Pantera live 1992

Geez, this is the best Pantera bootleg video I've ever seen, possibly even the best Pantera live video I've ever seen.

Plane entertainment

E-books:

Audiobooks:
The Art of Happiness

Movies:
Hired Gun

Lessons:
Japanese

Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix

I had a pretty good childhood, and music reminds me of those times.  I grew up in the AM radio days of early Elton John, Wings, Bee Gees, and other pop radio hits.

Guardians of the Galaxy has so much good music that takes me back to vacations with my family in California....  Brandy by Looking Glass, Southern Nights by Glen Campbell.....

I think it's pretty cool that a movie that my son got me to watch brings me back to my youth.  Especially since I don't listen to old music, and I don't listen to anything other than heavy metal most of the time.

Churchill & Orwell: The Fight For Freedom

This was a good book, recommended by a friend.  Though some of the book focused on the biographies of Churchill and Orwell, much of the middle of the book talked about the events leading to World War 2, which were really interesting.  I learned that the ruling party in England was advocating appeasement of the Nazis, which Churchill was against.  I also learned of England's disdain for Americans, though Churchill said nice things in public about Americans to garner their help in the war.  I also learned about Russia's role in the war, and their initial pact with the Germans.

I was expecting much more interrelation between their stories, but the book was more about how their individual efforts reflected what was happening at the time.

Binge watching Marvel movies

It's not hip to watch Marvel movies, but it's fun!!  My son and I have tickets for the very first showing of Avengers: Infinity War on the day before the opening day, and he asked me to catch up with him on the backstory by renting and watching several preceding movies that provide a background for Infinity War.

I watched Doctor Strange.  I thought the special effects were pretty good, but the Doctor Strange character was not really that believable in that he was too sarcastic, which I think a rational person would be able to temper given the risks that that behavior would provide and his desire to fix his fingers.  I also thought he came into power too quickly, and that the magical books in the library would have been more secured.  Overall, not Marvel's best movie, and in fact maybe one of the worst I've seen from them.  I'd give it a 6 stars.

I hadn't read the Guardians comics when they first came out, so knew nothing about their story.  I enjoyed this movie, but Disney seems to rehash the Star Wars formula of invasion of a destroying spaceship with simultaneous dogfight and hand-to-hand fighting scenes.  But maybe that formula still works for me because I enjoyed it in this movie, as I did in Black Panther.  8 stars.

Eh, this one was just alright too.  Weird that such epic things happened, yet it was still so silly.  Thor's father Odin died, he lost his hammer and his eye, and his home Aasgard got destroyed, and yet he can still have silly banter with the Hulk.

2018 metal albums

So far, the new Harms Way album is my top pick for 2018, but I saw on Nails' Instagram feed that they love these new albums, so I'll check them out today:

With Inexorable Suffering by Our Place of Worship is Silence:

Devouring Mortality by Skeletal Remains:

Animal Farm - George Orwell

I really loved 1984, so I guess I expected a lot from Animal Farm.  I suppose I was a little disappointed, for a number of reasons.  First of all, as a story that replaces animals for people in a revolution, it was only moderately interesting.  Second, it was predictable just about from the start, and sad in it's dystopian outlook.  Unlike in 1984, when there was some redemption in the sadness of Winston's insanity, it was harder to relate to the characters in Animal Farm as they were so one-dimensional.

I don't get why this is a classic, but I'll still give it a 7/10.

The History of Love - Nicole Strauss

I was blown away by this book!!  It was slightly confusing and moved in many different ways, and the ending leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but I found my interpretation and meaning, and even found a little life lesson.

It's a beautifully written book, and thought-provoking, both in a self-reflecting way, and for the analysis of the story line.

Socrates in 90 Minutes - Paul Strathern

This was a really quick audiobook that explained Socrates' life, as well as his philosophy.  I really enjoyed it.  Though I took Philosophy 101 in college, I wasn't aware of Socrates' influence on the school of thought - specifically that his "dialectic", his style of discourse, and his approach to thinking in terms of rational thought and observation, had forever changed the way that people thought about things.

Prior to Socrates, much of the "sciences" were explained in terms of mythology and religion, whereas post Socrates thought was rooted in observation and rationalization.  As soon as astronomic philosophy converted over to an observation based field, it became a science, and soon many studies were converted over to "sciences".  But the semantics are not as important as the fact that conceptually, there was a revolution in the way that people thought - without dogma, and with rationality.  In fact, the first university was founded by Socrates student, Plato.

I always loved the Socratic Paradox - "I know that I know nothing".  It's the way I try to live my life, and the purpose for this blog.  In this spirit, I have so much more to learn about Socrates and his teachings, so I give this book a 10/10 for reintroducing me to Socrates and for invigorating my desire to learn more.

Ikigai - Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles

I can't remember how I happened upon this book.  It may have been through the last book I read - Flow.

I had previously understood Ikigai to be the Japanese term for "purpose" in life, but in this book, the authors don't seem to differentiate Ikigai from things like eating well and exercising, and in fact give examples of both.  Dan Buettner, in his Blue Zones books, makes Ikigai a separate concept, so I'm still not sure I understand the true meaning of the term.

Semantics aside, I think it's a great book for learning how to be happy and live a long time.  It dovetails right in there with the other books I've read.  What makes this book different from the others is that they provide examples of physical exercises or different kinds of food to eat.

Incorporated into my collection of books on how to optimize life, this is a great addition.

What I would listen to if I had 20 hours of car rides

I'll probably listen to all of these on my upcoming vacation since there will be lots of car rides.

1. Reign In Blood - Slayer
2. Demigod - Behemoth
3. You Will Never Be One Of Us - Nails
4. Blood Mantra - Decapitated
5. Nightmare Logic - Power Trip
6. The Impossibility of Reason - Chimaira
7. Perserverence - Hatebreed
8. Posthuman - Harms Way
9. Tyranny of Will - Iron Reagan
10. Beneath The Remains - Sepultura
11. Vulgar Display of Power - Pantera
12. Slaughter of the Soul - At The Gates 

Also, these might be cool:

1. Revolver - The Haunted
2. Svart - Feared
3. Beast - Despised Icon
4. Born Hanged / Falsifier - Black Tongue
5. Nightbringers - The Black Dahlia Murder

Whoa, this video was really good, and connected with me

The history of death metal

I think it would be interesting to trace the history of death metal by listening to the important albums that shaped death metal through the 80s and early 90s.  I plan to listen to the following albums from start to finish, chronologically to hear the evolution album by album.  I've never heard some of these albums all the way through, so I think it would be fun.

title	artist	year
welcome to hell	venom	1981
black metal	venom	1982
show no mercy	slayer	1983
morbid tales	celtic frost	1984
to mega therion	celtic frost	1985
hell awaits	slayer	1985
endless pain	kreator	1985
seven churches	possessed	1985
reign in blood	slayer	1986
scream bloody gore	death	1987
leprosy	death	1988
slowly we rot	obituary	1989
severed survival	autopsy	1989
altars of madness	morbid angel	1989
deicide	deicide	1990
left hand path	entombed	1990
human	death	1991
blessed are the sick	morbid angel	1991
necrotism - descanting the insalubrious	carcass	1991
effigy of the forgotten	suffocation	1991
clandestine	entombed	1991
butchered at birth	cannibal corpse	1991

So far I've

Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihaly

This was a great book that talked about optimizing life through control of one's consciousness.  Much of the book talked about examples, rather than "how-tos", but perhaps the intent was inspiration.  In any case, this was a really great book that teaches how "autotelic personalities" reduce "psychic entropy" through "flow" - the ability to experience life with unimpeded joy and concentration.

Understanding Japan: A Cultural History - Mark J. Ravina

This is an excellent set of lectures about the history of Japan.  Ravina goes through different topics, such as trade with Chinese and Koreans, theater, gardens, language, and ends with the events of 1989 that forever changed the course of Japan.

I didn't think I'd enjoy these lectures, as the last time I sat through lectures about history was in college, and I hated them then.  I've gotten old.  :)

Ghosts of the Tsunami - Richard Lloyd Parry

In this book, Parry talks about the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the devastation that the tsunami caused.  The primary focus is the death of students at Okawa Elementary, and the after effects.

It was very sad, but also illuminating of Japanese culture and to that end, it was very interesting.  I felt that the brief sections on ghosts and possessions was almost gratuitous, and perhaps didn't need to be in the story.  More interesting was the determination of the parents to find their children, and the government's unwillingness to take responsibility for the deaths, which were preventable and attributed to negligence on the part of the administration.

It was also interesting that the author worked in the election of Shinzo Abe as Prime Minister.  It almost seemed unrelated to the aftereffects of the Tsunami, but perhaps represented a shift in the way the Japanese saw their government, much like what the U.S. is going through now.

I wasn't sure if I'd like is as much as I did, but it was a good book.