I’m the type of person who gets obsessed pretty easily. Especially when it comes to music (did I mentione that my dad used to be a DJ?). On my second year of High School, a friend of mine introduced me to artist called IAMX. He’s incredible. Totally different from mainstream, but it might be connected with the genry of his music: indie-electro. Still, he has his very own style and, as my friend pointed it, Lady Gaga could, at most, clean his shoes.
Anyway, he’s the type of artist who is fully dedicated to his work: he writes the music and the lyrics, he makes the mastering of  his music, he directs the videos. He even moved from England to Berlin, where he has found “the spirit to care less about the music industry and take an independent route.”

As for my epic failure, with all my love to this guy, it wasn’t until just yesterday that I found out he has released third album: Kingdom of Welcome Addiction. In May 2009.

. . .

I wonder how on earth my yesterday’s head-desk did not leave any bruises.

As for the album itself, IAMX himself described it as being “like Disney World but with lipstick, cynicism and wit”.

In my opinion, this might be his best album so far.

I can’t say that this album is revolutionary. Same heavy beats along with synthpop and classical additions such as piano and violin. Psychodelic underground. Lyrics concern obsessions, abstruse human-relations, death and politics.
People describe IAMX as Shadow Theatre of Chris Corner. This is exactly what Kingdom of Welcome Addiction is like. It’s murky and dramatic, both calm and full of expression. It’s intensive and addicting. I guess Chris’ voice never sounded better than now, especially when accompanied by anothergreat vocalist – Imogen Heap.

If I were to choose the best song, that would probably be My Secret Friend, which features Imogen Heap. I’m just not dead certain if it’s only because the song itself is amazing or is it because of the magnificent video. I can’t even count how many times I’ve already seen it. But tell me, isn’t it simply gorgeous?

Before I start: yes, I am aware of the fact that this is the 7th Silent Hill game, yet the one called Origins is number zero.

Back on subject.

The story follows Harry Mason, who wakes up after a car accident to find that his daughter Cheryl is missing. Harry will wander the snowy streets of Silent Hill searching for answers of her disappearance, but when the world freezes over, he will need to escape the lumbering demons that haunt his steps. Harry will need to navigate both worlds to discover the truth; not just about his missing daughter, but also the type of person he actually is.

Silent Hill’s debut on the Wii makes the fear more real than ever before. Players will be drawn into the mysterious town using the Wii Remote as a flashlight and a cellphone as they search for clues. Choices they make will shape Harry Mason, as well as the people he meets and the places he visits. The enemies evolve as well, taking the form of the player’s deepest fears. Silent Hill promises to be more terrifying than ever, bringing the fear to Wii, PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, and PSP (PlayStation Portable) system.

As you can see, Shattered Memories is based on the first part, but it’s not an actual remake. We may meet the same characters, but in different order. The game will track our movements and progress and put the plot according to our style.

The “enemies evolve as well, taking the form of the player’s deepest fears. Silent Hill promises to be more terrifying than ever” part sounds promising yet there are few things about this game which make me nervous.

The most important one is the console: Nintendo Wii. I’m not quite sure it’s a disadventage. Playing on Wii gives you more freedom and might be a really good solution for a horror game where you can’t even kill the monsters, because  “Combat has been removed from the game with emphasis placed instead on evading encounters with monsters entirely.” At least we will be able to break through the doors and windows while we run, but it’s not this much fun if you won’t play it on Wii. It will be simply boring. It also means that the whole sight thing might be a real pain in the ass on Play Station 2 or PC. On the other hand, just imagine playing Silent Hill on this!

I’d deffinitely want to try it out!

Secondly: “Harry will wander the snowy streets of Silent Hill searching for answers of her disappearance, but when the world freezes over”. Like what? What about rust, grunge and blood stains? Those are things which I will always associate with this game! They can’t just get rid of them so easily!

Another thing is that “we will be able to open every single door”. Guys, come on! It was so much fun when you had only a few doors open and everytime you tried to get somewhere you had to spend some time on finding the right path. And if it, for example, were the alternative school from the first part, you never knew if something was about to attack you or if you were safe, because the enemy was stuck behind the fence (and the radio told you it was close…). Oh, I will miss such things so much! I really feel an urge to play it once again…

Next change: cell phone. You will just keep using it for everything: taking photos, calling, finding way (GPS),  saving game or keeping track of the notes. This might be interesting, because some clues will be visible only on the photos and sometimes a ghost or two might also appear on them.

So will it be any good? There’s no rust, no blood, no combat, no closed doors. There’s one thing which remains: Akira Yamaoka and his music. The song from the trailer is called “Always on my mind” and you can listen to it here:

OST has 21 tracks, 4 with vocals. Marvelous as always. I guess I don’t have to encourage any of the game fans to get this OST. Music has always been one of the most important and the most impressive parts of the game.

Overall, this will be a very good game for Wii players (and I wish to become one of them soon ;)). Those who are as obsessed with SH as much as I am will enjoy it as well. Or at least this is what I hope for.

Rest of the world? We must wait and see. It should be released in February 2010. You can be sure I will get it soon after and tell you if my fears were groundless. If I won’t die of heart attack somewhere in the middle, that is.

If you’re a bookwork like me, it’s a place for you. You can list all the books you’ve ever read, rate them, tag them and share them with others.
I’m new there and, what can I say, I’m not the most accessible person in the world, but if you are, this might be a good place  to make new friends, who have a similar taste as you.
For me, it’s more like a treasury of books I’d love to read.

I treat my profile as a little collective. I wanted to add something similar as a wordpress page, but it would be a pain to keep it  updated. I accidently found this widget and decided to take advantage of the situation ;).

So now I manage the whole thing in just a few clicks.
I organize my collection by Author’s name, but I could also do this by status, title or rating. I can switch book’s status between options like “not started”, “finished”, “reading” etc. I can add a specific date when I finished reading a book and thanks to this aNobii counts the number of books I read and number of pages: at this exact moment, I have 17 read books (3 re-reads included) which is a total of 7890 pages ;). This year, I mean and I’m not done with adding my books! Some of them simply aren’t there yet (yeah for polish books…).
A re-read. I can add a “re-read” date and it certainly works for me since this year I read the whole “Black Magician Trilogy” by Trudi Canavan twice. Firstly, I read it in Polish and then re-read it in English. And what’s the point in adding the same book twice even if the language is different?
When I’m done with status I can add tags. Most of my collection is tagged under “! The Loved Ones” simply because I hardly remember the bad books x_x, except for the few ones I have on my bookshelf… and those are yet to come ;).
There’s also a whishlist panel, so I can keep track of books I plan to read.

To each book, no matter what the status is, I can add a comment, but I guess I should call it a review. Might be useful, but personally, I’d rather write such things here ;), so there would be the slightest chance that Vihainen wouldn’t die too soon ;D .

If I get tired of a book I can put it under “tradable” category. After specifying a few details like book’s condition or price it is ready to be sold.
If I lend a book and the person who borrowd it is a member too and he/she doesn’t feel like returning it, I can send a reminder ;) [beware Catastro~! <3].

Last but not least, I can share my books with you guys, right here, without spending the whole eternity on coding pages or getting lost somewhere in the middle of adding books. I don’t have to host book covers or any information, this small plugin is all I need.

There probably are features which I didn’t mention here. Either because I haven’t noticed them quite yet or I don’t really think they are very important.
If you want to find out if I missed something, simply sign up! Especially, if you read more than two books a year ;).

[Side note:] It’s kind of the first review-like entry on the blog. I know, I suck at this kind of stuff, but I will do my best to improve, so don’t be too harsh on me and I wait for some feedback <3.
Like, from all 3 of you who may read it: Ria, Ari and Catastro XD.