The Cynic Says……

I’m seriously considering upgrading my computer now that I’ve gotten a fat pay raise at work. While I’d really really love to ditch my Athlon64 setup and go with one of the new Core2 Duo CPU’s from Intel, I really don’t feel like dumping that much money into a CPU, motherboard and RAM. I can upgrade to an Athlon64 X2 4800+ for just over $300 and I could probably upgrade to 2GB of RAM for another couple hundred bucks. Then I could sell my existing gig of RAM to make back some of the cash. Problem is, all the new CPU’s and chipsets are going to be using DDR2 so I’m not sure I want to pour that much money into an architecture that AMD isn’t going to be supporting much longer. I don’t even think they have anymore Socket 939 chipsets coming out in the near future since everything recently has been based around their new “AM2″ socket. I could upgrade to that but again, I’d need new RAM, CPU and motherboard. At that point, I might as well switch over to Intel seeing as how they’re absolutely killing AMD in nearly every area except price. Heck, for the first time in years they even run cooler and use less power than a comparable AMD chip. Score one for Intel finally! As such, while I’d like to dump a grand in upgrades for my PC, I just can’t justify it. I’m really not going to see a grand worth of performance increases if I upgrade so I’ll probably just stick to going with a Socket 939 dual core CPU and maybe a couple new hard drives or something. Who knows.

I’ve found a concert coming up in Atlanta that I can’t miss, period. Three Days Grace, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, Crossfade & Hinder are all playing at the Hi-Fi Buys Pavillion in Atlanta, GA on Sept 30th. Oddly, the concert starts @ 4:30pm so we’ll actually be able to drive down and back the same day. The only band of the bunch that I’m not so fond of is Hinder but given the other bands in the lineup, I’ll deal with a little bit of dude rock to get a chance to see the other bands in question. I’m not sure who my girlfriend and I are going to go with but we’re going even if we have to rent a car and drive down by our damn selves. However, I think one of my friends from work wants to go and he owns a minivan so we may just ride with him. Either way, we’re not missing this show.

As it stands, both Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin have put out their best stuff by far this year. Three Days Grace’s new CD One-X is quite possibly my favorite rock CD released in recent memory. From beginning to end, there’s not a single song on there that is worth skipping. The first single, Animal I Have Become is a pretty good song, but by no means the best song on the CD. Out of the 12 songs on the CD my favorite song has to be Over and Over with Never too Late coming a very close second. I’d give it a solid 9 out of 10 rating. If you’re one of those people that actually still listens to and owns CD’s, by all means buy it. If not, stick it on your ipod via iTunes or your non-Apple MP3 player via Rhapsody, Napster, Urge, etc.

Breaking Benjamin also just recently released a new CD called Phobia. This just so happens to be what I’ve been listening to on my mp3 player the past few days. I can honestly say I’m quite impressed with how far they’ve progressed from their last CD. Don’t get me wrong We Are Not Alone was pretty good in its own right. It’s just that when they tried to slow things down and get all emotional and stuff it seemed a bit weak and somewhat uncomfortable. The new CD is quite a bit better in that respect. While it still rocks out for the most part, the slow songs are every bit as good as the harder ones, which makes for a much more satisfying listen from end-to-end. Again, it’s another CD that I don’t see any songs worth skipping except for the pointless intro and outro. Dance With The Devil and Here We Are are the most satisfying songs on the CD in my personal opinion. One notable addition to the CD is keyboards & pianos. I’ve always been a big fan of hard rock bands using instruments besides guitars and drums. They haven’t gotten to the point of using strings yet, but it’s still a nice progression for the band. Definitely worth a listen, though not quite as high on my chart as the new Three Days Grace CD. I’d give it a 7.5 out of 10. Worth buying for sure, though.

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