Floating Leaf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
floatingleaf) wrote2009-07-25 11:44 pm
floatingleaf) wrote2009-07-25 11:44 pm
Entry tags:
manna from heaven :)
I know I'm probably the last one to have discovered this, but in case you're broke - or very nearly so, like yours truly - and still can't resist the urge to expand your music/movie/book etc. collection, you can actually do it for free. Just download a cute little program called uTorrent. Then go to a lovely website called http://thepiratebay.org/, and type whatever you're looking for into the search box. Chances are you will find it. It's a Mecca for the penniless, I tell you. I can't believe my friend never told me about it until now (she's been using it for years). She probably didn't realize I was still in the dark, lol. Anyway - this is a blessing, because a large part of my music collection still exists solely on tapes, and tapes certainly do not last forever (especially if you tend to keep them in the car in extreme weather conditions ;). And replacing them all with CD's is well beyond my budget at the moment. Besides, some of the stuff can't even be found on the paid download sites - I know, because I looked for it. So imagine my surprise when I checked The Pirate Bay and there it was. Some kind soul had it and decided to share. I just downloaded two full albums by Helium Vola, an electro-medieval band from Germany that I couldn't find anywhere except on YouTube (they were founded by the same guy who started another band I love - Qntal - and is still the chief composer for Deine Lakaien). Next I'm planning to 'digitize' Enya's discography, most of which I had purchased long ago on tapes (nearly destroyed by now, lol). I would still prefer to get the CD's with the lovely artwork and all - but life is life, and I probably already spent more money on CD's than an average person. Now is not the time. So thank the gods for free torrents.:)
I haven't tried downloading videos or movies yet, since I'm not sure there's enough space left on my hard drive; besides, Comcast (my ISP) is supposedly charging extra fees for excessive downloads these days. But I just unexpectedly found something I wasn't even looking for - at least not on Pirate Bay. There is a comic series I used to love in my late teens & early twenties back in Poland - in fact, I still love it, though maybe not as passionately as before.;) It's called Thorgal. It started coming out in the eighties, and is still going. I sort of lost track of it in recent years, but I used to have all the early volumes and most of the later ones. I still have some of them, but many have been lost (thanks mainly to my sister, who also loved reading it, but who just tends to sooner ot later lose everything she puts her hands on, lol). Plus, I've never seen the latest five. Anyway, long story short, I am currently downloading the full series (except for the few volumes I still have) from The Pirate Bay as a PDF file (!!!). Someone zipped it up into one giant e-Book with all 31 volumes in it. *blinks in amazement* And it's FREE. It also happens to be in Polish (no surprise, since the artist who draws Thorgal is Polish, though he lives in Belgium; but the writer is Belgian, and I think it's easier to find those comics in French than in any other language - though I've seen a few volumes in English, German or Spanish on Amazon). I still can't get over it - and I bet my sister will be thrilled as well.:)
Just to give you a vague idea what the series is about - Thorgal is the only survivor from a spaceship that crashes on the shores of Scandinavia somewhere around the 7th century A.D., and he is then found and raised by the Vikings (who of course give him a suitably Nordic name :). So at first you have a strange mixture of Norse mythology and sci-fi - and then other popular themes/cultural influences etc. come into play as the story develops. There are plenty of Tolkienesque elements - in fact, some of the characters could have been directly inspired by LOTR (which I am only beginning to realize, since I hadn't read Tolkien when I first discovered those comics). Thorgal himself looks - and acts - a damn lot like Aragorn (now you're all going to laugh, but when I first saw Viggo in FOTR, I couldn't help thinking what a perfect Thorgal he would make if they ever filmed the series... lol). There is adventure, romance, drama, suspense and magic (no slash, unfortunately, but you can't have everything, can you?...;). The art is very realistic (which I always appreciate in comics), the characters colorful, and the plot twists defy imagination (in a good way). What's not to love?
Anyway - here's an image that appears on the back cover of some of the early volumes: Thorgal and his one and only love, the Viking princess Aaricia.:)
And now I really MUST go to bed, before I manage to actually see the sunrise for the first time in my long existence.;) *face hits keyboard*
I haven't tried downloading videos or movies yet, since I'm not sure there's enough space left on my hard drive; besides, Comcast (my ISP) is supposedly charging extra fees for excessive downloads these days. But I just unexpectedly found something I wasn't even looking for - at least not on Pirate Bay. There is a comic series I used to love in my late teens & early twenties back in Poland - in fact, I still love it, though maybe not as passionately as before.;) It's called Thorgal. It started coming out in the eighties, and is still going. I sort of lost track of it in recent years, but I used to have all the early volumes and most of the later ones. I still have some of them, but many have been lost (thanks mainly to my sister, who also loved reading it, but who just tends to sooner ot later lose everything she puts her hands on, lol). Plus, I've never seen the latest five. Anyway, long story short, I am currently downloading the full series (except for the few volumes I still have) from The Pirate Bay as a PDF file (!!!). Someone zipped it up into one giant e-Book with all 31 volumes in it. *blinks in amazement* And it's FREE. It also happens to be in Polish (no surprise, since the artist who draws Thorgal is Polish, though he lives in Belgium; but the writer is Belgian, and I think it's easier to find those comics in French than in any other language - though I've seen a few volumes in English, German or Spanish on Amazon). I still can't get over it - and I bet my sister will be thrilled as well.:)
Just to give you a vague idea what the series is about - Thorgal is the only survivor from a spaceship that crashes on the shores of Scandinavia somewhere around the 7th century A.D., and he is then found and raised by the Vikings (who of course give him a suitably Nordic name :). So at first you have a strange mixture of Norse mythology and sci-fi - and then other popular themes/cultural influences etc. come into play as the story develops. There are plenty of Tolkienesque elements - in fact, some of the characters could have been directly inspired by LOTR (which I am only beginning to realize, since I hadn't read Tolkien when I first discovered those comics). Thorgal himself looks - and acts - a damn lot like Aragorn (now you're all going to laugh, but when I first saw Viggo in FOTR, I couldn't help thinking what a perfect Thorgal he would make if they ever filmed the series... lol). There is adventure, romance, drama, suspense and magic (no slash, unfortunately, but you can't have everything, can you?...;). The art is very realistic (which I always appreciate in comics), the characters colorful, and the plot twists defy imagination (in a good way). What's not to love?
Anyway - here's an image that appears on the back cover of some of the early volumes: Thorgal and his one and only love, the Viking princess Aaricia.:)
And now I really MUST go to bed, before I manage to actually see the sunrise for the first time in my long existence.;) *face hits keyboard*
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All the more reason to download as much stuff as I can while it's still free.:P
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This should probably not apply to non-Swedish record-film-book etc companies but I don't know.
Strange law that allows private companies to act like police and justice departments, but I'm not here to discuss it, just to tell you about the situation. Downloading in Sweden has gone down remarkably since the law was passed and Pirate Bay sentenced.
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But to think that a friend of mine has been using the site for years with no problems whatsoever, and as soon as I find out about it, there's trouble attached.:/
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