duff CDs...

Soon after, I was sick of the radio and the new music with even less substance as time progressed. The next thing I knew, I turned it off for good, gave Evanescence a try, and became a hard rock and heavy metal chick since 2007. And as time went on, I saw pop music progress from bad, to worse, to terrible, to now hell. I hated the Rihanna, Black Eyed Peas, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, Britney Speares, Soulja Boy, Fergie, and Chris Brown trends that went on, but I wasn't ready for... LADY GAGA, KE$HA, AND BEIBER.

I can only describe Lady GagGag as a bland candy that we all have tasted before, but the wrapper is so darn cool to look at and talk about. She is not talentless or stupid, but how she portrays herself is overdone, boring, and inappropriate. Why does she need so much attention to herself? But she is nothing next to Ke-dollar sign-ha. No words can describe how much she needs to stop sounding like a drunken, auto-tuned Valley Girl. Finally, the demon spawn that has destroyed all hope for me: THE BEAVER!!!!!!!!!!!! How can I express how much I can't stand how people treat this punk?! I dislike him so much I can't even express my anger in this entry! I have spent so much time ranting and bashing that I think I will tell more of him later.



This has been a long rant and I probably am instigating trouble. But this was something I had to let out in one night.
Some topics will be used for future entries sometime after I get a post on my trip (again, I have 800+ pictures to go through!!!)
I have no forgotten this blog, but I have been a bit busy.

But to conclude, I spoke with my dad on the phone and he told me he went through the same thing in the 70's with disco music. He encouraged me that things will look good soon. I hope he is right - no, I know he is right, but that day isn't coming soon enough. All I ask is a little more stability and cooperation and less paranoia and radicalism. As for the entertainment world, they need some fresh new ideas. And music... just needs some leaders of inspiration with quality music who are beyond the shock value or the swooning girls. I was sad when Michael Jackson died because I always remember hearing about him in news and music, and because he was a legend to the pop genre. I mourned the deaths of Ronnie James Dio, because heavy metal lost an amazing musician, and Pete Steele, whose band Type O Negative were known stars of gothic metal.

However, I don't know who are the next legends of my generation for pop, rock, and metal. There is no few universally accepted "leaders" that I know of that everyone can agree on. But we'll be feuding for a while. Maybe when good things finally come around, there will be musicians of today who will be loved by the world beyond the superficial. For now, the people I find to be legends have died or are alive and I don't see them as for right now. Like my favorite singer, Ville Valo, from my favorite band, HIM, I hope the light at the end of the tunnel is not from an oncoming train.

So, until next time. take care. :)