The Author, their debut album which came out in late October on Distort Digital, doesn’t quite meet my expectations, but it still manages to be better than a lot of other progressive/hardcore bands. Anyway, here’s what you came for.

Ratings

Shred level: 5/10
Vocals: 7/10
Breakdowns: 6/10
Compostion: 8/10

iTunes worthy: No
Demonoid worthy: Yes

Overall, I’ll give it a 7/10.

Faronville will be turned into a local “magazine”, at first. Our goal is simple: have everyone within a 100 mile radius know what Faronville is. In order to do so, we’re going to be reviewing the local music scene, games, products, and we’ll even have a tech section.

So, bear with us as we try to incorporate these drastic changes. This place is going to look like junk for a while, but once everything is nice and nestled in, Faronville will start to bloom.

Have a good weekend, and check back regularly.

1. Getting the comic manager working. I really, really want to get comics up, but I’m having some issues with the plugin. I could just put them in regular posts, but that would be stupid. Stay tuned for a post sometime in the future about the comic progress.

2. Gathering a decent amount of contributors. More contributors means more content which means more hits. Two good friends of mine, Ben and Cory, have just been put on “staff”, so we’ll see how that goes. Cory basically said he wouldn’t have much to say, but I’m sure that when he does, it will be the most epic post you have ever read. Ben is neat.

3. Getting a new job. I’m in the process of getting some freelance work, and I’ll keep you updated on my win-or-fail situation there.

4. Establishing some sort of identity. I realize it’s only a blog, but there’s nothing really that memorable about it. If anyone has any sort of nerdy ideas, please send them to me. I’d really like some input from at least one or two of my six regular viewers.

P.S. In the first sentence of this post, I spell “okay” two different ways. I’m not going to correct it, because I don’t care, nor do I really know the difference.

By now, Battlefield fans have heard that Conquest will be released in a couple of weeks. Before I read about it on IGN, I was really excited about Conquest Mode finally making it’s appearance in Bad Company. Not so much anymore.

There are entirely too many things that DICE has done to aggravate us gamers, so I’m not going to draw this out and mention every little thing. Instead, I’m going to give you a list, because everyone loves lists.

Yay! Conque…FOUR MAPS?!
So, let me get this straight; you don’t include the heart-and-soul of Battlefield, Conquest Mode, upon launch and when you do, you think that including it with only four playable maps is going to make up for it?

I really don’t understand this. How can you possibly keep us waiting and expect to satisfy everyone with only four maps? There better be a map pack coming soon, and it better be free. Of course, we’ll probably have to wait a millenium for that, too.

I bought the game, I should be able to use everything that came with it.
In the game there is a certain sniper rifle only attainable by pre-ordering your copy of Battlefield: Bad Company. So, how do you get that unlock if you didn’t pre-order? You don’t. You paid for the game and that sniper rifle is on the disc. It’s down in there, somewhere. You bought it, but you can’t use it.

Sorry, man, I’ve already got four friends I like better than you.
Squads are stupid. There are twelve players to a team and your squad can only have four players in it. And guess what? The only people on your team that you can talk to are in your squad! Don’t bother asking that other teammate if he needs a health pack. He can’t hear you. Let’s just assume he’s too busy talking to his squad.

Another thing that sucks about the squad feature is the fact that I have more than three friends. I mostly play Xbox Live with friends I know in real life; if it were all people I’d met online, of course my real friends would have priority over them. Anyway, If I’m in a party with three friends already, my two other friends asking for invites aren’t going to get one, no matter how much I want to play with them.

Private rooms
Are we getting these? Ever? A lobby system would be nice, too.

The sad part about all this is the fact that Bad Company is just too much fun to stop playing. Endless hours of frustration don’t even come close to shadowing the feeling you get when you and your (three) squadmates are working together in perfect harmony, always finding yourselves at the top of the scoreboard, game after game.

I took this Banksy-esque picture in Bisby, Arizona a couple of years ago. I’ve never known quite what to think of it.

Trevor Moore from Fists of Phoenix.

Hehe, mule.

After working on this place a bit, it didn’t take me long before I realized I wanted to take it in a different direction than I had originally planned. I still really want to do the webcomic, but that’s all depending on me finding a good plugin that I like and that can incorporate the comic the way I need it to be done. I can’t think of anything else that’s awesomely important that I’d like to do with this place, so we’ll just run with whatever. I think that once I have a couple of more “staff” helpers things will start to pick up.

Cluck, signing up?