OK, the past five days in a nutshell:

On Thursday, right in the middle of my lunch, the stroganoff in front of me suddenly lost its taste, and the rest of the food turned bland. Also, I felt quite a bit of soreness in my thighs. I walked back to the office, all 200 meters of it, and when I was there, I already knew I was not going to finish the day, and that I had to leave immediately if I wished to drive my car back home.

As I got home, I was sore all over, with a fever coming, and immediately went to bed. I slept most of the next 26 hours with painkillers. At this point, it was obvious that it's likely swine flu, just muscle pain and fever in the beginning. I took all the precautions I could, and slept as much as possible. On Saturday evening, I felt a bit better, and remember thinking that I got off the hook rather lightly.

Not quite so. Sunday was worse, and during the whole thing, I haven't been able to eat pretty much anything. I get huge gag reflexes, and everything just seems yucky.

On Monday evening, The New Lady told me to get my ass to see a doctor, and wouldn't you know: I have pneumonia. The doc said that it's been a silent companion of the swine flu lately, and gave me some antibiotics with a warning: "these are pretty powerful, so eat before you take them, so you don't get bloody diarrhea". I got a week of sick leave, I can't have my kids or anyone else over because it's contagious, and I can eat, sleep, or keep my mind focused on anything for more than five minutes. Also, my larynx is infected, too, and I have very little of my voice left. This sucks.

It's also obvious that this is one of those moments where, weren't we living with modern medicine and antibiotics, I'd have at least something like 20% chance of finishing my existence within two weeks.

Guess who is getting his free influenza shots in the future, side effects or no.

Completely unrelated, but I just finished my first high school midterms, and it already feels nice to not have to worry about those tests.

As a student or a teacher?

The 2015 squad shall reign supreme!

Stormy here is MA'S new baby.

Do download blogs for rare metal stuff actually still exist? I'm wishing there'd be a way to find that Disembarkation demo, a new band discovery I love, and it has track lengths listed on M-A so someone must have had it at some point...

Granted, it is nice to have a "true" MA baby. You were born pretty much when MA came into existence!

Give it a few years, and who knows, you guys might be the norm here.

Also @Storm of the Light's Bane I just realized that it was YOU that commented on my vid that one time. I noticed the description that said "I'm that guy from the metal archives" and I was racking my brain thinking "Yeah, but WHICH ONE!?" Now I feel dumb, haha

That would be pretty awesome. I'm slowly overcoming my irrational fear of the tavern, one (shit)post at a time! I tend to forget that most of the regulars here also were teenagers at one point. Unless that's just a myth, and all the mods are indeed some dark council of demons. Ya never know!

Haha, I thought I had the link to my site profile in the about section on my channel. You should do more Blind Guardian covers though, since your cover of Majesty is really fucking good.

Hey hey hey hey, demons can young too. >.> I'm not old, crusty, fuckin' swole and beautiful yet.

I'll be... the official Buckethead guide!!

That would be pretty awesome. I'm slowly overcoming my irrational fear of the tavern, one (shit)post at a time! I tend to forget that most of the regulars here also were teenagers at one point. Unless that's just a myth, and all the mods are indeed some dark council of demons. Ya never know!

Hey hey hey hey, demons can young too. >.> I'm not old, crusty, fuckin' swole and beautiful yet.

Mayhem + Inquisition + Black Anvil are playing here tomorrow but I work until 9:00-9:30 (and then 15 mins to travel to the show). Show begins at 8 PM. Of the couple dozen shows I've seen, I've never seen a headliner begin before 11PM, so I typically guess the timing by working backwards from there. The issue this time is that I heard Inquisition's setlist is relatively short so that leaves me relatively curious as to if I should even go at all. Would be nice to see some Inquisition.

To the point - did anyone attend this show and could anyone give a rough guess at to how long they played (and is Inquisition before Mayhem?).

Thanks man!! I was super self-conscious about that one, but I'm glad it turned out ok. Trial By The Archon/Wizard's Crown is next in line for the BG stuff!

I did a noise improvisation cover of Nothing Else Matters

No problem, mate! Can't wait to hear your cover of Trial by the Archon/Wizard's Crown! I'm going to guess Battalions of Fear is your favorite Blind Guardian album?

It's way up there for sure! I think Somewhere Far Beyond is my favorite, but Battalions is definitely still in second place. It's easily one of my favorite pure speed metal albums (I consider it such, idk if others would). I've just been getting into them lately, so it's been a blast taking in everything they've got. However, I've known Battalions for a very long time. I just never thought to go beyond that. That... was a mistake, haha. Awesome band.