Miscellaneous Music Time

I haven't posted anything music related for awhile so lets remedy that now with some Eurovision 2025 stuff (which as always, I'm super late with). There were sirens, a sauna, a couple of ballads, a lot of techno music and numerous food related songs. As rare as it is, I agreed with the winner this time around as they were the best in the field.

If Eurovision isn't your thing maybe try instead these covers of Dancing in the Dark and We all Lift/for Narmer. Or if you want something with more class, the BBCs coverage of the 75th Military Tattoo is on youtube now and is very entertaining. Hope are all having a good day! :)

Eurovision 2024: The Code (of War)

It was an interesting Eurovision this year with Sweden acting as the host. Ukraine had a better song this time around and Germany set the stage on fire, or was it one of the more eye-candy type acts? There was also a twisted fairy tale, a demon summoning, and a guy with no pants which I classify under the same theme of "horror" (though purely based on some vocals/songs more entrants could fit into this category). There was also a disqualification, and it ultimately came down to Croatia's Baby Lasagna and Switzerland's Nemo. For a change I managed to pick the winner correctly from the semi-final stage! Congratulations Nemo, not only for winning but for one of the best performances in Eurovision ever. Highly recommended you watch it. :)

Here's Raiven, fully clothed.

Since this seems to be a post about nations competing against each other let's check in on Russia's special 2 day operation to take Ukraine which is now on day... 817? It's been a long time since I posted anything about this (ironically, it was my previous Eurovision post) and in that time Ukraine was actually losing ground due to dwindling reserves of people and supply (due to other countries *cough USA cough* delaying support) and Russia's seemingly endless supply of people to take hits and further tire and disarm their opponent.

That battle continues as does the one of Israel (who actually had a Eurovision contestant this year) vs Hamas, a militant and designated "terrorist" arm of Palestine supported by Iran, who recently lost their president in a helicopter crash. President Bill Clinton tried sorting that out in 2000 but unfortunately was unsuccessful.

Eurovision 2023 - The Winner Takes it All

I was late to watch this years Eurovision, hosted by runners up the UK for their awesome entry last year and because Ukraine, last year's actual winners, are still fighting against Russia. That recent almost revolt could have changed the battlefield but as usual, the easiest way to deal with mercs is with money so that's no longer happening which is an underwhelming result.

Underwhelming is also the word I'd use to describe this years Eurovision. There were the mandatory anti-war entries and sexy eye candy, a random pirate shanty, a flute dwarf, some German heavy metal, and a hard core cha cha song about getting drunk. My pick didn't even get close to beating the winner who intentionally made her song sound like one from Abba. Indeed the best performances were ones not even competing, my favorite being this one from the first semi final.

Unlike other years where there were songs DL or myself would actually be tempted to learn, this years batch has no such song.

May 2022: Ukraine Wins (Eurovision)

While their conflict continues into Day 95 against Russia (who continue to do some odd things like accuse Israel of supporting Neo-Nazis while at the same time sounding like Nazis themselves on State TV with corn stealing plans), Ukraine has emerged victorious in this years Eurovision song contest proving the massive worldwide support they are currently receiving as their entry - which was 200 points in the lead from the second place - was far from the best performance around.

The rest of the field contained some vegans, instructional cleaning, mandatory eye candy, a nice but worryingly murder-suicide song, the third return of Moldova's Zdob si Zdub, and the Rasmus. The UK also finally got up to second place with a worthy entry after years of languishing down the bottom with no votes, and Azerbaijan's Fade to Black was impressively simple but artsy.

I do think they need to establish some better rules though because one of my pet peeves is when someone is "playing" an instrument, then stops but that instrument can still be heard. Lots of the entries do this, but they've taken it a step further with masks, and I'm not talking about ones that people remove during the performance... checkout the hilarious "Give that wolf a banana" by Subwoolfer. Everyone is fully masked up - guess that saves them having to lip sync? That also means they really can just go hard on choreo if you don't need to be seen singing / playing an instrument in the first place!

Gotta hand it to the Ukranian winners though, they managed to make this crazy contest another revenue stream for purchasing weapons of war.

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Eurovision 2021

As usual I'm posting late about this again, but at least it wasn't Covid-cancelled this year! In fact, it has returned strong with some "interesting" dance moves, sparkly people, religious connotations, and a whole lot of eye candy. I'm pretty sure the Italian winners would also fit into that category for some people.

Stefania from Greece wins the eye candy prize.

My special mentions go to team Iceland and the Finland rock #joiners, as well as France and the Black Mamba band from Portugal either of whom I would have been happy to see win. Oh well, maybe my picks will do better next year! :P

December 2020 Review: GTFO giveth, NWO taketh away

Decided to put this up earlier than usual because of Christmas! In the news this time, Neverwinter is doing some major changes/global nerfs for the next module including this winner of a line: "Weapons no longer provide damage". Amusing for a D&D based game, anyway - we'll have to see if thats an improvement or if we're going to get cyberpunked. Either way Guild Hall level 16 is already under construction as of this post. Whee!

In comparison, GTFO has extended the current Rundown with new weapons and four new maps which is great, and is now appropriately named Rundown 004 / Contact://EXTENDED. I cannot recommend this early access game enough, with the caveat that it is very brutal. More so if you don't have a team to play with (though there's usually mercs on the GTFO discord to help with that).

That's it for now, I'll leave you with this epic battle of Chicken vs Sea Chicken! Hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas!

Someone's been watching too much NOS4A2.

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Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Death Note (2017)
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I'm quite pleased Eurovision related content made it to the top of this list, though I suspect people are just wondering what to watch next on Netflix.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

The music isn't a contest.

Lars (Will Ferell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) are determined to enter and win Eurovision for Iceland which is made near impossible due to Lars' self-sabotaging nature. As the actual contest was cancelled this year due to COVID, this movie is a decent replacement with some decent songs performed throughout.

Very much Eurovision-ish!

There are also some nice comedic parts but if you don't like Will Ferrell, you might have a problem with this. In the same vein, if you haven't watched any real Eurovision you might not get some of the gags or the cameos. As a Eurovision fan I quite enjoyed it though, and give this film three jaja ding dongs out of five. Would I watch it again? Yes! In fact I already have! :)

Today I Smiled: I forgot to post about Eurovision 2019!

Ah the perils of having lots of content prepared in advance. This one got quite buried and only now, months after the event do I remember that I wrote about it at all!

If you missed it, don't know about it, or just want to relive it - the Eurovision stage was lit this year up by musical acts of all sorts, including a quite bad one by Madonna. She might not look it but she's getting too old for this. It was a very weak performance.

Hatari won the award for weirdness this year!

This year the contestants had belters, awesome dancers, a guy in the shower, a giant chair, a singing dentist (who can't sing), a mandatory stripper act, bondage crew "arts group" Hatari (singing "Hate will Prevail!"), a sand artist, and Australia's Kate Miller-Heidke flying around on a pole. She should have won!

Of equal winning material was Sweden's John Lundvik, but as usual my picks never do well. Other acts I quite enjoyed were "Spirit in the Sky" from Norway, and the "S!sters" from Germany who deserved to place better than they did.

As a final bonus link: here's Kate Miller-Heidke with the same song again - but this time just with piano. I prefer it to her stage performance!

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2018

Another year means another Eurovision! As you all know I'm a bit of a fan of this event, and this year had a combination of nice eye candy,  a douchebag intruder for the UK's entry, a wiggly Australian, a pyromaniac piano vampire, some heavy metal screamers, an opera singer in a cool laser dress, and some peace loving vikings.

Sometimes I think there's a secret "who can burn the stage" contest too.

I quite liked those last two, as well as Greece's song and Albania's Rock entry. Even if you skip all the above, the next three you probably should watch: Moldova's superbly choreographed and humorous number, the actual winning entry from Israel which involves a bit of clucking and eye gymnastics, and my personal favourite this year: Germany's touching "You Let Me Walk Alone".

Last but not least, here's a clip of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) questioning why Canada isn't a part of Eurovision. :)

Today I Sighed: Where to Find Time?

Seems that I'm back in a "so much to do and not enough time too lazy to do it" phase at the moment, with my gaming addiction strangling out most other things once more. Thanks Neverwinter Online. Lol. At least I've got Chult done now, along with the long outstanding Tyranny of Dragons (thanks to the Linu improvement).

This leaves the Storm King's Thunder, the Day of the Dungeon Master event (too many dice required), and the PvP campaigns (no interest in that, so no biggie) unfinished. All that is also eating into my blogging time, which is annoying since I want to continue the Fate of Heroes story at some point.

I did do something different last weekend by attending Comic Con where I was surprised at how many people purchase boxes of random gear. That is, you get a box but don't know what's inside it. Haven't these guys played MMOs? Lol.

I also learned that the world of war gaming is very varied if this list is anything to go by, and that for each kick ass "good guy", there are psychos to balance it out.

In honor of one of our guild mates who has left I'm putting her favorite bands up here as my closing musical numbers: If these Trees could Talk and Explosions in the Sky. If that's too heavy for you, perhaps you'd enjoy this piece from the Eurovision Choir contest instead.

And as a bonus for bird lovers: here's a live feed for some roosting Peregrine Falcons.

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2017

Ahh Eurovision - it's been awhile since I posted about it last but  this was definitely fun to watch last weekend. If you missed it, don't worry - I've got you covered! This year had male models (5th place), yodeling (7th place), a dancing monkey (6th place), a guy in a horse mask (14th place), some dancing Moldovians (3rd place), an anime kid who is pretty damn good (came 2nd place, worth a watch) and these guys (10th)...

Can you guess why I liked them? :P

My faves of the more "normal" variety included a trio of chicks who blend really well (11th), the UK songstress (15th), this happy moon guy (16th), and this jolly Croatian with a great vocal range (13th). I have no complaints about the actual winner though.

I didn't understand a word of his song yet it was fantastic. You can tell how awesome it is when other competitors are crying while listening to it. He even earns bonus thumbs up for letting his sister (the one who composed it) take the stage and sing it with him in his encore.

Hope you enjoyed at least some of those links, if not here's something a little more mainstream. Similar to D&D devils, if you sing someone's song there's a small percent chance they will appear for an impromptu duet! :P

Into the Woods

A waste of good singers.

Since there's more singing than talking here it's safe to say this musical is about how a bunch of well known fairy tale characters cross paths with each other (continuously) in supposedly a huge and sometimes scary forest to make all their dreams come true. While everyone is a good or good enough singer, they don't actually have many (actually any in my opinion) good songs to sing. Hell, Eurovision had more memorable songs. Also, the girl who plays red riding hood is borderline in the acting department.

Egads, make it stop!

The tale itself is not too serious with a few funny bits. However it is also pretty dark and there are a number of mutilations and fatalities though all off screen. It's like they wanted to include gore to be dark and broody but chickened out to try still be "kid friendly". The entire thing also has a narrator, which I always find to be a cheap way to move the plot forward and when the third act comes around I just wanted the entire cast to die already so the movie would end. Annoying, unnecessary tedium!

Pity since the visuals were pretty good, especially for one of Cinderella's solos, but it's nowhere near enough to save it. I give this movie one and a half magic beans out of five and recommend that every stay the hell away from going Into the Woods. Obviously I have no interest in watching it again.

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2015!

Short post full of  music links in-bound!

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the song contest that is Eurovision, and for those of you who don't know what it is I think this image sums it up nicely. :P

Because fire solves everything!

Yes, that's a guy singing and performing on a flaming piano. As expected there were also hot ladies, angry ladies, a fat lady, and even a bearded lady assisting the hosting since she won lost year.

There was also all sorts of music: from Israeli Club Dance, to Russian messages of peace, to songs that sound similar to something else, and as usual a couple of WTF entries.

My personal favorites of the night were Voltaj from Romania and of course Guy Sebastian from AUSTRALIA (included for the first time ever)! For a country not even in Europe I'm amazed that he did so well. The ultimate winner was Sweden though, and I had no problems with that as I quite liked his song too. You should give it a listen! :)

Today I Smiled: Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day all (yeah I'm probably one day early)! :P Regardless if you are spending this with someone or on your own I hope to have something in today's post that will get everyone smiling. I figure I may as well start with "things cats do that'd be creepy if you did them".

Not a cat person? Well, how about learning of the people volunteering for a one way trip to Mars? Honestly, a few years ago when I first heard of this mission, I would have loved to be one of them.

On to game related vids, I'm not sure if you saw my Attack on Titan game tutorial compilation post but this opening, made from Feng Lee's tribute game is pretty damn cool. Another game that seems to have been getting upgrades without my attention is ye olde Sherwood Dungeon! I remember trying to reach the bottom with Juris via running - obviously we never made it. :P

As usual, I have to have a paragraph about music in here since it is one of my passions and I was super pleased to hear that Australia is joining Eurovision this year as a contestant. Also I've recently come across a strange instrument called a hang drum (because I don't get out much) and thought I'd share this clip of it in a solo by Daniel Waples.

If that's too zen for you then I also have a newly released piano solo by Animenz of "Unravel" from Tokyo Ghoul. No idea what Tokyo Ghoul is, but man does that look hard to play. And if that looked tough, here's one more appropriate for today... Animenz's "My Dearest" from Guilty Crown.

Anywho, that's it for me - hope you all have a wonderful day! :)

Today I Smiled: Eurovision Songs

A music related post this time, mainly centered around Eurovision - which is a pretty big music contest held yearly among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. The songs each year range from pretty damn good to downright awful, but there are always some (usually in the latter category) that make me a happy boy. Usually the insane version of happy, which is still good.

As you might have guessed, it is coming up again in a few days which was the basis of this post. That, and I haven't done a Today I Smiled post for awhile! :)

Anywho, I thought I'd share a few of them with you in no particular order! Have your ear plugs ready! :P

So Lucky - Zdob si Zdub (Moldova)
Party For Everybody - Buranovskiye Babushki  (Russia)
Wolves of the Sea - Pirates of the Sea (Latvia)
Alcohol is Free - Koza Mostra feat. Agathon Iakovidis (Greece)
Danzig - Verka Serduchka (Ukraine)
Fairytale - Alexander Rybak (Norway)
Hard Rock Hallelujah - Lordi (Finland) (skip to 0:40)

Eurovision 2013

A musical post for a change! One of the guilty pleasures I have is watching this Eurovision stuff because most of the time the performances are just silly or flat. For the benefit of those who do not get it in their countries I've put numerous links in this post to give you a taste! This year wasn't as crazy as in the past as there were no Latvian pirates, singing demons, lucky Moldovans, or dancing ukranian alien crossdressers to leave us running scared but at least they did have a giant, a mellow Thor, Dracula, Asterix and leggy dames who wanted to either marry you or feed you their love. Still a fun watch, and as usual my favoured one to win didn't (I always pick the silly ones so Dracula or Asterix for me! :P) - leaving Only Tears which is a far cry from the Fairytale which was one of the more deserving winners in my book.

I guess I know what's in his flask now!

Not part of Eurovision but another song stuck in my head at the moment is Space Oddity version sung by astronaut Chris Hadfield (which is far superior to the original not just because of the setting) and going with the musical theme I guess it's ok to say that I'm trying to learn A Thousand Years now too (sans the Twilight parts). :P