Wow!! In a strange twist of fate, another one of my favorite bands, The Gathering, are now collaborating with one of my originally favorite bands, Voivod. Well, at least one member. Denis (Piggy) will be playing guitar for The Gathering on a track for their new CD. WOW! I love when I hear a favorite band has been influenced by Voivod.. they are underground and "not big". It's nice to see how much they are a part of other bands' music.

Anyhow.. in other music news.. Layne Staley.. dead. I really don't have anything to say about it, other than it's devastating. I'm not the kind of person that idolizes musicians (or other people for that matter), but to lose such a great voice is really depressing. Sure, a musician passing before their time is not uncommon. So many have died before Layne, but something about him being MY age now, is closer to losing a friend. It's like growing up with Led Zeppelin and having Bonzo die.. growing up with the Beatles and having Lennon die. Staley is the Bonzo/Lennon of MY generation, and others like him. It's very sad.. He'll be missed. Time to crank up some 'Chains in admiration/reflection of a great one. Check Julie's blog for her farewell...

In gaming news.. Morrowind went gold. I just about fell out of my chair. Five years (six?) in the making. I'm doomed. I may never leave my desk for months. Someone remind me to shower.. I'm currently plunging through Dungeon Siege.. man, it's Diablo all over again. SAVE ME!

Ack.. i'm slipping already.. more than 10 days go by without my worthless spam!

Well, I finally received my copy of Dungeon Siege. I'd like it a lot more if I didn't keep forgetting to save every so often - the autosave almost never saves. Anyhow.. it's pretty and pretty fun, i'm still looking for the depth though. I do like the levelling system and the amount of cool stuff you find every 15 minutes or so.. a new spell, a new weapon.. something. It keeps you playing.

On the other hand, I checked out Might and Magic IX, something I was very excited about. I've played the M&M series since IV/V (btw, if you never played them together as the "World of Xeen", you really missed out!) and I've finished them all except M&M 6 - that temple near the end with all the jackal-headed guys was just insane. Anyhow.. MM9 uses the Lithtech engine.. yeah, maybe version 1.0 of Lithtech. This game looks worse that MM8 did (and MM8 looked fine except for the creature models - they were 2D sprites). I'm bummed about MM9 in general, but I may still play it.

Hey good news on the music front - Jason Newsted is recording with Voivod and the original singer is back, "Snake". It could have been a dream with Jean-Ives back on bass, but we'll take the Metallica outcast anyhow.. He's been a fan of the group for a long time, so maybe he'll be a good fit. A lot of the Voivod purists are in an uproar over it, though. Hey, I'm just happy another CD is coming..

Well, back to some slacking...

Well.. back on the subject of gaming... I just finished Wizardry 8. Yikes.. what a long game. Next up: Might and Magic 9. Also, my copy of Heroes of M&M IV just arrived, so I've been plowing through that. Wow, another great installment in the M&M series! Online? I'm not playing anything online right now. Just got off a 2.5 year EQ addiction and cancelled Camelot, so.... I'm done with that for a while. Dungeon Siege is in the mail, though! That should rock. Thankfully Morrowind has been delayed until May.. whew.

I'll have to deck out the links area with something worth clicking on. I visit a ton of gaming/music sites that I always wished I hadn't had to search for.. as in, once I find a good site, I like to remember it and return.

We also took a plunge and bought a PS2 a few weeks back (this was a trade agreement.. she got two ferrets, I got a PS2.. did I get duped?? "twice the food.. twice the poop.. twice the insanity". If you didn't know, we have 4 ferrets now. Ugh.

Aside from family, my most personal and favorite loves have to be board/computer gaming, science fiction and music. If you haven't noticed by now, the site theme _is_ music and science-fiction oriented. What does it mean? Hmm.. should I tell you?

"Dimension Hatross" is an album by a sci-fi metal band named Voivod. They've been around for nearly 20 years and hail from Quebec, Canada. Most of the band's work deals with a character called the "Voivod" or, a post-nuclear vampire. Sounds funky, doesn't it? Well, it is. The story continues on each album, although they did take a break for a time and do some other non-concept stuff, but they are back on track now. "Hatross" is a word created by the main writing force for the band, Michel Langevin, basically from the words "hate" and "atrocity". It's a psuedo-world created by the Voivod in his laboratory, that he projects himself into to explore. It's VERY far out there, but also very good. The other albums deal with his exploration of the universe and himself.. what he is, was and could be.

So, why use the name for a blog? Well, the history goes back a bit farther than the Web. Years before the web (circa 1987), dialup BBS (bulletin board systems) flourished. If you know what they are, great, if not, go read a nostalgic web site about them. I ran a few BBSs back then, the first being "The Ultimatum" and the second, most famous (if you could call it that), being "Dimension Hatross" The system focused very strongly around music, sci-fi and gaming. It was a blast to run, but alas, the Web came along and basically made those old dialup systems obsolete.

Anyhow.. you get the idea.. The colors/theme and wacky quotes and messages you'll find throughout the site (it's just one page right now - ha ha) will always be taken from the Voivod context. Have fun while here, and hopefully I'll put something here for someone to DO beside read my drivel. Thank you.. drive through...

Hello and welcome to my BLOG. Yeah, yeah, ok it's not so original anymore, but it sure beats messing with all the HTML myself. And this is all I really wanted anyhow - a place to blab to really no one, unless someone happens to drop by. The place looks pretty generic right now, but if you know me, I like to really customize my environment, wherever it may be, so hopefully it will look better soon.