u/Machinax

The answers in this thread is why us nerds wouldn't last a day as the showrunner/head writer for Doctor Who. I love the show, I can't wait for it to come back, and I'm not sure there's any amount of money that you could pay me to wage the daily war that would be being the executive producer for Doctor Who.

I used to be a big progressive metal fan, so Dream Theater was a heavyweight in my early days of LastFM; in 2006, I listened to them 336 times, and they were easily in my top 10 artists. In 2025, they have 40 scrobbles, and they're No. 24 on my artist charts. I'm too old to keep up with all of those time signature changes.

This tool is so useful that my No. 7 album in my library recovered 85 lost scrobbles from 2007 to become my No. 5 album.

I wonder if this will be the practice if/when the UMC and TEC enter full communion.

I don't think Human :||: Nature or Yesterwynde are bad albums, but I think people are pretty used to Nightwish's shtick, and Nightwish are at the point in their career where there are few surprises left. Every long-running band runs into this problem, and I've heard variations of the criticisms leveled at Human :||: Nature and Yesterwynde leveled at recent output of every band from Iron Maiden to Metallica, from Megadeth to Sabaton, from Arch Enemy to Amon Amarth.

"My penis is augmented."

In my experience, the term "non-denominational" is primarily a rejection of mainline Protestantism, but non-denominational churches (in the United States, anyway) are usually part of a network of churches. I used to attend a church that called itself non-denominational, but it was part of the Assemblies of God; but the people there would tell you that they didn't identify with any major denominations, they just wanted to call themselves Christian.

And they are more than welcome to call themselves Christian, but whether they knew it or not, whether they liked it or not, they are part of the Assemblies of God.

I'd probably play with it, but I don't use LastFM for social networking. I'm much more interested in library insights and music stats.

Demonic, to me, is a rare example of a band going in a heavier direction (compared to nearly all of Testament's contemporaries, who experimented with more accessible music).

I really like it. It's helped in large part by Chuck Billy doing legitimately good death metal vocals, instead of just over-the-top and unintelligible growling like you hear in deathcore or whatever. I always like it when bands show that they have more than one card up their sleeve, and Demonic is a hell of a card to play. Testament's later career was all the richer because of what they did on this album.

I always liked to think that the black bar at the bottom of the image is like an old VHS glitch, which really gives the album an 80s, underground, DIY feel (very much like the vibe of Killing Is My Business).

I've been a Christian long enough that there's not much a band of middle-aged men singing songs about a devil they don't believe in will do to me. But I can say that from the luxury of being a Christian for over 30 years; other people will have different mileages.

I've only seen Slayer live twice; the last time I saw them was on the American Carnage tour, when they played Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety. Great show, great memories. That was in 2010, and I still go to church every Sunday and pray the Daily Office every day (or, at least, I try to). Maybe when I was younger, the upside down crosses would have bothered me, but now I'm too old for that kind of shtick to get under my skin. I ask myself if those kinds of theatrics will really turn me away from my belief in God, and, well, I'm more of a committed Christian now than I was in 2010, and I still listen to a lot of Slayer.

I'd call them semi-retired now; they play the occasional festival, but they're done with recording and touring.

That is so wonderfully put.

Well, Smith does get what's coming to him -- he loses his children, his wife, his empire, and his life. It's not the most satisfying conclusion to a villain arc, but he does have a moment of realizing that out of all the John Smiths out there, he is undoubtedly the worst.

It's why I don't get this fascination with Smith as a character. Yes, nobody likes Julianna, but I don't ever want to have the kind of worldview that leads me to want a show that was "entirely about John Smith." The Man in the High Castle fans who are like this remind me of the fans of The Sopranos who think that Tony Soprano was a cool guy they could hang out with, or the fans of Breaking Bad who think that Walter White was the hero of the piece. I don't know if they don't get the point, or if they do get the point, which is worse in its own way.

It makes sense that the TV show would have to come up with its own antagonist(s); I loved the philosophical take of the book, but it wouldn't have translated into compelling television.

The series and the book are so different that it's almost easiest to think of the series as being inspired by the book, not an adaptation. I almost prefer the philosophical elements of the book, even though that would have made for bad television; the TV show went in the sci-fi direction and struggled to make it work.

My first playthrough, I screwed up the Rannoch mission, and then I did the Thessia mission immediately afterwards. I had to take a break from the game, it was too much.

I was very late to the Springsteen party, so most of my introduction to his body of work was from listicles and randomly discovering songs and albums. I knew "Land of Hope and Dreams" long before I knew Wrecking Ball.

A big reason that Wrecking Ball is my emotional favorite is that I came to associate the title track with the unexpected passing of my dad. He wasn't a Springsteen fan, and my family didn't (and doesn't) know jack about the Giants, but in the fog and the tornado of the shock and grief of his death, the bittersweet triumph of "Wrecking Ball" just hit. It's been three years, but it's only now that I'm starting to think of the song as more than the soundtrack to the collage of pictures of my dad I arranged for his memorial service.

There are other songs, too, of course; "Land of Hope and Dreams" is quintessential Springsteen, "Death to My Hometown" is a powerful stomper, and "Jack of All Trades" is a heartbreaking ode to the invisible. Born in the U.S.A and Nebraska are the easy favorites for every random "Best Springsteen Album" list, but Wrecking Ball tells a very special story.

Every female character was the Rani, or Susan, or both, somehow.

I guess I'm a little surprised that, at the ripe old age of 43, I still listen to heavy metal as much as I do. Someone who used to know me very well, many years ago, said something about how I would grow out of listening to metal as I got older. It's funny to look at my LastFM profile and see the first seven artists in my library all being heavy metal bands, probably totaling upwards of 50,000 scrobbles. Maybe the surprise is that despite my music tastes broadening as I got older -- I listen to a lot more folk, choral, and ambient music than I used to -- heavy metal still dominates my listening.

So not a re-enactment of the Diet of Worms, then.

Metallica's Load album is my 3rd most scrobbled album, at 1,387 scrobbles.

Metallica's ReLoad album is my 4th most scrobbled album, at 1,369 scrobbles.

>I beliethat untitleby korn is actually Korn II because they released Korn III after

Fans may have given it the name "Korn II," but to this day, the album does not have an official title.

I met her briefly at the last General Convention. Warm, lovely person, even with how busy she was. We got a great picture together.

Her sermon in 2025 will stand as one of the most important moments in the modern history of the Episcopal Church.