Ignis Fatuu-ass

I'm happy to report that things seem much nicer this side of 30 so far. Even the weather has been absolutely lovely. There was a slight chill a few days ago that smelled like autumn, which always makes me feel warm. It makes me feel like Halloween season is almost here.

There's even a new Helloween single, although I won't link to the video because, truthfully, the song's not that hot. I'll reserve judgement until I hear the whole thing, but "Mrs. God" is one of five strikes against the upcoming album. Since I'm sure you don't care, let me recount the others:

1. There's another line-up change - they stole a drummer from Rawhead Rexx, and now there's two guys in the band who end their first name with an "i." Crazy Germans.
2. It's a double CD that clocks in at less than 80 minutes. They once put out a live double CD that could also have fit on a single disc if they shaved off a minute of crowd cheers. What's with the extra plastic?
3. The lyrics on the last album were mostly terrible. This is coming from someone who always found Helloween's garbled English endearing, and who's put up with a lot of mad pumpkin nonsense over the years.
4. It's got "Keeper of the Seven Keys" in the title to piggyback the fame of their most revered albums - which came out 17 and 18 years ago.
My fucked-up tattoo says that if they know what's good for them, it totally better not suck. Meanwhile, if you want to hear some truly good new power metal, you can download the best song from the otherwise disappointingly bland new Falconer album right here. How fortuitous!

The sad state of power metal aside, everything is dandy. For the moment. Gotta admit, it's kind of weird, but I'm not arguing with it. Why don't you go out and celebrate the waning summer indoors - go see "The Aristocrats" if you have a non-AMC theater around. I think you get to see Carrot Top's ass at the end, although I thankfully can't confirm this because when I saw it the projector was misaligned for most of the end credits.