My little friend, and former co-op student punching bag, is so wrapped up with work and her impending wedding that I had to make her a CD to clue her in on the good music that’s floating around out there.

1. Matt Pond PA . ” Fairlee”
2. The Shout Out Louds . “The Comeback”
3. Belly . “Full Moon, Empty Heart”
4. Teenage Fanclub . “It’s All In My Mind”
5. Keren Ann . “Chelsea Burns”
6. The Fiery Furnaces . “Tropical-Iceland”
7. Martha Wainwright . “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole”
8. Explosions In The Sky . “Memorial”
9. Kasabian . “Reason Is Treason”
10. Spoon . “I Turn My Camera On”
11. Jolie Holland . “Old Fashioned Morphine”
12. Magneta Lane . “The Constant Lover”
13. Final Fantasy . “This Is The Dream Of Win And Regine”
14. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists . “The Ballad Of The Sin Eater”
15. Regina Spektor . “Us”
16. Great Lake Swimmers . “I Will Never See The Sun”
17. Kings Of Leon . “The Bucket”
18. Bright Eyes . “Road To Joy”
19. The Hidden Cameras . “Mississauga Goddam”

Google news has just nicely summed up the position of the three major Canadian newspapers: the Globe, the Post and the Star. The headlines all track the same story: Conservative leader Stephen Harper’s visit to Toronto to discuss his new alternative-to-Kyoto transit credit plan.

• The Globe, which is about as centrist as newspapers get, has the benign and passingly clever headline “The Transit Card“.
• The National Post, which leans very far to the right, puts on a happy face with the headline “Remade Stephen Harper wins some praise, makes a convert of a former detractor“.
• The Star, the largest and surely the leftist paper in the country is less optimistic (but has apparently been taking pun lessons from the Globe): “Harper Miss The Bus“.

What the hell is going on in Toronto lately? 21 shooting victims in two weeks?

Why’s it getting so bad all of a sudden? Sudden influx of guns? Drug wars? Gang tensions? Full moon?

I’m so sick of reading about management skill development and negotiation. Blah blah, wank wank wank. I’m almost looking forward to economics…

We finished watching season five of Oz today. It was only eight episodes long (HBO likes to cut their final season in half and make you pay for it twice), but it sets everything up for the final run.

Some of the characters are just so indelible…I’ll never see Harold Perrineau as anyone but Augustus again, despite his roles in Romeo & Juliet or the last two Matrix films. Kirk Acevedo, even when playing Joe Toye in Band Of Brothers, was always Miguel Alvarez. And whatever other roles they play, to me JK Simmons and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje will always be Schillinger and Adebisi, scariest men alive. There are tons of others…Chris Meloni (try watching Law & Order: SVU the same way agin), Dean Winters (ditto), Ernie Hudson (the man was a Ghostbuster, for chrissakes)…Edie Falco may be the only actor who walked into a more memorable part, and that took another seminal HBO series.

I can’t wait for the final DVD set…it’s like the Bataan death march.

Not a bad weekend so far. Last night we just wound down from the week by ordering in and watching a couple of movies. Today was just as uneventful…a haircut, a newspaper, some reading, some burgers, a sundae (!), some Oz, another movie and now dinner. I’ll finally put an end to the good run later, though, when I have to…sigh…do schoolwork. Horror. Quel Saturday night.

We just got back from The Island (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It wasn’t the worst Michael Bay movie I’ve ever seen, but that’s like saying Daydream wasn’t the worst Mariah Carey album.

What I liked about the movie: Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, the way they did Ewan McGregor’s split screen.

What I disliked: The ignorant little skanks sitting next to us. If it’s wrong to punch a girl, it’s definitely wrong to a teenage girl, so Nellie gave them dirty looks every 30 seconds. Oh, and I hate how Michael Bay makes every action sequence look like a music video. Keep a shot in the movie that lasts more than three seconds, Michael, I double-dog dare you.

It was a decent enough Friday night summertime flick, but let’s just say I won’t be pre-ordering this one on DVD.

Last night was relaxo night, so we decided to watch a couple of Zip movies.

Criminal (imdb | metacritic) wasn’t really high on my list of movies I had to watch, but sometimes Zip does that, you know? As much as I like Maggie Gyllenhaal, I’ve just never been convinced of John C. Reilly’s ability to carry a movie on his own. And I was right. The guy’s a good actor, but he can’t handle 80 minutes of lead camera time, especially when he has Diego Luna weighing him down. It made a stab at a big twist at the end, but it was pretty half-assed. Take a pass on this one.

I’d added Sex and Lucia (imdb | metacritic) to my list before my newly discovered love for Paz Vega, but it got bumped to the top of my list immediately after that. And I’m glad: it was very, very good. Coincidences fell into place so thick and fast that it seemed absurd at first, but in the end felt like a storybook. It was lush and rich. It wasn’t easy (but it wasn’t Mulholland Drive either) and it wasn’t subtle (you become desensitized to the nudity after a while), but it wove together the pieces a great story.

Despite the shit reviews, I have no doubt that The Dukes Of Hazzard (imdb | rotten tomatoes) will win the weekend. Please, gentle reader, don’t go. Don’t do it. Don’t give your money to Jackass, Stiffler and that blonde fuckwit.

I, myself, have been wanting to see the following:

• Broken Flowers
• Cinderella Man
• Crash
• The Fantastic 4
• The Island
• It’s All Gone Pete Tong
• March Of The Penguins

I’m also anxiously awaiting these:

• The Aristocrats
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin
• November
• Red Eye
• Romance And Cigarettes
• An Unfinished Life
• Dirty Love
• Everything Is Illuminated
• A History Of Violence
• Elizabethtown
• Doom
• Jarhead
• Walk The Line

Not to mention all the film festival entries I want to see. Yeesh.

Ugh. Butter chicken, why do you hurt me when I love you so? Sometimes I get you from Banjara, sometimes I get you from the Biryani House. Sometimes from the soup place in Cumberland Terrace. Sometimes I even eat you in (!) frozen President’s Choice form. I adore you, and yet you hurt my belly like this.

Fickle bitch.