Wow.

I mean holy shit. Flogging Molly was, in two words, fucking amazing. If you ever have a chance and don’t value your hearing very much, go see them in concert. Their albums are hardcore seriously rocking Irish punk rock, but damn, in concert they rock even harder. With the amount that the entire band was sweating, the heat in the Tremont and the fact that everyone was chugging Guiness, I was worried about dehydration. Seriously. They played for almost two hours and pretty much rocked all of their “fast” songs. And when I say rocked I mean rocked. They played everything at Time-and-a-Half speed, those that they didn’t play twice as fast as the albums. Everything was about ten times louder and an almost infinate amount harder.

Kristi was worried about the band “selling out” but I reminded her that I bought my first Mollys shirt at a (damned) Hot Topic for God’s sake. Also they had a video on MTV2 a year and a half ago. If by that time they have not sold out, then well, they aren’t going to. And they didn’t. The crowd was about half-and-half normal looking peolpe and guys with 12-inch purple mohawks, so fears were pushed aside.

They almost didn’t play “What’s Left of the Flag” so I had worries of my own. But after we chanted “Encore” for a bit they came back on and for a second Encore they rocked the hell out of it. If I had my Dad’s DAT recorder I would have rocked the hell ouf of a bootleg, but without a decent recorder I wasn’t about to try it with at Mr. Microphone.

Also, Kris and I had to move out of line in order to let the lead singer get to his bus. Dude rolled up in a taxi pronounced the crowd “Good” and then went along his way.

So in short, the show rocked. I’ve never seen anyone play a tin whistle that damned fast and holy hell, next time they come down here (They’ve been here before) we all have to go. Just, you know, be prepared to lose a little hearing.

Oh, and I beat La Pucelle and Onimusha 2. I may have to take some time off and play Phantom Brave now as FFX-2 just lost me on Chapter 4. Mayhaps in a bit I’ll feel better about the whole thing and get back to it. I hope so, I’d really like to see how it ends.

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Yeah (just to get this out of the way) “Tomorrow” = “Three weeks from now” for sufficiently large values of “Tomorrow.” Ya know, just to let you know.

My job forbids use of the internet (By uninstalling it from the NT4.0 boxes [NT4!] and asking nicely for the Win2k boxes) so I am getting quite alot read. Re-reading some books and then buying about one a pay-period. Here are a few mini-reviews:

Tales of the Otori: These are Young Adult books more often shelved with the Adult fantasy. To be honest, they toe the line but in that case I file them next to YA. There is a common misconception about these that holds that they are supposed to accurately reflect feudal Japan, this is not so. They are just set in a fantasy realm with Samurai, Ninja, Japanese names, Buddhism, so forth. Basically, as my girl puts it, they are to actual feudal Japan what other fantasy books are to feudal Europe. All in all they are fairly good. About halfway through the first book they change from Disney “everything is going to be OK” to a very harsh growing up tale that actually has some bite. Plus there are Ninja with magical powers (doubles, invisibility, etc). So there you go, I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Absolution Gap: This hefty tome concludes Reynold’s Revalation Space trilogy (the one with four books) and damn but does it. Reynolds builds something I would literally call a tour-de-fource. Multiple sided wars against implacable foes that spend most of the book with humanity (in its various different flavours) on the ropes to an unstoppable alien foe. Plus the author seems to be in the grips of the most advanced forms of Lovecraft Syndrome ever. This is to be recognized by the author spending pages talking about “the soul crushing horror that he cannot name” and then revealing it in this climactic paragraph that actually causes chills. Only downside is that it causes the biggest case of Science Fiction Blue Balls in the history of writing. The last chapter is this horribly final “The battle is lost” scenario, then there is a flash of insite on the part of the main character, then “boom” an epologue set 400 years later. This is the only reason the book gets 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Iron Council: This one is an odd duck. See, a book about a bunch of brave nihilist bohemians risking life and limb to combat an evil political figure who concieved a war against desert mystics who fill their children full of magic to use them as living bombs is a bit over the top. Then when it is revealed that the Big Secret is that New Crobuzon is losing the war (secretly) and that this loss is not being shown to the public but is known to the brave nihilist bohemians then well, I lose all respect for the author as he prostitutes his huge talent for Marxist ideaology set in a world that doesn’t quite mirror the War on Terrorism. That said he’s still Mieville. He manages to write a gay character that, while openly homosexual, doesn’t use that as a source of angst. Aside from “not getting any” angst, which is OK in my book. I just can’t stand the old “I can’t be gay, I’m from a society that doesn’t allow it! Why must I be cursed so!!” whiny claptrap that pervades most writing I’ve read with gay main characters (I’m looking right at you Storm Constantine). Also his Golem magic is incredible. When somebody makes a Golem out of darkness and another out of poison gas, then well, I’m impressed. And the Cactopic Stain is incredible. So yeah a solid 3 stars. If I thought it was something other than a sendup of the Bush Whitehouse he’d get more stars.

Jonothan Strange & Mr. Norrell: This is an incredible book. Just amazing. The praise that appears on the back cover could not be more apt. The tone is perfect, the history is incredible. You really do get the impression that there is this tradition of English Magic that you just haven’t heard of. Its definately one of my Top 5 books of all time (American Gods and Cryptonomicon are also there). It is the story of two magicians in turn-of-the-1800’s England, an England where magic has faded due to the departure of Northern England’s Raven King, attempting to revive English Magic. A delight to read. Huge, sprawling and rightly so. Just read the damn thing, I don’t want to sit here gushing all night,

I re-read American Gods (Still good) and Cryptonomicon (still amazing) as well as House of Leaves (I never did ask you if you liked it, Chatty). And so on. Those are just the new ones. Anyway, I’m off to TV and to FFX-2 and then bed. Wish me luck on all three.

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