» 2026-07-13
Ah Yes, That Crippled Irishman
I don't have a lot to say about UFC 329, as I did not watch the event. I rarely even watch the fights in .GIF or highlight video fashion anymore, the UFC has become such a revolting product that I would rather not get that stink on me.
Still, I was curious to see the outcome of Conor McGregor's purported return to MMA. I used to be a big Conor fan; I found his run from the Chad Mendes fight through to his dismantling of Eddie Alvarez to become a two-division champion very inspiring at the time. Then he revealed himself to be a unhinged cokehead and all-around detestable human being before making a fortune from a fight with Floyd Mayweather and selling his personal whiskey brand at peak value.
A little under a decade later and Conor's list of crimes is exhausting to recount, capped off by a recent finding of civil liability for raping Nikita Hand. Since capturing the lightweight title, he's lost a boxing match, got knocked out by Dustin Poirier, then shattered his leg rematching Poirier, pulled out of a prior fight due to a broken toe*, and lost his comeback fight in 69 seconds via injury.
When he's not doing crimes or embarrassing himself in competition, he's found time to foment racial hatred and xenophobia on social media. All told, he's a mess. His comeback fight was exactly the kind of disappointment you would expect from a 38 year-old who's spent the last decade in a drug-addled haze. Whether he came into the fight hiding a knee injury of some kind or is simply unlucky is moot, he's lost his aura and mystique.
I honestly have no idea why Conor even came back. If the vague rumours of financial issues are true, that would be remarkably sad. Like his former opponent, Floyd Mayweather, it's difficult to imagine someone who made hundreds of millions of dollars somehow mismanaging such a vast fortune...
I'm not sure what the future holds for Conor, and I largely do not care. From my vantage point, he has nothing left to offer fighting and may not even be physically capable of competing at a level to warrant his asking price.
* - this has always felt like a cover story for some other issue...
» 2026-07-01
The Flood
I'm post-dating this one, since I've been extremely busy as a result of the insane amount of rain we got over Canada Day (July 1st). My place handled things fairly well, although I did have some water leak into the house as a result of exterior renovations leaving some things exposed. That said, it was nothing like what happened to my parents' place.
At 3pm, I got a call that there was water leaking into my parents' basement. This wouldn't be the first time, as it's an older house. Not thinking much of it, I jumped in my car and headed over to help out. It was only when I got onto the highway that I realized just how bad the situation was. Two off-ramps were completely flooded out, with police blocking them for safety reasons. I ended up having to drive well past my intended exit and then loop around various other flooded roads — complete with cars floating in massive pools of water — just to get to my parents' place.
Obviously, I wasn't much help given the volume of water coming in. Then, the storm drains backed up and what started as maybe 3-4 inches of water quickly increased to several feet of water. It was really jarring to see the house I grew up in savaged by the elements like that. Luckily my brother was already there and rounded up what he could before flipping the breaker to the basement rooms — in hopes of avoiding any electrical problems as the water was quickly rising above outlets and appliances.
Pumps were useless against such an absurd volume of water, so we all just sat around wondering when the rain would stop. The answer was: not any time soon. By the time the ditches in the neighbourhood were overflowing, and water was almost spilling over their driveway, we decided I should try and get home. That was a fraught journey, as I had to take several detours to avoid more flooded-out roads. I was able to get back to my place, but the amount of water in front of my condo parking lot was more-than enough to flood the engine of my car, so I ended up parking on the curb and hoping for the best. My parking spot was utterly submerged anyway, so it was a good thing I didn't risk damaging my car to get into the lot anyway.
It took 24 hours for the water to start draining and the pumps to have any effect. The next 5 days consisted of not getting useful answers from insurance or my folks' HVAC provider. My brother and I ended up ripping out all of the carpets and dragging waterlogged, ruined furniture out of the house. There were quite a few family heirlooms and photos ruined, but it could have been much, much worse. I'll take a flood over a fire any day, although I'd really prefer to not have to make a choice like that.
We got most of the water out, any prevented any mold from growning, but the house is still in bad shape. The removal work isn't done — we're just waiting for professionals to come and strip the basement bare. There's also some extremely heavy, still waterlogged furniture that will need to be taken apart before it can be disposed of. I spent a week working 2 jobs, and I honestly do not know where I got the energy from — I'm just glad I could help my parents out of a bad situation.
A small bit of luck came in the form of rescuing some old photo albums and a significant number of very expensive Magic: The Gathering cards. The latter were all retrieved from binders inside of a bookcase that spent about 18 hours submerged. I do not profess to know the physics involved, but somehow all the really good 'money' cards were in the upper-left quadrant of their respective pages, and were bone dry. I was able to salvage some of the really saturated cards, but they're definitely just for personal use now.
The whole situation is going to take months to resolve, between repairs and cleanup, and replacing lost property. I've had my place flood before, and there have been minor incidents in the basement of my parents' house before, but nothing compared to this. It's incredible, how quickly the forces of nature can scour away a lifetime of memories.
» 2026-06-30
Monthly Release Round-up: June 2026
Summer is here and the released schedule is heating up significantly. We've got EPs, rap, weird ambient stuff, and of course: death metal.
Zao, Pillars EP
A short collection of 4 cover songs from bands Zao cite as major influences on their sound. Just enough to make me want a new full-length.
Blood Incantation, All Gates Open (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The soundtrack to a documentary about the process of writing and recording their last album. For fans of the band's synth-only Timewave Zero album.
Listen: Bandcamp
Devourment, Pious Impiety EP
A short, concise, and absolutely brutal 3-song EP from a freshly reactivated Devourment.
Listen: Bandcamp
Stormkeep, The Nocturnes Of Iswylm
This record straddles a fine line between satire and parody — with song titles like "Imperious Sanguine Eroticism" obviously taking the piss out of Dimmu Borgir — but does it really well, crafting bad-ass black metal that harkens back to Stormblåst.
Listen: Bandcamp
Salem Trials, Heavy Is The Head EP
Another EP from my favourite local deathcore band. I have some minor nitpicks about the vocal production, but these songs groove hard and sound great live.
Listen: Bandcamp
MONO, Snowdrop
Instrumental shoegaze that really reminds me of Violet Cold's Sommermorgen trilogy. The piano and string passages lend a lot of emotional weight to a record with no vocals.
Listen: Bandcamp
Vince Staples, Cry Baby
A strong follow-up to Dark Times. I like the inclusion of guitar on several songs, and the more upbeat feel to the material. Not sure where this ranks with Staples' other work, but it's an album I keep coming back to.
Listen: Bandcamp
MAKE, Exegesis At The End Of Time
A crushing mix of death, doom and thrash metal. I've enjoyed the band's work since Pilgrimage of Loathing and shows continued improvement as song writers and even includes some clean vocals.
Listen: Bandcamp
Fleshcrawl, Epitome Of Carnage
Another solid death metal record from a reliably releasing brutal music for 35 years.
Listen: Spotify
Khemmis, Khemmis
They're classified as doom metal, which I is mostly accurate — save for a few vocal parts that felt very reminiscent of power metal.
Listen: Bandcamp
Genghis Tron, Signal Fire
After recently reuiniting, Genghis Tron are back with an album that leans more heavily on the eletronic elements than ever. Not sure exactly how I feel about the new material, but it didn't put me off immediately.
Listen: Bandcamp
Cyhra, Requiem For A Pipe Dream
Melodic metal for folks who may think In Flames is a little too spicy.
Listen: Spotify
Converge, Hum Of Hurt
The companion to Love is not Enough hits hard and complimenets the previous record very well. I'm glad it was released as individual albums, so you don't miss a lot of good songs in one massive track list.
Listen: Bandcamp
August Burns Red, Season Of Surrender
Top-shelf metalcore, exactly the way I like it. Big, chunky riffs and headbanging choruses.
Listen: Bandcamp
Boards Of Canada, Inferno
As someone who has listened to The Campfire Headphase fairly regularly for over 20 years, I don't know where this album slots in with everything else they've done. The production, however, is incredible; if nothing else, sonically this album is an amazing achievement.
Listen: Bandcamp
Nunslaughter, Satanic Chaos Legions
Absurd, cartoonish, over-the-top death / thrash metal. Fun album.
Listen: Spotify
Astriferous, Atavistic Unraveling
Brutal death metal from Costa Rica, with a sound heavily influenced by the 90s / 2000s Scandinavian metal scene.
Listen: Bandcamp
» 2026-06-24
Truckfighters - Masterflow
It has been a long, long time since I've paid very close attention to the stoner rock genre. For as much as I'm constantly listening to new death and black metal bands, I'm pretty sure my list of favourite stoner rock / metal albums hasn't changed since I graduated college in 2005.
An old co-worker recommended Truckfighters to me years ago, but I never actually followed through. When Masterflow dropped in the middle of an album release drought, I decided to heed what I felt was a sign. As often happens in my music-listening journey, I very quickly felt like an idiot for sleeping on this band.
This album is exactly the right blend of Kyuss and Dozer that I needed. The guitars are thick and fuzzy, and the riffs — my god, the riffs — are catchy as hell. I've already lost track of how many times I've listened to this album in its entirety; safe to say, Masterflow will be on my Albums Of The Year list.
» 2026-06-23
Dustin Poirier's Bad Day
While I have been mostly checked-out of the modern MMA scene, Dustin Poirier is one of a select few fighters I have always liked and considered a somewhat rare example of a decent human being in a sport *cough* notorious for unsavoury characters. As such, recent news that he was arrested for public drunkenness at an Atlanta airport — on Father's Day, no less — was a little dispiriting.
It's a very common story; a former professional fighter — without the structure and purpose of fight camps — having difficulties adapting to 'civilian' life, develops a substance abuse problem. After ~20 years as a die-hard MMA fan, the number of fighters I've seen gracefully retire is vanishingly small. GSP and Kole Konrad are the only ones to compete at the highest levels who come to mind. And neither of them spent 2 decades of their life fighting, unlike Poirier...
Having to change your entire lifestyle at the age of 37 has to be challenging. Without the pursuit of fighting to focus on, it's possible for other personal issues to surface and / or grow in severity. There's also the physical toll of fighting for a living; chronic pain and an increased risk for cognitive issues. This is the reality for a lot of fighters — regardless of their success — and an aspect of fight fandom that has bothered me more and more as the years pass.
To his credit, Poirier has expressed that he needs help with his problems. I don't know the man at all, but his public profile has always been positive and I truly enjoyed following his career in the UFC. Even at my most jaded and cynical, I would still like to believe that Good Guys can exist in the seedy world of professional violence. Hopefully this is just a brief lapse rather than a sign of worse things to come. (I wouldn't put the odds better than 50/50, however.)