Things That Keep Me Sane

Heavy Metal

For a lot of people, it's noise. For others, it gets them all riled up and angry. For me, it's an outlet for all the anger I'd hold inside otherwise. Channeling my emotions through the music I'm listening to keeps me sane and relieves headaches. It can calm me down almost instantly. It's a learned thing, and I'm sure a rare one, too. 

Caffeine

That's likely an addiction talking, but whatever. It makes me feel better when super stressed.

Advil

For the days when headaches are a little too much for my high pain tolerance to handle.

Cats

Hug a cat and see if it doesn't make your day 20% better. Unless you're allergic. Then you should hug a toy cat.

Sylvester is worth 5 hugs.

Crafts

There's something about the way I do crafts that makes the tedious, meticulous, monotonous work very relaxing. It sort of lets my mind drift while still staying stimulated. I can work on things for hours before I need a break.

Pillows

When I have my own place and stuff, I might make a panic room filled with pillows. That would probably be fantastic. Sinking onto my pillows is the best part of going to bed.

Photographs

My bedroom walls are covered in photos and posters. I stare at my photos a lot when I need to think about things. Seeing friends can help clear your mind really well, even if it is only a photograph.

Video Games

Sometimes, there's nothing like getting lost in Tamriel for a few hours and beating the hell out of some mud crabs. 

My Top 5 Most Attractive Rock Stars

This post seems sort of incongruous with the rest of my blog...but here! I'm doing it anyway! I'm low on ideas for posts at the moment because I'm really busy with Halloween contests, costumes, other events. Also, I clearly only pay attention to vocalists. This list was supposed to be a top 10, but I could only scrounge up 5. I'm bad at this. XD

5. Matthew Bellamy

I don't listen to a lot of MUSE, but as I was browsing through my music to dig up some hot men, I remembered that their lead singer is pretty cute.

4. Sebastian Bach

Probably the most effeminate guy I've ever found attractive. Maybe. I don't know. My taste in men is questionable at best sometimes. 

  

3. Alexi Laiho

Finland produces some sexy people. In fact, I could probably do a list of sexy Finnish guys that would be longer than this one...and now that I'm thinking about it, I could probably add at least two other Finnish guys to this list, but "top 7" is awkward, and they'd definitely be numbers 6 and 7, so let's just make this concise and keep it to a top 5, shall we? Okay. Good. 

2. Adam Gontier

Specifically, this younger and fluffier Adam Gontier. Newer, short-haired Adam Gontier isn't sexy at all. About 99% of his sexiness is contained in his hair, and facial hair is worth about negative 70% sexiness. Those are my numbers and I'm sticking to them. Don't doubt me.

1. Ville Valo

Like I said, Finland is where it's at. This image is also a weird size where one size setting bigger makes it too big for my blog, so it's the smallest. It's annoying me slightly.

  

My Top 25 Songs

It was absolutely impossible to make this list only 10 songs, which was my original intent. I like a lot of music. I just kept adding songs, then when I was pretty sure I had covered all my favorites, I prioritized them, which was really hard, since some of them are really difficult to compare. Interestingly enough, my favorite band Nightwish doesn't have a single song on this list. No matter which one I think of (and I love most of them), I can't bring myself to place it above any of these. Even after I started numbering these, I added a few more. I'm bad at this. XD

Apparently there was some copyright issue with putting links here (I guess), so I removed them. I'm not entirely sure if that's what the issue was and I don't see how they infringe on any rights whatsoever, but there. Hopefully Blogger is happy with this post now.

So a late edit: somehow "The Islander" by Nightwish kept slipping under my radar as I looked through things. That should go somewhere around...14-19? I guess? I don't really feel like giving it an exact placement since I'm not putting it in the list. XD

25. Juke Box Hero - Foreigner

24. Alsa tu Cerveza - Mago de Oz 

Also called "La Posada de los Muertos"

23. Bird and the Worm - The Used 

22. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

21. The Unforgiven III - Metallica 

20. Zzyzx Road - Stone Sour

Specifically this version, which was played on the radio. There's a different version that has a different ending, and I don't like it so much. I had to host it myself just because it's so hard to find.

19. Every Time I Die - Children of Bodom

18. Fairy Tale - Shaman 

17. Headstones - Lake of Tears 

16. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

15. Paperthin Hymn - Anberlin

14. New Divide - Linkin Park

13. Sieze the Day - Avenged Sevenfold

12. What a Shame - Shinedown 

11. Sky Is Over - Serj Tankian

10. Endlessly, She Said - AFI

9. Wooden Pints - Korpiklaani

It's so freaking dancable.

8. Gone Forever - Three Days Grace

7. Billy in Despair - Maximum the Hormone

This is used as an ending theme for Death Note. I sort of fell in love with it. 

6. Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly - HIM

5. I Don't Care - Apocalyptica

Featuring Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace for the vocals.

4. Bad Company - Bad Company

This song motivated me to write my book, and also influenced it. I remember liking this from the first time I heard it, which was when I was a kid. It's one of the only songs that's held up over the years.

3.Cybernetic Queen - Iron Savior

2. Life is Beautiful - Sixx AM

1. Gone Away - The Offspring
I couldn't tell you why this is my favorite, but it is.

My Top Ten Albums

I like owning music rather than downloading tons of stuff. My bedroom walls are covered in CD booklets and a few inserts from albums, including a signed Lacuna Coil picture. Point is, CDs are stuff, and God, do I love having stuff. Sometimes I buy a CD for a single song. Half of those were horrible purchases, and the others were the best things I could have bought. Here are my ten favorite albums.

A Night at the Opera by Blind Guardian
I bought this because I heard about 30 seconds of "The Soulforged" and decided I needed it. It actually had to grow on me a little, but there are no songs on it that I flat-out dislike. "Age of False Innocence" is my favorite. I used it for a Morrowind tribute video a few years back. That reminds me that I need to list off my favorite games at some point.


Megatropolis by Iron Savior
I heard their song "Cybernetic Queen" on Pandora one night, and it's one of my favorite songs. It makes my ears do happy dances.


Dark Light by HIM
This was my first HIM album. I bought it for "Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly," which is also one of my favorite songs. FYI, when I do my favorite songs list, it will make the least sense out of any list ever, and you're going to wonder why I like songs that are so hugely different. Anyway, I used that song in my last list, so here's a different song from that album.


Decemberunderground by AFI
I love this album. It's essentially all I've heard from AFI. I bought it for "Miss Murder," loved it for pretty much everything else.


Fallen by Evanescence
My first CD, more or less. The first I owned that I still listen to. It was an Easter gift, along with Avril Lavign's "Let Go," which I recently decided to totally remove from my playlist. Anyway, this CD is pretty fantastic, except for "My Immortal." I hate that song. The rest of it is stuff I still listen to every day, which is pretty impressive. A lot of my older music has been pushed off to the dusty sections of the hard drive.


Liberation Transmission by Lostprophets
I love every song on this album. Sure, it's not the most moving or imspiring music, but it's fantastic.


Elect the Dead by Serj Tankian
A song from this album is playing as I type this. I think it's great. It's got a whole bunch of songs that I really, really love.


The Heroine Diaries Soundtrack by Sixx AM
For some reason, this CD is important to me. I love all the music, and I guess it's just really inspiring to hear Nikki Sixx's story of overcoming a crippling addiction. His whole perspective on life is sort of fascinating.


One-X by Three Days Grace
If they ever release a Best Of album, it might as well be One-X with 2 songs switched out. Overall, it's a great album. I'm not super fond of "On My Own," and I never really liked "Never Too Late," but other than that, I could probably listen to it a hundred times without getting sick of it.


Century Child by Nightwish
My favorite band's best CD, as far as I'm concerned. I love it. I don't know what it is about it. There's just thiss nice feel to it. I even put it in my Morrowind system folder and listened to it in-game for a while. It's pretty cool running around Vardenfell listening to "Phantom of the Opera."

Music Monday - "Every Time I Die" by Children of Bodom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtPDm2kaj1c

Embedding disabled, so you gotta follow the link to YouTube. :P

Anyway, I love this song. It's the first song I ever heard by Finnish metal band Children of Bodom, and it remains one of my favorites. At some point I also got interested in the grim reaper because I wrote a story about him/it/whatever, and this song (and others on the same album) really provided a lot of inspiration.

And Alexi Laiho is hot.

Death Panda

I'm watching a documentary on metal right now and I saw this little Death Panda thing. Here it is for all of you to enjoy. :D