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Metallica sucks less these days!
By The Connoisseurs on Wed, Oct 22, 2008 6:43 am
del.ico.us
reddit!Metallica - Death Magnetic
Let’s get this out of the way before I even get started: this is a great album. While I never bought into that whole “Metallica betrayed us!” meme that many metal heads indulged themselves with I did find myself just losing interest. Still I had some curiosity and tried to listen to a few songs each time a new album came out, simply because there is only one Metallica out there (Apocalyptica doesn’t count). Well in my opinion they are finally back to doing the type of music that I fell in love with in the first place, that being technically proficient thrash with a sweet groove to it. My main complaint about their post Black Album releases was that they just sounded lazy, bland and devoid of solos or classical influence. Well Death Magnetic is anything but lazy, it’s in fact chock full of 7 minute songs with a whole lot of tempo changes and heavy riffs. In a way it kind of sounds like those Metallica inspired songs that Dream Theater keeps making, only not that over the top.
Death Magnetic is extremely self referential though, making tons of cool allusions to older works by the band. For example the album starts out with a little bit of unadorned guitar that gives way into a fast thrash beat, much like Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets did. That Was Just Your Life is fast and heavy, but it throws in some heavy slowdowns and a squeaky guitar solo reminiscent of Slayer. It’s as though their thrash metal side has finally found land after years of drifting at sea and wants to indulge in everything it has missed for so long.
Whole review at:
http://www.theconnoisseurs.com/metallicadeathmagnetic.html
97 Solid Gold Statues of Liberty (or 700 billion)
By The Connoisseurs on Sun, Sep 28, 2008 8:03 am
Just in regards to the 700 Billion Dollar bail out crooked financial institutions:
From a scientific point of view (per contributors to the “This Week in Science” podcast).
$191 Per every mile between the Sun and Pluto
$155 Per every year the planet earth has existed.
$140 Per every year the Sun is expected to continue shining.
$2333 Per every American alive regardless of age
$100 For any human being alive anywhere on earth today.
$7 for every human being that has ever lived on the planet at any time ever in the history of homosapiens.
$2 for every penny that has ever been minted by the US treasury
If carefully stacked this amount in pennies would reach a height of 169,000,000 miles which would be enough to reach the planet mars and continue for another 21,000,000 miles into space.
$2 per every star in the Milky Way galaxy
Financially speaking (these are mine, using Wikipedia for reference, feel free to correct my math)
Hurricaine Katrina caused 81.2 billion in damages. 700 billion would cover this damage 8.6 times.
U.S. official gold reserves are worth $261.5 billion (as of March 2008). 700 billion dollars is the equivalent of 43662674.65 pounds
of gold (per 2008 price per ounce), the weight of 145 blue whales or 97 Statues of Liberty .
It would give the 3.25 billion people who make less than $2 a day an extra $215.38 a year.
It adds another 7.2% to Americas already 9.7 trillion dollar debt.
It would run Barak Obama’s proposed universal health care program for 11.6 years.
Total U.S Consumer Credit Card revolving credit debt was $937.5 billion in November 2007, so 700 billion could bail out practically every single American citizen’s credit card debt instead.
In 2007 there where 2.2 million foreclosure fillings. 700 billion distributes 318,181 for each foreclosed property, surely paying almost all of them off.
700 Billion could pay for 63% of all funds tied up in delinquent real estate loans.
700 Billion can send 4,375,000 people to MIT or Harvard for 4 years.
The chronically homeless population was 123,833 in 2007, meaning we could buy each of them a 5.6 million dollar mansion or at least $500,000 for each family that experienced homelessness this year.
700 billion is the combined wealth of the 30 wealthiest people in the world or 12.28 Bill Gates.
This sum can buy up the total assets for both Microsoft and Google 7.14 times.
It can pay for 31.8 Big Dig projects like the one in Boston .
What 700 Billion can not do is change the way that our financial institutions have carried on for the last few years. I hate spam but you might want to let other people know what is going on under our own noses.
Want to get more game? (Connoisseurs Game Meat Challenge!)
By The Connoisseurs on Sat, Sep 20, 2008 9:19 am
The Connoisseurs Game Meat Challenge
This time around we chose a theme that none of us have much experience in, that being the preparation of game meats. Drawing up a list of mammals, reptiles and birds from a website that specializes in game we each secretly chose our animal or animals and started to ponder what dishes we could prepare. Thankfully, we do have a few places here in Boston where one can get exotic meats such as Savenor’s Market and Super 88.
Michael in fourth with 18 points.
While his dish was extremely well-constructed the meat ended up a little tough and the salad’s extremely diverse flavors failed to harmonize for some of the tasters. Still, it was extremely refreshing and the sauce itself was nearly perfect. The Connoisseurs still hold out hope that Michael will one day bottle the stuff for the mass market and hopefully, when that day comes, he’ll set aside a case of it for each of us.
Jon in third with 27 points.
The tasters were blown away by the texture and flavor of the pieces of quail. The flavor of this diminutive bird was enhanced to perfection and everybody enjoyed the succulent tenderness of the meat. Unfortunately, many found the sauce to be lacking something, perhaps a little sweetness to combat the acidity of the tomatoes. Additionally, some felt this dish bore too many similarities to Jon’s second-place-finishing offering in the unpublished Mexican Cookoff of 2006 where he made a similar dish with chicken. Still, overall, the most common complaint is that tasters wanted more, and that’s rarely a bad thing.
Tom in second with 28 points.
If we would have had to vote for the most unique experience of the night, surely our first taste of bear would have won. The meat was incredibly rich and baked to juicy falling apart perfection. Unfortunately the root vegetables it was served with where underdone and over-spiced, although still quite tasty. The side of wild boar loin was good but some felt it was overpowered by the cinnamon and fennel seed in the spice crust. Overall it was a great and unique experience that comes with some serious bragging rights.
Javier in first with 37 points.
The cassoulet was modified to give it a Southern flavor with smoked sausage and generous portions of paprika, cayenne and Crystal hot sauce. Served ‘upside down’ on a French bread crouton and accompanied by a side of collard greens with French stone ground mustard, most tasters couldn’t get enough of its comforting garlicky taste. Still, unfortunately, the onions where a bit tough and cold when presented and of course duck is probably the most domesticated game meat on the market.
Read the entire article and find recipes at:
http://www.theconnoisseurs.com/consgamecookoff.html
