I have a decent collection of various vinyl, acetate and polystyrene discs which are physically encoded with audibly reproducible waveforms. Some of them contain my favourite music ever; those are not the ones we will be examining today. You see, dear readers, I tend to collect both the cream of the crop and the gaudiest, deservedly obscure pieces of tinnitus-inducing shit in the world. There’s some stuff in between that happens to flop heavily in one way or another, and a few that are only truly awesome for one or two reasons.

As you may have guessed, we shall be perusing the latter chunk of my menagerie.

I would like first to present you with Organ Magic: 24 All Time Favourites. Believe me, I have tried to find images of the cover. I have had absolutely no luck, and if you’re at all familiar with this piece of garbage you know exactly why. In any case, I shall describe the cover in detail: The background is piano keys from an unidentified C up to half of the G# directly above it, rendered in a putrid mustard yellow and black. The title is an orange-to-black gradient with white outline, in a huge, pretentiously exciting font. A small white oval near the left center claims that it is As Advertised On TV, which is, in my experience, a terrible thing. A white circle in the upper right corner reminds us that there are 24 All Time Favourites. Below the title, the tracks are listed without indication of sides. On the back cover, the piano keys and white circle/oval are absent, and the track listing appears again, this time divided into Side A and Side B.

Not only is the cover rage-inducing to observe, but it’s very poorly designed. It’s almost as though some prick music industry exec thought a bunch of old people would absently buy dozens of copies of this, thinking friends and family would still be charmed by horrifically unpleasant renditions of songs so old nobody can remember them. The notable exception is The Beatles’ song Ob La Di.

I don’t typically feel the need to associate scores with my reviews, but this thing is so awful I’m going to give it an Epsilon Negative. For those who can’t guess, that’s really fucking bad.

Next up is Daltrey:

This album is fine, I guess. I’m biased towards The Who, though, and I found the vocal performances on these tracks a bit willowy by comparison. Incidentally, the back cover is the same thing with the back of his head. Oh so clever.

Can’t Buy a Thrill:

This was Steely Dan’s first album, and it’s fricking amazing. The cover, on the other hand, confuses the shit out of me. I recently discovered that this version of the cover was banned in Spain under the reign of Francisco Franco, apparently because of the prostitutes on the right side. The incomprehensible cover and surprising notoriety are really the only reasons for this album’s presence on this list.

Countdown to Ecstasy:

This is a great record, but man is this a creepy cover. What the fuck is that asshole looking at over on the right side? Who are those ethereal dudes in the background? Who the hell would arrange chairs like that?

Look At Yourself:

This one deserves a nice, big representation. I’m lucky enough to own a fairly tattered copy of the original release, which featured this unholy ‘shiny paper’ mirror. All I ever saw in it was a vague blur; is this a reflection of my life?

A Flock of Seagulls:

This band pretty much sucks in every way, except their awesomely bad music videos. This album cover is also exceptionally dumb, and looks like the kind of stupid shit I would do out of boredom during a Photoshop class. I really hope they didn’t pay someone for this.

I Robot:

This is just fucking weird. What the fuck is with his head? I don’t even think of this kind of shit on drugs. I’m sure Alan Parsons did a lot more of that stuff than me, though.

Just Blue:

When I bought this, it was purely for the incredibly cheesy cover. I dunno if they were trying to capitalize jointly on the popularity of Star Wars and Sealab, but it looks awful in a hilarious way. However, the album itself is a somewhat interesting collection of heavily electronic tracks, some with vocals. Worth a listen, but nothing too exceptional.

Indelibly Stamped

Booooobies.

Lodger:

I really didn’t think that highly of the Berlin Trilogy, but DJ and Look Back In Anger on this album were pretty solid.

Feargal Sharkey:

I’ve never even listened to this. I just don’t like this dude’s music very much. But the cover was totally sweet. On the back, he has is eyes open and somehow they’ve made it look like the paint pattern runs through them as well.

All Things Must Pass:

I love George Harrison, and this multi-disc set is chock full of good tunes. I honestly don’t think I would skip a single track. This was basically made up of all Harrison’s unreleased songs from his time with The Beatles, along with some new additions and reworkings. It was produced by Phil Spector, who is now in jail for being a crazypants. George, many years after its production, commented only that there was “too much reverb”. Go figure.

What’s really cool is that the sleeve for each disc shows another piece of cityscape being added to the scene, until it looks thus:

Suspended Animation:

I enjoyed Bad Habits a lot more, but this album cover takes the cake. That thing in the porthole looks like half a disco ball with Star Wars set pieces glued to it.

On The Threshold of a Dream:

This needs a bigger picture so you can see the relevant details; this cover apparently features some kind of robot floating through space while grasping a curiously well-preserved branch, which is adorned by an eye and an ear. Why? I don’t know. There also appears to be a face in the ether, towards the upper right corner, and I’m sure I’m missing some other weird shit.

The Moody Blues had a penchant for scenic landscapes as album covers, and this was one of the most jarring breaks from that trend. It’s also a really mediocre album.

The Other Side of Life:

This one is even worse than the last. Those awkward-looking squares floating around the room are the band members, who didn’t typically feature themselves on the front cover. That was probably a good thing. This cover seriously makes me spit with anger, it’s so awful.

Octave:

This had to be big enough for you to see that awful, shiny green jacket. Who the hell let them release this? God dammit.

Opel:

Like everything Syd did after burning his way out of Pink Floyd, this whole album is weird, disjointed and almost completely nonsensical unless you have some sort of insane insight into Syd’s frame of mind. He was one crazy dude; may he shine forever. He got a lot more shit in life than anyone deserves.

The Nightfly:

This was a pretty solid solo offering from the other main man of Steely Dan. I think this cover is probably what made me think cigarettes were cool.

Tenku:

I couldn’t get all the way through this album; it appears to be entirely composed of extremely slow, mellow ambiance. Admittedly pretty cool, but not really my flavour.

Get The Knack:

This album featured the infamously popular tune My Sharona. Enlarged for maximum tooth-viewing pleasure. Eegh.

“Heroes”:

“Heroes” was a shitty song; the vocal performance makes me cringe myself to death, and the lyrics are pretentious, desperate and unrealistic. I think that was sort of the point, but I still hate it. Sons of the Silent Age was a much more enjoyable tune.

Rocky Horror Picture Show Picture Disc:

This glorious piece is among the greatest joys of my entire collection. So fucking sweet.

The Dark Side of the Moon – 30th Anniversary Edition Vinyl:

Nobody needs a bigger picture of this; that’s what i told myself when I didn’t feel like digging around for something large with a decent resolution.

This item was a gift from GrosPenor, and it is much treasured and as-yet unopened. Someday, I will sell it for millions and share nothing with my benefactors.

That about ties up this sordid affair. I hope you threw up as much as I did; I hope the final two images brought a little joy to your hearts, and urine to your diapers. Good day, dear readers.

I found a giant suitcase of books, and for lack of anything important to do with my time on this Earth,  I have resolved to tell you all about them. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, they all appear to be of the Forgotten Realms variety. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you may still be able to resist the encompassing curiosity that follows revulsion like stench on a gay dog.

Why gay? Because if you can’t smell a homosexual group fuck from a mile away, you clearly have no concept of the distinct aroma of semen. Keep this in mind next time you’re coming home from a tryst with your secretary/babysitter/daughter-in-law: Wifey over there can smell your cum, and she knows. I hope you read the prenups real carefully.

Moving right along…

James Bond 007: Zero Minus Ten

Or as I like to call it, negative ten. “Minus” is a verb for subtraction, whereas “Negative” describes an integer lower than zero. This is something a lot of people get wrong. I guess the title could actually be an equation, but since there’s no result it would be incomplete; thus, the theory of grammatical ineptitude wins by virtue of Occam’s Razor. I think.

I guess this isn’t a Forgotten Realms book…

Oh yeah – the book. Basically it’s a big pile of shit; Bond does the usual crap, this time in Hong Kong as the end of British occupation looms. How is this possible, given that James Bond was like 40 back in the 60′s? Pick up Casino Royal featuring Peter Sellers and it may provide some insight. Or just watch all of the other Bond movies and continue to be puzzled about the inconsistencies.

There are a few redeeming qualities, in the form of a highly descriptive striptease and disappointingly oblique and emotional sex scene. The sex part is described thus:

“She opened up to him that night, over and over again. He filled her with strength and security, helping her achieve a release from the demons that had tormented her since the evening began. She needed the climaxes, for they allowed her to forget her troubles and lose herself in a floating world of ecstasy and passion. It was three or four hours later when, totally spent, they finally fell asleep in each others’ arms.”

Okay. I want to point out that Mr. Raymond Benson, the alleged author of this tripe, has probably never manipulated an emotionally damaged woman for sex; if he had, this scene would have been significantly more descriptive, with substantial dialogue mostly centering around her absurd insecurities and – in the case of this book – the fact that the Triad murdered her dad or brother and some other shit happened. Also she’s a stripper, so I guess that’s pretty soul-crushing too, somehow. Personally I think it’d be fucking awesome to be a hot stripper. I’d get laid all the time – for free!

Elminster In Hell

Some demon is really fucking angry at Elminster, who is a cantankerous and zany old coot. Somehow, El ends up in Hell. We then suffer through his long, boring, stupid trek juxtaposed with some people who are trying to find him. Eventually they do, but Elminster has been through so much bad shit and I guess he’s more crazy than he was before?

This book fucking sucks. I wish Ed Greenwood wasn’t such an engaging writer. I also wish I hadn’t finished all my good books before that book report was due, because it was fucking painful not to be able to put this down and never pick it up again.

The Tooth Book

The cover features a walrus soliciting a young boy for sex; the boy is holding his index finger to his mouth, teasingly, as if to say, “You want me to put it in here, Mr. Walrus? Oh, I’m sure I have no idea where this is going.”

Followed by a feminine giggle and way too much semen. Ah, the number of times I’ve run into exactly this scenario…

The Finder’s Stone Trilogy – Book One: Azure Bonds

This sounds like some kind of kinky sex activity to me, and the cleavage and leg present on the cover only reinforce this unfounded assumption.

A Badly Crushed Wallet

It’s actually so stuck together that it has been rendered permanently unusable.

The Icewind Dale Trilogy – Book One: The Crystal Shard

This is the first book chronicling the various outback ramblings of the nigger dark elf Drizzt and his predictably unusual companions. Incidentally, they would make the worst fucking D&D party imaginable if these novels didn’t magically save them from death every few chapters.

In this story, some crystal convinces a stupid dude to follow its whims in return for power. Naturally, the crystal ends up being in control of the whole situation and aims to take over the settlements of Ten-Towns. Why? At the ass end of a remote, frigid wasteland, why? This is never explained; it appears as though the malevolent crystal has not thought this through, though we’re convinced otherwise by later, tangential novels in the series. I guess Salvatore is just a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy. Where I come from, we call them lazy.

Wait. They called me lazy. Fuck.

Drizzt and crew triumph with relatively little difficulty. I think there’s a dragon involved, presumably for a bunch of nerds to masturbate over. That might be in another book, but it totally happens, and Drizzt totally gets a magical sword.

A Significantly Discoloured Super Nintendo Entertainment System

I knew I still had this piece of shit somewhere. All the cables are wrecked. Oddly enough, the separate plate where the cartridge reader is embedded is the only part that’s still the original purple-off-white. There are also some rather suspicious stains on it; I would tend to believe someone has been having sex with my ‘Tendo, but I’m prone to paranoid delusions.

On the other hand, it would give me a great excuse to commit a murder…

The Druidhome Trilogy – Book Two: The Coral Kingdom

I never managed to force myself through this trilogy. The whole thing is an intolerable pile of meaningless tripe, and I don’t mean beef tripe because that can actually be pretty good. These books, on the other hand, are more like trying to make fois gras out of burning tires and rotting ghee.

If you had absolutely zero knowledge of Forgotten Realms lore, the synopsis would read thus:

“An epic sea voyage… a daring rescue…

The ? has returned to the ?. Now her mightiest ?, Robyn Kendrick, faces the greatest challenge of her life. Aided by a courageous ? prince, her own daughters, and a crew of heroes, Robyn wages a desperate battle against the savage ?.

Douglas Niles is the author of the immensely popular ? and ? trilogies. The ? trilogy is the long-awaited sequel to the ? trilogy.”

Mix and match words from the D&D manual and you probably still won’t be interested. That’s because the story is a pile of formulaic bullshit like all the other Forgotten Realms novels. These could honestly be churned out of a computer that knows two or three synonyms for things and a whole bunch of nonsense words and they would be more readable, if just for the novelty.

The Druidhome Trilogy – Book Three: The Druid Queen

Next.

The Shittiest Multitool Ever Produced

This thing looks uncomfortable, and holding it only reassures me that God abandoned mankind long ago. This thing was worthless out of the box, and there’s a reason I threw it in with this pile of junk.

The Cleric Quintet – Book Four: The Fallen Fortress

Some priest gets tangled up in some seriously heavy shit and has to kill a lot of dudes on a consistent basis. His girlfriend is an indecisive bitch who manipulates him with his own internalized moral crises. They probably win in the end, but I stopped caring long before that. The priest dude does show up for a cameo in a video game I played once, which is set some time after the events of the books; however, I certainly did not just admit to knowing that much about Forgotten Realms. I uh, had more important things to do with my childhood.

Like smoke drugs and fly kites.

Servant of the Shard

This is another book about the shard featured in The Crystal Shard. A pair of villains/anti-heroes from the other novels get a hold of the shard, and predictably it proceeds to fuck their shit up. They probably win in the end, but I didn’t fucking care anymore by the time I got there. My eyes were just absorbing meaningless configurations of photons by the halfway point.

The Cleric Quintet-

I fucking pass. Fuck this series.

The Silent Blade

Or as I like to call it, Da Sirent Brade.

Five White Dice and the Case for a Pair of Motion Sickness Bands

The bands were this atrocious shade of blue that actually made me feel more sick. I probably threw them away or burned them.

The Avatar Trilogy – Book One: Shadowdale

The Avatar Trilogy is about the Time of Troubles, where Gods walk the Realms and a bunch of them die and shit gets fucked up. Notably, magic stops working consistently and a lot of weird shit happens consequently. This series follows a bunch of people who run around killing people and Gods and ultimately end up ascending to divine status to replace the various expired deities. It’s pretty dull, but also one of the only series that pertains to anything central enough to be cross-referenced amidst other Forgotten Realms works.

The Maztica Trilogy – Book Two: Viperhand

The word viper in the title is actually italicized, as though it some how makes the word seem more… viperey?

Pff. More like Penishand. Or Viperpenis.

Fuck it. I didn’t read these shitty books.

The Avatar Trilogy – Book Two: Tantras

Is that anything like tantric? Cause I heard that was sex, only, like, from Indians. I don’t know if that means the Indians that are far away, or the ones I see tucking Lysol into their coats. Actually, I’d rather not have sex with the latter kind ever, so I’ll conveniently assume it’s the babes from the Bollywood films.

The Maztica Trilogy – Book One: Ironhelm

Do all of the books in this series have hilariously phallic titles, or am I just gay?

The Dream Spheres

This book begins with some guy getting thrown out of a bar by an ogre. Then a girl chugs half a beer and for some reason gets some money for it; this isn’t sufficiently explained. Then there’s an overlong exposition on how hard the life of a bar wench can be in a recession. Yawn. Hang on, I think I need another beer to suffer any more of these books.

Elfsong

The cover of this book is so fucking funny.

Elfshadow

Sorry Ms. Cunningham; I’m still laughing too hard about the sequel’s cover.

Siege of Darkness

I’m not going to lie, I had really stopped caring about Drizzt and company long before I got to this one. I guess they fight a big war against Drizzt’s underground hometown, and some important people die and shit generally gets fucked. Whatever.

A Nintendo AC Converter, 120 V/60 Hz/ 17 W

If you don’t know what this is, you probably live in Africa or Kentucky. If you are from Kentucky, fuck you. I hope all you militant slave-drivers explode along with the stockpiled ammunition and explosives you keep for the Day of Reckoning. If you could hurry up with that whole deal, I’d appreciate it – with the government and bible-belt assholes crippled, America can finally collapse under the pressure of a disdainful international community and the rest of us can wipe out all the Muslims and start building our Utopian paradise for white and black people, where black people do all the work but totally are not slaves. The Chinks will conveniently disappear when it’s time; they were clearly brought here by aliens God to test us.

If anyone writes me to complain about this tangential entry, I will custom-order a cast-iron brand featuring a swastika over the word ‘Dumbshit’; subsequently it shall be heated and applied to your groin. Alternatively, I will write you a starkly racist and grammatically erroneous response which fails to illustrate any points or provide insight into anything at all. If I choose to reference your original missive, I shall draw horribly inappropriate conclusions about your meaning and corrupt it to my suit whimsy. I may also point out spelling errors, but fail to provide accurate corrections.

You don’t want that…

Do you?

Pools of Radiance

This one is based on a fucking video game. If I need to explain to you the ramifications of such a dreadful sin, you deserve to suffer through this pile of sequestered vagina clamps. When you’re done, check out the novelization of Baldur’s Gate.

Proceed to shit your pants.

The Maztica Trilogy – Book Three: Feathered Dragon

Clearly the author was just trying to up the ante with each new title in this dreadful series. Personally I like to keep my dragon carefully trimmed or shaved, but I’m pretty sure it would just be a plain bad idea to stick feathers in your scaled monster.

Please tell me you don’t have scales on your dick. You should probably see a skin doctor or something.

The Moonshae Trilogy – Book Three: Darkwell

The cover of this book suggests that, somewhere therein, a bunch of short, ugly people summon the Devil and then beat the shit out of each other for no reason while Satan attempts to pollute the world with his armpit stench. Also, he has a hairy back.

The Cleric Q-

Did I not already decide I was done with these fucking books?

The Lando Calrissian Adventures

Lando is totally fucking sweet and I don’t give a fuck what anybody else thinks. I’m keeping this book.

A Broken Alarm Clock

No, wait – it works. This thing has the most obnoxious ringer imaginable. Fuck this clock. There’s a reason I shoved it in a bag with a bunch of other shit I don’t want.

The Moonshae Trilogy – Book One: Darkwalker on Moonshae

As with the third book in the series, I did not read this. From the cover, I derive that a badly scarred negro with a hair-pulling fetish scores with a young, effeminate man. While riding horseback.

Presumably, the hilt of his axe is applied as a buttplug.

The Moonshae Trilogy – Book Two: Black Wizards

This cover illustrates that men in black robes like to stare at cleavage depicted on enormous canvasses, while doing a tasteful contemporary dance.

The Avatar Trilogy – Book Three: Waterdeep

Uh… Waterdeep is a city? I guess? The cover depicts two people standing in front of an establishment named The Yawning Portal. This is clearly an analog for either the manner in which my mouth gapes as it awaits the input of alcohol, or the similar manner in which a vagina gapes as it awaits the input cock.

The Finder’s Stone Trilogy – Book Two: The Wyvern’s Spur

Presumably about a wyvern’s cock. I’d rather not find out what that’s all about, so I’m just going to pass on this one.

The Finder’s Stone Trilogy – Book Three: Song of the Saurials

Son of Wyvern-Dick.

The Wrath

This is also not a Forgotten Realms book. It’s about some evil mummy disease from a tomb that turns everyone into rabid dog-zombies. A crew of meaningless protagonists ramble about and several die before they magically get saved and somehow cure the disease, limiting the outbreak to a single city by means of machine guns. The only reason I still own this book would be the cluster of highly descriptive sex scenes. That all kind of gets ruined when everyone starts getting graphically slaughtered, and the chick Jay was boning gets turned into a freaky dog bitch.

Hah hah. Cause a female dog is a bitch.

Some Exacto-Knife Blades

These are excellent for cutting coke, but you have to wipe the oily residue off first. I got way too high and forgot once; Uncle Mike hasn’t been the same since I slashed his face open with a deck of cards.

The Legacy

Another fucking Salvatore book. Drizzt is angsty, some people want him dead, he and his friends do some shit. Spare me.

The Cleric Quintet – Book Three: Night Masks

I have already passed over this book once; why I possess two copies is beyond my reckoning.

The Dark Elf Trilogy – Book Two: Exile

Previously, Drizzt decides he’s too cool for his totally badass evil origins. He fucks off and wanders around in some caves for several years. All of this is antecedent to the other Drizzt books we’ve touched on so far. Also he kills his dad I think?

Mmm – patricide.

The Cleric Quintet – Book Five: The Chaos Curse

What’s a synonym for fuck this book?

The Icewind Dale Trilogy – Book Three: The Halfling’s Gem

And fuck R.A. Salvatore while you’re at it. Not literally – just shoot him or something to make these books stop appearing.

Passage to Dawn

See previous entry

Some Anne Rice Books

Fuck these books. I need a stiff one.

Uh, a drink. That’s definitely what I meant.