AOTW 48, 2008: Aura Noir – The Merciless

Some more Norwegian black metal on AOTW! This week it’s one of Aura Noir’s albums, The Merciless.

My favorite tracks are:

• Upon the Dark Throne
• Hell’s Fire
• Merciless

I want my RSS valid!

I am making a set of components that other developers at work are using. I have made a component for fetching remote content that handles timeout, caching and so forth. I have also made a component that uses this to fetch RSS feeds.

The method that fetches the RSS feeds looked a little something like:

protected function _get($url) {
    $content = parent::_get($url);
    return simplexml_load_string($content);
}

Now, this works fine as long as $url points to a valid RSS feed. When it doesn’t, simplexml_load_string throws some warnings but returns a valid SimpleXMLElement anyhow. I would rather have the method throwing an exception than returning a fubar SimpleXMLElement. After a quick fix I landed on something like this:

protected function _get($url) {
    $contents = parent::_get($url);

    // enable libxml internal errors
    libxml_use_internal_errors(true);

    // clear possible libxml errors
    libxml_clear_errors();

    // generate SimpleXMLElement object
    $sxml = simplexml_load_string($contents);

    // do we have any errors?
    if (($error = libxml_get_last_error()) !== false) {
        throw new VG_Wget_Rss_Exception('Invalid RSS: ' . $error->message);
    }

    // yey! Valid RSS, return the SimpleXMLElement
    return $sxml;
}

So … don’t even think about providing any invalid RSS feeds to us!

It’s Raining Blood

Yesterday I saw Slayer along with a friend of mine in Oslo Spektrum. The sound was crappy as usual, but the setlist they played was quite interesting:

1. Flesh Storm
2. War Ensemble
3. Chemical Warfare
4. Ghosts of War
5. Jihad
6. Psychopathy Red
7. Seasons in the Abyss
8. Dittohead
9. Live Undead
10. Cult
11. Disciple
12. South of Heaven
13. Angel of Death
14. Piece by Piece
15. Necrophobic
16. Altar of Sacrifice
17. Jesus Saves
18. Criminally Insane
19. Reborn
20. Epidemic
21. Postmortem
22. Raining Blood

Now, look at the last 10 songs they played, and look at the track listing for probably the best thrash metal album ever made, Reign In Blood… Not bad huh? :) I also got to hear my favorite Slayer song, Ghosts of War.

I have seen them four times before and the first time was Wacken Open Air where they also played the complete album. I have also seen them a couple of times at Rockefeller in Oslo which was probably the two best shows of the 5.

Anyways, the concert was ok. It was the first time I have heard Tom Araya skip the scream at the start of Angel of Death which was a bit disappointing. Maybe it’s the age starting to show? ;)

AOTW 47, 2008: Korn – See You on the Other Side

Late again!

This week I have chosen See You on the Other Side by Korn.

My three favorite songs are:

• Twisted Transistor
• Love Song
• Coming Undone

Machine Head, Slipknot, Satyricon and Slayer

Monday last week I saw Machine Head and Slipknot in Oslo Spektrum. We managed to arrive a bit too late to see the first couple of songs by Machine Head but I managed to see 4-5 songs. Too bad they played support for Slipknot! They sounded far from as good as they usually do though, but hey, they’re Machine Head, they fucking rock!

I saw Slipknot play support for Slayer some years back and was kinda disappointed. This time they were absolutely insane! The sound was a bit too loud, but very clear (in Oslo Spektrum standards). It’s probably the best metal concert I have seen at that venue. Slipknot’s setlist was:

1. Surfacing
2. The Blister Exists
3. Get This
4. Before I Forget
5. Liberate
6. Disasterpiece
7. Dead Memories
8. Psychosocial
9. The Heretic Anthem
10. Prosthetics
11. Spit It Out
12. Duality
13. Only One
14. (515)
15. People = Shit
16. (sic)

They played loads of old stuff which I really liked. Hopefully I’ll get to see them again sometime.

Last Friday I ended up at a Satyricon concert with some friends on Sentrum Scene in Oslo that turned out to be very good! They played some stuff from the latest album along with some older songs.

It’s been really great going to some concerts again. I’m going to see Slayer in Spektrum on Monday next week and I’m really looking forward to that as well! Going to concerts is probably one of my favorite things to do so I hope to go on some more shows soon!

AOTW 46, 2008: Satyricon – The Age of Nero

Late again! This time it’s a fairly new album that I have chosen: The Age of Nero, by Satyricon. I saw Satyricon live yesterday and the songs are great live!

My favorite tracks are:

• The Wolfpack
• Commando
• Black Crow on a Tombstone

AOTW 45, 2008: Slipknot – All Hope Is Gone

Another very late AOTW post!

This time it’s Slipknot’s latest album, All Hope Is Gone. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of this stuff live tomorrow in Oslo Spektrum!

My favorite songs on this one:

• All Hope Is Gone
• Gematria (The Killing Name)
• Vendetta

Gears of War 2

Picked up Gears of War 2 yesterday for my Xbox 360. It’s been a while since I have played anything at all so I thought I could waste a couple of hours yesterday. Because Gears of War 2 is totally awesome I actually wasted a shitload of hours and managed to almost finish the game on casual difficulty (I had to use an hour or so this morning to finish it). Since I finished the first Gears of War game on Insane difficulty I will try to do that with this one as well. There are loads of stuff to find in the game that will earn me some achievement points as well, so I will probably spend quite a few hours with this one.

AOTW 44, 2008: Dimmu Borgir – Death Cult Armageddon

This week I will give the award to one of my favorite Norwegian bands, Dimmu Borgir. The album I have chosen is Death Cult Armageddon from 2003 which is theire 6th album. This is according to Wikipedia the first album on Nuclear Blast that has sold over 100,000 copies in the US alone.

My favorite songs are:

• Allegiance
• Vredesbyrd (Burden of wrath)
• Cataclysm Children