My birthday >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> RIA's birthday > EL's birthday

I am deeply offended.

If you keep this sentiment at my real birthday in a month and a weekish, I'll be very sad.

Fuck macs.  If you are that worried about stability, run Linux.

Any reason why you hate Macs or are you yet another person who hates them because they're either:
a. different
b. "trendy" and "cool"

My 3-year-old MacBook Pro is still going strong and does everything I need, thanks to being able to boot either Mac or Windows.

My profile clearly says female.

I've got three good octaves outside of falsetto, without stretching my voice and may have four with those in.

Hell yeah.

Rob Halford, their vocalist, has a nearly four octave range and while not technically impressive on paper

Just so you know, that's incredibly impressive on paper. Hell, three octaves is damned impressive.

Power metal, you say? I'm not very well-versed in it, but here's a few bands I do know (descriptions will be shorter than usual, due to my relative lack of knowledge with regard to this genre):

Iced Earth - Power/Thrash Metal

A Question of Heaven

Dracula

Probably my second favorite power metal band, Iced Earth are amazing almost solely because of their old vocalist, Matt Barlow. That man's voice just oozes emotion when it needs to and pummels your face in when it needs to. Their reliance on Barlow's vocals really shows when you listen to the albums before and after he was in the band, which really suffer at the lack of his vocal talent.

Blind Guardian - Power Metal

Somewhere Far Beyond

The Curse of Feanor

Power metal with an awesome vocalist and nerdy concept albums (theirs being about the Silmarillion). This seems familiar.

Dragonforce - Power Metal

Valley of the Damned

Disciples of Babylon

Dragonforce are a terrible band. They weren't always, though. Their first album is one of the best power metal albums I've ever heard. Unfortunately, they ended up gobbling their own cocks and ripped themselves off more and more with each album. They suck shit now.

Symphony X - Progressive Power Metal

Sea of Lies

Inferno (Unleash the Fire)

Symphony X are extremely talented musicians. They are easily my favorite power metal band, mostly because they do power metal differently. There is a lot of prog in their music, as well. They have a few huge epics that surpass 20 minutes across numerous movements, a kind of song typically reserved for prog. They also shift time signatures and tempos regularly, most evident in Inferno, linked above.

In Flames - Melodic Death Metal

Moonshield

Jotun

Pretend you've never heard of this band. Their later stuff is absolutely atrocious and, unfortunately, extremely popular, but their old music is absolutely fantastic. They seamlessly blended acoustic melodies with the then-new Gothenburg melodic death metal scene, making what is, in my opinion, the two best melodeath records - The Jester Race and Whoracle - and a few other pretty good ones. Their guitar tone is heavy yet decipherable, the vocals are unmistakably death metal, but again, they are decipherable. These guys, along with Opeth, are the perfect bands for getting used to harsh vocals. Unfortunately, after Whoracle, they started a steady decline, going from such a fantastic sound to...

t

h

i

s

. Gone are the guitar melodies and subtlety, replaced by nü-metal power chords and obvious angst-filled lyrics.

I'm not really into metal that much but I like Pantera and Megadeth and some other stuff is ok too. I'll listen to some stuff posted here and see if I like it.

Be warned: you will hate a lot of what I posted. I'm a fan of the extreme side of metal, which is very difficult to get into.

Hayley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore.