I received the following mix CD as a party favor at a wedding.

A Little Country

• Garth Brooks – The River
• Rascal Flatts – Bless the Broken Road
• Faith Hill – You Give Me Love
• Martina McBride – I Love You
• Lonestar – Amazed

A Little Rock and Roll Metal

• Black Sabbath – Spiral Architect
• Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman
• Alice in Chains – Would?
• Metallica – Fade to Black
• When in Rome – The Promise

… When Worlds Collide

• Coldplay – Clocks
• Josh Gordon – Remember When It Rained
• The Church – Under the Milky Way
• Toby Keith feat. Willie Nelson – Beer for My Horses
• Days of the New – Enemy
• The Monkees – Cuddly Toy
• Eagles – Seven Bridges Road
• Ernie – I’d Like to Visit the Moon

I thanked the groom for including Ernie from Sesame Street. Now I do not have to download it using file sharing software purchase it from an online store.

Well, I went to Ozzfest last weekend. Black Label Society rocked the second stage. Dragonforce reminded me of Judas Priest. They sucked. Lucana Coil was the pick artist of the evening.

It was hot out there. Temperatures were in the high 90s. Somebody passed out in the area where my brother and I were seated. There was some excitement as a mass of security staff rushed to aide the heat victim.

Hatebreed did a decent job. I decided to walk around rather than listen to Avenged Sevenfold. Then Disturbed took the stage. Where do I start? The lead singer launched into a sermon complete with “brothers and sisters” talk. He went on a bend spewing liberal tripe about the war on terrorism, global warming and pop music. There was anger. There was hate. There were lies. What qualifies a recording artist to comment on matters of global politics anyway? Shut up with your short sighted opinions and sing already!

Why do I find out about this stuff too late? The band One Bad Pig — whose first album was named "A Christian Banned" — organized a project called Cover Project where they asked aspiring artists to design cover art for a collection of fan-submitted covers of their songs. Sadly, the deadline has passed. It was April 1, 2006. I wonder if they’d take a tardy submission from a recreational guitar player singing "Christmas Time", "Judas’ Kiss" or "Isaiah 6".

It must be like another thorn stuck in your brow
It must be like another close friend’s broken vow
It must be like another nail right through your wrist
It must be just like
Just like Judas’ kiss

- One Bad Pig, Judas’ Kiss

Incidentally, the band has a St Louis connection. The inspiration for its name came from KSHE 95‘s Sweet Meat, the radio station’s pig mascot.

I had fun at DieCon 6 this past weekend. I was good to see all of my buddies. I had a blast playing Rock High, a role playing game based on a high school full of mutants, and the Spycraft LARP. I lugged around a backpack full of books. That was mistake. I had serious back pain yesterday and self-treated it with ice packs and aspirin. Today it was a little better. I called in sick to work and am nursing my back with heat packs and Aleve. I hope to be well enough to limp my lame self around the office tomorrow.

The weekend before last I took my boss’ sister to a tribute show at Pops. That’s the closest I’ve come to a date in a long time. We had fun watching the tribute acts to Kiss, AC/DC and Ozzy. The Kiss tribute band had a lady who stood out front of the stage and translated the show in sign language. It was interesting to watch Kiss lyrics being signed by a cute blonde woman. The AC/DC band was good. The Ozzy band played a few too many obscure tunes for my taste, but still did a decent job.

The past year, 2005, brought its share of hype and hero worship. As I did last year I decided to give a select list of underrated items some exposure.

I read an excellent article on podcasting. Would anybody listen to a gazpacho dot net podcast?