I've been swamped with recommendations

So, over at Confessions of a Former Conservative, there was some interesting discussion of the joys of Internet radio and the lamentable demise of local radio. This was particularly helpful to me, because in the comments on that thread I learned about a newish local radio station that I hadn't (until then) known existed. (It's 91.7 KXT, for anyone who's in the Dallas area and doesn't want to browse through the comments.)

On top of that, I learned of the existence of what may very well be the most absurdly over-the-top symphonic metal band in the history of history: Rhapsody of Fire. That suggestion came from Hashmir, who describe the band thusly:

Imagine having an Italian DM who barely speaks English, and has about 300 pages of campaign notes, and you’re never entirely certain what you’re doing in-game or why you’re rolling, but you do know that it’s goddamn epic and the sessions are always a blast. And then this DM cuts a symphonic metal album demonstrating absurd technical proficiency and compositional genius. He also hires Christopher Fucking Lee to do the narration for the album. And then sings a duet with him.

Well, if you hit up Pandora and choose “similar to > Rhapsody of Fire” (or whatever it is), I think they start you off with Dawn of Victory (the song). Assuming there’s just a set constant for any given band. That’s a pretty good introduction, but if possible, you really want to get the album experience — Rhapsody is one of those bands that loses a lot of its flow when you chop it up into singles, and their albums are sequential stories anyway. Not that you’ll be able to follow along.

If you can conveniently get your hands on one or more albums, via your means of preference (*ahem*), I’d recommend starting with Dawn of Victory (the album), Power of the Dragonflame, Symphony of Enchanted Lands, or Symphony of Enchanted Lands II (no relation). And yes, every single song and album they put out has a name like that.

On top of that, another friend sent me a recommendation over on Facebook. He thinks I might be interested in sharing Clausewitz' On War (which is pretty much the Western equivalent of Sun Tzu's Art of War) with Firstborn. (I don't know where people get these impressions of me. It's very mysterious, really.) In particular, he thought I might be interested because this version is Clausewitz as explained by cartoon bunnies and other forest animals.

I figure some of the people who read this blog might find that interesting, too.