Month: May 2018

One *Million* Glocks

One of the big stories in advance of the 2018 NRA Annual Meeting is that Glock is celebrating its one millionth Glock 43 and is giving it away. That is a milestone for Glock and a pistol that’s been on the market for about three years. Here’s the fun part.

For years, the figure bandied about is 300 million guns in private hands. That figure is from before the sun setting of the AWB, much less the explosion from the Obama election. Let’s just go from the end of the AWB in 2004. That’s almost fifteen years. Exactly how many millions more firearms have been produced and sold in those fifteen years?

I’ve heard some estimate America is passed the billion mark, but I think that’s too high. That would require almost 47 million guns per year. My personal estimate is that we’ve doubled the number of guns in private hands.

And the anti-gun folks really think they can peacefully confiscate six hundred million guns?

Ten Albums

There’s a meme going around on the Boof of Faces to list the ten albums that had the biggest impact on your musical tastes. The concept demands a blog post, and I asked The Brother to do the same.

Derek

I’m not going to list these in any particular order other than as they come to mind. Some of these may surprise you, considering I run a regular feature called Metal Tuesday.

Derek's Album Collage

  1. Quiet Riot – Metal Health – This was my first non-kids album. It also started my path down to heavy metal. I’m sure my parents regretted giving it to me for a long time.
  2. Sabaton – Attero Dominatus – This was the album that really got me into Sabaton. Particularly, the song “Back In Control.” I remember sitting up and thinking Holy shit, he’s singing about the Falklands War. And I got hooked.
  3. Metallica – Master of Puppets – One of my three introductory albums into metal. This is the one that showed me the difference between hard rock and metal. It also introduced me to how fast metal could be played.
  4. Blind Guardian – Imaginations From the Other Side – So, for the better part of a decade, I didn’t explore metal as much as listen to what I already had. To those who know me IRL, it would be unsurprising to find out that this period coincided with the time I was involved with my ex-wife. Once she was out of my life, I asked The Brother for a collection of metal to get me back into the game. This was the album that brought me back into metal’s loving arms like a sledgehammer to the face.
  5. Garth Brooks – Ropin’ The Wind – This album brought me into country music. I like Garth’s early albums, particularly his way with storytelling in the lyrics. This album would bring me over to Chris LeDoux and several other master storytellers in the country genre.
  6. Classical Thunder – It might have been a cheesy collection sold on TV, but these reignited my interest in classical music. Which in turn, fed my interest in metal. Which brought me back to more classical music. Endless recursions.
  7. Manowar – Fighting the World – Second of my three introductory metal. This one brought me into power metal and the genre’s use of fantasy. Yes, I know Dio did it first. Manowar was my first exposure, and it hit at the right time of when I was playing fantasy RPGs with my best friends at the time.
  8. Seven Kingdoms – Seven Kingdoms – This album started me on the search for female-fronted metal. That led into Amaranthe, Delain, Epica, Dark Princess, Within Temptation, and of course, Nightwish.
  9. Iron Maiden – Powerslave – The last of my three introductory metal albums, and the first Iron Maiden album I listened to. Iron Maiden was the first band that fused storytelling and great metal music.
  10. Mortal Kombat the Album – This is not the soundtrack for the horrible movie, but rather a collection of techno songs for the main characters in the original game. This was something I found in a record store and picked it up. It’s on the list because it introduced me to techno. More importantly, it helped me discover how useful techno is to writing action scenes.

The Brother

My dear brother brought this idea to me and I agreed to it. I am trying to do this chronologically, but I am probably messing things up. These albums are also (usually) the ones that brought me into a genre, but are not necessarily my favorite albums in those genres.

The Brother's Covers

  1. Metallica – Master of Puppets – This is the first heavy metal album I remember hearing and started me on my love of heavy metal.
  2. Morbid Angel – Domination – The album that made me love death metal. I had heard other death metal before, but this is the album that made it click.
  3. Old Man’s Child – The Pagan Prosperity – Like Domination before it, this was my breakthrough into black metal.
  4. Chris Brooks – The Master Plan – I don’t know where this album came from, but it ignited a love of instrumental rock/metal.
  5. In Flames – Whoracle – This was my intro to what is now my favorite genre of music, melodic death metal.
  6. Disillusion – Back to Time of Splendor – This is my favorite album.
  7. Insomnium – in the Halls of Awaiting – The first album I heard of my favorite band (and yes, my favorite band did not make my favorite album).
  8. Clutch – Blast Tyrant – This brought me back to straight-up, kick-you-in-the-teeth, rock music.
  9. Saxon Shore – The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore – While I know this wasn’t my first post-rock album, this is the first one I remember really getting into.
  10. Allegaeon – Fragments of Form and Function – Finally, and most recently, the album that brought me into technical death metal.