Salutations, my splendid sidekicks! *^^*

Today is a very exciting day here at mallorymaloney.com, 'cause for the first time in an extremely long time, I've added a brand new page to the Downloads section! ^w^

And I'm not talking about some shoddy addition like the now expunged Printable Colouring Pictures page, oh no. This new page contains something that mallorymaloney.com's visitors will actually find use for. o_O; It's a little page I've cleverly entitled ... PhotoShop Brushes! ^o^ W00t!

It's actually a little sad how excited I am about the launch of this page, haha. ^^; What's even sadder is that I never attempted to make even a single brush in the past, assuming that it was something only the most seasoned professionals should attempt ... Similar to heli skiing or bull running or attempting to make a batch of cookies without eating any of the batter. In short, I figured it was flat out impossible for me to ever learn how to make brushes.

Imagine my surprise when I found out it was as easy as opening an image in PhotoShop, clicking the 'Edit' menu, and then simply selecting the 'Define Brush' preset.

Yeah.

That's it.

A window will then pop up asking you to name your brush. After that, you simply click OK, and your brush'll show up at the very bottom of the brush pallette, where all the rest of your brushes are. It's unbelievable how fucking easy it is --- And equally unbelievable is the fact I never attempted until now! -_-;

But I attempted to balance out my patheticousity by creating six --- Count 'em! --- Six quality brush sets all within the first few days of learning how to. ^o^ So be sure to click here to visit the new page and check 'em out --- And don't forget to let me know what you think!

I also updated the Affiliates page with one new Affie --- Crash! She's got quite an interesting blog, so be sure to visit her site and read it for yourself! ^_~

And my Wishlist page got a fairly large update ... Mainly because my parents asked me to write a list of things I'd like for Christmas, hehe. ^^; I know, I know, I'm such a child. @_@; But in this case, it's a good thing, 'cause it means I'll get awesome presents. So just STFU. =_=

Ooh! Continuing on that 'awesome presents' vein, look what I got in the mail the other day from my good friend and Affiliate Kayleigh ... It's a special Green Day issue of the United Kingdom music magazine Kerrang!

And when I say that it's a Green Day issue, I mean it's purely a Green Day issue. There's nothing in this baby but Green Day, Green Day, and more Green Day! It's pretty much the best magazine issue ever ... And Kayleigh's pretty much the coolest friend ever for sending it to me! ^_~ ((Thank you again, m'dear! ^x^))

And that's not all! Kayleigh and her friend Mo recently made me a video fansign! You guys absolutely have to watch it, as it's filled with adorability ... Not to mention chuckaliciousness! ^o^ Just click the thumbnail below, and it'll take you to the video, which Kayleigh uploaded to her YouTube account.

And if you didn't bother watching it, well, just know that you're missing out on a fuckload of win, m'friend. Which reminds me ... The same thing goes for the Canadian drama 'The Listener'.

This show first came out at the beginning of this summer on CTV in Canada, and on NBC in America. When I saw the promos on TV for the show, I was seriously intrigued, and the first thing I thought was, 'I gotta watch this show when it premieres!'

However, I'm horrible when it comes to remembering what time shows are on, and whenever I do remember, I think to myself, 'Fuck it. I do not want to sit through twenty minutes of commercials spaced out between sliced up bits of a forty minute show,' so I actually never ended up watching the show's premiere ... Or any of the episodes after that, aside from one evening when I accidentally caught the end of a random episode.

After that, though, I was really hooked, and a few nights later, I found out that the entire first season of The Listener was uploaded on YouTube. That really sealed the deal for me --- 'Cause hello, no commercials! --- And so I immediately started watching all thirteen episodes one by one.

The show focuses around the life of the main character, Toby Logan, who works as a paramedic in the heart of downtown Toronto. Granted, this doesn't sound too compelling as is, but when you add in the fact that Toby can read people's minds, it gives the show quite an interesting twist!

And I mustn't forget to add that Craig Olejnik, the Canadian actor who plays Toby Logan, is easily one of the most incredibly beautiful people on the face of this Earth. I swear to fuckin' Satan, this man is drop dead gorgeous. If you need more than my word, then go and watch the first episode or two on YouTube --- Or at least take a look at these screenshots for proof!

See what I mean?! Needless to say, The Listener has very quickly become one of my most favourite television shows. And not just because of Mr Olejnik and his orgasm worthy eyes, either. >_>; Everything about the show is stellar. The acting, the cinematography, the background music, the storylines, even the colouring of certain scenes ... It's all incredible.

Which is why it stunned me when I learnt that NBC had dropped the show from their entire schedule halfway through the first season because they weren't picking up enough viewers --- And then imagine how shocked I was to further learn that they filled The Listener's previous time slot with Law And Order reruns! Thankfully, it was CTV's show from the beginning, so they continued to play the rest of the season here in Canada ... But fans in America were pretty much left in the dust!

It's fuckin' disgusting, when you really think about it. Nothing exists purely for entertainment or enjoyment or fun anymore ... In the end, some way, somehow, it's always about the money. Television shows, magazines, books, movies, mainstream music: The only reason any of these things even exist is because some corporation wants more dough. It's repulsive.

Fuck, even YouTube has started placing fifteen to twenty five second commercials at the beginning of certain videos --- Commercials that you are unable to skip past, unless you prefer to simply close the entire window and not bother watching the video at all. Which, of course, leaves you as the viewer between a rock and a hard place.

But that's enough discussion about multi million/billion/trillion/septendecillion dollar corporation bullshit. o_O There's two more things I want to talk about before I end this entry --- The first thing being Blue October's song Drilled A Wire Through My Cheek!

I've become insanely obsessed with the song over the last few days. I've had it in my music library for well over a year, as it was included in the Saw III soundtrack album I got around that time, but I never really bothered with it until I recently looked up the lyrics ... And that's when I started obsessing over it.

Click here if you'd like to listen to it yourself over on YouTube, and then check out the lyrics below. The lines I like the best are in bold/italic! ((I'm also a massive fan of the chorus, but I didn't want to bold/italic it every single time it was repeated. o_O))

I try to stay on top of you
To hold your body down
Your shaking seems to hinder
Every grasp that I have found
Moving every inch around you
To diffuse your private bomb
I stretch myself, surrounding
And protecting you from harm

I use a wallet for your mouth
So when you bite, you will not bleed
I drilled a wire through my cheek
And let it down and out my sleeve
And now you're pulling out the best of me
Yeah, which never ever comes
This wire's all that's left of me
And it's hooked within my gums
Within my gums

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
It's okay now

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
You've got to pay now

I hate to show I'd bleed for this
I'd cut myself to shame
To get to know this masochist
Who's stolen my first name
Pretending he's a teacher
Holding all my weight at ease
But the teacher seems to split in two
Destroying both his knees

And now crawling, I position myself
Below your broken wings
I lift your feathered left arm
Where you hide your heart from me
I never noticed it was swollen
With a touch of brutal pain
I never knew a heart could live inside
The rust from all your rain
All your rain

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
It's okay now

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
You've got to pay now

I didn't think to bring a washcloth
Or to rub away the dirt
Myself and I we share
This barely beating heart of hurt
And when the hurt comes, there's an argument
A fight to save a smile
A small attack on human tears
To dry them for a while

A dream we all should count on
Yeah, a vision I believe
Where confidence is found
Attached to wires on our sleeve
And where loneliness is history
Told to pack its shit and leave
And when guidance is a fortune
Told to help in time of need
And where crying isn't secret
It's the art of how we grieve
And lessons are the key
To every goal I will achieve
I will achieve

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
It's okay now

So drill it, so drill it
So hard I feel it
You've got to pay now

So drill it, so drill it
((So hard))
It's okay now

So drill it, so drill it
((So hard))
You've got to pay now

Now how great are those lyrics?! They're almost up to par with the amazingness of Green Day lyrics, and I nearly creamed myself with excitement at this thought, thinking that I might have found myself a second favourite band.

... Which, BTW, would've been rather delightful to tell people. I mean, just think about how much awesome this sentence contains: 'My favourite bands are Green Day and Blue October.' If I wanted to make it even better, I could even add a few fake bands onto the list, like 'Crimson Evening', or 'Purple Weekend', and then kaboom! O_O An explosion of über awesome!

But unfortunately, such a thing never came to be. After listening to eight or ten of Blue October's other songs, I quickly came to realise that all of them sucked.

And I'm actually serious here --- They all sounded totally boring in comparison to Drilled A Wire Through My Cheek. In fact, most of the tracks I listened to actually had an almost 'easy listening' vibe to them! I had been hoping for even more mildly disturbing lyrics and amazing guitar riffs, but instead I got lyrics that seemed like a twelve year old wrote them for his LiveJournal, and guitar riffs that could pass for background music in a Sears department store.

So I'd like to take a moment here to tell Blue October that they need to stuff the pansy soft rock shit back where it came from --- Up their asses --- And instead grunt out more tracks like Drilled A Wire Through My Cheek. Simply because this is my preference in music, and if more bands made music that I personally liked, then the world would be a better place ... For me. ^_^

Now that we've all agreed my music taste is king, it's time for the second thing I wanted to discuss --- An event that happened today on good ol' Twitter!

I was messing around in between typing up this Updates/Blog entry, listening to Hydrovibe's song Killer Inside, ((Which is actually featured in the Saw III Soundtrack along with Drilled A Wire Through My Cheek, and which has actually been a favourite of mine since I first heard it, and which you can simultaneously listen to/watch the music video by clicking here,)) Whilst violently headbanging around my room. When I sat back down to finish said entry, I realised I had headbanged with just a touch too much enthusiasm --- Because my neck suddenly felt similar to how one's neck would feel after a failed self hanging attempt. In other words, very sore.

However, I saw the possible humour in this, and decided to post a Tweet about my highly uncool injury ... And about an hour or so later I saw that someone had @replied twice to my Tweet. That someone was none other than the motherfucking lead singer of Hydrovibe herself, Heather St Marie! O_O;

I'll admit that at first, I didn't actually believe it was Heather herself at all, as her account isn't verified --- But after visiting Hydrovibe's official site and finding the link to the same Twitter account scattered about on various pages, well, then I had to attempt not to hyperventilate.

While I focused on breathing in a normal fashion, I quickly typed up an @reply of my own, which Heather @replied to for a third time, which I @replied to yet again, and which Heather @replied to a fourth time! O_O;

Sweet Satan! *_* I'm still quite shocked that this happened at all, so for once I'm actually at a loss for words here. I can say, though, that this past week has been one of the most fantastic weeks in Mallory History, hands down. *^^*

Now go make it even more fantastic by leaving me an extravagant amount of adoring comments!

PS: That's an order. =_=