This image was featured in the article Pretty in Pink on Deviant Art.  I am sooooooo excited.  This has really just made my day.  Click here to take a look at it.

As you may have gathered from my previous post, last night was a cause for great excitement and anticipation to me.  I was finally going to see Mastodon, one of my favorite bands and one that I have been listening to from the release of their first album.  Converge (a more recently-discovered favorite), High On Fire (one of the better bands on my obscure-music radar) and Dethklok (watch Metalocalypse if you don’t know who they are) are currently on tour with Mastodon and shared the stage with them last night at Austin City Music Hall.

Yesterday afternoon, after finishing an unavoidable, unfortunate in-class writing assignment, my compatriots and I (roommate Andrew, friends Justin and Jimmy) loaded up in my humble but dependable Dodge Neon and hit the road for Austin.  We made pretty good time (until we actually got into town, that is) and grabbed a bite to eat at my aunt’s house before heading over to the concert, earplugs in hand and hearts steeled for the musical onslaught to come.

Due to the delay in departure caused by the aforementioned writing assignment, we didn’t arrive at Austin City Music Hall until 7:30 or so (the doors opened at 6 and High On Fire had been scheduled to start at 6:30).  I was a little disappointed at missing High On Fire, but as we entered and I heard the opening strains of Converge’s “Worms Will Feed/Rats Will Feast” I knew that we were in for an incredible night.

Converge, in a word, are intense.  Jacob Bannon flung himself around the stage with abandon, swinging the mic wildly by its cord and catching it with a tattooed hand just in time to deliver one of his guttural near-shrieks that seemed to issue forth from some kind of possessed beast rather than a man.  From time to time he would bang his head wildly along to the cacophony behind him, releasing a spray of sweat and water in a vicious arc that shone in the stage lights like a liquid halo.  Kurt Ballou and Nate Newton were in perfect sync with madman drummer Ben Koller, as if the six arms playing the guitar, bass and drum kit belonged to the same man rather than three.

Converge dish out an inimitable blend of hardcore punk, thrash metal, and grind that’s intricately technical yet rippingly raw and elemental, and is a little difficult to come to grips with at first. In fact, the Austin crowd seemed to be unsure about how to react to the audio assault taking place onstage before them, and most people stood around trying to figure out just what to think about it.  Meanwhile, I threw myself into the experience as Bannon warned the crowd (in a disarming normal tone that was so completely opposite the raging harbinger of doom that we had just seen) that they had four more songs to throw at us.  Starting with “Dark Horse” from their latest record Axe To Fall, Converge tore into the last part of their set with ferocious energy, wrapping up with the impossibly raw “Concubine” from their seminal album Jane Doe.  The whole thing might have taken six minutes – that may give you an idea about their speed.

We were given a brief respite from more musical attack while Mastodon set up.  There appeared to be some problem with the video screen on the stage, and a technician spent a good 15 minutes trying to fix it back up again while crowd cheered him on when a section of the screen popped back into view.

Then the lights dimmed and Mastodon strode forth onto the stage.

The intro to “Oblivion” began, and the dynamic buildup of the song whipped the crowd (whose mosh pit had coalesced directly in front of where we were standing – how lucky) into a furor that crashed down in a wave of bodies when the first bars of the verse hit.  “I flew beyond the sun before it was time,” drummer Brann Dailor sang, and we sang with him.  Each successive track from Crack the Skye caused a greater and greater reaction, and I was sucked into the circle of headbanging, shoving fans more than once.

Behind the band, up on the video screen, a series of video clips played that correlated with each song, mirroring the spacey concept story of the album and upping the atmospheric factor of the show tenfold.  Each track was played flawlessly, each complex arrangement (including two tracks exceeding ten minutes in length) executed with energy and dedication.  Hearing the songs on CD is awesome, but hearing Mastodon unleash them live was something else entirely.  The heavier tracks (like “Ghosts of Karelia” and “Crack the Skye”) were so much heavier at the show, I could hardly believe it.

After somehow playing through all 50 minutes of Crack the Skye without missing a note or faltering in their vocal delivery, Mastodon exited the stage for a brief but moody keyboard interlude while they got their gear set up for the older tracks that I knew were coming.  I was probably looking forward to hearing those even more than I had been the new album, especially with the element of surprise – which songs will they play?

The band stepped back out on stage to a roaring crowd that wasn’t ready for them to leave, and then Brent Hinds kicked out the frenzied opening guitar lick to “Circle of Cysquatch” from Blood Mountain as that album’s three-faced demon-deer artwork appeared onscreen.  The change of pace to the older, more aggressive Mastodon instigated even more madness in the mosh pit.  When the weighty breakdown at the end of the song was over, there was a moment of anticipation before a great white whale filled the screen and Brent floored the crowd with the incredibly technical intro to “Aqua Dementia” from Leviathan.  I was once again astounded at the effortless manner in which they performed these complex songs at breakneck speed and reminded again why I like Mastodon so much.

After “Aqua Dementia” was over, everyone knew what was coming.  Mastodon would delve deep into their oldest debut-album material and absolutely flatten everyone with its sheer dirty Southern-metal brutality – and sure enough, as the exploding horse artwork from their 2002 release Remission faded onto the screen, they dropped “Where Strides the Behemoth” (one of my favorite tracks from that record) on us like a ten-ton hammer.  After shouting along to the closing lines of the song, I turned to Andrew and voiced my hope about the next track – would they?  Could the possibly play it?  Would I be so lucky?

I was so lucky.  The gristly, rust-covered guitar intro to “Mother Puncher” started and I jumped up and down like a little girl who just got told that yes, she really was getting a pony for her birthday.  The lengthy instrumental opening to the song gave way to the raw, sludgy verses that I knew every shouted syllable of and ended like a knockout blow in the dirtiest MMA fight you’ve ever seen.  Over 80 minutes of Mastodon.  This is definitely what I had paid for, and so much more.

I’ll spare you such detail about Dethklok (though they were hilarious and blindingly proficient on their instruments) even though most of you have probably stopped reading already.  They were certainly entertaining, and the crowd was nearly as responsive as they had been during Mastodon’s set.  They ripped through the most brutal tracks in the universe (as they would say) like “Murmaider”, “Thunderhorse” and “Pull the Plug” while animated music videos for the cartoon band played behind, ending with the fan-hating death metal anthem, “Fansong.”  There were several funny interludes, and the whole set kind of came off as one really long episode of the show, which is in no way a bad thing.

We left the venue with ears brutalized, our necks sore from headbanging, and our throats raw from cheering and shouting along.  This was, far and away, the best concert I’ve enjoyed to date.  My only regrets are missing High On Fire and part of Converge’s set (both unavoidable – thanks a lot, ENGR 482) and not having a camera, though being without one was probably wise given the moshy nature of the crowd around us.

I know this is an incredibly long post, so if you’ve made it here to the end, I congratulate and thank you.  I hope that I’ve given you an idea of how intense, how fun, and how metal last night’s concert really was.  There is no doubt in my mind – it was the metallest of them all.

Je trouve parfois que certains groupes abusent en sortant un live ou un DVD après avoir à peine sorti un LP. En ce qui concerne Converge par contre, on peut dire que la sortie de ce DVD est amplement justifiée étant donné que les gars ont déjà une dizaine de disques à leur actif et pas loin de 15 ans de carrière … autant dire qu’il y aurait eu de quoi faire un documentaire plus que fourni sur le quatuor de Boston… cependant, j’ai été un peu déçu par l’objet… je m’explique… Avant tout, le lay-out est splendide (évidemment, c’est Jake Bannon qui l’a fait). La boîte est entièrement en carton et lorsqu’on la sort de son coffret, deux volets se déplie de chaque coté laissant apparaître des superpositions de photos dans des tons allant du noir au jaune en passant par le rouge … bref, l’objet laisse augurer le meilleur… Ensuite le contenu… Disons que sur ce coup-là, Converge a privilégié la quantité à la qualité… le disque comporte quasi que du live, chaque morceau (une vingtaine au total) filmer dans une salle différente, qui s’enchaîne en continu…On a droit évidemment à tous les classiques, de Color me Blood Red à Locust Reign (et même une sorte de premier jet de You Fail Me, pas encore sorti à l’époque de ce DVD)…. Mais la qualité de l’image et du son étant très variables d’une salle à une autre, il faut vraiment être un fanatique pour apprécier l’entier de l’objet… déjà que Converge, c’est pas forcément de la musique facile à capter, en plus avec un son de merde, ça peut vite lasser… J’attendais des interviews, des “behind the scene”, voire des confidences plus personnelles afin de mieux comprendre d’où vient ce groupe fascinant… malheureusement, à part une brève interview à Leon (comme mentionné sur la boîte…ne serait-ce pas plutôt Lyon ?) en France, pas grand-chose à se mettre sous la dent ! La section bonus nous donne accès à trois sets quasi entier (le premier en Allemagne, le second à Boston, le troisième dans la cave d’un des gars de Most Precious Blood !!!) ainsi que le clip vidéo de Downpour, qui est réalisé avec trois crottes de nez et qui donne, au final, quelque chose de magnifique et d’étrange… En résumé, y a vraiment beaucoup à regarder, du bon et du vraiment moins bon… les gars mettent en avant leur musique et non pas les individus, ce qui est totalement respectable et parfaitement dans l’esprit du groupe… Ce qui est sur c’est que c’est réalisé à l’arrache, c’est crû, c’est sale, c’est hardcore quoi … mais parfois, une meilleure qualité de caméra ou simplement un son issu de la table de mixage et non du live n’aurait pas fait de mal… mais c’est Converge, donc on les pardonne !!!

Pour écouter Converge : http://www.myspace.com/converge
Label de Converge : http://www.deathwishinc.com/

Police determine teen missing since 1954 was slain

Apparently killing women is not a new passtime - not that I believed it was. Sadly, the awareness of violence against women just started in the 70s, and much of it occurred in the 90s. Not all countries even have laws against domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking – we’re still living in the dark ages – as women, that is. An author once wrote that during the time of Englightenment as men were making advances, thousands of women were being killed as witches. Today, it hasn’t changed much. Violence against women prevents human potential, affecting the lives of women, young girls, families and entire communities. We cannot advance under these conditions.

“Now that I know, it isn’t so much that she died, but the horrible death,” she said.

Boulder County Sheriff’s Detective Steve Ainsworth, the lead investigator in the case, said Howard died of blunt-force trauma. She couldn’t be identified because her body was found a week after she was killed, and animals had gotten to her face and fingers.

At the time, the mystery made headlines across Colorado, and Boulder residents raised enough money to buy her a gravestone, which read “Jane Doe — April 1954 — Age About 20 Years.”

Boulder County sheriff’s officials have credited historian Silvia Pettem with encouraging them to renew efforts to identify Jane Doe. Pettem became interested in the woman and her story after visiting the cemetery in the 1990s and writing the book “Someone’s Daughter, In Search of Justice for Jane Doe.”

All these articles scattered about in newspapers across the globe paint an overall picture:  An estimated 1.5 to 3 million women are killed every year. That’s a Holocaust every 3 years. This is not the information age for women – this is the dark ages where brutal violence and harmful stereotypes are undermining our progress.

Where is the outrage? Where is the accountablity? the awareness? the concern? …

Today Was a mixture of feelings in this first post I will sum up the problem I had when we I went to the beach.

As I went into the public toilets to get changed. I went to go in the cubicle but it was locked I looked under the stall and saw a girl lying in fetal position. I kept looking I asked if she would respond I thought she was in need of some narcan or better. I then  noticed her jumper had slipped up and I could see her back well I then noticed darkening at the lower most parts of her skin. My stomach squirmed. I asked my Mum to have a look. I asked if she was gone? Mum wasn’t sure. So I ran across the road to the hotel and asked the waitress to call ‘000′ fast and bring something for a possible overdose. Deep inside I felt it was futile. I ran back to check on the girl she was about my age. I kept talking to her asking her to please get up. I could not see any movement. I felt worse about I started thinking. She probably knew that was the last time she’d lock the door behind her. I think everyone deserves a dignified passing. I hope she left in peace.  R.I.P Jane Doe of West beach.

I didn’t want to tell Mum she was gone. And I think Mum didn’t want to tell me.  The paramedic arrived and asked if she was my friend I told her I didn’t know her I had just found the sad girl. Mum took me aside and told me she had died. I didn’t know what to think. Had I been too slow or was she already gone for a while? I left the toilet and felt like being sick. I left the scene once the paramedics were dealing with her. I’m so sorry for her family and friends.

I would like this post to help me deal with it. Maybe help me sleep better at night. At the end of the day It was what she did that put her there and maybe it’s what she wanted maybe she really couldn’t take it anymore.

I would appreciate any comments that may help me with these thoughts.

Peace,

NW

I hope she is in a better place.

“herself in New York’s Times Square.
Police say they picked up “Jane Doe,” a teenage girl with a case of near-total amnesia, at Covenant House, a homeless shelter near New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, on Oct. 9.
Since then, the girl has undergone tests from police and psychiatrists who are convinced that she is telling the truth, the New York Post reported Friday.”

Found this interesting when I was browsing through the web. Came across this article on news.aol.com

Read the rest of the article here: http://news.aol.com/article/teen-with-amnesia-found-in-new-yorks/733666

Radio 420 Beta 22102009

J.Period & K’naan – No Great Message (Interlude)

Sombra – Sangue De Jesus Tem Poder

A Tribe Called Quest  (Jane Doe/Punchline/ Wordsworth /Mos Def) – Rock Rock Y’all

Camp Lo – Boogie Night

Los Carolina (Khrysis/Erica Thompson) – More Than Okay

Brother Ali – Us

A Dupla – Herdeiros Sem Herança

Play na “mô vibe!”

Converge stormed their way onto the music scene in 1990 combining the sounds of hardcore punk and extreme metal, since they have defined many of the rudiments of the metalcore genre.

Converge released their first full length album, When Forever Comes Crashing, in April 1998 but were not discovered by listeners until releasing their breakthrough album, Jane Doe, in Sep. 2001 on Equal Vision Records. Over time their albums have moved from the independent label to the more mainstream punk label Epitaph Records, which their latest album, Axe to Fall, was released on.  In Sep. 2004, only a few years after their breakthrough album Converge released their first album with Epitaph Records, You Fail Me, which was followed up by No Heroes in Oct. 2006.

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 Converge stepped back out of the recording studio with yet another smash, crash and destroy album to show that even after all these years they still got what it takes and released Axe to Fall. Axe to Fall is a collaborative album featuring a number of musicians including members from Cave In, Neurosis and The Red Chord. The album is a mixture of two minute tracks to lengthier compositions, and the shorter tracks continue to show Converge’s strive for improvement as you will find those tracks to be rhythmically more direct then anything these boys have done before.

PopMatters described the album as, “Searing as always, but underneath all the aggression is an accessibility that draws us in while never compromising the musical integrity whatsoever, and the balance between those two disparate characteristics is masterful,” in their review of Converge’s Axe to Fall.

Your copy of Axe to Fall is just waiting for you. Axe to Fall is available in stores at Newbury Comics for $8.99, Bull Moose for $7.99 and at Best Buy for $7.99. If you make your way to Hot Topic you can pick up Axe to Fall and the exclusive t-shirt for just $20. If you don’t feel like leaving the comfort of your computer screen the album is also available for download at iTunes or Amazon MP3.

Later in the year Axe to Fall will be released as a vinyl record through Deathwish Inc.

Hello,

We need your help. As you know H.R.3695 HELP FIND THE MISSING ACT (Billy’s Law) has been introduced and we are asking if you would so kindly open the link and fill in the information provided to ask your Federal Legislator for support. Add comments of personal experiences to touch the hearts of your legislators so they feel the need to support such a bill.

http://www.lostnmissing.com/25.html

Many of you know what The Smolinski Family has gone through for the past five years and there are many others in this country with similar heartaches which is life altering. Please help by filling in the information and passing it on to your email addresses.
Thank you for your kindness,

Always Hope,
Janice Smolinski
www.justice4billy.com Guiding Light of Hope

Endorsed By: Connecticut Department of Public Safety, National Forensic Science Technology Center, National Center for Forensic Science, Doe Missing Persons Network, Center for Hope, Families of Homicide LostNMissing,Inc.,Missing Persons, Inc.

Ciesze się niezwykle, że mogę wreszcie skrobnąć kilka słów na temat tej płyty. Czekałem na nią sporo czasu, denerwowałem się okrutnie z każdym kolejnym miesiącem jeszcze bardziej. Czas najwyższy jednak swoje bezpodstawne obawy schować głęboko do szafy. Mogę swobodnie powiedzieć, że król powrócił w najlepszym stylu. „Axe To Fall” wali po mordzie, niszczy słuchacza i rozbija w pył niedowiarków. Muzyka jest skierowana do ściśle określonego gatunku odbiorców, ale jest duża szansa, że spodoba się komuś z poza kręgu wtajemniczonych (ha!).

Kiedy w 2001 r. wydali „Jane Doe” położyli niemal cały metalowy świat na łopatki. Intensywność gitarowych, raz ciętych, raz galopujących riffów, zaprzęgli w metalcore’owe tempa tworzący tym samym album (nie bójmy się użyć tego słowa) perfekcyjny. Po drodze przytrafiły im się jeszcze dwie płyty – (jedna lepsza „You Fail Me”, druga gorsza „No Heros”), obie na bardzo wysokim poziomie. Podobnie jest z najnowszy siódmym już studyjnym dziełem zespołu. Na wstępie należy jednak zaznaczyć – Bannon i spółka nie mieli w zamiarze obalać jakichkolwiek mitów, nie chcieli też silić się na zbędną oryginalność. Po prostu chwycili swoje instrumenty i nagrali kolejny w pełni profesjonalny album – płytę dopracowaną i to zarówno od strony graficznej, jak i muzycznej. „Axe To Fall” to kolejna porcja muzyki z pogranicza metalu, punk rocka i hardcore’u, czyli nic nowego chciałoby się napisać. Inna sprawa, że kapeli udało się w ramach klasycznej formuły i bez dalszego odchodzenia od schematów muzyki odcisnąć własne, rozpoznawalne od pierwszych dźwięków brzmienie, które opiera się o zmasowany atak gitarowo – perkusyjno – wokalnej eskapady dla najwytrwalszych. To właśnie sposób konstruowania riffów, oplatanie ich różnymi dziwacznymi melodiami i zagrywkami, sprawia, że tak dużo i tak dobrze mówi się o Converge.

Już pierwszy utwór z płyty („Dark Horse”) tylko utwierdził mnie w przekonaniu, że mam do czynienia ze zespołem nietuzinkowym. Szybkie cięte riffy i chora nuta wokalna Bannona robią swoje. Converge brzmi tu bardzo przejrzyście i dosadnie. Co więcej, uwypuklono techniczny potencjał muzyków. Szczególnie jednego – Bena Kollera, to on jest jak dla mnie największym skarbem zespołu. To kompletnie nieobliczalny w swych poczynaniach perkusista i proszę nie wierzcie mi na słowo, po prostu sprawdźcie numer tytułowy! Po kilku ekwilibrystycznych kawałkach, następuje chwila wyciszenia w postaci „Worms Will Feed”. Dużo tu swego rodzaju psychodelii, sporo też noise rockowego dziwactwa. Amerykanie w nieprzeciętny sposób dozują  emocjami słuchacza – wiem że ów kawałek może wydawać się wtórny.  Ale czym można mieć im za złe,  że w dalszym ciągu odkrywają na nowo kolejne możliwości stylu jaki sami stworzyli. Converge znalazł swój patent na muzykę. Dlaczego, więc miałaby nie korzystać ze swoich przywilejów i pozostać mu wiernym? Nie zabrakło oczywiście kilku niespodzianek. Panowie postarali się w dość przenikliwy sposób zaktualizowalizować swoje dotychczasowe fascynacje, że w gruncie rzeczy można mówić o nowej jakości. W końcu nie brakuje tu świeżych trendów, tak jak chociażby w ciekawie zaaranżowanym „Cruel Bloom” z gościnnym udziałem Steve Von Tilla, czy też w delikatnie nasyconym melancholią ostatnim utworze na płycie „Wretched World”. Cieszyć może również fakt, że zespół, mimo tego że wykonuję bardzo nowocześnie zaaranżowaną muzykę nie zapomniał o przykuwających uwagę na dłużej solówkach („Reap What You Sow”, „Wishing Well”).

Converge nagrał album szczery do bólu, jeden z najlepszych w swojej karierze, zaprezentował przy tym swoją wizję muzyki, swój własny świat, w którym króluje niepodzielnie, aż po dziś dzień. Ciekaw jestem jak dalej potoczy się kariera zespołu. „Axe To Fall” daje nadzieje na jutro. Oby nie zostały zawiedzione, chociaż w wypadku tej ekipy możemy być raczej o to spokojni.

8/10

Batman: Streets of Gotham #4
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen
Co-Feature by Marc Andreyko
Art by Jeremy Haun

This has to be the best issue of this series to date. Dini goes back to what he does best, exploring Gotham’s villains and adding interesting new ones to the roster. In this issue, he introduces The Broker, the real estate guy who sells all the abandoned warehouses and amusement parks to the bad guys of Gotham. That’s just genius! I can’t believe no one has thought of that before. I also loved how Dini explains why there are so many abandoned amusement parks by going over the history of Gotham. I love when writers flesh out DC’s fictional locales. The Manhunter back-up was pretty good as well, Kate makes the statement to the press that she will bring down Two-Face no matter what and I am sure that will get her in a lot of trouble. She also teams up with Huntress.

By Oliver Farrimond

THE HOME of infamous Scots murderers Burke and Hare is advertising for help in dealing with the unburied bodies of around 100 people every year.

Many are forgotten John or Jane Does who have died on the city streets, others simply the unfortunate few destined for a pauper’s grave because no one else will meet the cost of their funeral.

Now Edinburgh council chiefs have advertised an £85,000-a-year contract for help to cope with the numbers.

All local authorities are legally bound to ensure funerals are held if no other arrangements are made.

And the grim work is now up for tender with a lucrative contract worth £85,000 a year – or £850 per body.

An Edinburgh City Council spokesperson said they dealt with around 100 such cases a year, adding: “The Council has a statutory obligation to bury or cremate the body of any person who has died or been found dead in their area.

“This is in cases where it appears to the Council that no suitable arrangements for the disposal of the body have been made.

”This might be people who are homeless without dependents, or families who simply don’t have enough money to pay for a private funeral.”

Reverend Ian Galloway, convenor of the Church and Society Council with the Church of Scotland, said that it was unfortunate but inevitable that some people would die alone in the world.

Rev Galloway, 57, said: “How many people live alone at the end of their lives?

“In these circumstances it’s a mark of civil society that the local authority, along with undertakers, council officials and others, ensure that there is a dignified place for the funeral to take place.

“Sad part of urban life”

“The local authority has to deal with this particularly sad part of urban life, which may be true in Edinburgh, but also in other cities.”

A survey by the Department of Work and Pensions last month showed that as well as being one of the most expensive places to live in the UK, Edinburgh is also the most costly place to die.

The Capital topped the list ahead of Birmingham, Chelsea and Kent, with an average funeral costing £1,600, even without burial costs factored in.

One family-run Edinburgh funeral directors website even states: “It is not uncommon for a funeral account for a burial in Edinburgh to come to somewhere in the region of £3,000-£3,500.”

Gordon Greenhill, Edinburgh City Council’s head of community safety, said previously: “Burial and cremation costs in the city reflect the cost of providing a quality service and enable the council to continue to maintain and conserve our 39 cemeteries and graveyards.

“In Edinburgh, we maintain grave sites in perpetuity, whereas in some authorities this is time-limited.”

Socially excluded

A local charity which works with homeless people praised the tender, saying that it was vital for councils to provide such services in the cases where people who have lost contact with their families need to be buried.

John Downie, chief executive of charity Streetwork, said that many people do lose touch with their dependents, and that a proper funeral in these circumstances was important.

Mr Downie, 50, said: “It’s easier than you think for people to end up completely physically and socially excluded.

“For the council to ensure that the appropriate arrangements are made for these people when they pass on is very important.

“It shows a wider respect between human beings.”

Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare were notorious body thieves and murderers in Edinburgh selling their victims to medical science in the 1800s.

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Dear John Doe,

I hear the world out there is hard and scary for you. I hear that you wrote your wife about how you wish the war was over, and how you want to return safely to her.

You left her when she was already three months pregnant, and you are dying to see your newborn daughter. I hear she named her Irena, after your mother. I just know that they await your arrival home from Germany.

It’s autumn here now, and the leaves are beginning to fade and fall to the ground. It’s much colder in the evening, but the day starts much earlier. I assume there will be snow on the ground by time your wife hears from you again, but sadly, this time it won’t be you she’s hearing from, rather two gentlemen with a flag.

Sincerely, Jane Doe.

*note- this is a work of fiction.

Wisconsin Police Get Court Order to Feature Dead Girl on Facebook – ABC News

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Batman: Streets of Gotham #3
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen
Co-Feature by Marc Andreyko
Art by Georges Jeanty

Now this was a good issue. I liked how Dick and Damian solved the Hush problem, bring in the Justice League and the Outsiders and make them board of exectives that Hush has to listen to as Bruce Wayne! It is brilliant yet a little too easy. I liked it. But I don’t think Dick should turn to the League everytime he has a problem, I just think it worked this time. And damn can Dini write villains, he is really making Zsasz interesting, and I didn’t think he was at all before. I like how he keeps imagining how he will murder people. Nguyen’s art was inconsistent, but never horrible. Oh and you gotta love Damian saying that “Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot” is the stupidest thing he has ever heard. That shows how different he is from his father. The Manhunter Co-Feature still featured the incredibly creepy Jane Doe but was a really quick read that basically consisted of a fight and Huntress saving the day. It was just a little too quick for my tastes. But this was a good issue overall.

jane doe kilgore tx

Is This Roxanne Paltauf?

See details here Roxanne Paltauf…

Read about Jane Doe here…

Jane Doe was already found not to be Jessie Foster, has she been tested with Roxanne Paltauf’s dental records yet?

I can’t find anything on the net saying that it has been done!

Can you help? Please advise!

roxanne paltauf july 7 2006 austin tx braids

roxanne paltauf july 7 2006 austin tx 115 lbs, 163 cm 5ft 4 inch, blonde, white, female 52 kg

Harold reported another ghost visit the other night and I was shocked when this girls pic came up, he said she was blonde and 5ft4.  This ghost was accompanied by a ghost that resembles Jessie Foster.

I couldn’t sleep so I did my Google search and this is what I found. Unsolved murders, no recent info as to whether or not Jane Doe’s burned remains have been compared to Roxanne Paltauf’s dental records.

Many threads talk about it, but no one’s double checked.  I felt compelled to email America’s Most Wanted (Harold’s favorite show, I watch it from time to time) and ask if they know if the case has been updated yet, as I cannot find the info on the net.

I was looking at the pictures of Jane Doe, the threads and Jessie Foster’s dental records coming up in this search and found something interesting.

It seems people have tried to email the police about the resemblance of Roxanne Paltauf to Jane Doe, but it bounced back.

There is nothing saying anyone called or did anything else?  The last posts are all dated back in 2006!

I’ve sent a message on myspace to Roxanne’s family or her main website  asking if Jane Doe Case File 483UFTX  (posted The Doe Network) has been compared with Roxanne Paltauf’s dental records?

If you have any recent news about this case, please share here!

roxanne paltauf jul 7 2006 austin tx missing

jane doe case file 483UFTX oct 29 2006 kilgore, gregg county , texas is this roxanne pultaf

Finding a foothold with a band like Converge (are there many bands like Converge?) is tough — there’s the speed, the gnarled harmonies, the grim way songs are arranged with wave after wave of shock attacks.  Dropping in on the band live, it seems obvious that it’s a teenage boy’s world — the 20-year-old band still champions hardcore show aesthetics like dead lighting, hundred-man pile-ups.  But that doesn’t mean that reasons to like them end there.  This is a smart band with very tricky arrangements that yield all kinds of tiny little discoveries with every listen.

The new record, Axe to Fall (Epitaph), is a great place to begin, since it dials back the hyperdrive barrage a bit, but you might want to jump into the thick of things with No Heroes (Epitaph) or Jane Doe (Equal Vision).  Eventually, work your way back to When Forever Comes Crashing (Equal Vision), which finds them a little less whipped into shape but experiments more with gritty, frayed noise and moments of Boredoms-like irreverence.

I talked with guitarist Kurt Ballou about the current tour with Adult Swim’s Dethklok (from the campy Metalocalypse cartoon) and the old days slumming it around Boston.

As we discuss the band’s early days in Boston following a kickstart at Andover High (“Yeah, we played the talent show one year”), it does seem that things have always worked out for them. After years of living in Kenmore Square, Ballou was sent packing from an apartment on Blaine Street in Allston by roommates who were tired of the constant traffic of bands in and out of his basement studio. “Everyone else stayed in the apartment after I left, but three weeks later, the place caught on fire. I would have lost everything in the studio.”

Link to full article at the Boston Phoenix here.

Update:  Check the Phoenix’s report about Converge using Twitter to out leaking music blogger Shaun Hand for leaking the new record.  STREET JUSTICE.

They didn’t file a lawsuit — which would’ve been costly and pointless, since the plaintiffs (the writer, potentially the website) clearly are not billionaires. They didn’t write a long-winded, whiny treatise attempting to outline a philosophical framework for Why It Sucks That Now Everyone Can Steal Our Music. They didn’t bother asking their fans not to download it — also pointless. (Some fans responded by Tweeting how much they love the new album; others promised to wait until the record’s official release. Regardless, by this morning, punk and metal messageboards were on fire with in-depth, close-read discussions of most of the album’s tracks.)

So Converge got it right: they simply called bullshit, let the offender knew that they knew who he was, and let the rest take care of itself.