Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue (2009)

I didn’t think we would ever see another album from Alice in Chains after the death of singer Layne Staley.  It has been fourteen long years since the band’s 1995 self titled album.

I must admit that I had some reservations before listening to Black Gives Way to Blue.  Lets face it, Layne Staley left some pretty big shoes to fill.  Is Alice in Chains new singer William DuVall up to the challenge?

DuVall’s voice, mixed with the back up vocals of Jerry Cantrell gives Alice in Chains close to the same sound that helped the band sell millions of albums in the nineties. The big problem is DuVall’s voice is often hidden behind Cantrell’s voice, and the heavy guitars.  He isn’t really given a chance to shine as Alice in Chains new voice.

“Check My Brain” is a doom laden grunge masterpiece that only AIC could make work.  The guitars are tuned down, so that that the whole key of the song sounds utterly creepy, yet cool. The vocals on this song are perfect.  This sounds like classic Alice in Chains.

“Last of My Kind” looses a little bit of the doominess, but is still heavy as hell. This song requires multiple listens to fully appreciate.

“Your Decision” is an acoustic guitar  based track. This is the first song where DuVall’s voice is allowed to shine without the layers of guitar and heavy bass.  It sounds great and ought to be a single for Alice in Chains.

“A Looking In View” is the longest track on this album, but this moody mid-tempo number might be too long for its own good.  This song kind of plods along never really offers the listener a climax.  It is seven minutes of sludgey rock that I could have lived without.

“When the Sun Rose Again” is another acoustic track with some odd percussion thrown in for good measure.  This song doesn’t work for me either.

At this point in the record, I was hoping to stumble upon a hit worthy tune from AIC.  Hopefully somewhere on this disc is a monster song that I could not live without. I wouldn’t call it a monster track, but “Lesson Learned” is more like the AIC of old.  A cool heavy tune.

“Take Her Out” is another heavy mid tempo number that resembles the classic AIC sound.

The closing and title track “Black Gives Way to Blue”  is a tribute to Layne Staley.  The piano on this song is played by none other than Elton John. Yes, you read that correctly. This is a very slow and short tune, but is also quite amazing.  It is a very cool tune that honors Layne Staley well.

Does Black Gives Way To Blue live up to the Alice in Chains legacy?  No, I don’t think it is even close. The vocals are great. The guitar work is great.  So where does the problem lie?

The overall pace of the album is pretty slow, and the songs don’t stick with you. Once upon a time, the band could write some pretty cool grungy rockers with lyrics that were ultimately catchy and memorable. There just aren’t enough of these on this record to make me want to play it a whole bunch.  Yes there are songs that I like on this disc, but even with repeated listens something appears to be missing.  I am glad Alice in Chains is back, but Black Gives Way To Blue is ultimately disappointing.

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Officers involved in Fort Oglethorpe shootout honored

Jul 28, 2009 | 769 views | 1 | 3 | |

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Officers involved in the Fort Oglethorpe shooting on June 24 were recognized at the July 27 City Council meeting. Fort Oglethorpe police officer Mitchell Moore was wounded during the incident. Walker County deputy Terry Miller, far left, shot the suspect, John Coates. Council member Johnnie “Red” Smith, center, who was wounded in 1993 in a police shootout, and mayor Ronnie Cobb presented the plaques from the city. Other Fort Oglethorpe officers involved in shootings, but not pictured, are John McGrath, Richard Williams, Chris Clark, and police chief David Eubanks. The shooting McGrath was involved in occurred in October 1994. Williams and Clark were both involved in an incident at Wal-mart in 2005, and Eubanks’s shooting occurred in 1974, while he was with the Dalton Police Department. (Catoosa News/Heather Gentry)

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CatWalkChatt - June shooting death in Fort Oglethorpe deemed “justifiable homicide”

 

Officer's shooting of man in Fort Oglethorpe deemed "justifiable homicide"

by Mark Andrews

Oct 09, 2009 | 448 views | 0 | 5 | |

District attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin said the shooting death of a Rossville man by law enforcement in Fort Oglethorpe in June was “justifiable homicide.”
Toxicology tests revealed that John Coates had methadone in his system at the time of the shooting, said Franklin, who is district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, which serves Walker, Catoosa, Chattooga and Dade counties.
Coats, 34, was shot and killed during a confrontation on June 24 with two officers in the parking lot of Chik-fil-A on Battlefield Parkway in Fort Oglethorpe. The officers pulled over Coates in an attempt to serve warrants from the Walker County Sheriff’s Office.
Coates was wanted on warrants for felony aggravated stalking, misdemeanor harassing telephone calls and misdemeanor violation of a temporary protective order.
Walker County deputy Terry Miller was serving the warrants. He called for backup from Fort Oglethorpe police and officer Mitchell Moore responded.
During a struggle with the officers, Coates retrieved a handgun from his vehicle’s glove box and shot Moore in the back. Miller fired in defense and hit Coates. Coates died from a gunshot to the head.

CatWalkChatt - June shooting death in Fort Oglethorpe deemed “justifiable homicide”

North West Evening Mail | News | Barrow dad killed by drink and drug cocktail

 

Barrow dad killed by drink and drug cocktail

Last updated at 13:33, Wednesday, 07 October 2009

A FATHER-OF-ONE was killed by a mixture of booze and methadone supplied by one of his friends, an inquest heard.

The inquest into the death of Gary Kennedy, who died aged 27, was held at Barrow Town Hall yesterday. Mr Alan Sharp, deputy coroner for South and East Cumbria ruled his death was accidental.

Mr Kennedy was found dead at a house in Arthur Street, Barrow, on the morning of January 29, leaving behind his daughter Abigail, who is now five-years-old.

Mr Kennedy died after what started out as a drinking session with friends Jack McCullough, 19, and Fiona Hart, 22, and turned to drug use.

A post-mortem examination carried out on his body showed he died from multiple substance toxicity.

Mr McCullough got the methadone from neighbour, Amanda Bewley, 28, of Arthur Street, Barrow. The pair were jailed for two years each in March for supplying the methadone which led to Mr Kennedy’s death.

Miss Hart, the ex-girlfriend of McCullough, told the inquest Mr Kennedy and Mr McCullough arrived at her house on the evening of January 28.

They went to a nearby supermarket to stock up on alcohol and bought a bottle of whiskey and two bottles of cider.

Miss Hart said: “We were just sat at home, drinking and having a laugh, when the conversation turned to methadone. Jack said he knew where he could get some.

North West Evening Mail | News | Barrow dad killed by drink and drug cocktail

Zubick sentenced to four years for overdose death

 

Zubick sentenced to four years for overdose death

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By Winona Daily News staff | Posted: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:05 pm | No Comments Posted

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Douglas Bruce Zubick was sentenced to 48 months in prison for his role in the death of Jane Jay Christenson in 2008.

Sentence was handed down in Winona County District Court this afternoon.

Zubick, 47, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in August, admitting he gave methadone to Jane Jay Christensen, which created an unreasonable risk and contributed to her death.

As part of a plea deal, he agreed to spend four years in prison and cooperate in the prosecution of co-defendants Jeffrey Lee Frey, 48, and Harold Albert Skroch Jr., 45, in exchange for prosecutors dropping a third-degree murder murder charge. Zubick also pleaded guilty to five drug offenses, and three drug offenses were dismissed.

Sentences on the drug charges range from 39 months to a year and a day. All sentences will be served concurrently.

Christensen was found dead in February 2008 in an East End residence, apparently of an overdose of 100 milligrams of methadone, a drug commonly prescribed to recovering heroin addicts. Zubick admitted he gave Christensen liquid methadone in exchange for cleaning his apartment.

Zubick sentenced to four years for overdose death

'Blue Stonehenge' May Be Funeral Complex : Discovery News

 

'Blue Stonehenge' May Be Funeral Complex

Gregory Katz, Associated Press

Stonehenge | Discovery News Video

Oct. 7, 2009 -- The discovery of a small prehistoric circle of stones near Stonehenge may confirm the theory that the mysterious monument in southwest England was part of a massive funeral complex built around a river, researchers said Tuesday.

The new find shows that the second stone circle -- dubbed "Bluehenge" because it was built with bluestones -- once stood next to the River Avon about 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from Stonehenge, one of Britain's best loved and least understood landmarks.

The find last month could help prove that the Avon linked a "domain of the dead" -- made up of Stonehenge and Bluehenge -- with an upstream "domain of the living" known as Durrington Wells, a monument where extensive signs of feasting and other human activity were found, said Professor Julian Thomas, co-director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

Project director Mike Parker Pearson said it is possible that Bluehenge was the starting point of a processional walk that began at the river and ended at Stonehenge, the site of a large prehistoric cemetery.

"Not many people know that Stonehenge was Britain's largest burial ground at that time," he said. "Maybe the bluestone circle is where people were cremated before their ashes were buried at Stonehenge itself."

There were very few signs of human life found around Stonehenge and Bluehenge, researchers said, lending credence to the idea that it was used as a funeral site, especially since there were signs that many human beings were cremated there.

'Blue Stonehenge' May Be Funeral Complex : Discovery News

First Windows 7 Tweaks

I love a fast clean system that will focus all it's attention to the tasks I give it to perform. So I turn off or optimize all features that I don't need to run all the time. Here are the tweaks I start with. User Account Control When you are tweaking features you will be prompted to ALLOW access to almost everything you try to change. The following procedures step you through the tasks of turning off UAC, disabling Admin Approval Mode -thus disabling (most) prompting. Click "Start" and type "use" and select "User Accounts" then "Change User Account Control settings" and slide the bar to "Never notify" Turn off Windows Search Indexing It has a severe impact on system performance. (I think it will be removed in future versions of Windows because it beats a hard drive to death.) My hard drive finds anything I want in a few seconds without indexing. Click "Start" "Computer" (or winkey + e) and Click the C: Drive Then RIGHT click to get to Properties. On General Tab, Uncheck "Index this drive for faster searching" On the subsequent dialog box, Select Include subfolders and files Here is a tip for locating files: Since I'm usually trying to find "what is turning that program on" and it's usually a system file that has hidden and system attributes, the Windows search feature probably will not find it anyway. So I use this trick from the DOS age: Go to the command prompt and change to the root: cd\ Then run this command: attrib filename.ext /s The first time I run it, it takes about 20 seconds to search through every file name on my system and reply "file not found" but the next time it takes less than 3 seconds.... EVEN if I close the command prompt window and open it again later it only takes 3 seconds to locate any file. Only rebooting slows it down the first time it runs. Several Windows "features" are not needed and they hinder system performance. To disable these services, Click "Start" and type "fe" and select "Turn Windows Features on or off" These are the most unnecessary: Remote Differential Compression Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync) Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC) Terminal Services Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem) You can turn them all off EXCEPT "Windows Search" because that one will remove the search box that you type into when you click "Start" You may want to leave on the "Internet Explorer" and "Media Features" since they add extra features to those programs. Put the Axe to Scheduled Task Windows 7 has over 100 tasks scheduled. I turned ALL mine off because I will run them when I want them to run (like defrag, backup) and I'm not interested in sending Microsoft about 20 diffrent reports on a daily/hourly basis. You can look them over and decide for yourself. There is a brief description when you mouse-over them. Click "Start" and type "ta" and select "Task Scheduler Manager" go to Microsoft/Windows and right click and start disabling. There are tweaking utilities that make it easier by giving you boxes to uncheck... but the ones I have used don't show all the tasks that are listed by this method. Check this FREQUENTLY because this has become a very popular method for third party programs to secretly get loaded and run all the time. Install Ad-Aware and go to the Task Scheduler and see it checks for updates weekly. This service will be abused more and more as companies realize their products are being removed from the start menus. Turn off Hibernation Unless you are worried about your laptop battery going out while you are working on an important document and losing the data, Hibernation is a waste of disk space. It builds large files that slow down backup and cloning. To disable hibernation: Click "Start" and type "powercfg -h off" (without quotes) and when you press enter a screen with come up and disappear. Windows Defender - Too much defence - it wants too run often. Click "Start" and type and enter "def" and select "Windows Defender" click "Tools" "Options" and uncheck the box "Automatically Scan" It's easy to create a desktop shortcut and run it when you want it to run. Create a desktop shortcut to "\program files\windows defender\MSASCui.exe" and run it from time to time. It searches for malware and spyware, much like AdAware Turn off automatic Defragmenter Defragging every week or two is often enough, so run it manually when you are going to take a break. Click "Start" type "di" and select "Disk Defragmenter"and "Configure scheduler" and uncheck the "Run on schedule" box. A little more speed (yeah, I can never get enough) Click "Start" "Computer" "System Properties" "Advanced System Settings" and under Performance click "Settings" Then click "Custom" (under the Visual Effects tab) and uncheck all the boxes EXCEPT "Show window contents while dragging" "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Use drop shadows for icon labels" Reboot and Enjoy. Whew... this is enough for today. I should be getting paid for this! I'm writing this from my research notes and my personal experience setting up Windows 7 several times and running it for a few months... not copying and pasting from some webpage.

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TinEye Adds Reverse Image Lookup to Firefox [Downloads]

 

Last year we introduced you to TinEye, an image-based search engine that helps you find other instances of the image in question across the web. TinEye is now available as a Firefox plugin, making it much easier to use. For the unfamiliar, TinEye is a search tool that takes an image you give it and searches out other copies of that image online. In our original review of the service we used a picture of our own Gina Trapani for our test search. Check out the original article for a run down on the results. One of the inconveniences to using TinEye was that you had to grab the URL or a copy of the image you wanted to have TinEye scan for and then go visit the TinEye website. It seems a trivial detail, but in the age of right-click "Search Google for..." convenience, an add-on that places the TinEye search right into the right-click context menu is great for ease of use. A caveat that remains from our original test of TinEye is that it is surgically precise. The sample photo, seen in the screenshot above, is a picture of Christina Hendricks—from the television show Mad Men—attending the 2008 Emmy Awards. Photos of her from that award ceremony are all over the internet. When searching with TinEye, however, you are given the locations of the exact instances of that image, not images that are almost the same. The TinEye Firefox extension is free and works wherever Firefox does. If you have your own tips and tricks for image searches, let's hear about them in the comments. TinEye Firefox Extension [via Firefox Facts]

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Earliest hominid discovered - Yahoo! News Photos

 

Thu Oct 1, 6:36 PM ET

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This image provided by the journal Science shows the reconstructed frontal view of the skeleton 'Ardi.' The story of humankind is reaching back another million years with the discovery of 'Ardi,' a hominid who lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago. (AP Photo/Science, J.H. Matternes) NO SALES NO ARCHIVES, MUST USE BY OCT. 15, 2009

Earliest hominid discovered - Yahoo! News Photos

Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found - Yahoo! News

 

AP – This undated digitally rendered composite image provided by the journal Science shows the foot of the …

• Slideshow:Earliest hominid discovered

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Thu Oct 1, 6:33 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The story of humankind is reaching back another million years as scientists learn more about "Ardi," a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human ancestor.

This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.

"This is not that common ancestor, but it's the closest we have ever been able to come," said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a telephone interview.

Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found - Yahoo! News