I’ve been having tremendous fun with this. It got “grain silo” and “laser pointer”, but I stumped it with “cymbal”. It disagreed with me on how I defined it, but whatever. I was a drummer fer chrissakes, I should know.

Well, I should think so.

From the New York Times: Judge Strikes Down Section of Patriot Act Allowing Secret Subpoenas of Internet Data

A few nights ago I watched Don’t Look Back (imdb | rotten tomatoes), the documentary by D.A. Pennebaker about Bob Dylan. I’d watched parts of it before, but this time, watching it all the way through, I was reminded of two things:

1. Bob Dylan was angry. A few months ago I would have said he was a jackass, but I’m no longer so certain. Of course he was conceited, given how much adulation he was being given, but knowing what we know now about how Bob felt (his recent memoirs have revealed that he didn’t understand the fans who wanted him to be a folk hero, who saw him as the spearpoint of a revolution) I get the feeling that it wasn’t superiority or arrogance coming spewing out of him so much as it was frustration and exasperation. This gave me a completely different view of him. Nearly a tragic figure, except that he seemed to take a fair bit of pleasure in berating the journalists and fans.
2. Bob Dylan was a genius.

After watching the movie I had to put on the Royal Albert Hall CD and listen to “Desolation Row”, then I put in Time Out Of Mind and listened to “Highlands”. After that I put in the DVD of The Last Waltz and listened to “Baby Let Me Follow You Down”.

From CBC: New $20 bill goes into circulation. I got one of these this morning from a bank machine at First Canadian Place.

Natalie Merchant‘s cover of the Horseflies song “Sally Ann”.

I love how Bob Harris over on This Modern World is now referring to George Bush as “Delusional Monkey”.

“Just came across the actual rider signed by the John Kerry and Delusional Monkey campaigns in arranging their upcoming ‘debate,’ which will actually be (like most U.S. ‘debates’) more of a joint press conference.”

Normally I’d post politics stuff over on the other blog, but this is about the debates (and, therefore, has little to do with politics or news and everything to do with infomercials).

The platinum edition of Return Of The King is over 4 hours long.

Just got back from Word On The Street with Stanzi. Spent about an hour there, walking around, picking up magazines (Taddle Creek and Saturday Night). We saw Jack Layton and Olivia Chow at the Eye booth.

I’m glad it’s at Queen’s Park now. There’s so much more space; last year on Queen Street it was a titanic struggle just to get 10 feet down the street.

Last night, after months of anticipation (my brother told me about the movie almost a year ago) I finally got to see Shaun Of The Dead (imdb | rotten tomatoes). My expectations were high, but justified; the movie was hilarious, scary enough in bits to make the crowd jump, almost like a date movie in parts, socially relevant and to top it all off had my girlfriend in it. What more could I want? The day Shaun available on DVD I’m plunking down my money. This is one I could watch many, many times.

To prep, we rented a few classic zombie movies before hand: Night Of The Living Dead and Dawn Of The Dead (the original) just so that we’d catch a few of the in-jokes contained in Shaun (“We’re coming to get you Barbara!!”). Both started off kind of slow but got better; I loved how Dawn was more a satirical poke at us than a zombie movie; the zombies were hardly scary at all, just lumbering around trying to negotiate escalators and simple doors. I wish they’d been able to keep that same satire in the remake.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club‘s “Spread Your Love” + Goldfrapp‘s “Strict Machine” = this.