Coming off breakthrough success in 2004 with their album Once, Nightwish took a major gamble. After recording a live concert DVD in Helsinki, the band made a creative decision to replace their lead singer and one of the founding members of the band, Tarja Turunen. Tinkering with band chemistry is always dangerous, but changing their signature sound which has made them so popular could be especially deadly. After an exhaustive search, a new vocalist was chosen, and the band begun work on their latest masterpiece, Dark Passion Play. It looks like the gamble might have paid off. After listening to the new CD all weekend, I’m confident this is their best work. The tracks range from epic songs like Sahara mixing metal with orchestral, to more fast paced traditional metal works like Bye Bye Beautiful. Of course there are a few songs that aren’t as great, but overall this CD is very good and will be pumping out of my Winamp for some time.

I was messing around with my Xbox Media Center the other day, when I noticed a new Script was available. I loaded it up and after playing around with it for a few minutes, I instantly fell in love. Imagine YouTube but in Divx quality, and with movies and full episodes of classic TV shows. Thats the theory behind Joox. Joox serves as an interface for a large database of content hosted by a company called Stage6. They do all the legwork and Joox just makes it easier to find your stuff. Last night I watched a DVD rip of Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer through Joox on my Xbox. The quality is amazing and since the content is streamed, I can’t be held responsible for any wrong doing! Sounds like a great system to me. While I’m not sure how long it will last, I sure am going to enjoy it while I can. As this site gets more popular, I can only assume that the content will be getting better and better.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that Halo 3 comes out today. Nerds in Master Chief armor lined up last night at midnight to be one of the first to get their mits on a copy of the game. By all accounts this game will shatter sales records for a video game release. Personally I don’t get the buzz around this game. Anyone who’s played Gears of War will be disappointed with inferior controls, story, and content. This game is somewhat revolutionary as it is the first game to offer 4-player co-op play which is kinda cool. The main draw of this game is the vehicular combat and massive battles waged online, while in theory is pretty good. I just prefer the way Unreal Tournament handles this.

Speaking of Unreal Tournament, the new website is up, and I get chills just visiting it. This fall is crazy for gaming with major releases such as Quake Wars, Halo 3, Rock Band, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero 3, and Assassins Creed all coming out in a 45-60 day period.

These USB drives are pretty dang cool. They’re a tad big more expensive than a typical low cost drive you would get at Best Buy or Circuit City, but they’re much prettier. The wow-factor when you pull out a Master Chief USB drive at the next Lan Party will be well worth the price.

I created a new gallery of pictures I have taken with my Camera Phone. Sometimes the best moments happen when you don’t have your camera with you. As you can see the are some great candid shots. Unfortunately my camera slipped into some weird mode where it made everything orange a while back and I just now figure out how to change it. I’m also very proud of this particular picture which I call “the cookie beard”.

Google recently started providing FREE directory assistance. If you call 1-800-Goog-411 they will find the number you’re looking for and connect you free, no catch! Just another way Google is making life a little easier

Here’s there home of the third Working Dead. As of writing this, its incomplete, but look for a total of 4 panels, then you’ll know its complete.

This is the most genius video I think I’ve ever seen. I too have had trouble finding a decent pair of pants.