This morning some men came into our office and hung up a Successories picture; it says "TEAMWORK: There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goal only with the help of others." And the picture is of some dudes climbing a mountain and one dude's helping the other dude or whatever.

I'm winning today's MWB!!

Notes from the Metal Underground:

Last night Jason and I went to Station 4 in St. Paul for the following:

Doro (headliner)
Fatal Smile
Seventh Calling
Cold Colors
Sirens Of Titan
Krepitus

The opening band, Krepitus, was pretty impressive. The singer/bassist had a really powerful voice -- kind of that metal/hardcore* hybrid of shouting and singing, along the lines of the latest Shadows Fall CD. But then he could hit some pretty damn high notes as well here and there. Sirens of Titan was cool as well -- kind of like Queens of the Stone Age with better lead guitar and vocals (sorry, Josh Homme). Definitely a "groove" thing going on, reminiscent of Sabbath.

The metalfest continued with Cold Colors -- they had this crazy deal where for $20 you could get all four of their CDs plus a free T-shirt. What's a metal junkie to do? I'm now the proud owner of their entire collection. The shirt is kind of ugly, but it does say "pure american wuss metal" on the back, which is damn funny! Seventh Calling was a high point -- very reminiscent of early American thrash metal. The singer/guitarist could sound a little Halford-esque on occasion, which was pretty amazing.

Fatal Smile came on next, and it was like being in a time warp -- pure mid-to-late-80s glam/hair metal. They hit the stage swinging, and commenced to assault the audience with choruses along the lines of "S! O! B!" with no trace of irony whatsoever. The singer looks like he's from Skid Row, the bassist and guitar player look like they're from Motley Crue, and the drummer is easily one of the prettiest dudes I've ever seen! They even had groupies. Doro came on next, and was pretty cool but we were getting a little tired by that point, as it was way past our bedtimes. She did a really cool version of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law," which you can find on YouTube if you're so inclined.

Earlier on Sunday lonely_doll and I went to Cheapo, and I found this for fifteen bucks:

Hollywood Rocks!

Oh my goodness, there's some choice cuts on this thing! Example: Warrant singer Jani Lane was apparently in a band called "Plain Jane" before Warrant, and they apparently recorded a cover of "Time Warp." Yes, that Time Warp. It's also got "12 O'clock High," by Odin, who some of you may remember from The Decline of Western Civilization Part II.

Cold Colors is cool. I'm listening to one of their CDs and the song that's on has got kind of a mid-tempo Danzig/Sisters of Mercy-esque feel.

Other than that, I managed to make it to the gym in this crap weather, which always makes me feel better. I have to be back at work at 5 a.m. tomorrow for the "kickoff" of Documentation Training Week, so I should probably crash pretty soon. It wouldn't be so bad, but I also have to be at work at 9:30 p.m tomorrow, and I still haven't quite figured out how that's gonna work. I might do something crazy like work 'till 2 p.m. or whatever, hit the gym, take a nap, and go back for the second session.

Happy SPRING, guys!!

*always a good idea to mix Black Sabbath with Black Flag, you know?

I was tagged by mcsassypants!

123 Meme Rules: (1) Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating! (2) Turn to page 123. (3) Find the first 5 sentences. (4) Post the next 3 sentences. (5) Tag 5 people.

I'm at work, which means the closest book is The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit. So it's a little weird, but here's as close as I could get, counting sentence fragments as sentences and so forth:

panic button 1. a location on a Web site that contains a link to another, usually less controversial site 2. escape hatch that those who surf NSFW Web sites [read: ones that contain nudity] on the job use to avoid being busted

paradigm 1. a universally accepted way of thinking*

Play along if you like, lonely_doll, lupinlover, talekyn, rockfestfreak, and annablume.

*I can't really post ONLY the first definition. The second is "what everybody believes, the way things are done because they've been done like this forever." And the third is "used to mystify and intimidate colleagues/customers/clients who are usually short-circuited by the use of such a fancy word, especially one that contains a silent "g"; far too sophisticated and intellectual a word to be bandied about in the workplace, especially because the majority of people who use it have no idea what it means. Those who have drunk the Kool-Aid will speak of a "dominant paradigm" (which is kind of redundant, no?) and paradigm shifts.

From The Dictionary of Corporate Bulls**t:

tone 1. mood that affects others 2. what executives who are so self-delusional that they think people are looking to them for cues or guidance see as their job to "set"; dictated by their boss, otherwise they wouldn't care; attached to high-flying ideals such as "respect," "tolerance," "accountability," and "collaboration" that executives communicate through mandatory workshops and speeches delivered in the MANAGEMENT TONE 3. may be the direct result of an INITIATIVE.