Jernlov

I was thinking pretty much the same thing, judging by how the OP is explaining his situation. So yeah, just quit RuneScape, OP. You'll be forever thankful that you listened to my advice.

Step #1 to IRL success: quit RuneScape. No, seriously. If your friends are bothering you so much over your account and it bothers YOU too, then why don't you find some other way to occupy your free time instead of playing RuneScape? Also, get better friends.

For Jesu, get Silver and Conqueror. The debut is great too, but it seems like that one is more drone than post-rock. For Mono, get One Step More and You Die and Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined. Yeah, the trendy kids like them, which is part of the reason that most people on the internet (at least) call them bad bands. I'm pretty indifferent to both. Neither are bands that I listen to regularly because I don't feel like listening to half an hour of going nowhere for a one-minute buildup.

Finally a thrasher in this thread \ Pantera /= thrash metal Also, most people grow out of metal after high school, and MM&T has a lot of people over 16. The Fall of Troy - Chapter II: A Strange Conversation Not a particularly big fan of The Fall of Troy, but I do like this particular album quite a lot. Gives me a lot of The Mars Volta vibes. Is that Fall of Troy track off the new EP? Think the album's worth paying 5 bucks for? Yeah I would say so. It's decent. Aki Kuroda - To Zanarkand Listening to the FFX piano collection album. Very nice.

Finally a thrasher in this thread \ Pantera /= thrash metal Also, most people grow out of metal after high school, and MM&T has a lot of people over 16. The Fall of Troy - Chapter II: A Strange Conversation Not a particularly big fan of The Fall of Troy, but I do like this particular album quite a lot. Gives me a lot of The Mars Volta vibes.

The more I read your posts, the more I realise that I've taken my relatively carefree parents for granted / thought of them as "normal". I would even say that your family is a lot more normal than mine because no matter what happens, my parents seem so unbelievably postive and upbeat. There are no over-the-top punishments here because nobody does anything worth punishing. There's the odd fall-out here and there, but my family is pretty chill on the whole. Until my brother starts getting moody, anyway. Thanks. I really need to land myself some form of job if I can't get into any of my chosen colleges for whatever reason. Even if I hate it, it's money and some place to be other than at home all day.

There is no real "easy way" to combat either; you just have to MAKE yourself shower and MAKE yourself go out. Trust me, if there was a shortcut to being a more sociable person I would've taken it, but you just need to really do it and enjoy whatever you're doing. You don't have to go out and get hammered at parties every weekend to qualify as "social" - all that needs to be done is to just hang about with your friends, people you know etc. a few times a week. (actually I avoid going to parties like the plague - most parties full of under 18s suck so [bleep] much that it ain't even funny. I'm saving the partying for college, and uni if I go.) The biggest problem for me is living in a rural area, away from most of my friends. We really have to plan something if we do go out, which is why it happens so rarely. Most of the time I'm just going outside to do nothing and end up talking to random people in my village whom I know. Still working on getting a job, but like everyone else, I'm having zero success.

Smashing Pumpkins - Geek U.S.A.

Pretty much why I don't communicate with my siblings. We're all on completely different wavelengths. Being the eldest of three, though, I must take charge at times. However, kids never listen. Today was a good day. I finally got my huge mass of hair cut down to something much nicer and manageable, and I've decided that I'll lose my NEET-dom this September and get my arse into college. Since I dropped out of school I'm gonna need to redo some GCSEs though, but that doesn't bother me too much. Anything to get away from my [cabbage]-hole of a school and the people in it. I've generally been feeling happier since I've been going out more, and I've undergone a number of aesthetic improvements (e.g. clothes) seeing as I really want to lose the "lonely loser" look. I must say that it's working.

Broken Social Scene - Windsurfing Nation

As of recent times, post-rock has become a favourite of mine. In layman's, post-rock is a genre of music that relies on delicately textured soundscapes and it utilises a typical crescendo/diminuendo structure, i.e. a "loud/soft" dynamic. Many people turn their noses up at the very mention of such bands as A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, labelling the music these bands create as both "boring" and "pretentious". To be honest, they have a point in the eyes of the average listener. Post-rock is a genre that rewards patience - you don't go and listen to either of the aforementioned bands and expect instant satisfaction. It's somewhat of an acquired taste, but I daresay those who enjoy classical music will especially like post-rock, due to their underlying similarities in composition and performance. Now I've got the pretentious introduction out of the way, I'll tell you a little story about why I enjoy this type of music so much: Sometimes, life isn't easy. Sometimes, you just want to escape from reality. This has happened to me recently - lots of stuff has happened, and I've been seeking somewhat of a diversion when I'm sitting alone in my bedroom at my computer. I've been listening to post-rock on and off since I saw Sigur Rós play live in a field not far from where I live last year, but recently, the escapism factor of ethereal buildups which crash and fade into nothingness has become far more appealing to me. It just makes life seem better. It's like a huge rush when you feel the music coming all to a head, and then disappearing. As for bands I particularly enjoy, my favourite is probably Japanese group Mono. I can honestly say that they have written and performed some of the most touching, beautiful music that I've heard in my lifetime, for example: AKxm2nbcI1U 6RU_PHr0b2Q 89zzHCfZ_zs Another group I enjoy, again from the Japanese post-rock scene: Envy. wiao6fQLy4Q zNUWEG42ceg Jesu, from the UK. f49cKGoxgQM 2eZMqx6knz4 Other groups I enjoy include Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Red Sparowes, Neurosis, Isis, Cult of Luna and Yndi Halda. So there is post-rock. Enjoy, do not enjoy, love, hate, berate.

My Bloody Valentine - Lose My Breath

Mono - A Thousand Paper Cranes Mono create such beautiful music.

GZA / Genius - Liquid Swords Madlib - Shades of Blue Madvillain - Madvillainy DJ Shadow - Endtroducing.... Nujabes - Metaphorical Music and Modal Soul Dalek - Abandoned Language GZA and Nujabes are my favourite hip-hop artists.

Are you 12 or something? Either that, or 12 is the mental age of the average person on Tip.it. Local Bus - Chekeloppa Japanese soft-rock that needs way more recognition. I'm surprised that so little know of them. http://www.last.fm/music/Local+Bus

This is subjective and depends entirely on what sound you want. Please don't max out the bass though; this is universally bad unless you're in Kyuss or something. I used to do this (along with maxing everything else) and then wonder exactly why I had the worst tone ever. As for tapping, well, on my gear it's insanely hard. I have to almost max my amp volume and gain to get any viable sound at all out of tapping. I wish I had a better amp. (I got some Marshall transistor, and boy is it hard work to get any sort of decent tone out of it.) Thanks for that video Azvareth. I'll keep that in mind.

Boris - ????? Ugh. I don't feel very well. I'm going to bed after this album finishes.

That's probably a better way of wording it. I do think that they're a past-it band that's trying too hard to recreate former glories; and for me, that's something you shouldn't try to do. No matter how much I like/loathe a band, it's always irritating to see them burn out on a bad note of trying to recreate their brighter early days. This isn't true of all bands; for example, King Crimson has gotten more amazing as time has passed. I can't believe a band from the 1960s sounds like they do now. Maybe I was a little too hard on Metallica in what I posted. But that aside, they represent a lot of things I don't like in moden music. (I don't want to call music an 'industry'. It should not be one.)

Metallica is a business. They stopped with the metal attitude once they decided that they could become entrepreneurs. I think Lars successfully managed to alienate a number of Metallica fans with his business attitude. All bands, no matter how indie / punk they are, need to make at least something off their music. It's a sad reality, because I believe that art of all forms shouldn't be pioneered as some sort of cash-cow. Art is a form of expression at its very fundamentals - certainly no tool to use to earn money. I believe that art should be a free thing. You cannot and should not put a price on expression. Bands like Metallica make me feel sick. Why does a bunch of middle-aged crybabies get garnered with such adoration? Don't people realise that they're simply cashing in and releasing any half-arsed attempt at music just because it nets them all a cool million or so? They are a [bleep]ing PRIME example of everything wrong with music in today's world. I've got nothing against plenty of changes of direction (actually, I welcome this whole-heartedly) but when you're trying to appeal to new fanbases and you've not even mastered the said style of music, then you know that there's a big problem with the band as a musical entity versus a business. Couple this with Metallica's records being a major offender in the 'loudness war,' [ see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war ] then you know that they're not releasing stuff because they're passionate about what they create. So, to sum up: seeing as Metallica exists to leech off their fans anyway, they were not justified.

GIMP is capable. It's just a matter of finding where the bloody hell everything is. It's one of my contenders for most awkward placement of useful utilities ever. Also, anyone who pays for Photoshop is out of their [bleep]ing mind.

How long's this one gonna last? xD Hopefully a while.

I'll say this: I've been going out and doing pretty pointless stuff a heck of a lot more than I used to recently, and it has only done me good. I feel much better than I did when I was just going to school, coming home and sitting on my PC. Sure, I still sit here a lot, but part of that is due to my friends living pretty far away (we have to plan about a week ahead if we're going to just go out and do random stuff) and that I'm someone more adapted to city life living in a rural area of England; there really isn't all that much to do here if you're not involved in agriculture, heh. It's a peaceful life, though.

I've just realised that this is a [bleep]ing pointless thread. Call me slow, or whatever. Everyone has at LEAST downloaded one album, or one SONG, since they got an Internet connection. It's just that some seem to think they have something to gain by hiding it. So, simply put, nobody really cares if you've downloaded anything. It's pretty basic human nature: take what you can for free. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but we've all downloaded music illegally at some point.

I simply use some rugged-looking backpack. I need to carry a lot of books with me, and it serves its purpose pretty well apart from causing my shoulders to ache from time-to-time.

I sure would. 4chan, MSN logs, porn folder, forum posts. Everything. We would be laughing so hard after it all.