Oh, Stanzi. Stanzi, Stanzi, Stanzi. You told me to add Blue Crush (imdb | rotten tomatoes) to my ziplist, because you love it so. Quel mistake. It was like Karate Kid with skinny girls. Only good feature of the movie were the visually impressive waves, and they might’ve been the best actors too. Sad. But we’re all allowed a crap movie now and then.

I keep listening to Green Day‘s American Idiot and Movement by The Gossip. Oh, and the song “Mystery And Misery” by Rainer Maria is my favourite song this week. Love that fuzzy guitar.

Man, first the shaky lady, and now Better Living Centre points us to the Sun’s j’accuse regarding the lady who gives out stickers on Yonge Street. From now on I’m only giving money to beggars who are clearly falling-down drunk.

Is it me, or does the redesigned Pitchfork look terrible? They’ve plugged the page with so many ads that when you use the FireFox adblock extension (as I do) it just leaves great gaping holes in the page. That means they’ve a) built the design into the ads, or b) built the holes into the design.

To make it worse, there’s still no RSS feed (short of scraping it myself). So each day I go to the site (it’s one of the handful that I still read with a browser), quickly scan for anything interesting and then bolt as quickly as possible. It looks that bad.

…well, for Eye magazine anyway. John Sakamoto is taking his Anti-Hit list elsewhere. Their not-so-subtle hint would suggest it’s The Star, so I’m hoping my Saturday subscription gives me access to it. It’s one of my must-reads each Thursday.

I just drank half of one of these. Observations:

1. Dumbest name ever. Sounds like a Mexican nickname.
2. I feel as if I might die / fatten / lose teeth at any moment
3. It’s about the same as the espresso brownie as far as fat & calories, so really…if i feel the need to kill myself i’m gonna use the brownie

Yet another night of dining out and hanging out with friends, though again the night itself was pretty low-key. We braved the cold with G&C to have Indian at Bombay Bhel on Eglinton. Pretty tasty; the butter chicken isn’t as good as, say, Banjara, but it was pretty damn delicious nonetheless. It’s been a while since I had a big feed of Indian food.

Noticed yesterday morning that American Apparel is opening a store in my neighbourhood in February, which is good news. Thing is, AA has become pretty trendy; hopefully that doesn’t mean they’ll be changing their styles or jacking their prices. I’ve been in love with their t-shirts for too long to switch now.

I watched Searching For Bobby Fischer (imdb | rotten tomatoes) over the past week. I was completely wrong about what to expect; I don’t remember the movie being released and for some reason thought it was a documentary. It wasn’t, but in the final scene I was again surprised to find out that it was based on a true story. I found the website of the kid (the main character) right after I watched the movie. Weird.

Anyway, the movie itself was terrific. The same cliches as a sports movie, but with a necessary softening that comes with using chess as the subject. Lots of great actors, and some in tiny bit parts (William H. Macy, Laura Linney, Dan Hedaya, etc.), made it feel authentic enough that I never felt as if I were watching a lecture or a monument.

It’s been a nice weekend so far…Thursday night we went to the Rebel House with G&C, partaking of delicious Muskoka ribs & Neustadt beer and a buffalo burger. Delish, all.

Last night we slept over at T-Bone’s place since Nellie has to work today (and her office is right around the corner of her house). We ordered Chinese from a yelling man, had a picnic on the floor of the family room and watched a few movies. This morning T-Bone and I had breakfast at Over Easy on Bloor and I came home for some relaxtion.

So, all this adds up to a serious need to visit the gym soon.

Last night, hanging out with T-Bone, we watched a couple of movies.

• A Home At The End Of The World (imdb | rotten tomatoes | metacritic) was, for me anyway, a little disappointing. Colin Farrell was good, but I kept waiting for the movie to get going. It seemed to be in a perpetual state of establishing scenes and characters without even letting anything develop, and by the end of the movie the only reason I knew a little bit about what the characters were actually thinking or feeling was because they clumsily expressed it as a line of dialogue (e.g., “I can’t be alone”). Well, don’t tell me that, *show* me that. Not a bad movie, but I wouldn’t watch it again. Nellie and T-Bone loved it though. Personally I think the presence of Colin Farrell skews their judgment.
• Maria Full Of Grace (imdb | rotten tomatoes | metacritic) was — again, for me anyway — a much better movie. The story was compelling and more than a bit disturbing, the lead actress was incredible and I actually gave a shit about the characters (unlike the previous movie) because they let me experience the fear or anxiety or exasperation rather than beat me over the head with it.

I’ve noticed a trend of stores holding “boxing month” sales, continuing the evolution from boxing day to boxing week and on up. How long before we have boxing season?

And really, the holiday season starts November 1st these days (as soon as the Hallowe’en decorations come down), so we’re now looking at 3 months of holiday-related shopping.

Happy spending, everybody…and to all a good debt!