I showed up on Friday to witness the results of an office decorating contest we had, and let me say, I was in utter Heaven (or Hell, I should say …)!

Long story short, I work on a video product, and our theme was around this gorilla, who sucked in old shitty movies, and would “output” shiny ones. Either way, they needed to use a lot of old movie posters for effect, and ended up pretty much exclusively buying old horror posters, which made my day.

My team won the contest needless to say.

More after the jump …

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It’s anarchy in the UK! God save the Queen! I like beans and pies and crisps and pints of ale!!! Friday is an ode to my past, when I lived in London.

Nothing like some good ‘ole British metal for your Friday listening pleasure. GOOD British metal, unlike my previous post on the queen’s music.

I’ve been digging Trigger the Bloodshed for quite some time now. They’re just good death metal, for fans of Job for a Cowboy, Cannibal Corpse. Napalm Death, the standard.

These Brits are forgotten for a reason. Actually, 3 reasons (the number of albums they put out). Remember when every band wanted to sound like Rage, yet rap a bit more, yet wear really baggy clothes and “groove” like Korn? Yes, those terrible times.

One Minute Silence is awful. No evidence is more condemning than the brutally painful track, “Some ya Lose”.

Sorry OMS, you lose them all unfortunately. OH for a zillion.

Oh, you didn’t think it could get any worse? How about losing the vocals? Believe it or not, it makes it worse, kinda like the Rollin’ sans music:

What kind of people shitheads listened to One Minute Silence?

Obviously, those who thought Twisted Metal was a cool concept all the way up until the 4th installment.

Obviously I did too, long enough to forever have this awful song forever sandblasted onto my skull. I completely blame my teenage tendency to buy anything new and shiny. Take this for example:

I was bored yesterday, so I figured I’d dig around the interwebs for some

Whether you need to build a 1998 website, whether you’re a Hot Topic regular, whether you’re a MySpace or Friendster junkie, or stuck in the past, or just have terrible taste, here are a few sites for you:

http://www.hellucination.com/

http://www.animated-gifs.eu/avatars-100×100-skulls/001.htm

http://www.animated-gifs.eu/horror-devil/001.htm

I could’ve listed more sites, but then again, I don’t want to feel like that big of a loser.

So I already posted about GWAR, but lest us forget, that the night before we went and saw the venerable Immortal at the Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan.

Immortal is one of Vincent and I’s favorite bands by far (just check out the tag search results for Immortal), and this was the 3rd time we got to see them live.

The first time we saw them, we ended up drunk with a SHITLOAD of merch. We thought at the time it might be their only tour we’d ever get to see.

The 2nd time we saw them, I got so drunk that we were unable to make use of the VIP tickets we had, which included a meet-and-great and a poster. Oops. We got cool lanyards though.

This time, we had VIP tickets again! Except all it meant was a free poster (we didn’t pick it up) and early entrance. We are notorious for getting to concerts at the last minute to ensure we can get the most affordable booze in our system.

They ripped it again, as usual. One By One almost made me cry. The were grim. They were frostbitten. They were simply, Immortal.

Their live shows will never get old. Ever.

Few more pics after the jump

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As per usual, GWAR was hysterical, terrifying, awkward, all that you could want from their live show. I left more ashamed of the human race than ever before.

More photos after the jump …

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To counteract the essentially shitty bands I’ve been posting as part of Forgotten Metal Friday, I figured I’d start a more regular series of posts simply highlighting good bands that we love. This should make Vincent happy. Even though he has a Coal Chamber poster in his office.

So here’s Rotten Sound, a brutal gindcore band from Finland (big surprise, good metal coming out of Scandinavia). If you like any grindcore, especially Napalm Death, you’re really going to love these guys. It’s pure raw energy and fervor. Recommended for working up a violent rage prior to ripping someone’s throat out.

Their new album comes out in March on Relapse Records, and they’re currently touring the US.

Enjoy my favorite track from them, “Dead Remains”, off of their 2010 EP Napalm:

I am happy to bring you Forgotten Metal Friday from 35000 feet today. Funny enough, I’m flying back from San Francisco, the home of the first two entrants in Forgotten metal Friday. Since I’m heading back east, let’s give some love to my destination, New York.

Today, I’d like to talk about Syracuse metallers Earth Crisis. Actually, allow me to clarify: I’d like to mostly talk shit about Earth Crisis. Sorry guys.

Back in my early days, when I didn’t know the difference between Hardcore and Metal, Earth Crisis was the first band labeled “hardcore” that I remember purchasing. I wasn’t sure what I was in for.

What I was in for was a treat, to be honest. Most of the metal I had been turned on to at that point was more “well-composed”, was faster, was just … metal. Simple metal, if you will.

I picked up Gomorrah’s Season Ends with some hard-earned allowance and took it straight home to listen. Who was this guy just yelling “guh guh gah gah GAHHHHHH! BLAT BWAT AAAAAHHHHBABAHHHHHH!!!” What was he so angry about? What gave him such anger? Why did some of the riffs sound like impending knife-fights?

Fast forward several years, I threw Earth Crisis down the toilet when I found out they were angry about meat eaters, trees, and the like. They were my first encounter with the term Straight Edge. Which to this day I think is the stupidest thing on earth, and anyone who claims to be “straight edge” deserves a kick in the dick. It’s fine to not drink, etc. But to label yourself? That’s like me saying “I’m a binge drinker and that’s awesome”. It just doesn’t make sense. Shut up already. But, I digress …

Either way, I don’t think Earth Crisis is “hardcore” at all. Metalcore perhaps. Either way, I had a good time with it for a while, so it’s good to pay respects every now and then.

The trailer for Dead Island just premiered, and all I can say is “wow”. It’s quite disturbing, even if you live and breath zombies.

There’s a great writeup at Destuctoid as well.

[Via IGN]

Ars Technica posted a cool article yesterday detailing the release of a new AR (Augmented Reality) game for the iPhone. It was developed to promote the upcoming release of Paranormal Activity 2 on DVD, and I was curious so I downloaded the game.

I’ve yet to fully explore it, but it is surprisingly large and involved for a game that could have been a total throwaway. The basic gameplay involves the user (you) navigating a map of your area (NYC being mine) investigating haunted locales. Once you find one you can search for ghosts, draw pentagrams to protect yourself, and generally act like a fool right out in public. It’s surprisingly fun.

I snapped the photo above last night as I was waiting to get my hair cut. Ghost, busted. Give it a whirl.

FourSquare in Hell: augmented reality games discover demons [via ars technica]