Man, symphonic metal is just really awesome. Nocturnal Rites is making me so happy right now. Derek gave me an mp3 player for a late Christmas present, and I think I need a lot more symphonic metal on it.
Since Ricky says he wants to hear nothing about Mika, I have abstained from posting anything about the second concert of his I went to. I hope you are pleased, Ricky!!
The coolest thing about being subscribed to Neil Gaiman's lj feed is reading about his frustrations and experiences with the writing process. Following his struggle with a difficult chapter, alternately posting a whole bunch as a way of procrastinating and not posting at all because he feels he Should Be Writing But Is Not, complaining about being stuck on the same part for days when he thought he'd be on the next chapter already, etc etc... it's just really great to see that he has all the same issues that you do.
And of course you hear about other authors complaining about the same thing, but reading about it in real-time is different.
Another cool thing, however, are the websites Mr. Gaiman posts. Here is
a really interesting one where a Korean photographer recreates children's drawings. His photos are gorgeous.