First up, Slash is releasing a different single from his new self-titled album, opting to go with Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale singing “By The Sword” over Ozzy singing a little ditty called ‘Crucify The Dead’. Seems there was concern that Ozzy singing for Slash might confuse listeners about Ozzy’s own new upcoming release. Cause we’re all stupid, don’t ya’ know?

Then there’s news that had my twins all astir – Phil LaBonte of All That Remains is filling in temporarily with Killswitch Engage. So yeah, they’re effectively PHILswitch right now. Would love to see that actually, BUT OF COURSE – this won’t be happening anywhere near Columbus, Ohio. Anyhow, here’s hoping that Hojo can resume his rightful place with Killswitch soon.

And most cryptically, Dragonforce released a statement saying they’d parted ways with vocalist ZP Theart (a name that will remove all saliva from your mouth when you say it). Quicker than you can say “fire that intern” the statement was pulled down from the site, but you can still enjoy it word for word HERE (Drat that Google!). Sounds like someone FORGOT to tell ZP first. . . don’t ya’ hate it when that happens? Truthfully, I’d hate to see him go so here’s hoping that egos can be sedated & the boys can get back to playing faster-than-fuck metal.

Since the Rim of Hell staff are all huge Maiden fans, we couldn’t help but pass this along to the masses. What? You’d have laughed at the idea of The Who doing a Superbowl halftime too, at a point in time not so long ago. So why not Bruce & the boys in 2012, right?

Here’s the link. Up the Irons!

According to the post, Roxxy is similar to a Realdoll but also has voice recognition software and even a primitive AI.   Hmmm, so she’s on par with some ex’s, but I digress.

What crazy Doug doesn’t mention is Roxxxy . . . well, looks pretty freakin’ creepy. I mean, she might give ya’ wood if you’re into corpses, but otherwise I think that $7000 would be better served buying A WHOLE ASSLOAD of Margaritas on any given Friday night in your local singles bar. And your chances of getting a warm-blooded sex partner would be 10-fold greater than it ever will be if you allow a silicone sex zombie to reside in your closet. Tough to get laid once your partner sees “the other woman” needs to be charged regularly and swabbed out after use.

Look, I’m an open minded guy but this definitely leans towards deviant behavior, the kind that makes your ancestors haunt you from beyond the grave. Or as my buddy Steve said when he sent me this link (thanks dude!) – “Hasn’t God destroyed entire cities for less?”.

My wife, on the other hand, thinks this is a prototype for Cherry 2000, so maybe she’ll let me spring for a buxom brunette “anniversary gift”?  But who am I kidding, with my luck the doll would hook up with the toaster and I’d still be left out in the cold.

Keeping you in our hearts & prayers, Ronnie.  Get better and keep the dreams a comin’.

My second bitch (if I may) is the new DVD release ‘Live Xecution – Party San 2008′.  Professional footage, remixed sound yadda yadda.  Where the HELL is ‘Cause of Death’??  ONLY THE BEST OBITUARY SONG EVER??  Dammit.

Still, this trailer fucking rules.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting everyone in this band & I can tell you they are genuine, crazy-ass muthas that have always been decent to their fans.  Plus, dude – what other band works the long haired, survivalist look like these guys??  No one, I tell ya’.  Badass.

That’s how this evening started for me, kiddies. Because over at the link, I see that roughly 3 hours ago KNAC announced that the Big 4 are scheduled to perform together. . . on the same stage, on the same night – for the first time EVAR.  Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and my personal fav’s SLAYER.  The 4 horsemen of the Arockalypse, The First Sign of Armageddon.

Now even more interesting, is this show will be for those lucky enough to be in Poland on June 16th, 2010.  But there’s another scheduled in the Czech Republic.  And “more to be announced later”.

Dare we hope?  Dare we even to think it!?  And so close to the time of Rock On The Range, too.  I ain’t sayin’, I’m just sayin’. . .

Let us all pray.

• Yngwie Malmsteen has released a clip where he covers Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” on his Myspace page. Tim “Ripper” Owens is on vocals (added bonus)!  No really, it’s some decent shred, check it out.
• The ‘classic’ line-up of Dokken reunited for first time in 10 years in a 2 song encore last night (11/29) in Anaheim, Cali.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Don Dokken, Jeff Pilson, Mick Brown AND George Lynch performed “When Heaven Comes Down” and “IN MY DREAMS” (!!) at the House of Blues.  Follow the link for some Youtube goodness of this historic occurrence.
• Legendary guitarist John Christ (ex-Danzig) took the stage for the first time in 10 years this past Friday (11/27) for  a solo set mixing Danzig material with some Stevie Ray Vaughan & apparently even some Wizard of Oz.  Wish I coulda been there!  Met JC back when he was on tour with Danzig and he was a very cool dude, not to mention an exceptional guitarist.  Glad to hear he’s back gigging.
• Henry Rollins has announced his latest spoken word tour . . . and he’s coming to my hometown of Columbus, Ohio.   April 02, LC Pavilion bitches.  YES!

All in all, not a bad way to start a week, eh?

So my question is – what if someone tweets a felony?   “Hi, my name is Harold and I just killed my wife?”.  Now technically, shouldn’t Harold win? I mean, that’s a pretty damn big sin, isn’t it? Ok, ok – the winners are chosen “randomly”.  Which is bullshit-ese for saying we’re gonna screen out pedos, serial killers and florists from ever possibly winning this contest. Which is fine except for the serial killer part – hey, they do a service right? They help sell guns and home security systems.  I digress. . .

In all seriousness, this smacks of a promotion that while sounding brilliant on paper, has all the potential of nitro in a blubber factory of blowing up in MGM’s face.  Did I mention they’ll be beaming selected sins on the sides of various high profile buildings like the Staples Center and Nokia Theater?  Yeah, so even if totally unrelated to the actual sinner, innocent passerby’s could become convinced a given sin was about them.  Innocent, UNSTABLE passerby’s, that is.

I’m not sayin’. . . I’m just sayin’. . .  (Still a clever contest tho).

For those who don’t already know,  Geocities was the prototype to Godaddy and even Facebook.  It was designed to allow everyman to build a simple website where they could yap about whatever they wanted to the internet at large.  Sounds VERY familiar, eh?   Like many who now blog, I started with a terrible site comprised of mostly stolen code & borrowed images on Geocities. Then I moved up to Angelfire, to a slightly better site that I eventually shut down when I created The Rim of Hell. You can visit it’s tombstone HERE, although the only image on the page is corrupted now and I no longer have the login or password info to fix it.

But back to the LA Times article. The most interesting take-away to me is the Digital Archivers, who are attempting to preserve the entire network (although no one is really sure how big it is anymore!). This will undoubtedly be something more & more common in the future, as other digital offerings become outdated or obsolete. Think of the retro-gamers who collect old game console roms, or the mp3 archivists.

So that’s my new official excuse for all the time I waste out here. “I’m not downloading porn honey. I’m Digitally Archiving it!”. Think she’ll buy that? Meh, prolly not.