some time ago, i wrote a small plugin which logs the most recent user activity (for users having an account) and presents them sorted by their last access to the admins. the plugin only stores timestamps, and refrains from doing so while the user is in the admin area. users not logged in are ignored.
i’ve now polished it up, i.e. made the output a bit more fancy. in case someone else is interested in this as well, i decided to put it online. you can download it here if you are interested. to install it, just extract the zip archive into your wordpress plugin directory.
be warned: i don’t take any responsibility for the use of this plugin. do with it whatever you want. if it breaks your system, that’s your problem. especially if you have many user accounts, make sure you understand what the plugin is doing before trying it out.

this is the end of my project, the my favorite music video series. this series contained 35 videos from various bands in various genres. i hope you enjoyed it! and maybe even found something you like which you didn’t knew before!
anyway. feel free to post a short list of videos / tunes you liked most of these, and which surprised you most :)

the thirtyfifth video is i am the city by abba. the lyrics can be found here.

this is pop. you can listen to it.

(this is an unofficial video.)

i like it because… it’s a really nice song.

today i did a walk outside, enjoying the beautiful snowscape with a litte bit of sun.

the thirtyforth video is besides you in time by nine inch nails. i just love this song. the lyrics can be found here.

this is industrial rock. you might like it.

(the sound quality at the end is very bad due to clipping. here‘s a studio version which sounds much better.)

i like it because… it is intense, heavy, catchy. it makes me feel better, feeling less alone. similar to enslaved‘s ascension.

tuesday night, i attended a concert by the chilenian progressive doom metal band mar de grises, the islandic viking metal band sólstafir, and the finnish death doom metal band swallow the sun, held in the matrix in bochum. i went to this for two reasons: first, to see swallow the sun another time; last time i saw them was last year before christmas in leipzig. the second reason is mar de grises. i was really glad to finally have a chance to see them.
i arrived slightly late, due to bad weather, which was no problem since the concert was opened by two local bands i didn’t really wanted to see. the first one seemed to be a doom band, and i didn’t really like the second band’s music style. they both were ok, but i would have rather not seen them and heard mar de grises playing longer ;-) both opening bands were pretty much ok though, compared to many other openers i’ve seen so far…
while the openers were playing, i checked out the merchandizing booth. there was nothing new of interest in the swallow the sun section, so i inspected the mar de grises section. they had a special edition of draining the waterheart (including a 16 minute bonus track called unconscious passenger), the new album, some t-shirts, and two albums from other chilenian bands, one of them a funeral doom band called lethargy of death, a project of one of the band members. i bought the digipack, the new album, the lethargy of death album as well as the last available unconscious passenger t-shirt. some money invested well, i hoped. (and so far, i’m right about this :-) )
after the two openers, mar de grises started playing for 45 minutes. i was in the front row, which was no problem since the location wasn’t exactly stuffed, and nobody tried to be at the very front. in fact, i was like two meters away from the stage. unfortunately, the audio quality was really bad. i don’t know whose fault this was, if it was the mixing, the location, or whatever, but it was just bad. i was happy that i knew many of the songs they played, so i knew what it was supposed to sound like, so it was more a problem for sólstafir, since i heard them the first time…
well. despite the poor sound quality, mar de grises‘ performance was great. i really like this band. following mar de grises, sólstafir entered the stage. at that point, i wasn’t feeling very well, thanks to all the fucking bastards smoking inside the location. you can’t really enjoy a concert with itching eyes and having a headache. i really miss the nonsmoker protection laws i experienced in canada and other parts of europe…
i didn’t like sólstafir‘s performance too much, but i’m not sure whether this is just related to the horrible air and the awful sound quality, or if it’s their music. some time ago i listened to a couple of songs of them, and i don’t remember being disappointed back then. so maybe i have to give them another try…
finally, swallow the sun started playing. they played songs from all over their albums, which was really nice. some of my favorites, such as the giant, were played as well!
unfortunately, it seemed that the crowd got thinner and thinner. when they went off the stage before the encore, luckily enough people were still there to make some noise. they came back pretty fast, before the people started making noise and launching an awkward silence. they played descending winters, and after that the concert was over.
well. if the sound and air quality would have been better, this concert would have been really great. but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case… (but that’s not the bands’ fault…)

the thirtythird video is alle gegen alle by the nsk band laibach. it is actually a cover of a deutsch-amerikanische freundschaft song, which you can find here. the lyrics can be found here.

this is martial industrial music. don’t get it wrong.

i like it because… it is a very strange and fascinating piece of art. provoking. ambiguous. mesmerizing.
the original by d.a.f. is different, but i also like it, at least when combined with the video.

the thirtysecond video is teardrop by massive attack. the lyrics can be found here.

this is trip hop. you can try it.

edit: this also cannot be embedded. the video can be seen here. here’s the song without video:

i like it because… it is another earworm from my youth. i just like this plain, repetetive song with this cute melody. its perfect for dreaming…

the thirtyfirst session actually consists of three videos, excerpts of the concept album yeah! yeah! die! die! a death metal symphony in deep c by waltari. this album combines mainly classic with death metal, and also a lot of other styles. it’s almost one hour of music. here are three excerpts.

the first part is mainly death metal vs. classic.

the lyrics for this part can be found here.

the second part is mostly techno with classic and metal.

the lyrics for this part can be found here.

the third part is mostly rap with classic and metal.

the lyrics for this part can be found here.

i like it because… it is such a creative, great blend of various music styles into one big symphony.

the thirtyth video is raven land by lake of tears. the lyrics can be found here.

this is gothic/doom metal. you might like it if you like metal.

i like it because… it somehow managed to become an earworm of mine back then when i listened to the headstone album the first time. it’s really hard to say much about this. one thing i like in particular is its ending. don’t ask me why, i just really like it without being able to describe it.