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Concert Review: Bruce Dickinson – Silver Spring, MD – 14 September, 2025

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Concert Reviews, Music, Personal, Photos on September 17, 2025 by slateman

After his landmark solo records of the late 1990s, I haven’t been quite as enamored with Bruce Dickinson’s last two albums. Each had its own highlights, but I’ll always go back to Accident and Chemical if given a choice.

Despite my less-enthusiastic take on these efforts, Bruce hasn’t done a US tour since I (saw him in 1998) and going tonight was a bit of a no-brainer. I got to the venue with time to spare, had a beverage and headed in, getting comfortably close, but not as near as I normally would like. The aging crowd didn’t move altogether too much, so where I landed is about where I stayed for the duration. During my half-hour wait, I gazed upon the crowd curiously; spying all the tropes of metal fandom.

With the instrumental intro beginning things, he kicked off into Accident Of Birth, a spectacular start. There are pockets of unfamiliarity in his catalogue, and though these selections were pretty good, it also meant diminished enthusiasm for sections. It didn’t help that things were generally quite slow. Even Laughing In The Hiding Bush, never my favorite, felt weak.

The air-conditioned venue was actually quite cold, never an issue for me, but Bruce was not fond and he commented on it several times, in addition to a few subdued political jabs. Nothing too forceful, but they garnered a smirk from many.

Chemical, Flash Of The Blade and the killer cover of Frankenstein were highlights from the middle of the evening. The first sounded beautiful and Bruce’s voice was as strong as ever. The sole Maiden cover would’ve been a great surprise had it not been spoiled – but the solo section in the middle was just spectacular as was Frankenstein. The band was having fun and I loved every minute of it.

Wrapping things up, we got three hits from my favorite two albums and this represented the best part of the evening. All were just awesome even if they were slower and packed less of a punch than most metal shows. Things were clear and all musicians were top notch.

Following a brief moment backstage, we were treated to the expected Tears Of The Dragon complete with an enthusiastic sing-along. I was unfamiliar with the next Balls To Picasso song, to my dismay, but this led into the finale. Bruce spoke about recording the next album and thanked the crowd before diving into The Tower, one of his best and a suitable closing to a wonderful evening. I zipped out swiftly and Google routed me on what seemed a long, out-of-the-way path home. I woke not feeling terrible the next day, can’t complain about that!!! Setlist and photos/videos to follow.

  1. Intro: Toltec 7 Arrival
  2. Accident Of Birth
  3. Abduction
  4. Laughing In The Hiding Bush
  5. Shadow Of The Gods
  6. Chemical Wedding
  7. Flash Of The Blade
  8. Resurrection Men
  9. Rain On The Graves
  10. Frankenstein
  11. The Alchemist
  12. Book Of Thel
  13. Road To Hell
  14. E: Tears Of The Dragon
  15. E: Gods Of War
  16. E: The Tower






Neon White: Stylish Flair & Incredibly Unique!

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Games, Personal on June 20, 2025 by slateman

I started this game on PC last year and waited for a sale on the PSN to grab it and play it on console. After a few short spurts, I was enjoying it, but not fully sold. Then something clicked. And for a week and a half, I was hooked entirely. I simply couldn’t get enough. The superhero feeling, flashy style, zippy flow and cool presentation all kept me returning. Despite some frustrating sections, it was, overall, just remarkable. Easily on of my favorite games of the last few years. Without question.


2023: A Year In Games

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, DoDon Pachi, Games, Lists, Personal, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Ys on December 27, 2023 by slateman

2023 is wrapping up with many critics claiming it resides shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the best years in gaming history. My experience isn’t quite so stellar, but

Let’s go through some lists starting with titles that were released before 2023, all while realizing that the true best game I played this past year was Bloodborne!

Older Games Played:

  • Dark Souls III
  • A Plague Tale: Innocence
  • SteamWorld Dig
  • SteamWorld Dig 2
  • Rogue Legacy 2
  • Neon White
  • Lunistice

Of those titles, I completed the 2D ones only. While I had played Rogue Legacy 2 on Steam the prior year, it was only when I got it for free on PS+, and could play from my couch, that I beat it. Admittedly, I lowered the difficulty to blaze through chunks that I had beaten before. In some ways this game is perfect: allowing for those changes to difficulty, a fantastic gameplay loop and incredibly-tight and responsive controls. Several of the theme songs stuck in my head for quite some time and it was a fun experience. However, my Old Game Of The Year, if that were a category, would go to SteamWorld Dig 2. It’s so funny, I got a trophy in the first game way back in 2013 and I remember playing it and abandoning it. No clue what drove me to return, but once I started, I was hooked. After blazing through the first title, I anxiously awaited a sale price for the second, eventually pulling the trigger without one, that’s how much I liked it. And the sequel did not disappoint, living up to and exceeding my praise of the first. I simply loved that game and, much like the emptiness felt after completing Elden Ring, I continually yearn for a similar experience, with no satisfaction. In fact, if I were ranking the best games of the year regardless of their release date, SteamWorld Dig 2 would be in contention.

The other titles all had qualities of their own, but not enough to keep me returning to them.

Moving along, now we look at titles released this year that I have yet to play in 2023:

  • Alan Wake 2 (Some day I’ll try)
  • Baldur’s Gate 3 (Trial was cool, dunno if it’s for me)
  • Blasphemous 2 (Curious, not much more)
  • Cocoon (Hmmm)
  • Dead Space (Maybe an ‘on-sale’ game)
  • Diablo 4 (Trial run, felt like D3, really)
  • Hi-Fi Rush (Maybe when I get an Xbox!)
  • Octopath Traveler 2 (Never played the first)
  • Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (Lost interest in the first)
  • The Talos Principle 2 (Never beat the first)
  • Viewfinder (Demo was fun!)

There are a few games I’d like to try, but none here give me the burning desire to jump in. Games like Pikmin and Fire Emblem may be great, but do I care? Nothing above are a have to play game, despite how good BG3 appears to be.

Our final category is the games I have indeed played this year, and ranking them isn’t very easy.

2023 Games:

  • Final Fantasy XVI
  • The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
  • Lies Of P
  • Resident Evil 4
  • Sea Of Stars
  • Street Fighter 6
  • Super Mario Bros. Wonder
  • Xenotilt

As I work through Lies Of P and Sea Of Stars, I quite like the former due to its obvious inspirations and feel indifferent towards the latter. I beat neither Zelda, much as I didn’t its predecessor, nor FFXVI, losing interest after numerous hours.

Thus, we’ve whittled down the list to four games, all sequels. As much as I love Mario games – and I do like the franchise – nothing about Wonder stood out to me, despite what everyone else thinks.

And then there were three. Xenotilt probably improves on everything in Demon’s Tilt. As DT is in my top-20 ever, I struggle to wonder which should be on that list. In either event: it’s not 2023’s GOTY.

Capcom ends up holding the trophy, as the remaining games are both theirs. And this decision is a difficult one. By all accounts, Resident Evil 4 should do what no game has ever done: won the trophy as both an original release and a remake! But while it effectively replaces the original, I think I have to give it to Street Fighter 6. The gameplay is honed. The systems are polished. The game is just fun and it’s the best launch-SF game since SFII. I absolutely love this title and have no reservations awarding it GOTY, even if RE4 is as good as it is – DLC included!

So there it is: Game Of The Year 2023 is Street Fighter 6!

The Best Of 2022: My Lists

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Games, Lists, Music, Personal on January 1, 2023 by slateman

Following tradition, my list of albums of the year have been posted, with Denmark scoring the highest honors for the first time in several decades. For this blog, however, I’m just going to post some lists.

Best Songs:
1) Svartsot: Rottefængeren
2) Andy Gillion: Game Over
3) Soilwork: Övergivenheten
4) The Halo Effect: Shadowminds
5) White Ward: Leviathan

Best Albums:
12) Ghost: Impera
11) Amorphis: Halo
10) Megadeth: The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!
9) Hällas: Isle Of Wisdom
8) Amon Amarth: The Great Heathen Army
7) White Ward: False Light
6) Arch Enemy: Deceivers
5) Saor: Origins
4) The Halo Effect: Days Of The Lost
3) Soilwork: Övergivenheten
2) Andy Gillion: Arcade Metal
1) Svartsot: Kumbl

Best Videogames:
#3: God Of War: Ragnarök
#2: Vampire Survivors
#1: Elden Ring

Best TV Shows:
#9: The Bear (S1)
#8: Murderville (S1)
#7: The Patient (S1)
#6: Dead To Me (S3*)
#5: Bridgerton (S2)
#4: Ozark (S4*)
#3: Stranger Things (S4)
#2: The White Lotus (S2)
#1: Severance (S1)

My Accomplishments:
3×3 Record: 26.46
6×6 Record: 11:11.38
Megaminx Record: 4:16.92
Regular Astrominx: Solved!

Concert Review: Mercyful Fate – Silver Spring, MD – 8 November, 2022

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Concert Reviews, Music, Personal, Photos on November 8, 2022 by slateman

(testing)
I missed all of Kreator unfortunately and arrived to a packed house just shortly before King arrived. The show was earlier than I expected with the Danish legends hitting the stage around 9:15. The Fillmore is a smaller venue with a comfortable-looking balcony on either side of the stage. However, the floor itself is quite small and I felt really far away at my initial landing spot.

I hadn’t seen Mercyful Fate since October of 1996, the night the New York Yankees won the world series. Quite a long time.

Highlights were The Oath and Black Funeral, really. The setlist was a bit brief and the new song simply doesn’t catch me.

(unfinished review)

  1. The Oath
  2. A Corpse Without Soul
  3. The Jackal Of Salzburg
  4. Curse Of The Pharaohs
  5. A Dangerous Meeting
  6. Doomed By The Living Dead
  7. Melissa
  8. Black Funeral
  9. Evil
  10. Come To The Sabbath
  11. E: Satan’s Fall

Five Hundredth Post

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Personal on May 16, 2022 by slateman

It was just over 10 years ago, 3,733 days ago precisely, when I started this blog. At that point, I had been running web sites for more than a decade and a half. But I’d pondered doing a personal blog for quite some time and I can’t say I really know what made me pull the trigger. My early posts were all about Skyrim, DoDonPachi, cubing and some quality posts about gaming. I averaged about a post a week for a decade, far heavier at the outset than in recent times, but I thought I should celebrate i some small way.

In 2012, I was about halfway through my stint living in Maine. I had only just started cubing (my 35th birthday in February 2011). I hadn’t ever played DDP:DFK. I lived in a small house with four kids and several dogs. My life was, in countless ways, immeasurably-different from how it is now.

Since then I’ve moved around the world, published books, learned new languages, traveled and so much more. While posts are far less frequent, this remains my go-to for personal posts, timelines, reviews and the like. I don’t care if no one reads this. One day, all of these personal websites will fade with only an archiver to back them up – but no one with the knowledge or desire to even seek them out.

15 Years Of Scrobbles

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Lists, Music, Personal on February 10, 2021 by slateman

I started using Last.FM back in 2005 and in the 15+ years since, it’s consistently been part of my music-playing experience. Though numbers from before then are omitted, as are hundreds from the old iPod days, I’ve still clocked in almost 80,000 plays and today I’m sharing my top-10 most-played bands. It’s no surprise that Moonsorrow sits atop the heap – they did just recently become my favorite-band ever! This means the entries go as follows:

Finland – Finland – Sweden – Norway – Finland – Sweden – USA – Finland – Norway – Sweden.

Remarkable. Oh, and Slayer sits comfortably at #11. All my stats can be found here.

Playstation: Top Games 2020

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Games, Personal on February 7, 2021 by slateman

Two items with which to preface this post. First, on my stats page, it says I (*ahem* my kids) played 64 hours of Bugsnax but yet that doesn’t sit in my top-three as shown here. Second – yes – that’s Skyrim as my #1 game of the year. Wow.

I love stats and despite their complete inaccuracy, I don’t care. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla shows about 55 hours on my PS4 and then another 55 on my PS5. Don’t know how Sony tabulates their math, but it’s simply wrong. Ultimately, however, my return to Skyrim was a wondrous affair, as I mentioned several months back. The merger of pandemic lockdown and a somewhat-family-friendly game meant I totally enjoyed diving back in and getting much farther than I did nearly a decade ago. I will admit that the 60fps mod on the PS5 gives me a bit of a tickle to re-return…but for now, my backlog is far too large to do such a thing.

The Elder Scrolls was supplanted by Far Cry 5, a not-so-family-friendly game which was as much fun as its predecessors. I’ll say, I’m fairly certain my leader for 2021 is Immortals: Fenyx Rising. I suppose I could check my PS5 to find out.

Some more final stats: I earned almost 800 trophies, topping 2019’s 536 – though I had 16 platinums that year thanks to the Vita and its shovelware library. Additionally, it claims I played 974 hours compared to 2019’s 351. I have a feeling that last year’s number is a bit shy of the real one – though I did move from Sweden to Italy in 2019.

2020 vs 2019

Disappeared

Posted in Blog, Personal on December 31, 2019 by slateman

I don’t know how many months I went without an update since this blog’s inception. A few, certainly, but definitely not multiple and absolutely not sequential ones. So, what’s happened to make me go almost three months without a word? Indifference.

My move to Italy has really diminished our spirits. The country itself may be beautiful, but where we reside in Napoli, is not. We don’t love it. We often hate it. And I dive into my writing to escape. But even that has an end and that end is approaching.

I’m unsure if 2020 will rejuvenate me or if it will continue the descent into the numbness. But let’s be clear, my life is fucking grand and I have no reason to be this way. I have more than most and maybe I just need a kick in the ass.

Until then, I suppose I should work on my AotY list. Disregard previous bitchfest. It’s probably not warranted.

Another Move – Another Country

Posted in Best / Worst, Blog, Personal on June 28, 2019 by slateman

It is with a heavy heart that I abandon my beloved Scandinavia. However, I cannot complain as southern Europe awaits and its 45° weather alongside it! These pages have been curiously quiet and will likely remain that way as my entire life is turned upside down for the second time in three years.

Wish me luck – This is an opportunity of a lifetime in an already-tumultuous 2019.

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