Just posted a couple of new reviews over at the 'Wharf-- two PlayStation 5 games, "Astro Bot" and "Monster Hunter Wilds". I haven't been reviewing many games because I haven't been playing many games-- funny how that works!

Had one of those awful nights where I woke up about fifty times, and basically didn't sleep after 3:00am. I'm essentially non-functional today-- just loosely monitoring work messages, but otherwise incapable of setting my mind to accomplishing anything productive. Also unable to take a nap, because... I can't nap. Sleep is one of those magical things where it only happens to me when conditions are just so. It's very tenuous and unstable.

My favorite metal album of all time is Yngwie Malmsteen's "Rising Force", which you can listen to here. For the first time in a while I gave it a listen this morning, while exercising. I love everything about it-- the musicmanship, the song writing... I even love its imperfections.

I have a co-worker who is a former classical guitarist, and who was quite technical himself in his prime, able to play stuff like this, which is extremely impressive. I was talking to him once and he criticized Yngwie as being "sloppy"-- but to me it sounds wild and out of control. To me Jimi Hendrix has the same sound and vibe going on. Go look up Yngwie Malmsteen live in the 80s on YouTube-- he was quite literally karate kicking and throwing his guitar around himself right in the middle of solos. He wasn't aiming for laser precision.

There's even a term for that in art, which I can't recall at the moment-- it describes human imperfections as making the art better. A band I used to listen to way back in high school, called "Fear Factory", used a drum machine to record the double bass for their album "Demanufacture"-- it was literally computer-level perfect. But they realized it was missing the human aspect, so for their next album, "Obsolete", they just had their drum player perform it himself in studio. The album received great praise from punditry compared to its predecessor as a result of that change. "Obsolete" was less perfect-- but better.

In any event, I might go eat an early lunch-- I'm super hungry-- then try to accomplish even just a little work-related stuff, if I can get my brain to even remotely focus. I might also try eating dinner right before going to bed; some people online suggest that plummeting blood sugar levels can cause persistent waking very early in the morning.