If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll occasionally get a message from me saying that I’m geocaching. So what the heck is geocaching?  Quite simply, it is an organized way that folks hide boxes or ‘caches’ around the world with specific GPS coordinates.  The coordinates are then posted to a website to allow others to find them and record their visit.  This global treasure hunt is quite fun, and after you get yourself a GPS, it’s also pretty much free.   Here’s my geocaching how-to:
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Caught the Poison show last night in Madison, WI, with Sara and some friends.  Not a bad show–a decent, albeit strange crowd of blasted out 30 and 40+ year olds reliving their high-school years in the 80’s.  There was more than one real mullet in the crowd.  If I were to rank the music, it would look something like this:

1. Dokken – They rocked!  I was surprised at how good their sound was.  No George Lynch on guitar, but whomever they got to fill his shoes could really tear it up.

2. Guns ‘n Roses playing on the PA – Before Poison played, they played GNR on the sound system.  Yes, this was better than…

3. Poison – They aren’t known for their musicianship, and they proved that tonight.  But they can put on a good show, and everyone was having a good time, so it was fun.

4. Sebastian Bach – He has a good voice, but he didn’t prove it tonight.  His sound was terrible and his band awful.  Thank goodness I missed most of this.

Some pictures from the show, in order of how they played (Sebastian Bach, Dokken and  Poison):

I also shot some videos at the show.  Here’s Poison doing “Talk dirty to me”:

Previous Popcorn Hour Articles:

• Unbox Gadget Review: Popcorn Hour A-100
• Popcorn Hour A-100 Part 1: Setup
• Popcorn Hour A-100 Part 2: Video Playback and Torrents (this review!)
• Popcorn Hour A-100 Part 3: Media Service Portal (coming soon)

Finally, my second part of the Popcorn Hour review.   In Part 1 of my review, I detailed my setup with HomePlug AV.  I’m still using this, but now that 802.11n is coming close to standardization, I’m looking forward to trying some wireless that should leap-frog the HomePlug AV solution in both convenience and performance.  But for now, HomePlug is getting the job done.
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Artist: Protest the Hero
Album: Fortress
Wikipedia Genre(s): Metalcore, Mathcore, Progressive metal
Matt’s Fav Tracks: Bloodmeat, Bone Marrow
# times listened: Moderate (10 – 25 times)
Matt’s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Buy CD: Amazon
Have a listen: Amazon Non-DRM MP3’s

Around 10-15 years ago, I listened to a lot of music that would classically fall into the category of “Heavy Metal” (Metallica, Anthrax, and later on, Helmet and the Deftones).  In the mid-late 90’s, I turned off this genre due to most of the “NüMetal” that was all the rage and the Limp Bizkit / Korn clones that sucked big-bime. If it’s done well, it still gets annoying, but when done poorly, I’d rather listen to whales mating.

Enter Protest the Hero, the best thing to come out of Canada since Pam Anderson and Strange Brew.  Upon first hearing  this album, I was blown away by the throw-back musicianship these guys posses.  Bands like the napster-killing-morons, Metallica wish they could play half this well.  These guys pound out rhythms at a blinding speed and easily switch between genres flawlessly.

While they have some of the stereotypical screaming that I get sick of,  they don’t seem to take themselves too seriously.  Tackling subjects like Genghis Kahn’s ruling empire with lyrics like:

“Heads will roll, and throats will be slit, and blood will flow like springs of water, Heads will roll”

Very over-the-top, shockingly funny, but done well, so listenable.  A breath of fresh air and a little return to a time when metal covered cool subjects like rulings of ancient tyrants and history lessons.  Check them out if you’ve been missing metal.  4 out of 5 stars for me.

Artist: Weezer
Album: Weezer (Red I guess)
Wikipedia Genre(s): Alternative rock, Geek rock, Power pop
Matt’s Fav Tracks: Pork and Beans, Troublemaker
# times listened: Not many (< 10 times)
Matt’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Buy CD: Amazon
Have a listen: Amazon Non-DRM MP3’s

I’m old-skool that when a band creates their ‘debut’ album, I like when it’s generally self-titled. Some folks decide that they do this later (i.e. Metallica with the “Black” album) and I’m cool with that. Weezer is having this go a little out of control though, as this is their THIRD self-titled album… Blue, Green and now Red.

This is easily Weezer’s weakest album. I wanted to dig it, but listening to all of their other albums, they have gotten progressively worse with each. I don’t know if it’s Cuomo’s wacky “cowboy crossed with Reno 911 cop mustache” look, or the fact that the songs try waaay too hard. Whatever the case, the album is trite beyond a couple songs. Weezer, unfortunately, hasn’t had a strong cover-to-cover album since the Green album. It’s sad, to have peaked almost 10 years ago…

The best thing about the new album has to be the video for Pork and Beans, with Internet meme goodness. Check it out if you haven’t seen it: