Review

I've been listening to Metallica's latest release, Death Magnetic. With everybody touting it as a release to their 80s form, here is a track by track review of the album.

1. That was just your life: A thrashy beginning that wouldn't be out of place on Kill 'em all.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've managed to catch up with all the superhero movies that came out this summer.

• Hellboy 2: The worst of the lot; Insipid hollywood-ized version with poor direction, bad editing and a lacklustre story. Stay away from it.

Grappler Baki is generally touted to be one of the most violent animes / mangas around. While the anime (especially the Saidai Tournament Hen) was below par, I was hoping that the manga would be (as is usually is) a touch better. And it is just a touch better, no more.

Yesterday, I randomly picked up a manga named M×0 as the general premise looked a little interesting: a boy is accidentally enrolled into a magic school and has to pretend that he is an all powerful magician even though he has no talent. But, unfortunaltely, it fizzled off after the first few chapters and all in all was a waste of my time.

I just finished reading a manga named B Reaction by mangaka Tsuruta Hirohisa. A rather typical Shounen story with some ecchi stuff blended in, it is something like a cross between Kenichi and Tenjou Tenge and I was hooked for all 18 chapters of it.

I just finished watching Speed Racer, an adaptation of the anime and manga, Mach Gogogo / Speed Racer. Directed by the Wachowski brothers, Speed racer is, IMHO, the best live-action adaptation of an anime / cartoon that retains its original flavour and roots.

The synopsis of the anime is as follows:

I've just finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi - a science fiction novel in a similar vein to Joe Haldeman's Forever War.

Yesterday, I decided to upgrade my Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 install to the latest 8.04 Hardy Heron. While I didn't have any specific feature that I thought I might need, I really wanted to see if an upgrade would help me access my digital camera which isn't terribly well supported in 7.10.

I watched Shrek 3 yesterday and I am still in mourning over it. What was an entertaining part 1 has been sodomised into mindless drivel that is neither well written nor well animated or well voiced for that matter. I sincerely hope that there isn't going to be a part 4.

Hollywood should be banned from making sequels based on the commercial performance of a movie.

A promo copy (with voice-overs) of the new Nightwish album - Dark Passion Play has been leaked on the Innernet. This is the first album with their new lead singer - Anette Olzon - after their previous (famous) lead singer Tarja Turunen was kicked out.