So my friend @MRJWAR on twitter informed me that COB has a new album out — on Monday, during my furious purchasing of music since my emusic subscription renewed and Gaga’s new album was $.99 on amazon. @MRJWAR reminded me that I like metal. So I got Children of Bodom’s new album, Relentless, Reckless Forever. And it’s awesome. Here’s the title track.
I’m going to a Children of Bodom concert tomorrow and I am SOOO excited. Wellll … as long as I don’t forget to pick UP the ticket. Whoops.
In case you didn’t know, these guys are one of my favorite metal bands. They have fabulous guitar, driving rhythms and they are apparently HUGE fans of The Big Lebowski. They released a cover album last year about this time that included a bunch of songs from the Lebowski soundtrack.
Anyway … I am sharing with you two songs. One that I enjoy and one that I think most of my audience can at least appreciate.
The first song is “Are You Dead Yet?”. This song is near and dear to me because it got me through some really tough training when I started running after rehabilitating a leg injury. I was upset that I couldn’t run the high mileage that I used to run. Instead of 5 or more miles a day I was stuck at 1-3 and I couldn’t even run two days in a row. This song reminded me that no matter how far or how fast I run, put my all into it because I’m not dead yet. Not to mention, that album reset my slow tempo to a 2-minute per mile faster pace. So, thanks guys.
Aaand I’m sharing with you the cheesetastic Britney Spears cover these guys did. Oops! I did it again … It’s interesting. And funny. Love a band with a sense of humor!
CHILDREN OF BODOM
is
coming
to
Des MOINES!
October 1 — they’re supporting Black Label Society, who, I’m cool with seeing again, but more importantly:
ALEXI LAIHO is coming to Des Moines. AND it’s a small venue. Which means. I could be. Within. His. Reach.
Oh man.
By the way … for those of you who don’t know me, did I mention that I’m a huge metalhead? I think that needs to probably be in my sidebar bio somewhere.
It’s soooo cheesy, but Children of Bodom are my end-all-do-all favorite metal band (aside from the ‘deth of course, who I’m scheduled to see again in August). They really came into play when I had my leg injury from running the 2008 Des Moines Marathon … I started listening to their album, Are You Dead Yet? and the lyrics from the title track became my mantra: “Should I regret, or ask myself, are you dead yet?” I even did a metal craft swap last summer and received a very cool cross stitch with those lyrics. It was their driving speed that turned me from a jog-paced distance runner into a competitive shorter distance runner (I killed the last half marathon I ran!).
And in case you forgot, I may or may not have a minor crush on their lead vocalist and guitarist … Alexi. Laiho.
Anyway, I’m sure noone that reads this is even close to half as excited as I am about this, but I’m about ready to pee my pants over here waiting for them to announce ticket sales at the 7 Flags Center here!
Sooooo I finally got an awesome package from my craftster.org metal swap partner. I sent my package in the beginning of July so I could participate in the MJ swap. My metal swap package from my partner was almost a month late (minus one day!), but it was pretty rockin’ so, whatever!
I took some pix because that’s part of the deal with swaps — you have to post pix of what you receive. I decided to go all drama queen on the photos to show my appreciation. I took the pix w/ my mac, so some are flipped and some are not (didn’t flip the ones that didn’t need it b/c of words). Anywho. yeah. 
Alexi Laiho towel based on (I’m guessing!) this pic:
what I’ve deemed a Dethpouch (zippy pouch with the Dethklok logo x-stitched on) — so very timely because I JUST bought Dethklok (w/Mastadon/Converge/High on Fire) tix on Friday! They are coming to Des Moines, IA! We hardly ever get anything good (metal-wise). 
Inside the dethpouch. No, there wasn’t any cocaine in there … or Duncan Hills Coffee beans … or BBQ sauce. Just a cool kick-ass pouch.
Nathan Explosion plushie head. I’ve got a few ideas where this guy is going to go…. Might have to figure out a way to get him strapped on to my iPod for when I’m running (motivation people!). We shall see.
Some additional cool stuffs (patch and some beaded safety pins)
AND THE CREME DE LA CREME!
Okay — so I told my partner that I recently had to quit running (I’m nearly a 10-year distance runner… every day… 5-7 miles, this time last year 7-10… marathon last year). Anywho, the only thing that got me through any of my runs when I was able to start running again — and starting from square one again is HARD — was “Are You Dead Yet?” by Children of Bodom. At one point I was only able to run the duration of the song, which was a feat for me when I hadn’t been able to run for 3 months. Now I’m back (kind of) — still injured, but working on it, but back up to 3-5 miles a day, which is okay, but COB is what gets me through.
Coolest thing evar — x-stitched Are You Dead Yet? triptych lyrics!
These are getting put right above my desk so I can see them every day when I get done with my workouts (I always plug in the iPod to download my runs to nikeplus.com) … and when I’m sitting here not wanting to work out or run, I’ll be able to see them. YAY MOTIVATION!
All in all, what a great swap!
I recently participated in a heavy metal swap on craftster.org. This was the first organized craft swap I’ve done through the site, and I think it turned out pretty well.
For those of you who don’t know, basically in a craft swap you decide that you’re going to make a certain number of items and find out a lot of stuff about what your partner likes. Craftster does a lot of themed swaps like the metal swap (next up, MJ swap).
My partner was really into a lot of the same kind of stuff that I was into…Children of Bodom, In Flames, Pantera…etc. But she was a HUGE Maiden fan. I took this as an opportunity to get to listen to some Maiden since I never really gave them a chance. I got really excited about crafting some Maiden stuff since I got kind of into the cheesiness of the music. I decided that I’d only make her maiden stuff so she wouldn’t outgrow it later (like she might have with some of the newer bands).
We decided that it would be fun to make some über-girlie items with a metal theme. She seemed pretty interested in kitchen items, so that’s what I made.
Potholder set (with Eddie and Aces High lyrics on the back)
Grocery Tote Bag
Grocery Bag Dispenser
I tried to make it cute... but it didn't quite work. The inside is a pink floral (the top too) and I quilted the outside with silver...but Eddie's just so fugly.
and…. Breakfast with Lemmy — the one non-maiden item. Mötorhead. 
Ace of Spades. (what’s with the aces theme??)
I was the first one to send, and my partner was the first one to post her stuff… apparently I rocked the eff out of this craft swap. :) So hopefully I get a rockin’ package in return (actually my partner is sending late b/c she wants to thoroughly rock the eff out of MY package too).
Sooo I’m switching gears and crafting for my all-time favorite musician… Michael Jackson. (okay, here’s where I almost went on a “to those of you who are now riding the MJJ train… seriously get off it” rant…but I restrained myself) You guys all know how I feel about him (or at least you know now…most of you knew before), so yeah, I’m a little bit upset about the whole deal but on the bright side, I’m getting to experience him all over again and am discovering things I never knew existed.
Haha…for those of you who don’t remember Tiger Beat, click here to see the wikipedia article.
Here we goooo!
OMG Alexi Laiho is soooooo dreamy! I’m kind of in love with him. Seriously — like, he is way totally hotter than Ashton or the Jonas Brothers (who by the way are probably like 12 and I have no idea what they look like)!!
Alexi Laiho is the lead singer and guitarist for the Finnish metal band Children of Bodom. Not only does he totally rock on guitar, he’s also extremely hot when he does it! He is definitely the hottest guy in melodic death metal these days!
Here are some gratuitous pictures for you to admire and print out and tape all over your 8th grade English notebooks!
Okay guys, for reals – I do kind of have an über metal crush on him. The cute Finnish accent doesn’t help (listen to She is Beautiful or Bed of Nails covers for reference). Not to mention, there’s really not that many cute guys in my musical genres….
I mean…here are my other choices:
George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher (Cannibal Corpse)
Johann Hegg of Amon Amarth
Kerry King of Slayer
And of course… MY HERO… Dave Mustaine (not that attractive, but a very cool guy)
Also, I may have picked this photo on purpose because he’s making an awesome guitar face.
I’m SO excited! I’m taking part in my first organized craft swap on craftster.org.
AND, it’s a metal swap! Yay! There are so many craftsters who are into metal — who knew? AND good metal, not hair metal or nümetal! I just got my partner yesterday and we are SO perfectly matched! She’s into Iron Maiden, Slayer, Children of Bodom, EARLY Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, In Flames and Amon Amarth. PERFECT. The only 2 things we’re not matched on is her Maiden and my Dethklok, but otherwise, we’re a great pair.
The other thing is that neither one of us is a typical metal girl. You wouldn’t think I listened to heavy stuff by looking at me and by the way I dress and she’s like that too. Just a girlie girl who happens to listen to cheesy music is how she put it. So we’re thinking of doing very non-metal things and adding a metal twist to them — embroidered tea towels, reconned t-shirts with lots of ruffles and lace, no red and black combos… just super girlie stuff.
I’m soooo excited for this! I’m listening to Maiden right now to get pumped for it.
I rock.
Although I don’t know if I could ever re-run this time or recreate it in any way shape or form, but I did it.
Hit the treadmill hard today with intentions of at least shaving some time off the 25:50whatever I previously held as a 5K PR. Cranked it up cuz another somewhat-elite runner was running next to me (and he didn’t have headphones…probably a real elite runner).
Here’s where it gets tricky though. I put the incline at 0. Yeah. totally cheating. So now I’ve got to see if I can do this OUTSIDE where it counts, but there’s too much ice/snow on the ground right now to think about speed. Plus, treadmills are good for keeping track of speed and pacework, so I figure I’ll get some use out of them…hell, I’m putting a 10th of each paycheck into a savings account to BUY my own treadmill by this time next year (i hope anyway).
Also, it got kinda sketchy towards the end. I was rocking and hauling ass until the last 1K…then I got a major major MAAAAJOR case of painful gas (which I get when I do speedwork, which is why I’m NOT a short-distance runner — mostly out of respect for other people). I wasn’t about to stop on account of that. I decided that the guy next to me who was the only one in the place NOT wearing headphones could deal with it — he was obviously a runner… he would understand. I let ‘er rip. Fortunately for him it was just the loud kind of fart, not the smelly kind.
Anyway, I got one of my goals for 2009 covered. I’m going to keep trying to break that and try to break it outside of course. I should sign up for a 5k to see what I can do in a race setting. I’m excited now!
thank you, Alexi Laiho, for being so hot and rocking at guitar. You pushed me through ANOTHER speedwork workout.
oh, and for anybody who’s interested, I’ve been listening to Children of the Bodom, In Flames and Dethklok during these runs. I’m hoping to add more COB and some Death and Amon Amarth to the speed collection. Also, Alexi Laiho is the lead guitarist of COB, in case you were wondering. He’s pretty talented and probably the best looking guy in the entire genre of metal (unless you consider NIN to be metal…which I don’t, but if you do, Trent Reznor wins).
