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BastardHead's review blog. Old reviews from Metal Archives and Metal Crypt will appear here along with shorter, blurbier thoughts I may have on albums that I don't have enough to say about to write a full review. You'll also find a few editorials here.
Friday, October 27, 2017
LADDER MATCH: Blind Guardian vs. Candlemass
The rules are simple: I rank the albums of the two bands against each other and assign points down the line. So for example, if there are 15 albums for each band, the best record of the bunch will get 30 points, the next will get 29, after that will get 28, and so on down to 1. The winner will obviously be determined by whoever has more points, so in this arbitrary system it's better to have a more consistent career on the whole. Say Band A has the five best albums and also the bottom ten, they'll end with 195 points, while the band that sweeps spots six thru twenty will end with 270. And also, since I like to make shit contradictory and complicated, if the bands do not have an equal number of records, the band with more albums will have their middlemost album excluded from ranking, because if I do a list with Morbid Angel, you bet your ass I'll want Illud Divinum Insanus to count for the same reason I'd want Abigail to count if I was doing King Diamond. You don't get to sweep your mistakes under the rug here on Ladder Match. This is how I balance consistency with spikes in quality, deal with it, chumps.
So without further ado, let's meet the competitors (via MSPaint)!
So the first matchup is against two weighty institutions of metal, both with huge strings of classics to their name that are consistently rated amongst the best in their respective genres. I chose them mostly because I already know every album fairly intricately and don't have to do any extra work for my first installment of the series. Anyway I've spent too much time blabbing so let's get to the point. The album count stands at 10-11 in favor of Candlemass, so according to my own rankings, Death Magic Doom will be eliminated as the median album. Anyway LETS GO!
I think it was probably obvious to most people that the Flodkvist era of Candlemass was gonna find itself near the bottom here. It's just canon to basically every Candlemass fan that this middle era was their lowest point creatively, and to me was more or less just Leif + cronies, as it's fairly well known that this album was more or less intended to be the second Abstrakt Algebra album (it even features the entire band minus Mats Levin on vocals), and the only reason Candlemass even came to exist again in the mid 90s was because no labels wanted anything to do with the new band and Leif had to just give up and bring Candlemass back for the sake of name recognition alone. It really shows, because while this album isn't exactly bad, it's notably a few staircases worth of steps down from their classic era. It's probably unfair to knock the record for this alone, but it's simply not Candlemass. So many of the classic elements of the band are missing. Bjorn Flodkvist is a fine singer but one of the defining traits of the band before and after this era was ridiculously over-the-top vocals from magnanimous and larger than life characters. The album as a whole is just too passive and uninteresting to really stand alongside the thundering megaliths the band had produced previously. When your most unique feature previously was how unapologetically epic you were with your pomp and composition, a more streamlined and simplistic affair simply isn't going to resonate with fans and that's all there is to it.
On paper, all of the elements that made the more overtly symphonic era of Blind Guardian worthwhile are here, just for some reason none of them are put together in such a way that's really all that effective. Like, Andre Olbrich and Marcus Siepen's blisteringly trebly harmonized lead guitar tone is here, the choir of 200 identical Hansis hit some of the most impressive notes they've ever reached, the songs are structured creatively and there are undeniably some strong hits here, but nothing really seems to go over the edge here. To me, this album has always been "The one with 'This Will Never End' and 'Fly' and a bunch of other songs." Not even the longtime fan favorite "Another Stranger Me" does much of anything for me. There is more of a focus on guitar here, which I think was a conscious decision thanks to the backlash the previous album received and how stark the differences were between those songs and the extremely popular live album that immediately followed, but the focus is still honed in entirely on the keys and melodies so at the end of the day, A Twist in the Myth is just kind of a confused album that was trying to please everybody at once and failing at both.
Pretty much everything I said about Dactylis Glomerata up there applies here too, but From the 13th Sun is a bit more interesting of a record so it's easier to get behind. There's a droning, spacey atmosphere layered atop the album and on the whole it's much less "riffs that don't go anywhere or mean anything with vocals that are just there" and more "riffs that laser focus on Sabbathisms with vocals that are just there but at least thematically fit much better." They're less afraid to pick up the pace on this one, which is more in line with the galloping machismo found on the 80s records, but some of the slower and more bleak tracks just overall work much better, most notably "Tot", one of the only songs from the Flodkvist era that I can confidently say stacks up to the rest of their discography. Tracks like "Elephant Star" also work as a fairly accurate representation of where they were going to go post-2000 in the second reunion era. So even if it's easily one of their weaker albums, it's infinitely more interesting than the completely pedestrian Dactylis Glomerata.
When I said that A Twist in the Myth was an album that tried to please everybody, I was being somewhat facetious, because I knew At the Edge of Time was coming up next in their chronology. While A Twist in the Myth was sort of unfocused and fillery, At the Edge of Time absolutely knew what it was doing. This was a deliberate throwback to their classic era and it was painfully transparent. "A Voice in the Dark" is obviously trying to recapture the lighting in a bottle that was "Valhalla" more than 20 years prior, "Tanelorn (Into the Void)" sounds like one of the more aggressive tracks from Imaginations from the Other Side, "Curse My Name" sounds like one of the ballads from that middle era, it's just very clearly an intended retread of ground they'd already covered, which is a shame from a band that spend the previous 25 years or so constantly pushing themselves. That's not to say an album that is ostensibly just Imaginations part II is going to be bad by default, because the original is a stone cold classic and this album isn't exactly bad itself, but it is a bummer. That said, it's still not their worst album because there are undeniably some great songs here. The slow, booming symphonics of "Sacred Worlds" has definitely endeared it to me as the live staple it has since become, "War of the Thrones" is the best ballad they've penned since the 90s, and "Ride into Obsession" is one of their most underrated tracks ever. Despite the lack of creativity that permeates most of the album, the high points are still high enough to make it a fun listen from time to time, it's just in the lower echelon of their albums as a whole.
I hated this album so much as a teenager it's almost embarrassing. I've come around to it somewhat, but it's known as the Thomen Killer for a reason. This is easily the biggest departure from any previous sound they've ever undertaken, and the heavily symphonic and more or less riffless approach to songwriting is a shame, but if we're being honest with each other, Blind Guardian was never about the riffs, they were always about the melodies, and A Night at the Opera is undeniably loaded with excellent melodies. The problem is that the songs are mostly completely missing the beefy undertone that this sort of metal needs to truly thrive. The riffs are buried so far under the leads and vocals that it wouldn't even surprise me if you had told me this was initially intended to be a side project. The real problem with the album is oddly enough highlighted on the live album that came out the following year, which featured four tracks from this album, none of which I count as "the good ones", but they sound so much better with that full live sound, with meaty guitars underneath them to highlight some of the heaviness that was sorely absent on the studio recording. Therefore the biggest issue the album has is simply that it's not as cool as it should have been, because the three great songs ("And Then There Was Silence", "Battlefield", and their #1 most underappreciated track, "Precious Jerusalem") work beautifully in the context of the sound the album had, but all the rest are improved a thousandfold with a better sound.
Yeah I know, this is their signature album, their most popular by a long shot, the one that dominates every live set, Nightfall is the Blind Guardian album. And yet, I just really don't like it all that much. Where they set out to be ambitious storytellers, they fell flat on their face by utterly failing at reaching anything resembling consistency as a musical endeavor. Nearly every track is broken up by a pointless 30 second interlude of a creature roaring or a crackling campfire underneath a completely superfluous narration that means nothing. I know what they were going for, but it makes the album flow like a babbling brook of patio bricks. The fact that the actual songs themselves almost rigidly adhere to a "metal - ballad - metal - ballad" flip flopping just makes the entire thing hopelessly uneven and difficult to listen to. And yet somehow, despite the thing being presented and arranged in such an unfathomably stupid way, Nightfall somehow contains like six of their best songs. "Into the Storm", "Nightfall", "When Sorrow Sang", "The Curse of Feanor", "Time Stands Still", and especially their most popular track (and one of my personal all time favorite metal songs period) "Mirror Mirror" all make this album worth owning despite the drudgery of "Thorn", "Blood Tears", and "Noldor". The album's biggest flaw is merely that it's just super frustrating, because there's really no way to fix what's presented. If you take the interludes out, the album is even more obviously uneven thanks to the constant flip flopping in tone, and if you just take the best handful of songs and make a pretend EP out of it, you'll find yourself salivating for a full length interpretation of this style, blissfully unaware of the confounding monstrosity if it were to come to fruition. Despite this being the album I have listened to in full the least by a gargantuan margin, the good songs are so good that it became a seminal classic for a reason. I can't dunk on any album with both "Mirror Mirror" and "When Sorrow Sang" too horribly hard, no matter how frustrating the entire experience is.
I'm going to be completely honest with you, as much as I love Candlemass, the entire Rob Lowe era tends to blur together into one big album to me, with Death Magic Doom standing out a bit to me simply because I like some of the songs a bit more (though I recognize I'm in the minority on that one). So really, Psalms for the Dead is functionally tied with King of the Grey Islands for me, but for the purposes of the Ladder Match, I'm going to put the band's studio swansong a little bit under the debut with Lowe. For a band that ostensibly invented an entire subgenre of doom metal, this final record here is actually one of the most "regular" doom albums they ever penned. Songs like the title track and "Waterwitch" are almost agonizingly slow dirges that build a quite macabre atmosphere, and it's a neat change for a band that previously reveled so much in excess. Some of these downtempo stompers are better than others (I don't care for "Waterwitch" or "Siren Song" too much but "The Killing of the Sun" (which takes the main riff of "Iron Main" just blatantly enough for me to notice but it's just cool enough for me to not care) and especially "The Lights of Thebe" absolutely crush), but they're most definitely the focus this time around. The grand atmosphere that defined the classic records is mostly absent here, replaced with a more oppressive, skull squeezing heaviness. It works fairly well, for what it's worth, and it makes the handful of speedy tracks that do appear ("Prophet" and "Time is Black", most notably) hit that much harder. It's a good album, but it's kind of weird for Candlemass to bow out on an album that only sort of represents their signature sound.
As previously stated, this is more or less a complete tie for me with the previously listed album, but if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose the superior album, I'd go with the 2007 entry into their oeuvre. King of the Grey Islands, like all of the Lowe records, is a bit more overtly doomy than the Messiah era, but this one stands a bit above the other listed mostly because Lowe sounds much more inspired (he was infamous for his alcoholism and lazy live performances, which hindered him greatly later on and eventually led to his ousting, so this first album catches him while he's still in top form) and because it, on the whole, sounds more like a Solitude Aeturnus/Candlemass mashup. I know I ragged on the Flodkvist albums for not sounding enough like the Candlemass I had grown to love, but the cross with SA works remarkably well for fairly obvious reasons. Not only was Robert Lowe the iconic vocalist of the American doom legends, and not only did Solitude Aeturnus play a remarkably similar style to Candlemass in the first place, but Beyond the Crimson Horizon is actually my all time #1 favorite doom metal album ever recorded. So yeah, obviously anything that reminds me of those first three SA albums is going to be a hit with me, and the slightly more epic and esoteric take on the more straightforward rocking doom that Leif has been writing from the mid 90s up until today works incredibly well with Lowe's husky and grandiose vocals. There's a deceptive amount of variety on here, with "Clearsight" sounding like it could have been on Tales of Creation with no editing, "Of Stars and Smoke" taking a more mysterious approach, and tracks like "Demonia 6" and "Devil Seed" just going for the throat and cutting like a sacrificial knife. This is the sound of the undead reigning over a long forgotten castle nestled in a perpetual fog somewhere in the northern seas. It's got great atmosphere and killer riffs, what more do you really need from a doom album?
Finally we start to reach the Messiah albums. Though this may not be classic-era Candlemass, their 2005 return with the classic lineup was such a huge breath of fresh air for most fans. The Flodkvist stuff was fine I guess, if uninteresting, but the triumphant return of the wild haired and pudgy madman was exactly the kind of thing the band needed to breathe new life into their fast-stagnating existence. Getting Bjorkman, Johansson, and Lindh back certainly helped as well, because that classic 80s lineup had a boatload of chemistry that the Abstrakt Algebra goons could never even dream to match, but Messiah brought so much overt theatricality to the band that nobody after him ever came close to matching.. And so here, the band ostensibly picks up where it left off after the famous live album in 1990, and they haven't missed a step. This is a bit more modernized in some of the straightfoward rocking songs like "Black Dwarf" and "Born in a Tank", but the epic atmosphere is finally back in spades. If it wasn't for the somewhat dull stretch between "Copernicus" and "Witches", this could easily be a couple spots higher, because everything else is an undisputed winner. "Black Dwarf" will always hold a special place in my heart for being one of the first Candlemass songs I ever heard in full around the time the album dropped in 2005 (which was twelve fucking years ago holy shit) and for just simply being one of the best straightforward riff monsters they've ever written, and "Spellbreaker" should probably go down as one of their most underappreciated modern tracks. It's just an all around very good album, with all of the elements that made the trio of late 80s albums so iconic, updated for the heavier modern era. This is what Candlemass truly sounds like, and it's the first time on this list that we've gotten a true taste of that inimitable swagger they carried underneath sweepingly epic atmosphere. While relistening to everything a second time after forming the rankings (simply listening to everything necessary is teaching me that this Ladder Match feature is ridiculously fucking time consuming), I realized that this album is actually quite clearly better than Death Magic Doom, and therefore should've been the album to hit the middle of the rankings and been excluded, but I decided not to rewrite it because DMD would have been in this spot anyway so the point totals wouldn't have been different, and frankly I just really don't want to write about all three Lowe albums in a fucking row. Deal with it.
Well it took us until the tenth entry to get here, but we're finally starting to sniff the 80s in this countdown. Blind Guardian's legendary debut is most well remembered for one thing, and that's for giving the world one of the songs most beloved by fans and most reviled by the band, the eternal speed metal classic, "Majesty". Marcus Siepen mentions in the liner notes on the Century Media reissue that his least favorite memory of this album is even writing "Majesty" in the first place, since the band finds the song to be too amateurish and they routinely get frustrated with crowds at every live show for the past 30 years incessantly chanting for them to play it, despite their dogged insistence to avoid playing it as often as possible. Marcus is a dingdong, because "Majesty" is a heralded classic for a damn good reason, it's quite possibly the most incredible speed metal song ever written. There's a lot more to this album than that legendary opener, but it does stand as the clear highlight regardless. This early era of the band isn't quite as expansive and magniloquent as their symphonic era, but raw and furious German speed metal is one of the greatest short lived subniches in the history of heavy metal and Battalions of Fear showcases why with aplomb. This is one of the few albums in their discography where the riffs are on equal footing with the melodies (which has always been the band's strong suit), and it only serves to make the album beefier than it logically has any right to be. The insane speeds found on tracks like "Guardian of the Blind" and "Wizard's Crown" have yet to be matched in the ensuing years. Right away the band had perfected their brand of hooks and Battalions of Fear meshes them with sheer, uncompromising speed, and that makes it a phenomenal record, if a bit rough and unpolished, and the small number of full length songs helps preempt the band's eternal issue of album bloating that started around 1995.
As great as the debut is, I give the edge to Follow the Blind mostly because it's just that little bit tighter, just that little bit more refined, and just that little bit more hard hitting. It's only ever so slightly less ferocious than Battalions of Fear but even more melodically sophisticated. This is the album where they started to really nail their signature sound of bombastic epicness and speedy, razor sharp metal. They were obviously still firmly on the speed metal side of the equation at this point, but the choir effect in the choruses of classics like "Banish from Sanctuary" and "Valhalla" really telegraph the direction they'd further pursue. Don't let that statement fool you though, this is still 100% molten fucking metal, loaded to the gills with enough uncompromising riffage to satisfy any wayward Slayer fan to stumble across it. Despite the aforementioned two songs being the only two tracks from their speed metal era to still reliably make it into any current live set (apart from the occasional track from Tales from the Twilight World or sometimes throwing fans a bone in the form of "Majesty"), pretty much every track is a classic in my eyes. "Damned for all Time" absolutely smokes, "Beyond the Ice" is an incredible speedfest instrumental, "Hall of the King" makes me headbang myself into a coma without fail, basically everything except for the title track, oddly enough, is amazing. Even the goofy cover of "Barbara Ann" tacked on at the end works as a fun cooldown after 35 minutes of non stop riffage. Honestly, it's pretty indicative of how amazing both of these bands are if I have nothing but good things to say about an album and we're only just barely breaking into the top half of the rankings.
The six tracks that started it all. There's a reason you see that cross-impaled-demon-skull thing on all of their merchandise, almost everything about this album became a Big Fucking Deal. This type of doom was all but unheard of in 1986. This kept the gloom and misery of most downtrodden metal at the time but slathered it all in massive, destructive riffs and esoteric atmosphere. Candlemass always had the atmosphere element of metal in a stranglehold during this time, and their debut here is an exemplary example as to why. This is actually going to be a very short entry because fuck, really what can I say about it? It's one of the most legendary releases in all of 80s metal for what it signified and every song is a killer. "Solitude" is one of the band's signature songs for a reason, "Under the Oak" and "A Sorcerer's Pledge" are practically inescapable, and "Crystal Ball" will always hold a special place in my heart not only for having such an impossibly cool main riff, but also for actually being the very first Candlemass song I ever heard (back in the Limewire days of high schol when it was mislabled as "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus"). This heralded the "invention" of epic doom metal, and it's absolutely earned every modicum of notoriety it's carried in the 30+ years since.
It might seem odd to place Guardian's most recent album so high on the list, above even the seminal classics that are the first two albums and their most popular album, but I honestly think this is actually the first time they've truly perfected their more drawn out and epic style that started a whopping twenty years prior, proving that Imaginations from the Other Side wasn't just a fluke. Whereas the previous four albums were all noticeably flawed in one way or another, Beyond the Red Mirror really just delivers ten remarkably tight and well crafted songs that showcase everything that makes the band so legendary. I don't know what it was, maybe it was the simple switch to seven string guitars or the departure of Oliver Holzwarth (though unlikely, since he was always shafted as a full member because "Oh maybe Hansi will want to play bass again someday, so you'll just be a guest member for the next fifteen years and get no credit and never get to write any songs"), but everything just came together beautifully on this one. "The Ninth Wave" and "Grand Parade" effectively rendered their counterparts of "Sacred Worlds" and "Wheel of Time" obsolete, "The Holy Grail" is by far the most aggressive and propulsive song they've written in two decades, with "Twilight of the Gods" really not too far behind, "Ashes of Eternity" sounds like a lost A Twist in the Myth song that was actually super fucking good, it's just a remarkably tight and solid outing for a band of nerds pushing 50.
Finally, finally after thirteen entries we reach the legendary triad of Messiah albums from the 80s. This era is so revered for a damn good reason, this was simply epic doom perfection, that only Solitude Aeturnus matched in the 90s and beyond. Absolutely nobody else did it as well as the masters did. The album art is actually a fairly good illustration of what the music brings to the table. It's very bright and majestic, like an inconceivably gorgeous palace far off in the distance, with a sort of lurking sense of ardor beneath a sheen of optimism. The themes of death are just as prevalent as they always were during the band's early days (this doesn't feature tracks like "Incarnation of Evil" for no reason), but it's presented with sweeping grace and class that they've honestly never matched, and it's filtered through a lens of creation, building vast temples of white upon a strong foundation of brooding riffage. If there's an real flaw with this album, it's simply that some of the songs are just too long. Four tracks breaching the seven minute mark logically shouldn't be a problem for a band that operates with this scope and tempo, and to be fair none of the longer songs are bad, but every single song underneath the bar of seven minutes is better than the ones that surpass it. The rolling gallop of tracks like "Mirror Mirror" and "The Bells of Acheron" are exciting and evocative, and the more gloomy oppression of "Epistle no. 81" and especially "Darkness in Paradise" just work better with an ever so slightly more concise execution. Candlemass was always great at injecting some extra vigor into their riffs, and it shows here. Bonus points go to the excellent Black Sabbath medley included on the CD version, paying homage to their obvious heroes with an excellent mashup of undisputed Ozzysabbath classics "Symptom of the Universe", "Sweet Leaf", "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", "Into the Void", "Electric Funeral", and "Supernaut".
I've namedropped this album like ten times leading up to this spot, and that hasn't been by accident. This legendary 1995 album provided the blueprint for all epic power metal bands to follow for decades to come, with nobody, not even the band themselves, ever truly matching the splendor that explodes from this masterpiece of metal supremacy. That raw, youthful exuberance of the band up to this point has been almost entirely replaced with a class and maturity hitherto unheard of in the genre. There's a reason so many melodic power metal stalwarts (Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Rhapsody, etc) either didn't start or didn't hit their stride until after this album. Yeah yeah I know Helloween is a bigger influence on all of those bands but the point stands that Imaginations was a total game changer. I joke often that no power metal band should bother trying to write ballads unless they're Blind Guardian, and while their best ballads are coming up later in this list, this album is an excellent example as to why I think that. "A Past and Future Secret" and "Mordred's Song" are both phenomenal quiet emotional songs (and for bonus trivia, for any wayward rap fans reading this, the latter song was sampled by OuterSpace for the track "Lost Battles", and it works incredibly), and even the lighter quasi-ballad of "Bright Eyes" is stunning. The title track is a mid paced and evocative masterclass of songwriting, and despite this being the clear start of their more epic style and the last stronghold of their pure riff infused speed metal, there are still a few holdovers that are injected with massive doses of melody and bombast, which huge choirs backing pummeling double bass and fiery excitement. So yes, "I'm Alive", "Born in a Mourning Hall", and most especially "Script for My Requiem" are among the best songs the band ever wrote. There's really nothing not to like about this album, and I've yet to meet a power metal fan who didn't damn near worship the ground it walked on.
This is sort of the "lost" Candlemass album, tragically doomed to be the oddity at the end of the classic run and just before the breakup and Abstrakt Algebra fiasco, featuring a much more subdued and soulful vocalist who logically was more well suited to traditional power metal and hard rock styled music than the endlessly entertaining oversinging we had all gotten used to thanks to the inimitable Messiah Marcolin for the past several years leading up to this (he does great in Dark Illusion, Stormwind, and Therion). Frankly, that's an absolute fucking shame, because Chapter VI is every bit as magical as the Messiah Trilogy in the 80s. While it may not be as over the top and theatrical as the most well known stuff, it's definitely among the most well written and evocative. The opener, "The Dying Illusion" is probably the strongest indicator of the heavier motifs they'd employ from 2005 and beyond, but pretty much every song here is a worthy classic. It's certainly the darkest album they've recorded, which is kind of odd considering the non-stop Sabbathisms of the Flodkvist era and the leftover brightness of the Messiah era, but it's true. There's a lot of black splendor to be found here on tracks like "Temple of the Dead" and "Black Eyes", and the subtle synths that appear relatively frequently give the album a character unlike any other Candlemass album. But despite the more grounded effort here and Vikstrom's solid attempt at filling some of the biggest shoes in metal, this is every bit as good as the classic era, and there are two songs that showcase why: "Where the Runes Still Speak" and "The Ebony Throne". The former is often cited as the lost classic from this album that could have fit anywhere on the more visible albums and the one that makes the best use of Vikstrom's voice, but for my money, "The Ebony Throne" is the true forgotten classic of the band's career. Worthy of any setlist and featuring one of the best choruses the band would ever pen, do yourself a favor and check out "The Ebony Throne" if you're only familiar with the Messiah and Lowe eras of the band.
Likely the fastest and most upbeat of all of Candlemass's oeuvre, Tales of Creation stands as the glorious conceptual sendoff to the classic era, rife with classic after classic after classic. The hints of splendorous creation that ran underneath the excellent Ancient Dreams are hammered over the listener's head in the most hamfisted way here, but fuck I wouldn't change it for the world. The bright vibrancy is at an all time high, with more melody and more speedy tempos than the band would ever feature before or since, and it's a very exciting and wondrous journey as a result. Even the dark and heavy doom that the band never failed to feature prominently despite the more colorful approach of the Messiah records is more uplifting and exuberant than ever before. "Dark Reflections" is another one of the first songs I'd ever heard from the band, and the pulse pounding and muscular gallop of the verse riff still stands as one of the highlights of the band's career. "Tears" features one of the most hard hitting choruses they'd ever write, "Through the Infinitive Halls of Death" is both a dark and oppressive slab of monstrously heavy doom and an adrenaline filled romp, the closing title track brings back the opening riff from "Prophecies" as a great coda to tie the whole experience together, the rerecording of "Under the Oak" is phenomenally heavy, basically everything about this album is sheer perfection. I absolutely have to highlight the most out-of-left-field moment of the band's career though, there's no way to overlook it. "Into the Unfathomed Tower" is a ferocious blast of high speed neoclassical shred/power metal that comes out of absolutely fucking nowhere and completely rips me apart every time. It's sort of just a fun instrumental throwaway in the middle of the album to help break up all the doom in the grand scheme of things, but I love it so much because it showcases how little of a fuck Candlemass gave about "the rules" at the time. They were writing the rules, and it didn't matter if they were four full lengths into their run, if they wanted to put in a vibrant and high speed melodic powerhouse of shred, who the fuck was going to stop them? I'm willing to bet that almost nobody else had the sheer testicular fortitude to take the subgenre most constricted by rules and ethos behind only thrash metal and say "Fuck all of you, we're going to put an Yngwie Malmsteen song in the middle here and none of you pricks can stop us."
Blind Guardian was almost unstoppable in their speed metal era. I see Tales here often shuffled near the bottom because it supposedly ends on a whimper compared to the monstrously strong opening streak of songs, but anybody who believes that is a numpty. "The Last Candle" is one of their all time greats, opening with that iconic mantra of "GAH-DYIN GAH-DYIN GAH-DYIN OF THE BLIND" from two albums prior sets the stage for a definitive statement of speed metal insanity, and the rest of the song lives up to it with aplomb, ending with a classic out-chant. Even the two short interlude style songs ("Weird Dreams" and "Altair 4") are among the band's best, never slowing down or kicking down the intensity for a second. But really, the true strength of the album really is that opening string of classics. From "Traveler in Time" to "Lost in the Twilight Hall", the album just delivers anthem after anthem, never stopping fuck around with mid tempo nonsense outside of one of their all time great classic ballads, "Lord of the Rings". The fact that this album seems to have been mostly phased out of live sets is a huge shame, though I do understand why. It's by far the most intense album they've ever penned, with more vigor and fury than they've ever mustered before or since. "Traveler in Time" and "Goodbye My Friend" are woefully forgotten monsterpieces of fiery speed, and "Welcome to Dying" seemed to hold out the longest in terms of setlist mainstays and that's a great thing because it's an amazing song. "Lost in the Twilight Hall" marks the second appearance of former Helloween and future Gamma Ray frontman, Kai Hansen, and his comparatively shrill screech is a perfect foil for the full voiced masculinity of Hansi Kursch. The song also features one of their best choruses, which even at this early stage in their career has always been their strength. The balance between hooks and aggression is tilted a little further towards the latter end still, but it's all coming together nicely, hinting at the direction they'd eventually take ever so subtly. "Lord of the Rings" would have easily stood as their defining singalong ballad if not for the obvious one coming up on the followup album, but it acts here as a nice breather before barreling headfirst into the frantic insanity of "Goodbye My Friend". There's really nothing bad I can say about this album, even the forgotten final three songs are amazing and would have stood as easy highlights on any other speed metal album from 1990. Tales from the Twilight World is so good that it somehow manages to convince its own listeners that it's weaker than it is, and I can't even begin to explain how that even makes sense. It warps reality itself, that's all there is to it.
Did you really think for even one second that any other Candlemass album could've come out on top as their best? Nightfall stands after 30 years as their magnum opus, and as much as I love Chapter VI and Tales of Creation, they never even stood a chance. This was the world's introduction to the man himself, Messiah Marcolin, the iconoclastic vocalist that I've mentioned several times but never really expounded upon. His voice was unlike anything else in metal at the time, taking the theatricality of Johan Langquist and ratcheting every single aspect of it so far past eleven that I stopped counting somewhere within the opening minutes of "The Well of Souls". His vibrato is absolutely insane, and his command of the human voice is almost unmatched. Every single time he opens his mouth I find myself just in the palm of his hand, transported off somewhere beyond the ether. "Magical" is an adjective I find myself using to describe this run of albums in the late 80s, and Messiah is a huge reason why. He's completely inimitable, and no other vocalist they've featured has ever touched his accomplishments with the band. Candlemass has always been Leif's band first and foremost, but Messiah was the X-Factor that took them from "excellent" to "undisputed legends". Even beyond his personal brand of perfection, the songs themselves here are the best they'll ever be. Like five of the songs here are consistently rated among their best and I can't really dispute any of them. "At the Gallows End" is a seminal classic, with one of the most simplistic-yet-perfect riffs ever written and a massively anthemic chorus (RIIIiIiIiIING BROoOoOoOTHER RIIiIiIiIiING FORrR MEeEeEeEe), "The Well of Souls" introduces Messiah with some of the most ear splitting high notes he'd ever reach, "Bewitched" is quite possibly THE classic Candlemass song behind "Solitude", there isn't one single negative thing I can say about this album. Yeah it may lack the uptempo skippiness of Tales of Creation or the guitar mastery of Ancient Dreams, but this was their undisputed peak of songwriting and majesty. Candlemass could make fucking anything sound incredible in 1987, just look at "Samarithan". It's just a sweet, wholesome song about a man who takes in a homeless beggar for a night and is thusly rewarded by becoming an angel years later upon his death. Like, holy fuck no metal song should ever be about something so saccharine, but here's fucking Candlemass churning out an uplifting doom song about exactly that. This is about as close to a perfect album as you can get, and it's an eternal monument to Candlemass's complete mastery of music in the late 80s.
And finally coming in at the top of this heap, one of my Top 10 All Time favorite albums ever, in any genre. I know it's a bit of a cliche but there are really two types of transitional albums when a band undergoes a major stylistic shift, those being either an awkward mishmash of two disparate styles, or a gorgeous "best of both worlds" affair. Somewhere Far Beyond obviously sits firmly as the shining example of the latter category. I think the word I've been looking for to describe all of Blind Guardian's post-1995 work but haven't been able to land on is "ambitious", because this perfect blend of their earlier primal rawness and later polished majesty absolutely sounds like the most ambitious speed metal album ever crafted. There are smatterings of symphonics scattered around, most notably on the title track and "Theatre of Pain", along with some of their most well written speed metal monsters with "Journey Through the Dark", "Time What Is Time", and "Ashes to Ashes". The choirs and choruses have never been better than they are here, every single idea they toy with just hits bullseye. The ballad half of "The Bard's Song" is the most iconic metal ballad of all time, the church bells that punctuate the chorus of the title track send shivers down my spine even to this day, the intro of "Time What Is Time" still wrecks me, "Ashes to Ashes" is probably their best forgotten song, just... god dammit I fell in love with this album well over a decade ago and it still hasn't lost one single bit of it's luster. I know I just went on a huge rant about how much I love Nightfall and I can say with confidence that I love Somewhere Far Beyond even more, but the problem is that I don't really know what to say about it. All I can do is point to certain aspects of it and descend into gibbering lunacy about how good it is. If nothing else, it has one of my all time favorite "special thanks" sections in any metal album outside of some of Morbid Angel's more classic ones, sprinkled with boundless love for Iced Earth and tons of weird little asides ("Soccer rules!", "Game Boy rules!") and a shoutout to Jon Schaffer punctuated with "Poor Raiders fan, the Bucs rule!", which tells me that Super Bowl XXXVIII must have been an incredibly hostile time in the Demons & Wizards camp.
And so! With a final score of 106 to 104, the winners of the inaugural Ladder Match stand as...
CANDLEMASS! In total honesty, I didn't tally the points out before I started writing this and just added them up as I went along, so I genuinely didn't know who was going to win until the last couple entries started making it easier to calculate, and I'm actually surprised. I obviously love the shit out of both bands, but I've always considered Blind Guardian to be one of my all time favorites, consistently hitting about the third spot below only Bad Religion and Running Wild/Gargoyle/whoever I feel like at the time. I knew it would be close, but I didn't expect Candlemass to actually take the throne. It was so close that basically any shuffling around of any album would have altered the score in some significant way. Congrats to Candlemass, you've won a completely meaningless contest run by some dork with far more free time than important shit to do, way to go!
So that's that! Was I way off base? Who would you like to see face off next?
In the meantime, LET'S STOMP!
9 comments:
- AnonymousOctober 29, 2017 at 2:04 PM
Hey, I've been lurking your blog on and off for about 3 years now.ReplyDelete
I'd just like to recommend Suffocation vs. Cryptopsy for the next ladder, since you are asking for input.
If you won't comply a demon will come to your house at night and melt your face off, or something...
I actually had Suffocation ready to go against Metallica (because I like the matchups being super different) but it was a complete and utter squash match. Upon reflection I'm not sure if I could ever do one with Suffocation because they would crush every opponent so furiously and completely that it'd almost never be interesting, haha.Delete
- AnonymousDecember 14, 2017 at 9:48 AM
please BastardHead do Immortal vs. Dream TheaterDelete
Immortal win by a billion because Dream Theater's only good album is the crappy one.Delete
- AnonymousOctober 29, 2017 at 4:12 PM
Yeah that seems about right... I guess they are just not suited for any matchup.ReplyDelete
Type-O Negative vs Paradise Lost.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 14, 2017 at 9:00 AM
Blind Guardian easily beat Candlemass for consistency and longevity. I demand a rematch!ReplyDeleteReplies
I just conducted a recount and it turns out Candlemass actually won by 10000 points. Whoops!Delete
- AnonymousDecember 14, 2017 at 9:01 AM
How about Virgin Steele vs. My Dying BrideReplyDelete


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234910 Water, Sewer, and Pipeline Construction
This industry comprises:
Establishments primarily responsible for the entire construction (i.e.., new work, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or repairs) of water mains, sewers, drains, gas mains, natural gas pumping stations, and gas and oil pipelines;
Establishments identified as water, sewer, and pipeline construction management firms; and
Establishments identified as special trade contractors engaged in activities primarily related to water, sewer, and pipeline construction. Establishments in this industry may subcontract some or all of the actual construction work. Kinds of establishments include water, sewer, and pipeline general contractors, design builders, engineer-constructors, and joint-venture contractors

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sign In
- Sony Biotechnology
- Sony Biotechnology
CD134, also known as OX40 and TNFRSF4, is a 50 kD type I transmembrane glycoprotein. It is a member of the TNF receptor family. OX40 is expressed on activated T lymphocytes including Th1, Th2, Th17, and Treg cells. The interaction of OX40 with OX40L results in B cell proliferation and antibody secretion, regulation of primary T cell expansion, and T cell survival. OX40 influences the size of the T cell memory pool and regulation of CD4+ T cell tolerance.
Each lot of this antibody is quality control tested by immunofluorescent staining with flow cytometric analysis. Test size products are transitioning from 20 microL to 5 microL per test. Please check your vial or your CoA to find the suggested use of this reagent per million cells in 100 microL staining volume or per 100 microL of whole blood. It is recommended that the reagent be titrated for optimal performance for each application.
1. Latza U, et al. 1994. Eur. J. Immunol. 24:677. (WB, IP)
2. Durkop H, et al. 1995. Brit. J. Haematol. 91:927. (IHC)
3. Durkop H, et al. 1997. Brit. J. Haematol. 98:863. (IHC)
4. Willett B, et al. 2007. J. Virol. 81:9665. (ELISA)
5. Li M and Zhang Y. et al. 2005. Cell. Mol. Immunol. 2:467. (FA)
6. Gloviczki ML, et al. 2012. Clin. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 8:546. PubMed
7. Domingos PL, et al. 2012. An. Bras. Dermatol. 87:851. (IHC)


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I'm envious you have room for a longarm! …
Comment on Where I Sew – Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side by Marianne.
I'm envious you have room for a longarm!
Recent Comments by Marianne
For Sale – Pink Chalk Fabrics
I am interested. Please send me the necessary details. Thank you.
Where I Sew – Tamara Kate
Lovely area to sew and create in!
Where I Sew – Megan Nielsen
Nice and organized. I like that!
Where I Sew – Caroline Hulse of Sew Caroline
Great sewing room especially love the sofa!
Where I Sew – Elizabeth Olwen
Love the wood floors, so much better for sewing.


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Clowns from Amsterdam
7 years ago
I must have missed something. What is this, a new form of dissident prison?ReplyDelete
I miss the horse manure, and colored wagons. And where are the musicians ???? Better solution is to allow, and encourage variety. Too much cement can make people and horses CRAZY ! jReplyDelete


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The Program on Economics & Privacy at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School and the Future of Privacy Forum are seeking papers to explore the development of a benefit-cost framework in privacy policy. Scholars from an interdisciplinary background, including economics, law, public policy, business and marketing, are encouraged to submit abstracts for consideration.
April 2017
Droit À L'Oubli: Canadian Perspective on the Global 'Right to Be Forgotten' Debate
Eloise Gratton of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP and Jules Polonetsky have published, "Droit À L'Oubli: Canadian Perspective on the Global 'Right to Be Forgotten' Debate" (forthcoming in the Colorado Technology Law Journal). This paper explores whether importing a RTBF would be legal in Canada.
The Top 10: Student Privacy News (March-April 2017)
The Future of Privacy Forum tracks student privacy news very closely, and shares relevant news stories with our newsletter subscribers. Approximately every month, we post "The Top 10," a blog with our top student privacy stories.
FPF Comments on NHTSA's V2V Rulemaking
Yesterday, the Future of Privacy Forum submitted written comments to the Department of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in response to their Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Vehicle to Vehicle Communications.
'Successful smart city leaders will be smart on privacy'
In a piece for Samsung Public Information Display, Jules Polonetsky and Kelsey Finch share what they have learned from working with smart city and community stakeholders to navigate complex issues and integrate digital services in privacy-protective ways. The authors explain:
FPF Welcomes New Team Members!
We are pleased to announce that Margaret Honda has joined FPF as Director of the Research Coordination Network! In this role, Margaret oversees a new community of privacy academics and industry practitioners whose goal is to advance the privacy research agenda through collaboration.
On April 11, Windows Users Get Improved Privacy Protections from Microsoft
FPF is pleased to see the major privacy advances in Microsoft's upcoming update to Windows 10. The Creator's Update version of Windows 10 will provide a new privacy dashboard, allows users to limit telemetry information sent back to Microsoft, provides a detailed look at the telemetry information collected, and makes it easy for users to understand what data is collected when they choose basic or advanced installations.
EU Policymakers and US Civil Society Groups Meet to Discuss Trans-Atlantic Privacy Issues
FPF's Vice President of Policy, John Verdi, attended a meeting with Věra Jourová, the European Union's Commissioner for Justice, Consumers, and Gender Equality. The meeting between EU policymakers and US civil society groups focused on an open, robust discussion of trans-Atlantic privacy issues, including the US/EU Privacy Shield program.


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| March 14, 2014
Try one of Northampton\'s best equip gym\'s for FREE! Are you thinking about joining a new fitness club? Or just looking for somewhere new to train? Why not try Dallington Fitness & Wellbeing Club with a FREE 5 Day Membership. Take the challenge we know you\'ll love it! This pass allows full peak access to › Read more


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And Then a Smile... is the 346th chapter of Akira Amano's Katekyo Hitman Reborn!.
Synopsis Edit
One week after Demon Spade's defeat on Simon Island, Tsuna is rushing to school because there is a Disciplinary Committee regulation inspection, and he would be bitten to death if he's late. On the way, Tsuna meets Enma, who is quickly fleeing from a pursuing dog. Both of them then meet Shitt P!, who was stalking Gokudera while the latter runs away from her. As they arrives at school, Large Ooyama and Lambo approach them and tell them that they've been playing since three o'clock in the morning, while Large actually promised Lambo to play at three o'clock in the afternoon. Large informs them that the disciplinary inspection was postponed because Hibari went off to "discipline the morality in Kokuyo Middle School", to which Reborn realizes that since the Vindice recognized his efforts in the fight with Demon, Mukuro was released from the prison and allowed to go back to his own body, making this the right opportuninty for Hibari to fight him again.
Adelheid Suzuki approaches them and scolds them for their dirty uniforms. She takes them to where Julie Kato, Kouyou, and Ryohei were trapped for sexual harassment (Julie) and destroying school properties (Ryohei and Kouyou). While Adelheid is busy punishing Julie when the latter flirted with Kyoko, Enma and Tsuna attempt to run away, but only to be stopped by a flying baseball that manage to hit both them by Kaoru and Yamamoto who then apologized. As the result for trying to run away, Tsuna and Enma are tied up on the rooftop. Reborn then comments that Giotto and Simon Cozzato would have liked to see both Tsuna ad Enma looking like idiots together, making the former and the latter laugh. Both of them then remember the Eighth Key that was given by Vindice after they had fulfilled the oath between the two bosses and as reward for defeating Demon. The memory shows Cozzato and his Famiglia living on Simon Island and no longer able to meet Giotto and Vongola Famiglia for the rest of their lives; however, the memory also showns that both of them believed that someday their descendants could once again smile together.
Characters Edit
*Note: Bold + Italicized = First Appearance
Trivia Edit
- During a flashback, Cozzato spoke with a woman and a man resembling Adelheid Suzuki and Julie Kato, respectively.


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WORCESTER Warriors tasted success on the opening weekend of Gallagher Premiership for only the third time in their history with a 24-16 win over Leicester Tigers.
It was far from pretty with both teams making a catalogue of mistakes in a scrappy affair at Sixways.
But Warriors came away victorious thanks to the trusty right boot of Duncan Weir who bagged a 14-point haul.
Ted Hill and Perry Humphreys crossed in the first half before Weir kept his composure to land a trio of penalties in the final 15 minutes to seal victory.
Geoff Berkeley picks out five talking points from Saturday's triumph.
You have got to go back to 2015 to see when Warriors last got a top-flight campaign off to a winning start with Tom Heathcote the drop-goal hero that day.
The other triumph in their 13 Premiership seasons came in 2011 so this latest win will be a welcome boost for the club.
Yet there was more relief than joy from Warriors' supporters who witnessed a turgid contest.
For the most part it looked like going either way with Worcester falling behind on four occasions as Tom Youngs went over from an early driving maul and Tom Hardwick kicked 11 points.
But crucially Leicester missed three penalties including two in the final quarter while Weir seized his opportunities.
Worcester may have lost this tense tussle in previous years but managed to hold their nerve this time out.
Warriors will be happy with the result and two well-taken tries with Hill powering home before Cornell du Preez brilliantly fed Humphreys for the second.
But this was a not good performance. There were handling errors aplenty, misplaced passes, mistakes at the scrum and a high penalty count.
At one stage in the first half Worcester went from an attacking position in the 22 to conceding three points minutes later courtesy of knocks on by Weir and du Preez, a lineout mishap and then a penalty conceded by Graham Kitchener. To cap it off, Weir then kicked the ball out on the full from the restart.
There were several more squandered chances with Conor Carey pinged for holding on close to the try-line and Pennell failing to provide the try-scoring pass to Melani Nanai.
But fortunately for Warriors Leicester were even more wasteful.
Leicester must be getting sick of the sight of Hill. The flanker has now scored four tries in four of Warriors' five successive wins over Tigers in the past 13 months.
Hill started that run with a memorable match-winning double at Welford Road in September last year. That proved to be a launch pad for Hill who must be one of the first names on Alan Solomons' team-sheet.
Hill was simply unstoppable when he received Ryan Mills' pass on the 22 as he flattened two Tigers players on his way to the try-line.
The 20-year-old was a thorn in Tigers' side as he claimed a vital lineout steal on the five-metre line just before half-time and constantly crashed through tackles like a battering ram.
Hooker Niall Annett, lock Anton Bresler and back rower Cornell du Preez also punched holes in Leicester's defence while wispy wing Melani Nanai used his footwork to great effect.
With Weir not at his best in defeats at Bath and Wasps there were calls for Jono Lance to get the nod at fly-half.
But Weir's accuracy from the tee is proving too hard for Solomons to overlook. It turned out to be a good decision with the Scotland stand-off landing five of his six kicks.
The most important one came on 75 minutes when he slotted home from just inside the halfway line.
But Warriors still struggled to click in attack and while Weir is reliable offensive-minded Lance can add that extra spark.
Tom Howe will also be disappointed to miss out having notched a hat-trick in the loss to Exeter Chiefs two weeks ago.
But Humphreys who has won three times as many Premiership caps as Howe was trusted with the number 14 shirt and did not disappoint as he went over in the first half.
The 2019-20 Premiership season may be only a week old but that felt like a crucial victory for Warriors.
Had Worcester fallen short against a Leicester side missing nine internationals, the signs for the rest of the campaign would not look good.
This win will now give them a spring in their step ahead of meetings with Northampton Saints, Exeter and Harlequins in the next three weeks.
But they will need to improve in many departments to test Northampton who pulled off a shock 27-25 victory at reigning champions Saracens on Saturday.
Playing at Franklin's Gardens adds a further challenge but if Warriors a serious about being a top-six side they need to claim more points on the road.


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Sandra-Jasmin Petrut
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Digital education (from media literacy to computer science) for children (primary school up to grade six)
Digital education is highly important not only because of the continuous developments in information technology but also because of its presence in everyone's – hence also children's – daily life.
Digital education or computer science is (at least in North Rhine-Westphalia) yet only taught as an elective subject in middle school grade 8 – 10 and as "Basics in information technology" in grade 5 - 7. There are virtually no offers of such subjects for younger children, although digital education could not start early enough. That means, children should start developing digital competencies and a basic understanding of informatics as early as possible.
Research "questions"
The initial point of research regarding this thesis is the question if and how the existing tools can facilitate the development of the following competencies appropriately and what children learn during that process. In this context, digital education or competencies consist of three major parts, the technological view, the application-oriented view, and the cultural view. The target group mainly consists of children in the age of six to twelve years.
The technological view describes the understanding of technologies, such as smartphones, tablets, computers but also software systems.
The application-oriented view describes the way how those technologies are being utilized. The appropriate usage plays an important role in that view.
The cultural view describes both the impact such technologies have on society and the critical review of the continuously developing information technology.
There exists already a variety of tools and educational content aiming at proper teaching of computer science and digital education at primary schools. These are for example:
- IT2School (Univ. Oldenburg) of the "Wissensfabrik"
- CS Unplugged concept
- Primary school modules of the computer science student lab "InfoSphere" at RWTH Aachen University
- Cooperation project "Computer science at primary schools" by the North Rhine-Westphalian ministry of education and the universities in Paderborn, Wuppertal and Aachen
- First steps in programming with the help of
- the online-platform code.org
- Scratch Junior
- the Arduino Calliope minicomputers
- Several roboters that were exclusively designed for children
- Dash and Dot
- Primo


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The Nationals in Government are continuing to support our local communities, with $330,000 handed out in the Myall Lakes electorate alone.
NSW Nationals Member for Myall Lakes Stephen Bromhead said the Community Building Partnerships program delivered much-needed improvements to local facilities, including improving energy efficiency with new solar panels for Forster Arts & Craft Society, funding to treat brick cancer at Black Head SLSC and funding for the refurbishment of Wingham Brush Schools Basketball Court.
A total of 34 community organisations across the electorate benefited from the funding.
"The NSW Nationals' strong economic management ensures we are in a position to invest in these important local projects across Regional NSW," Mr Bromhead said. "This is fantastic news, this funding will directly help to create vibrant and inclusive local communities with positive social, environmental and recreational outcomes."
Among those projects given funding were renovations of amenties and buildings, installation of solar panels, and purchasing of equipment.
"I congratulate all the organisations that were successful in their application and look forward to seeing how these projects make a real difference for groups in Forster, Tuncurry and across the Great Lakes," Mr Bromhead said.
The Community Building Partnership program has funded some 13,800 community projects across the State since it commenced nearly a decade ago.
Stay up to date
Subscribe to be the first to hear about what the NSW Nationals team is up to.


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Happy Saturday!!! I am looking forward to my weekend!! We have some fun things planned with my Wags 'n Whiskers co-owner Nikki and her family!! It looks like it will be perfect weather, too!!
It's time for another Scrap and Stamp Saturday Challenge!!
This week's challenge is "Scrap a Birthday"!! I still have a ton of those to scrap!
The challenge this week is sponsored by: MelJen's Designs...
She provided us with a few digis to play with. And I chose one that would go best with my layout...
This is Ansley's first birthday. I have a ton of more pictures, but just didn't have the time to finish it so I'll have to save it for later.
The papers are from K&Company along with the chipboard letters.
The sketch is from Pencil Lines this week.
This cute image is Cupcake Mouse...
I added some Prima Say it with Crystals along with some white grosgrain ribbon.
To help the title stand out a little, I added some shimmer paint behind the title...
Here is a closer view of the pictures...
Daddy had to help Ansley with the cake. She didn't know what to do!!
Do you like Ansley's black eye? She was actually sick on her birthday with an ear infection. So the day before her birthday she had to stay home from daycare. Scott stayed home with her this time and she tripped while learning to walk and banged her eye against a piece of furniture. Mommy was NOT happy when she came home from work!! Of course, not that we've had two trips each for both kids...what's a little boo boo, right?!
Now it's your turn! Let's see your birthday layout!! Make sure to link your project to the challenge post and make sure to check out the awesome DT layouts as well!
Thanks for stopping by! Happy Scrappin and Stampin'!!


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Navy SEAL Pleads Not Guilty, Witnesses Vary in Detainee Abuse Case
Posted: Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at 10:50 am
The prosecution rested last Wednesday in the case of a Navy SEAL accused of abusing a military detainee in Iraq.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe is accused of having punched Ahmed Hashim Abed in the stomach and the face, resulting in a his falling to the ground with a split lip. According to prosecutors, McCabe then walked away, leaving the detainee bleeding on the floor.
Abed was being held in United States custody after his November 2009 arrest in Iraq; he was accused of masterminding the 2004 killings of four Blackwater security guards in Falluja, Iraq. In that incident, a convoy guarded by the four Americans, who were employed as civilian contractors, was ambushed. The four were killed with hand grenades and rifles, after which their bodies were burned and paraded through the streets of Falluja before two of them were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates river.
McCabe is the last of three Navy SEALs to be tried for his role in the alleged abuse against prisoner Ahmed Hashim Abed. The others, Petty Officer Julio Heurtas and Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, had been charged with dereliction of duty and impeding an investigation, not with actually abusing Abed. They were acquitted last month.
Witnesses in the court martial of McCabe gave conflicting testimony. Some, including the person whose job it was to receive and process the detainees, said that there was nothing remarkable about Abed's injuries. Others, including Navy Petty Officer Kevin DeMartino, testified that they saw McCabe punch the prisoner in the abdomen.
DeMartino, who had been in charge of maintaining custody of the prisoner, testified that he stepped outside for a moment, and saw the alleged punch occur upon his return. DeMartino's testimony, however, was called in question by the defense attorney, since he had previously lied to investigators who inquired as to reason blood was found on Abed's clothing. DeMartino had also testified in the courts-martial of Heurtas and Keefe, testimony that was inconsistent with his most recent statements about McCabe.
"It was either be in the good graces of the SEALs or being in the good graces of God," said DeMartino, when asked about his decision to come clean.
Another witness who supported DeMartino's testimony was a medic, who had photographed Abed during his intake and noticed a cut or split at the top of the detainee's lip.
Neither McCabe nor Abed are expected to take the stand in the court-martial proceeding. McCabe, who is charged with assault, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, has pleaded not guilty. If he is convicted, he could be sentenced to a year in military prison, a cut in pay, demotion of rank, and a bad conduct discharge. If found innocent of the charges, however, he will be able to continue Navy SEAL service, with record of the case expunged from his personnel file.
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Cape Town - There has been a notable rise in female entrepreneurs in South Africa even with the many obstacles they know they need to overcome.
This is telling of the untapped ambition in the market against the rise in unemployment and economic conditions, according to Colleen Tshikani Makhubele.
She always had a desire to be in business, particularly because of the idea of ownership that it came with. She wanted the type of ownership that allowed you to empower, contribute to job creation and, most importantly, being financially independent.
This fuelled her passion to become the co-founder and CEO of Mzumbe Oil, established in 2012.
"My academic strength initially led me to become an IT engineering specialist and I was privileged to receive a scholarship from the Telkom foundation to study the equivalent of a computer science degree in Malaysia, Multimedia University when I was 17 years old," says Makhubele.
Exposure to the oil and gas industry back in 2012 sparked Makhubele's interest to do business in the space. She identified a need in the market and an opportunity which was growing, created by the government advocating for transformation of industries to include black businesses, women and youth owned business and also to be socially inclusive.
The drive that interested her most the one focused on access for black women to opportunities in the industries previously dominated by whites and men.
When Shell Commercial Fuels in South Africa brought its distributor model into SA as part of extending business reach and empowering local entrepreneurs, she grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
This was exactly what Mzumbe Oil needed to reposition itself and strengthen its capabilities for service and growth. At the time, the country was in the process of a legislative push for transformation and black women empowerment – the timing was right.
Although Mzumbe Oil is in the process of engaging and exploring the full benefits of Shell's ED programme from a skills development, capability assessments and interventions perspective, there has been noticeable progress and improvements in her business since initial engagement.
Through Shell's technical support, her team has received support in presenting solutions to potential clients and the association has opened the Shell network of distributors that has helped reinforce her capacity for storage depot and logistics.
Makhubele notes the importance of getting women involved in all key industries of our economies in SA and in Africa.
"Women have a unique value to add based on our skills set and natural nurturing instincts that promote sustainable growth. We are very key in growing these industries to be socially inclusive, retaining talents and bringing new innovative solutions," she says.
"Women have to start getting involved at board level, director level and senior management levels. There are opportunities in the upstream in terms of explorations, refining, drilling and manufacturing."
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By Andrew Liszewski
From what I've heard babies can be a bit of a handful but so far I have no first-hand knowledge of this and I plan to keep it that way for as long as possible. Even something that should come as naturally as the child falling asleep can be an uphill battle I'm told. We've all heard about the technique of taking the little one out for a late-night drive to help them finally doze off but that approach just can't be a convenient solution.
Lullabub is an automatic rocking system comprised of four modules that are placed under each leg of a crib. Each module is capable of gently raising and lowering the crib and the four of them combined can be used to recreate the rocking motions of a mother's womb, a mother's heartbeat, a drive in the car or a boat on the water. The crib can even be rocked manually while sitting on the modules with just one finger if the preset patterns aren't working.
The Lullabub is system is available on their website for $229.
[Lullabub Cot Rocker] VIA [Electro^plankton]


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Without better climate policies, the Green New Deal won't work [Opinion]
Earlier this month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., released her long-anticipated Green New Deal. In it, she aims to change the very fabric of the country. She calls for retrofitting every building in America to make them more "green." She calls for a job guarantee, in which the government would provide any willing citizen a job paying at least $15 an hour, and she adds that every American should be provided high-quality, affordable health care.
Ocasio-Cortez expands on the Green New Deal in a FAQ, which was later removed from her website but has been made available by various news outlets. She calls for the U.S. to be carbon-free by 2030 while simultaneously decommissioning the country's nuclear power plants. She waves off a carbon tax as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Her plan includes a provision that guarantees economic security to those who are unwilling to work, even if they physically have the means to do so.
Simply put, Ocasio-Cortez's vision of a Green New Deal was a slap in the face to environmentalists who were hoping for a proposal that would fight climate disaster. Instead, we're given a half-baked plan that ostracizes all but the most progressive lawmakers in Congress. Not only will the deal elicit zero Republican support, it will receive little support from the Democratic Party's more moderate wing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already referred to the impractical plan as a "Green New Dream."
What should the green policy initiative look like, then?
One major aspect ought to be a carbon tax. James Baker, the former Cabinet member in the Reagan and Bush administrations and a Houston native, has a plan: placing a $40 charge on producers for every ton of carbon emitted, gradually increasing in cost over time. The plan would discourage carbon-producing activities by making them more expensive to producers and consumers. Baker also calls for the revenues of such a tax to be returned to citizens to the tune of $2,000 a year for a family of four.
Currently, Alaskans are the only citizens to receive a such a dividend, which they get from a share of oil revenues. The dividend is hugely popular with Alaskans, so one could expect it to receive a similar reception at the federal level.
A green policy initiative should also include ways to incentivize the move to nuclear power. Ocasio-Cortez's vision declines to build nuclear power plants and sets the long-term goal of decommissioning existing plants. But nuclear power, despite widely publicized incidents in Fukushima and Three Mile Island, is the safest form of power generation. It is even safer than wind and solar because it does not require dangerous climbing to maintain, and it would also create thousands of high-paying jobs for both white- and blue-collar workers.
The initiative should also include federal-government-funded research for carbon-capture technology . The resulting innovations should be patent-free, so that competition can bring down the price and other countries can have access to the technology. Fighting climate change is a global effort, as the U.S. produces only 15 percent of global emissions. Even if we brought down emissions to zero in the U.S. tomorrow, it would not be enough to avert catastrophic warming.
Some Republicans have signaled their interest in working with Democrats on climate change. GOP lawmakers in the past have released carbon tax proposals, but they have been received coldly by the wider Republican Party. Bipartisan support is necessary so that a green policy initiative avoids the same fights that have plagued the Affordable Care Act to this day.
Instead of laying out an ambitious plan to save the country and world from climate disaster, Ocasio-Cortez rolled out a grab bag of progressive economic goals under the auspices of climate action. If her plan is not stopped by Democratic leadership, it will set back climate change policy by years. Instead, our elected representatives must put forth a realistic green policy initiative that works for all Americans.
Mortimer is the executive director of the Neoliberal Project and tweets at @ne0liberal.


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Reduce Software Risk Through Improved Software Analysis and Measurement
Reduce Software Risk Through Improved Software Analysis and Measurement
Forrester's Bill Martorelli and OMG's Dr. Richard Soley explain how DevOps, Agile, and next-gen mobile, social, big data applications are affecting QA and testing.
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.Join For Free
Bill Martorelli, Principal Analyst with Forrester Research, Inc, engages with Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Chairman and CEO of OMG, and executives at CAST and Tata Consultancy Services Limited discuss the new impetus in achieving quality assurance earlier in the traditional life-cycle.
These industry leaders discuss how the growth in Agile development, the influence of continuous delivery via DevOps, and the architectural challenges of next-generation applications impacted by mobility, social and big data challenge the traditional testing and QA model. Watch this conversation and you will come away with insight on how to adapt and evolve internal and external QA and Testing practices and develop new measures of quality in a more dynamic applications environment.
Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.


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The Greater Bank is our major sponsor for the 2018 season. As major sponsor, they also have naming rights to this years competition.
The 2018 competition will be known as the "Greater Bank AFL North West Competition 2018". This must be noted in all media reporting especially local radio talk backs and all advertisements must include their logo.
Greater Bank AFLNW - Men's


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It's Friday 22nd December 2017 an I'm awake, at 5AM. To many and myself included this sounds like torture, and trust me you're not wrong. It's painful waking up early in the morning and expecting your body to get working, potentially if you haven't had the exact amount of sleep that you'd hoped for, or again like myself even though it's still pretty early you ended oversleeping (yes, my goal wasn't to be awake at 5AM, rather it was 4.30AM). But what can I say life goes on.
This incredibly subtle act of oversleeping, of making a somewhat human mistake (I understand to many it may not be subtle at all, but bear with me on this) is a reminder that mistakes, if you truly look deep within them, aren't mistakes at all. For example, I've missed around 5 days of Blogmas, pretty much every single day this week and this mistake I made really put me down, it started to encompass in the form of negative thoughts and negative thought processing that in all honesty I just couldn't stop.
And then I took a step back.
Not being able to post was out of my control, university life with the dreaded exams are finally catching up to me and I've become incredibly busy and having too much to handle can really take a mental toll. Just being under that mental toll started having a negative effect on me and I knew if I ever had the chance to post the quality wouldn't be great at all and I'd end up with huge regrets.
Despite this 'mistake', I realised beating myself up about it wasn't going to help, I could change this mistake around but keeping myself surrounded by that negativity, that I couldn't possibly let happen. Instead, I'm on the way to making positive changes, there are small victories that I can celebrate, the key is to actually look out for them, notice them and of course, celebrate them. I, for one, will be celebrating my efforts to be up early and publish content, because out of all the hobbies I have, nothing else brings me that much joy.


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We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.
The world is crowded with Him.
He walks everywhere incognito.
And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate.
The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact to come awake. Still more to remain awake.
The older I get, the more I recognize the need to be alert and awake to the presence of God in the crowded world around me.
It doesn't come naturally.
We humans have an attention deficit, choosing to focus inwardly on self and ignoring the rest. If it isn't for me, or like me, or about me, it somehow is not worthy of my consideration.
We wear blinders, asleep.
We need help to recognize the presence of God, to peel the layers off the ordinary and find Him at the extraordinary core, incognito. He reveals Himself to us, invisible, yet right in plain sight.


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i have a problem in rwpaint trying to use the STYLIZE drawing tools in a vector layer the screen looks weird, also using TRANSFORM the program just stop.
im using win7 ultimate and a portable rwpaint
These tools don't work with vector layers. Did you try to add them yourself or did they just appeared on their own?
Find out how Vista icons differ from XP icons.See how RealWorld Icon Editor handles Vista icons.


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OpTic Gaming captain Seth 'Scump' Abner appears to have accidentally stirred the pot in rostermania leading up to CWL Fort Worth, by hinting on stream that a roster change is imminent with one of their Pool D rivals.
CWL Fort Worth is fast approaching, beginning on March 15, but there is a short 'rostermania' window now open, for teams to make any changes they feel necessary.
With all CWL Pro League teams now having played two weeks of league action, there has been plenty of time to identify possibly weaknesses in their lineups.
OpTic Gaming are not one such team, as they were forced to play without star player Brandon 'Dashy' Otell due to travel issues, but still remain among the favorites at Fort Worth, thanks to their impressive win at CWL Vegas.
However, it looks like other teams in OpTic's pool for the event are considering changes - or have already made them, if Scump's comments are anything to go by.
Scump, who was not streaming at the time, was unaware that he was audible on the broadcast of teammate Ian 'Crimsix' Porter, as he made it sound obvious that a Pool D team was making a change: "Wait, really? Yo, our pool went from like, hard, to like, 'yo, it's fucking stacked'."
After returning to his setup, Crimsix saw the clip of Scump's comments, and exclaimed "Oh my god, Seth is an idiot" - hinting that his teammate had potentially spilled the beans.
Pool D teams include Reciprocity, Team Envy and eUnited. Reciprocity are the only ones of the three to have officially made a change, with Dylan 'Dylan' Henderson joining the lineup.
This would leave either Envy or eUnited, two teams not who are not exactly struggling. eUnited especially, as they currently sit 2nd in Division B with a 5-2 record. Perhaps Envy are making a change then - but they too have turned around a bad start to end with a respectable, although not impressive, 3-4 record.
Fans will have to wait and see if Scump's comments are reflected in an official change, but for now, it's all rumors.


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Lake Street and Nichols Road have also been reopened, but officials warned parking is limited.
Following this season's heavy rainfall, the hillsides of Lake Elsinore were awash in a blaze of golden-orange poppies. The incredible sight attracted thousands of visitors.
MORE: Poppy super bloom threatened by picture-taking visitors
The influx of people resulted in visitors flocking to the area, but flowers were being trampled and parking and traffic were getting choked up in the small community, leading to the city of Lake Elsinore closing Walker Canyon on Sunday.
"The City continues to evaluate all possible options to reduce the strain on our community, the freeway, and local roadways. At this time, it is not feasible for us to keep visitors away from #WalkerCanyon," a statement posted to the Lake Elsinore City Hall's Facebook page said.
The Facebook post stated the city is working on a "new plan and new options" for the coming weekend.


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Kolomoisky admitted that they had a fan club Zelensky.
The oligarch Igor Kolomoisky said that the victory on elections of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky – "total victory" and his Minister of internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.
On the question of whether congratulated Avakov his victory Zelensky Kolomoisky said: "We Avakov constantly communicate… Therefore, we believe that this is a common victory".
Bigus asked how long it goes on "partnership in the context of elections."
"We have no partnership regarding the selection Zelensky, we have a fan club Zelensky. We cheer for Zelensky. We and Julia (Yulia Tymoshenko – ed.) was sick together. We are rooting against Petit (Poroshenko – ed.)", – said Kolomoisky.
The question is, at what point Avakov started "rooting against Petit", the oligarch said, "I do Not want him to say, but I would if I was asked, when he had "irreversible process", when Peter crossed the Rubicon, that is when about the son's story was ("the case of the backpacks Avakov", – ed.)
© 2019, paradox. All rights reserved.


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Lake Wilton shimmers in the summer's heat, and the lilies look fantastic. I spot a Damselfly resting on a flower in the middle of the lilly patch.
Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula)
He flies off, and I lose track of him in the tangled green mass.
On the lake, Canadian Geese come towards me, their image reflecting on the waters.
Canada goose (Branta canadensis)
They have no young in tow, and none seem to breed on the lake.
Back at Cafe Twitch, the usual birds can be seen. Greenfinchs feed from the sunflower seed feeder.
Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)
The female Greenfinch is clearly visible with her more stripy front.
Sparrows adorn the lawn.
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
This one is taking some lifebait that I leave out this time of year back for its young.
Underneath the seed feeder, a Dunnock hunts for some fallen seeds.
Dunnock (Prunella modularis)
A young Blackbird waits to be fed.
Blackbird (Turdus merula)
Above the comings and goings in the gardens below is the summer sky, still light until after 10pm this time of year. The blue vastness is occasionally interrupted by a passing House Martin.
House Martin (Delichon urbica)
He's too far away and moving too fast to get a close up of his black and white plumage.
Up on a TV arial, a Song Thrush gives his all. His song carries through the still air; the sound of an English summer's evening.
Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)
Eventually the sun sets, leaving a gloriously long lasting glow in the northern horizon.
In the twilight, bats flit overhead at fast speeds, too fast to photograph; their outlines are faintly visible. Evening finally surrenders to night, which belongs to the waxing Moon, low on the horizon this time of year.
I can hear but not see owls; the opposite to well behaved Victorian children.


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9 March 2017 / News & Media / News / Privacy this week /
UK: ICO guidance on consent "a wake-up call for organisations in a GDPR world"
9 March 2017
The Information Commissioner's Office ('ICO') released, on 2 March 2017, guidance on consent under the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR') for public consultation ('the Guidance'). According to the ICO, the Guidance will assist organisations in deciding when to rely on consent for data processing and when to look for alternatives. In addition, the ICO explained what constitutes valid consent, and how to obtain and manage consent in a way that complies with the GDPR through the provision of a checklist within the Guidance.
William Long, Partner at Sidley Austin, told DataGuidance, "The Guidance is extremely helpful and one of the most significant topics the ICO could have addressed first, but it will be a wake-up call for organisations in a GDPR world. They are going to have to adopt a completely different mindset and seriously consider their whole approach to consent, how they obtain it and whether it will be appropriate. The detailed requirements may cause a change in some industries where there has been a reliance on consent. Although there may be occasions where consent will be appropriate, if they do go down the consent route and the Guidance remains unchanged following the consultation, then it's not just about updating policies; they will have a host of requirements to consider. What seems clear from the Guidance is that there is no consent at the moment which complies with GDPR standards."
The Guidance stresses that organisations will need to review consent mechanisms to make sure they meet the GDPR requirements on being specific, granular, clear, prominent, opt-in, documented and easily withdrawn. In this regard, the Guidance states, 'You are not required to automatically "repaper" or refresh all existing Data Protection Act 1998 ('the DPA') consents in preparation for the GDPR. But it's important to check your processes and records in detail to be sure existing consents meet the GDPR standard.' In addition, the Guidance highlights that consent is only an appropriate basis to rely on if organisations can offer individuals 'real choice and control' over how their data is used, and want to build trust and engagement. Should organisations feel that 'genuine choice' cannot be offered, the Guidance advises that organisations consider using an alternative basis.
Once you familiarise yourself with all of the standards that need to be met to achieve a valid GDPR consent, you are left wondering why anyone would bother when simpler, less onerous processing grounds exist
"One of the goals of the GDPR was to [give] the individual more [control] in terms of making decisions about how their data will be used, and the Guidance provides a lot of useful advice on what a valid GDPR consent looks like and how it should be obtained," said Phil Lee, Partner at Fieldfisher. "However, once you familiarise yourself with all of the standards that need to be met to achieve a valid GDPR consent, you are left wondering why anyone would bother when simpler, less onerous processing grounds exist. One critical element of the Guidance is its acknowledgement that the GDPR does still enable the concept of 'implied consent.' While the GDPR clearly tightens the screws on what constitutes a valid implied consent, website operators everywhere will be breathing a huge sigh of relief that they are not going to be forced to adopt affirmative cookie opt-in buttons on their websites."
A key change highlighted by the Guidance is in relation to the provisions under Articles 7(2) and 7(4) of the GDPR, which state that the request for consent should be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters and that when assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account should be taken of whether the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract. Recital 43 further notes that consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not allow separate consent to be given to different data processing operations, or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such this not being necessary for such performance.
Organisations will need to develop sophisticated systems that can process these different elements and which provide an effective audit trail of how and when consent is given, for example, in the online environment, a timestamp on when an individual gave consent
Long commented, "The question [concerns] obtaining consent for different processing activities. Consents are sometimes bundled and applied in a fairly binary way. The Guidance indicates that you will need to obtain granular options to consent and to provide ways for individuals to consent to some uses of their data but not all of them. Not all systems operate like that, and as a result, organisations will need to develop sophisticated systems that can process these different elements and which provide an effective audit trail of how and when consent is given, for example, in the online environment, a timestamp on when an individual gave consent. In addition, the systems will have to have in place withdrawal mechanisms, as the right to withdraw consent provides that it shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent. How do you put in place different mechanisms to deal with this? Further guidance would be helpful around some of these practical issues."
Finally, the Guidance reminds organisations that explicit consent is one of nine legal bases that can be utilised to overcome the prima facie prohibition on the processing of sensitive personal data, and that Article 9(4) provides the ability for Member States to add further conditions, including limitations, with regard to the processing of genetic data, biometric data or data concerning health.
Heledd Lloyd-Jones, Associate at Bird & Bird noted, "Given the changes in requirements, my main recommendation for organisations is to identify alternative grounds for processing wherever possible to minimise the burden of having to obtain and manage consent. As the Guidance suggests that seeking consent where another processing basis is available is likely to be unfair, this will also avoid the risk of unfairness. However, until there is greater clarity about the additional processing grounds that will be available in due course for sensitive personal data as a result of the introduction of national legislation, this may be easier said than done […] It is anticipated that these new grounds will be introduced perhaps to duplicate the conditions that can currently be relied on under existing rules, for example, under Schedule 3 of the DPA and associated sensitive data orders. However, the timetable for this is very uncertain. In the meantime, organisations will be doing their best to put in place complex mechanisms for the active management of consent that they may not need to rely on in the long term, or which may need significant revision once new processing conditions become available under domestic law […] This highlights the urgent need for greater clarity about what further processing conditions will be introduced by national legislation and when these will come into effect."
The consultation is open until 31 March 2017 and the ICO advised that it intends to issue a call for evidence to get a better sense of what technical solutions are available or are being developed for obtaining and managing consent. It further noted that the Article 29 Working Party intends to produce guidelines on this topic later this year.
Alexis Kateifides | Privacy Analyst


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Do you run a tennis league, team, club, or association? If so, you've probably considered setting up a website to better organize your events, and keep record of past matches and tournaments. LeagueLineup offers a solution to this that is completely free, and requires no web development knowledge at all!
Setting up a website with LeagueLineup only takes a few minutes, and you get a variety of useful features to go along with it. The most commonly used menu options include Event Calendars, Game Results, and Automated Standings – but we offer much more than that, as well as the option to create custom menus for anything you'd like.
Since 1998, we've been helping to build websites for all kinds of organizations across a wide variety of different sports. Join the millions of teams and leagues who are currently utilizing the services of LeagueLineup today!Create your free Tennis website now
Completely Customizable
Change colors, fonts, menu options, etc. You have 24/7 access allowing you to maintain your site on your schedule.
Free Online Registration
Every LeagueLineup site includes our free Online Forms feature allowing you to accept player and team registrations quickly and easily!
Fan Shop Earns 5%
Every site comes with a custom Fan Shop featuring over 500 customizable products. Earn 5% on every sale!
Team & Player Statistics
Detailed statistics are available by Player and Team for Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, Lacrosse, Soccer and Volleyball.
Schedules & Calendars
Post your game & practice schedules, special events, meetings,...
Roster & Player Profiles
Upload team rosters and add profiles for each of your players.
Message Board & Guestbook
Allow your members to communicate via a message board or simply through a guestbook.
Automated Standings
Post your game results and your site will automatically display your league standings.


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Boy Meets Girl - Preview
Preview by Jack Foley
THE first ever transgender rom-com, ground-breaking in its presentation of a trans woman who is at the heart of its story, Boy Meets Girl, comes to DVD on October 12, 2015 courtesy of RLJ Entertainment's Acorn Label.
Leo (Harry Hepple – Holby City) has been fired and is being given a hard time about it by his Mum (Denise Welch – Waterloo Road). And to make matters worse, he ends up playing gooseberry to his younger brother on their night out together.
Leo's about to write the day off but then he bumps into Judy (Rebecca Root – The Danish Girl) and finds himself deeply attracted to this surprising and beguiling woman.
They bond over drinks and, unfazed by the fact that there's clearly a bit of an age gap between them, as well as the fact that Judy is transgender, they arrange to meet the following evening.
Before long, they're going steady, but family matters – Judy's eccentric often embarrassing family and Leo's possessive mother, ensure it's not an easy ride.
This extremely topical and heart-warming six-part comedy charts the burgeoning relationship between Leo and Judy.
Win Boy Meets Girl on DVD
To celebrate the release of Boy Meets Girl on DVD on Monday, October 12, 2015, IndieLondon is offering readers the chance to win 1 of 3 copies. Simply answer the following question…
Q. Who plays Leo in Boy Meets Girl?
Simply send the answer to Boy Meets Girl competition and include your name, address, telephone number and email


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Steve McClure and Neil Mawson attempting a spectacular multi-pitch route in the Verdon Gorge.
Tag Archives | Steve McClure
Steve McClure climbs Britain's hardest climb: Rainman 9b
Where is your limit? Would you recognise it? For Steve McClure it's an endless series of matchstick edges and nothing holds, high above the Yorkshire Dales.
Tags: Adam Ondra, Malham Cove, Steve McClure
The Pembroke experience: rock climbing with Steve McClure and Clinton Martinengo
Steve McClure teams up with Clinton Martinengo from Capetown to climb the classic routes Knock yourself out!
Tags: Clinton Martinengo, Exchange, Pembroke, Steve McClure
Video: Rodellar Climbing with Steve McClure
The clip features top UK climber Steve McClure on a couple of routes including the classic 'The Dolphin' (El Delfin) 7c.
Tags: Steve McClure
5.15a Second Ascent for Ondra
No rest for the (un)weary: on a recent trip to England, Adam Ondra snagged the second ascent of Steve McClure's Overshadow at Malham Cove, for which McClure proposed 5.15a after his FA in 2007.
Tags: Adam Ondra, Steve McClure
Video: Steve McClure climbing Batshadow 8c+ at Malham Cove
Steve McClure climbing his longest route ever, Batshadow 8c+ at Malham Cove, England.
Tags: Steve McClure


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"What to buy?" "What to wear?" "What look to go for?!"
As if life in general isn't stressful enough, we girls have to contend with the daily challenge of getting off our cute butts to tax our brains (both the right and left hemispheres, mind you!) for the perfect answers to the three questions above. To help you solve this dilemma, we ask you one more very important Q: "What song to play?"
Two words: "Pop Couture."
Sounds tres chic, doesn't it? Basically, this refers to sonic inspirations that heavily influence fashion collection concepts, and to songs that name-drop designer labels from intro to coda. Notice how music makes a film so much more powerful? It's the same for fashion--a fitting "runway score" fuels excitement and interest in a particular collection. Off the ramp, music can stimulate your fashion sense and help set your sartorial vibe--be it plenty sexy, understated edge, effortless luxe, or profound chic.
For this piece, our pop couture playlist serves both functions: a handful of the cuts give you a crash course on haute couture's Who's Who (with a bonus on how to pronounce Courreges, Lacroix, and company), while everything else plays muse to the style-stumped. More significantly, this Cosmo "fashion score" collection gives you utter and complete pop encouragement to stand out, be seen, and have fun, whether you're shopping for a new wardrobe or simply getting ready for a stylish day out.
Click on the song titles for some catwalk-worthy aural inspiration. What songs never fail to get you in a voguish mood? What's your personal "rampa theme"? C'mon, girls, create your own "fashion score" when you comment below!