Home from Atlantic City after seeing Heaven and Hell. Great show. All of these guys are living legends, and without exaggerating, there’s probably at least 100 years of combined musical experience among them. Geezer and Iommi have been in Sabbath from the start (altho there was a gap in Geezer’s membership), Dio was with Rainbow from the start, and Vinnie was been with Sabbath when Dio came on-board.

Although they didn’t headline, a local (PA) band named Halestorm opened.

Took some pix, and tried to take a vid, but my cellphone camera (Palm Centro) isn’t really that fantastic, so everything came out pretty lousey. CJ took some pix, but it’ll be a few days before I can get a copy of those. I’m not even gonna bother with the vid, cause it’s all blown out, light and music.

But here are two pix for you to enjoy. Or even if you don’t enjoy, here are two pix anyways. One thing I am impressed with is the respect they all give each other on-stage. Dio doesn’t take the spot from Iommi, and Iommi gives the stage to Dio, and all of them recognized Geezer’s and Vince’s solos. You can see Dio in front here on the first pic.

Then Dio backs off for Tony to play a solo.

It was an age range, from the “too old to rock and roll, too young to die” group to the 20somethings. I wanted seats, so I got balcony seating, but the majority of people in the balcony were pretty dull. All the energy was in general admission on the floor. The women sitting in front of me even turned around and told me to cool it. Well. Aren’t we the mature lass?

Got body-checked when Vince tossed his drum-sticks up to the balcony. It was IN MY HAND, and the guy next to me slammed me. I still have the mark. Couldn’t get any of Iommi’s picks, tho, they were too light to be thrown up into balcony. Tried to scour the floor afterwards, but that offered no joy.

And finally, we didn’t gamble either. We checked out the craps tables (three of them) at the Showboat, where the House of Blues is, but man, talk about no energy there, either.

Kinda excited. Going to Atlantic City this weekend to see Heaven & Hell at the House of Blues.

FWIW, this is basically the same band as the Dio-fronted Sabbath. Dio did three albums with Sabbath, but at the moment I can only recall Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules. I guess they can’t call themselves Sabbath? So I guess this is more of a “reunion” kind of thing. Apparently the only person not playing is Bill Ward, who chose not to participate.

I had wanted to go see them at MSG this past Tuesday, but the logistics just didn’t work out. The doors opened at 7pm, and so we would have had to catch a 5pm train into NYC. That would give us no time to eat before the show. Either that, or we’d have dinner and that would mean we would miss the opening act, which was Coheed and Cambria. I would have liked to see them, but what can you do?

So we opted for the Atlantic City show instead, which apparently does not have an opening act. Oh well. So to kinda get me in the mood, I looked on YT for some 2009 videos:

Check Iommi, he’s got awesome stage presence. He’s a fantastic guitarist, but he’s not arrogant. Iommi is the only member of Sabbath who’s been with the band from the beginning to now, he could definitely have a case of ego, but it doesn’t look like it.

This sounds nice, The Adventurer’s Journal, where you can blog from in-game. Since they have e-mail from in-game, it only seems natural (to me) that we should be able to blog from in-game as well.

I guess by now it’s no secret that I have my fingers in pretty much any version of HKO that’s running. And that does include PH; I was either able to get around their d/l restrictions via a proxy, or else they just removed the d/l restrictions.

Anyways, gloot.net is (was?) offering a free DVD of the game client, but you either had to pick it up, or they’d mail it to you, provided you were in Singapore. Well, pretty much counts me out.

But Starrfire7 and her sister were nice enough to help me. Ghost traveled to one of the locations, and Starr actually mailed it. You might have seen some of the other people posting their packages. Mine was the last to arrive. Tee, who lives about 500 miles south of me, got hers before the weekend, so I spent all weekend stressing (and even went to the PO to harass them).

That red thing is a Hello Kitty ruler, I’ll be bringing that in to work for sure. The white piece of typewritten paper are installation, etc, instructions.

Here is the reverse of the CD sleeve.

I do have to say that gloot did a very nice job producing this.

Finally, one last surprise gift:

It’s a “back off” sign you hang in your rear window when you get tailgated. And I hate tailgaters. Although from a pretty women like Starr, I’d prefer if it said “kiss me” instead.

Oh, and on the back of the envelope is the trademark Starrfire7, err Little Twin Star stickers.:

Thank you so much for thinking of me, and taking the time and effort to send me these things. If there’s ever a favor I can do, let me know.

I did post this on the forum, but I’ll blog it about anyways *shrug*

The Filipino version of HKO starts their Founders’ Beta on August 17, and you can find the download infor, either ftp or torrent, from their announcement page:

http://www.levelupgames.ph/2009/08/hello-kitty-online-founders-beta-starts-on-august-17/

I did apply for their Founders’, and was even accepted, even though I bluntly told them I was from the US. I think I said something even like  “feel free to reject my application”.Unfortunately, the download site is locked to PH only, and I can’t access either the ftp or torrent. And if they block the downloads, I wonder if they’ll block the game itself? Yea, I tried a proxy, but it was really really slow. So I don’t think you’ll be seeing me there. Say hi to everyone for me. Especially Abby, if she happens to be there  :(