As of lately, I've been increasingly finding myself doing air drums to Iron Maiden songs. The obvious conclusion I've reached in less than a couple of minutes and I guess you will agree, is that in a previous incarnation I was a drummer playing in a Maiden cover band. This also means that I've been having so much fun listening to these mammoths of heavy metal, even if I'm twenty years or so too late. As it is, I've decided to have a stab at compiling my current Iron Maiden Best Of compilation tape. I had lots of fun with this earlier today and, for what it's worth, here's the playlist I've arrived at:

1. The Ides of March
2. Wrathchild
3. Where Eagles Dare
4. Revelations
5. The Trooper
6. Remember Tomorrow
7. Children of the Damned
8. Aces High
9. The Wicker Man
10. Ghost of the Navigator
11. Phantom of the Opera
12. The Number of the Beast
13. Hallowed Be Thy Name
14. Fear of the Dark
15. Iron Maiden

It's designed to fit in a CD so it clocks in at roughly 77 minutes and obviously leaves out a huge list of amazing tracks.

By doing this I've reached a few conclusions and learnt a bit more about myself, music wise. First, it's obvious that this compilation reflects my current taste and degree of knowledge concerning Maiden's catalogue. The fact that I got hooked into them during the current tour where they're only playing songs from the first four albums (the Eddie Rips Up Europe tour) has played a very important role in this compilation and that's probably why you see songs like "Where Eagles Dare", "Revelations", "Remember Tomorrow" or "Wrathchild". On the other hand, there are a few which are absolutely mandatory: "Phantom of the Opera", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "The Trooper" or even "Fear of the Dark". Finally, it became obvious that the really hard thing is to pick up any 15 songs from the band's catalogue and arriving with a weak best of. It's all just so good. Up the irons!

On another front, one thing that's always disgusted me are employers who judge potential employees primarily by their grades at University. For me this is just plain stupid and wrong. What should really matter, if we are to build a great future for our species and actually think about evolving strongly and confidently, is the motivation and sheer brilliance of everyone involved. That said, it's good and refreshing to see companies like the renewed Novell, who's taking a huge interest in the open source movement - coincidence? - looking out for people who've done "cool" things and are motivated to hack on interest projects, of which the Hula project is definitely an instance. From Nat's journal entry today:

"If you think you're a hot-shot Ajax/DHTML developer, and you also think of yourself as a hacker, then we're interested in talking to you.

New hires into the Hula team will pitch in on the calendar interface, and help us write a web mail interface to rival GMail. If you're interested, drop me a line. Include something cool you've done to get the conversation started."


This is the spirit I identify myself with. Hopefully one of these days I'll be in a position where I can apply for these nifty jobs.