Early word is that 2009 is going to be an impressively strong year. So, thank you Vendetta Music for making some of the great things that happened in 2007, bleed all over 2008. 2008 needed the abuse.

I have heard and seen some great bands this year. However, I must say that there was not enough to constitue a top ten like I have years prior. I’m not saying that there wasn’t anything capable that was published, nor am I saying that it was all shit. I’m simply saying, compared to prior years, there wasn’t a lot of albums that blew my socks off this year. No, HexRx. No, Brain Leisure. etc. So, this year I’m choosing to list off everything that I remember listening^[1] to over the year (and I’m SURE I’m forgetting something… -as a matter of fact, I need to add Battery Cage’s digital only release now-) and am just saying if they were good, crappy or average.

I’m also adding some nuggets to the right hand-channel. A video, some quotes from the year by artists and various cover arts. Enjoy!

RATING KEY:

• Artist Name - Album Title = Excellent

• Artist Name - Album Title = Good

• Artist Name - Album Title = Above average.
• Artist Name - Album Title = Average.
• Artist Name - Album Title = Not so good.
• Artist Name - Album Title = FAIL-WHALE

If you are looking to purchase any of these albums, give all that hard earned .

2008: A year of tonal coitus in the ears of Stonethorn

[distatix] - Medication

Accessory - More Than Machinery

Adam-X - State Of Limbo

Ad·ver·sary - Bone Music

Aerodrone - Sceneboy

Aesthetic Perfection - A Violent Emotion^[2]

Agonised by Love - Lovesick Society^[3]

Agonoize - For The Sick And Disturbed
Ah Cama-Sotz - Declaration of Innocence, Limited Edition^[4]
Alec Empire - The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven

Alter Der Ruine - Giants From Far Away

Ambassador21 - Justified Thirst For Blood
Amduscia - Madness In Abyss
Amnistia - Blackguard
Anders Manga - Xs And The Eyes
Angelspit - Blood Death Ivory
Angie Damage - Nicotine Tongue

Animassacre - Evolve
Anne Clark - Full Moon
Apocalyptica - Worlds Collide, Special Edition
AqME - Heresie
Arcaide - Cyclic Sound From The Form
Artifact - Only Salvation

Ashbury Heights - Morningstar In A Black Car EP

Atrocity - Werk 80 II, Deluxe Edition
AutoAuto - Celeste
Ayreon - 01011001
Ayria - Hearts For Bullets, Limited Edition
Ayria - The Gun Song
Ayumi Hamasaki - Guilty
Bauhaus - Go Away White

Baxter Lilly - Unsichtbare Flecken

Behind The Scenes - Fragment[ed]
Birthday Massacre, The - Looking Glass
Black Heaven - Negativ
Black Light Burns - Cover Your Heart & the Anvil Pants Odyssey^[5]
Blank - Impact Zone
Blutengel - Dancing In The Light (Forsaken)
Blutengel - Dancing In The Light (Solitary)
Blutengel - Winter Of My Life/Point Of No Return

Boole - The Vital Few

Boris - Message/Floor Shaker
Boris - Smile
Bug, The - Angry Ganja

Bug, The - London Zoo
C/A/T - At Peace
Chiasm - Reform
Children Of Bodom - Blooddrunk
Christian Death - Six Six Sixth Communion
Client - Untitled Remix
Coil - The New Backwards
Collide - Two Headed Monster
Colony 5 - Buried Again

agonised-by-love-lovesick-society

Combichrist - Frost EP Sent To Destroy

Cruxshadows, The - Immortal

Die Form - Bach Project
Die Form - Her(t)z Frequenz

Enduser - Left

ESA - How Pure Would Your Utopia Be
Essence Of Mind - Insurrection^[8]

evol-intent-era-of-diversion

Evol Intent - Era Of Diversion

Faderhead - FH3
Faint, The - Fasciinatiion
Felix Marc - Pathways
FGFC820 - Law And Ordnance, Limited Edition^[9]
Filter - Anthems For The Damned
Firefox AK - If I Were A Melody
Fixmer McCarthy - Into The Night^[10]

F.O.D - Synthesizer Tanzmusik

Foretaste - Terrorist TV
Foundation Hope - Tunes For The Wounded
Fractional - Come Mierda
Funker Vogt - White Trash

Gary Numan - Jagged Edge^[11]

Geomatic - Blue Beam

Gothminister - Happiness In Darkness
Grid, The - Doppelganger

Hadouken! - Declaration of War
Hadouken! - Music For An Accelerated Culture
Hanzel Und Gretyl - 2012 Zwanzig Zwo?lf

Hardwire - Konflict

HEALTH - Disco
Hercules And Love Affair - Hercules And Love Affair
Hex On - In Slow Motion
Hocico - Memorias Atras
Hybrid - Finished Symphony, Remixed
Iambia - Provocateur, Limited Edition

IAMX - President^[12]

IC 434 - Bacteriate
Idiot Pilot - Wolves
Illusion Of Light - 3ndlo2
Imperative Reaction - Minus All

informatik-beyond

Informatik - Beyond

Integral - Rise
Interface - Destination Focus
Iris - Hydra
Iris - Lands Of Fire
James D. Stark - Moonstruck
Jens Bader - Compensation For Pain And Suffering-The Best Of 1991-2004
Jens Bader - Out Of Phase
Jesus On Extasy - Beloved Enemy, Limited Edition

johnny-hollow-dirty-hands

Johnny Hollow - Dirty Hands

Junkie XL - Booming Back At You
Juno Reactor - Gods & Monsters^[13]
kETvECTOR - The Infinite Regress

Kloq - Move Forward

KMFDM - Brimborium
KMFDM - Extra - Volume 1
KMFDM - Extra - Volume 2
Kontour - Scanners
Krystal System - Underground
L’Ame Immortelle - Namenlos
La Magra - Schwarze Boten, Silver Edition

Ladytron - Velocifero

Lahannya - Welcome To The Underground
Laibach - Laibachkunstderfuge
Latexxx Teens - Death Club Entertainment

Leandra - Metamorphine

Left Spine Down - Fighting For Voltage

Legion - Legion
Leæther Strip - Civil Disobedience
Leæther Strip - Retention No.2
Leæther Strip - When Blood Runs Dark

le-diktat-unabomber

Le Diktat - Unabomber

London After Midnight - Oddities (Live, Rare, Acoustic, Remix)
London After Midnight - Selected Scenes From The End Of The World
Lucidstatic - Gravedigger
Machinae Supremacy - Overworld
Man And Machines - Analog Hearts, Digital Minds
Manufactura - Psychogenic Fugue, Limited Edition
Margareds - Kingdom Of Patience
Mark Nicholas - Perversions
Mars Volta, The - The Bedlam In Goliath

Meat Beat Manifesto - Autoimmune

Memmaker - How To Enlist In A Robot Uprising

Midnight Resistance - Remote
Mind Necrosis Factor - Morphogenesis

Mindless Self Indulgence - If

Mindless Self Indulgence - Never Wanted To Dance, The Remixes
Mindless Self Indulgence - On It
Mindless Self Indulgence - Pay For It
Ministry - Cover Up

Miss Construction - Kunstprodukt

Miss Kittin - Batbox

Modulate - Detonation
Mono-Anime - Industrial Thought Patterns
Monolith - Reborn
Morgan Page - Elevate
Moshpit - Follow The Loser

Nachtmahr - Feuer Frei!

miss-kittin-batbox

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

Noctiferia - Slovenska Morbida
Nordschlacht - Silence, Beauty And Cruelty
Nordvargr - Pyrrhula
Nurzery [Rhymes] - Thorns

Object - The Ethane Asylum

Ohgr - Devils In My Details
Olhon - Underwater Passage
Oomph - Monster
Otto Dix - Starost
Pain - Cynic Paradise^[14]

Pendulum - In Silico

Pivot - Original Soundtrack, My Heart
Plastic Noise Experience, The - Reiz und Reaktion
Plastic Toys - For Tonight Only

portion-control-slug

Portion Control - Slug

Portishead - Third
Proyecto Mirage - Turn It On
Puscifer - V Is For The Viagra - The Remixes
Qntal - VI Translucida

rabbit-junk-this-life-is-where-you-get-fucked

Rabbit Junk - This Life Is Where You Get Fucked

Ratatat - LP3

Recently Deceased - Cellardoor

Red Cell - Lead To Follow
Red Flag - Once Past Twice Future
Red Flag - Remnants
Retractor - The False Memory
Revue Noir - Anthology Archive
Rex The Dog - I Can See You, Can You See Me
Rex The Dog - The Rex The Dog Show

Rome - Masse Mensch Material

Rotersand - I Cry, Limited Edition
Rozencrantz - Romancer
Run Level Zero - Arctic Noise
SAM - Destruction Unit
Sara Noxx - XX-Ray
Scarlet Leaves - Outlining States Of Mind
Second Version - Schwarzer Engel Kuess Mich
Smashing Pumpkins, The - American Gothic
Soil And Eclipse - The Mirror

Solar Fake - Broken Grid

Sonne Hagal - Jordansfrost
Standeg - Ultrahightechviolet^[15]
State Of The Union - Evol Love Industry
Straftanz - Forward Ever, Backward Never!

stray-abuse-by-proxy

Stray - Abuse By Proxy

Suicidal Romance - A Kiss To Resist^[16]
System Syn - End
System Syn - Like Every Insect

T.Raumschmiere - I Tank U

Teknoist, The - Like A Hurricane Made Of Zombie
Tenth Stage, The - Grand Guignol
Thermostatic - Humanizer
Torrent Vaccine - Tentative Response
Travailleur En Trance - Cobra Coded Escalation
Tyske Ludder - Scientific Technology
Uberbyte - Sic
Unsun - The End Of Life

UnterART - Memento

Wavefall - Heartstarter
Welle Erdball - Ich Bin Aus Plastik

Wire - Object 47^[17]

Within Temptation & The Metro - Black Symphony
:wumpscut: - DJ Dwarf Eight
:wumpscut: - Dwarf Craving
:wumpscut: - Schaedlingsbox^[18]
Wynardtage - Praise The Fallen, Silver Edition Redux
Wynardtage - The Grey Line, Silver Edition

x-fusion-vast-abysm

X-Fusion - Vast Abysm

Xotox - Hyperactive
XP8 - The Art Of Revenge

Y-Luk-O - Sin(n)

WARNING: I’m not a big compilation fan and so, while I’ve listened to these - they don’t warrant any rating in my book. Compilations are nothing more than promotional material.

Various Artist, Label Compilation Albums:

Batbeliever Gothic Compilation, Part 39
Capture & Tension
Cyanotic Presents Gears Gone Wild
Das Bunker, Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
Elektrish Vol. 3
Extreme Lustlieder Vol. 2
Extreme Suendenfall Vol. 7
Extreme Traumfaenger Vol. 7
Forms Of Hands 08
Futureclash 2
Infacted 4
Kinetik Festival, Vol 01
Lights In The Sky Over North America 2008 Tour Sampler
Machinekunt Records Extreme Women in the Dark Future
Metropolis Rebirth 1.0
Nacht Der Maschinen, Vol 02
New Signs & Sounds 0208
Nightmare Revisited
Re:Connected 2.0
Sin-Tech
Sonic Seducer, Cold Hands Seduction, Vol. 84
Sounds From The Matrix 07

1. How the hell did I listen to this much music?! Well, various avenues: digital download, physical CDs, friends recommendations, online streaming, last.fm, myspace; you name it: I heard these albums and bought as much as I could afford to.
2. Wow. I really dug what I had been hearing compolation-side, but I was unprepared for how great this album was going to be.
3. This is good, but reminds me of Blaqk Audio. A lot. Southern Sun & Shelter are solid tracks. Super surprised these haven’t been club worn yet.
4. I was really let down by this release, but still love this band!
5. 2007s Cruel Melody is a great album
6. Come on LePlegua, pick a direction and get back in front of the pack
7. What the fuck is with all the Christian propaganda in this album?
8. A COMPLETE Combichrist rip-off band. Nothing new and not that good
9. Dear god. I wish I hadn’t listened to this album, because it almost has ruined my adoration of this band. WTF happened? Maybe take a bit more time on a release.
10. So many people here in Portland love this album, and I just can’t seem to figure out why.
11. I had incredibly high expectations of this album. The remixed/restructured version of Pure was so fucking amazing and this just really minimized the sound from Jagged but didn’t make anything… better. Slightly disappointed, but still listen to it often.
12. Anything by Mr. Corner is fucking good -so far-
13. One good track on this baby and a mediocre second. Standard-fare.
14. I really liked a couple of songs off their last album. Mo exceptions here though.
15. This was an interesting listen.
16. They so badly want to be Blutengel
17. This is the band that Radiohead wants to be
18. The only thing that would have saved this album, would be if Rudy would have turned it into a big scene pandered by changing the lyrics of Rikfi to DEATHKEY. I’d have loved that song then.

This band is so amazing. I bought the album from Corrosion Records last year and it still is in heavy rotation here at casa del Stonethorn. Listen and if you like, buy here or here.

UPDATE: I wanted to note that I am not endorsing SCRUM as the end-all-beat-all process for software development. I just wanted to illustrate that I like the “chicken and pig” story. SCRUM does has it’s downside as I clarify down below in the comments. No process is as productive as conversation which is something that SCRUM tries to minimize and mitigate.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately into agile project development process. I found it interesting that while at opus:creative (Opus Creative Group), on one major project of mine, I was actually utilizing SCRUM as an active process. I had adapted into this process naturally based upon the constraints of the particular project. Essentially it boiled down that the client needed to see a working model each week in order to publish the build internally. Typical Opus process wouldn’t have allowed this and so I adapted. Come to find out: it was an agile development process called: SCRUM.

In my research into agile/SCRUM, I found the delineation of roles to be superb and comically accurate. There are only two types of roles in SCRUM: Pigs and Chickens. Pigs (such a Nine Inch Nails term!) are the developers, IA, UX, designers etc… while Chicken are account executives, strategists, project managers. Why would they possibly be named this? Here’s why:

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed but you’d only be involved.”

Scrum was developed to cut out overhead on large software projects. Essentially, the issue of developers that would come into presentations with no deliverable completed because of communication meetings with uninvolved personnel (account executives, project managers etc.). Scrum removes the Chickens from the equation by allowing them into the development cycle ONLY at the end of the sprint. If they require additional information, they can look -themselves- at the backlog document which is updated organically, daily, but the Chicken can’t influence the sprint until the end of the week cycle.

Brilliant.

This puppy has nothing to do with the article except that she's sleeping with a pig. Photo by J.

The presentation itself is very light-hearted and comedically points out the truth to many facets of miscommunication between management and implementation teams. (An unfortunate product of compartmentalized, bucketed, need-to-know and traditional process coupled with project managers that simply are working for a paycheck and not the passion for all things web) I’ve seen these styles of PMs. They are everything she pokes fun at and worse. There are a lot of them in Portland, which is sad and holds back many teams and work.

Here is an excerpt from the presentation that I found particularly humorous:

Project managers all think of themselves like this guy:

Whereas, most developers think of you as this guy:

It’s true. I’ll also back it up that I’ve worked right next to a Lumbergh or two in Portland. Now, I have my faults as a producer, I’ll admit. But, I wanted to personalize this a bit.

I think of myself as a bald amalgamation of these two guys:

You see, I think that I’m the cynical semi-calm Spade, but outwardly I’m pretty sure that at times I come across as a ham-handed Chris Farley. In all cases, I am truly trying to help.

However, what I really strive to be is this guy:

(insert_allegory)

Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred. There are qualities in him that I strive to attain and here are a couple reasons:

Alfred is an adviser, mentor and assistant. He’s completely content with taking care of the crappy shit that gets in the way of being a superhero. He’ll give you advise and solid reasoning why he is dishing it out, but he plans to mitigate the damage when the client or (in some cases) you don’t listen; because frankly speaking: why would the superhero listen, when Alfred himself has never been one? Alfred is also master of knowing what you need before you have to ask. So, when the times comes, you are empowered with everything needed to succeed.

At the end of the day, he’ll do anything for you. Anything…

…like in absence of superhero gadgets - grab a golf club and come to your rescue if you need it - maybe possibly even lift a flaming beam off you even though he’s physically old-and-busted:

Alfred didn’t walk into the flaming mansion and say: “Hold on Bruce, I’ll call Lucius Fox and see if he has anything that can help here!” He makes do with what he has because: deep down he loves what you do and knows that sometimes action is needed over words. And because - goddamn it - he loves you and wants to live in the world that you are changing for the better.

Maybe it’s just the developer in me talking and not the producer, but I agree with thebitchwhocodes and want to make change for her and the teams I’m involved with.

1. Heroism consists of action.
2. Do not act until necessary.
3. You will know that the action is right if everything happens swiftly.
4. Do whatever is necessary.
5. Heroism is revealed not by victory but by defeat.
6. You will have to lie to others, but never lie to yourself.
7. Organized retreat is a form of advance.
8. Become evil to do good.
9. Then do good to earn merit and undo harm.
10. Heroism is completed by inaction.

- As told by Geoff Ryman’s The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai.

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I’ve neglected updating Stonethorn simply because I wanted to take the time to return to blogging sufficiently. In order to do this it warranted some rethinking of how to return. Creatively occupying my mind while keeping up on syndication technologies is the main goal of the site with keeping friends and enemies apprised of my actions and events being the secondary. The main problem was that for the first five months back in Portland my mind was occupied with integrating into the agency lifestyle and process. Then after that I was just so busy I couldn’t devote time to updating.

So, I’m going to start blogging again and I’m going to start by answering the question that plagues my inbox from everyone: what exactly is it that I do now? I’ve intentionally not answered these emails because I wanted to give a full complete answer. People know I’m busy, but they also know I’m not designing anything, I’m not programming code, I’m not working with IT infrastructures, nor photography. So what the hell am I doing and what is this ambiguous Project Manager thing? Well, I intend to clarify that.

Also I’ll be posting a mad cap ton of things I’ve written this past year that never got posted.

Tonight, I was laying in bed at midnight and I decided I should get out for a bit. I walked down to Backspace and ordered a coffee. I then headed around the corner and went into Ground Kontrol; ordered a beer - talked to the cute door girl and played some Star Wars. I walked up to the front Centipede game and all of a sudden, over the sound of music there was a rapid succession of popping sounds from outside. I looked out the windows and the streets erupted with crowds running and screaming away from the back parking lot (In front of Lush).

I stood there with the door girl as people - huge crowds - rushed by, people looking back over their shoulders as they ran; it was crazy. Then a cop ran across the street with a shotgun. Followed by more popping sounds. More crowds ran by. I just stood there at the window and watched. Soon more cop cars arrived and three horses (MPUs) and a plethora of police officers running around with flashlights. They started pushing crowds back. The bartender of Ground Kontrol (who later I came to know was Mark Mahoney @bandcandymark, one of Portland’s best fucking interface developers. This was before he got a position at opus:creative’s Innovation arm.) locked the front door and we stood there more. I couldn’t believe how many people there were. Many were yelling into their cellphones; yelling at the cops who were trying to contain the crowds of people. The police continued to push them back. Soon the street in front of Ground Kontrol was empty. The door girl said that now was the time to leave because the entire block was being corded off.

I headed out the door and at every corner were horses and police setting up yellow ribbons. A tall police woman came up and asked which direction I was heading. I told her and she said I had to go all the way to Burnside, then west to Broadway in order to get home.

All the way I walked the police had every street blocked all the way to Flanders.

Insane.

Last week I had a phone interview with the senior Project Managers, Estelle and Ethan, as an introduction and from that preliminary session they decided they wanted to meet me in the flesh and scheduled a physical interview for Wednesday morning.

Prior to my phone interview I spent a measure of time perusing their website and to say I was impressed is an understatement. Many agencies that I have viewed (including some of the largest and most prodigious ones with reputations that proceed via layman word-of-mouth) are rather lackluster, letting their clients success speak to the level of their creativity and ingenuity the agency has at arsenal, rather than actually showcasing themselves what their strengths are. Opus’ website was another beast altogether, employing some of the more progressive examples of how information can flow utilizing RSS and push technologies, database and dynamically driven Flash instead of simple creative Flash works and static pages. Upon seeing this site I became invigorated to talk with them about their future implementation plans for things like Ruby on Rails etc. While the technology was evident in the construction and deployment of their site, it gave amazing step-by-step examples of how projects started and ended. Print works, design, branding and collateral were all explored and detailed and not just projects that were years old, but current projects (displaying that they did not abandon projects). My synergy towards the interactive comes because at Kimber the projects were all print originating and the interactive and web came as a secondary heel; a necessary-evil in the mind of the marketing there. So to see a company that understands the future and how the two (print and interactive) are more a marriage than a sibling relationship was exciting.

My interview went very well and I felt I was able to portray both sides of my personality, both the fun self-deprecating side and the professional side. The team leaders all were memorable and stood out as distinct assets with their own expertise, ideally showcasing to me that this company was truly, A Team.

As I left I was told that a decision would come on Friday regarding a placement candidate. I drove back to my apartment and started packing; then I took a moment to email each one of the team members a personalized message (since they all so conveniently gave me business cards) and relay again how enthused I would be to be a part of what I saw there.

It worked. I’m now a Project Manager in training for them!

Instead of hearing on Friday about the position, I was told Thursday morning that they wanted me. YAY!

While I was in Portland I lived about 6 blocks away from Powell’s book store. (I’ll assume that its reputation proceeds) Each week I’d spend a few hours going through the floors of books and grab one or two. Sometimes I’d move past the D section in the Gold Room and see the racks and racks of Dragonlance books. It’d been years (probably since 9th grade) that I’d last read the series and with each pass by the section I pondered grabbing the Chronicles and reading them again. Then I’d see the F section down a few and get distracted by the Forgotten Realms books. I’d soon after call Christopher on my cell and ask him which of the trilogies were his favorite, since I loathed The Crystal Shard, thinking that since he’d read them all he’d steer me correctly. We’d discuss and I’d never buy one. Instead I finally started reading George R. R. Martin’s sweeping series.

When I headed this way to Boise I pondered which books to bring with me for the trip. I brought along my D&D 3.5 books just to read, but wondered if Sharon’s two eldest children, Z and P, were old enough to enjoy the mechanics of the game yet. Once I arrived, I shelved the idea; assuming their interests were so far differed from Sharon and mines that it was just a silly notion to think they might enjoy a small simple game.

A few weeks ago I was back in Portland on an interview trip and found myself in front of the D section of the Gold Room, looking at that same collected Chronicles book. Again, I walked past it, choosing to save my dollars – knowing that it was just nostalgia that made me desire reading them. Maybe in a few months I’ll drop the money to start reading them again.

When I arrived back to Boise, as I came in the door, P come running up to me with Dragons of Autumn Twilight in his hands. “Lynn, is the first book I’m supposed to read?” I furrowed my eyebrows in disbelief and answered.

“Yes; were did you get that?”

“Mom has a ton of them!” He yelled with glee. I smiled at his response and thought but of course Sharon did**. (Just before moving to Portland she had me give Christopher a big stack of her old Dragon magazines as a gift to him; “someone who would appreciate them like they deserve to be” she said.)

I followed P as he ran off, leading me to his mother’s treasure. There they were, a good measure of the trilogies and a few of the Preludes singles too. It looked like I didn’t need to buy them at all, Sharon had kept hers. You know, the original ones with the cool loose paper, not the crappy stiff ‘quality’ paper editions they print now. Larry Elmore covers and all.

For the past few weeks P comes running up indiscriminately and points at the novels and states inquisitively, “Is that Fizban?” or “That’s Verminaard?! My friend at school said it was Kit!”, sometimes “Why is Raistlin wearing black robs in this cover?” It’s been cool to see his enthusiasm. He has even been spotted running around in wizard’s robes, pretending to be Raistlin. I turned to Sharon and Rob and joked, feigning terror: “I’m frightened that your son is slipping into the path of The Occult!!! If you have a spare Chick track of Dark Dungeons around, maybe you should have him read it!” We laugh.

With my lastest trip to Portland this past Monday I found myself back at Powell’s, but I wasn’t in the D section of the Gold Room. I was in the manga and RPG section. There I was sifting through all the old Dragonlance materials. They have those new d20 books, but they simply do not have the allure the old books do. The ones I remember Woofie having, the ones I longed to own, but my parents considered it Satanic. As I sifted, my fingers ran over what I was looking for. Adventure DL1; the original, with color inserts and in great condition. I pulled it out and flipped it over to find the price: $5.95. It was mine and I was going to share it with P when I got back to Boise.

As I sat in the airport waiting for my much delayed flight to finally depart, I began reading its pages. As I read, I came to realize that they simply do not make adventures like this one anymore. This adventure encouraged the players to read sections of story and poems as if they were sitting around a campfire, each player in turn, until the story is concluded. It also was VERY loose in it’s structure, it didn’t hold the player and DMs hand forcing them along the plot plath. How cool. Then it encourages one character to actually sing and play a song – and the music is included. As I read this, I imagined Z playing Goldmoon and having her sit and learn the song on the piano (which she can play fantasticly). Sure, it’d interrupt the session for a bit, but the enthusiasm is what is important. I imagined how cool it would be to see Sharon’s eyes as she watched P and Z enacting and enjoying it all.

The next evening as I was heading off to bed, Sharon pulled me aside and said, “What do you think about maybe putting together a little D&D adventure for the kids and us to play?”

I nodded coolly, but inside I was warm and giddy.

**I must add also, I remember (how could I forget) that first time I picked Sharon up at Fatt Boys to go hang out with her at Prof X’s bingo arena. When we were driving the subject of roleplaying games came up when she said she loved roleplaying games. She didn’t believe that I read and sometimes played in the same kind of games so I produced from behind the passenger seat she was sitting in, copies of character sheets and books. I remember she smiled big as she looked at the Earthdawn books, and then I believe the women with the big breasts walked in front of the car…

It is the culmination of every wrong heart-and-hope-driven decision I’ve made in the past year balled up into one fucked up mess.

I hate everything about every inch of …

When we had arrived Savage mentioned that the manager for Dismantled was there and I smiled – knowing that Dismantled was an Oregon band. Then Savage mentioned a new CD he had gotten that was Noise Unit’s latest and I perked up to ask him to play Liberation for me. Which he did and there was a pretty good dance response to it.

I finally got the name for Adam (The gentleman that stated he actually liked what I had earlier written in criticism of the club’s music/name), that I’d met over a year ago, but never could recall his name. He actually doesn’t recall meeting me a year ago, but he’s a beer & booze connoisseur (like I was a few weekends ago) so that explains why there was never a follow up recognition all this time.

Talked LARP with The Prince of the city.

(The last time I played Vampire it was the RPG flavor with a group in Portland in 1994 and the storyteller just let the PCs run amok with storylines they made up themselves with little interaction on his part. I played an Archon. One of the characters was a Malkavian and was running around the Succubus saying he was Caine. So I got permission (during an over-the-phone RPG session with the storyteller) to diablerie his ass from my Prince. Considering the prophecy that states when the end times came for Vamps it would be precluded by Caine returning; most Princes kill the upstart just to stave-off the apocalypse, so it was an easy sell to the Storyteller. I then returned to the game session and walk straight up to the Malkavian and filled his torso with phosphorous rounds. All the other players didn’t understand what was happening and came to rescue him and so I in turn burnt them too. After the smoke cleared, all the players were dead and I walked away. I never played that group again and actually found the whole experience disheartening. Later I ran into the storyteller and he told me it was the most fun he’d had in ages and that the following week, all the players decided to pretend that it was all a dream and were still to that day playing those same characters, drinking the same wine, speaking the same whine.)

I brought my 20D, but had forgotten the battery. Crap.

Spoke more with Damien; whose attitude we both adore.

Sharon and I had fun like we always have together.

Ah Cama-Sotz. The Way To Heresy. Industrial.

Alec Empire. Futurist. Electro-Punk.

Belladonnakillz. Perverted & Proud. Hardcore-Electronica.

Black Lung. Coming Dark Age. Rythmic Noise.

Combichrist. Everyone Hates You. Industrial.

Empusae. Error 404: Metaphorical Loss. Industrial.

Mindless Self Indulgence. You’ll Rebel To Anything (As Long As Its Not Challenging). Industrial-influenced Pop.

Red Cell. Hybrid Society. Industrial.

Rotersand. Welcome To Goodbye. EBM.

Stromkern. Light It Up. Industrial.

T.Raumschmiere. Blitzkrieg Pop. Electronica-Punk.

Xlover. Pleasure & Romance. Electroclash.

While under pressure to maintain a certain total of performance at my current job, I was juggling completely revamping my CV for a position my recruiter feels I have a good chance of snagging at HSBC that is listed as having a required Ivy League issued MBA. I’ve addendumed, spliced, revamped, obfuscated and again reclarified my CV so many times it had begun to loose the flow of english it initially had. Then mid-afternoon I was informed that a second position will be opening up at Nike (beyond the current one I’ve been pitched for) that fit my bill and I again needed to burgeon a section I had previously whittled.

OOF!

In addition to this measure of stress, I was informed today of the reasoning Leupold & Stevens chose to pass on me for the position I seemed destined to obtain. Stress say hello to anger and frustration.

For a moment I was back at Fatt Boys in Kalispell. I was standing at the bar about to order a drink when I looked back towards the pool tables. I saw Johnny Gaijin get laid out flat on his back by Professor X. A little trip from behind. The look on both their faces and that high pitched laugh of Prof’s filled the entire bar.

Never drop your guard. Always be ready. Even around friends, and especially ProfX.

It made my morning remembering that.

I took a couple more CDs to DJ Savage (Who is sadly stepping down from DJing duties at Industria so another can take over, but he says that over the next few weeks there will be some discussions on how to improve the night overall. He’ll still be there DJing a bit, but not as much) one CD was what I labeled: Quasi-Goth. It included acts such as: Collide, Rasputina, And One, 45 Grave, Tear Garden etc… and then another CD called: Quasi-Industrial-Rock. I wanted to rough it up with more rock stuff like 16 Volt, Machines of Loving Grace etc. It was a pleasant evening. It was the first time I got to hear Mesh’s new single (Crash – Alien Six Kerosene Remix) on the big speakers and when we were leaving he started spinning And One’s Sometimes. I overheard someone complain about all the ‘house music’ he was supposedly spinning – this was spoken while Virtual Embrace’s Fuck You was playing; which elicited a snicker from me. House music? Umm…ok. We would have stayed out longer and danced our asses off for another hour, but work duties and early morning personal training cut our evening short.

Someone had read the post and taken the time to register to let me know that I’m “the one who deserves to be pitied”*. Incredible. I didn’t know what to think at first. I was quite stunned that someone had read it and that it upset them enough to both register and comment. So, I posted back and then as planned, Sharon and I went to the club.

After we had grabbed waters and coffee, we were approached by a familiar face (who we’ve talked to before but I’m never sure the next time if he remembers us and I can’t ever recall his name – I’m such a face person) and he wanted to say he had read my journal and that he liked it, but that I had pissed off quite a few others. He then reiterated that he however liked the post and explained a little about the history of the club I had missed (you can read about some of it here) even further back to the days it was originally at the Neurolux and only 12 people were showing up. A vast improvement indeed. It was quite cool he approached me and we talked, it was a bit surprising though to know that my website had been read outside of my little circle of friends and beyond that one commenter. After he left, we were approached again by someone else and then I was asked what my name was and that they had read about me on a website. Sharon and I were asked if it would be alright if our pictures were taken. I must admit that I was extremely hesitant to agree, considering we had just been told that my post had irritated quite a few and this gentleman started off by saying he’d read about me on a site. After the introductions and permissions were out of the way he moved around taking pictures of the two girls dancing.

Once home I dug into my website stats and found that over the weekend 76 unique-cookied identifiable users had visited that post alone. In simple terms this means that each computer is tagged with a cookie the first time they visit stonethorn.com so that when they come back again, they don’t count as another person. 76. All on that Saturday and Sunday; based on this number, it was evident my post had made some rounds.

My web stats also tell a bit of a tale of how people found the post. Here is a listing of the search phrases from Google, MSN, Yahoo searches in descending order:

key: phrase (number of searches)

boise goths (7)

balcony club boise (3)

industria boise (3)

pain industria (2)

industrial rivetheads (2)

boise goth site (1)

One statement in the comment that astounds me is the following: “If you’re so unhappy with Depeche Mode, maybe you ought to wet your beak on some Gangsta Rap. Wouldn’t that be fun?!”* The implication here being that I should just be happy with what is spun because th