[tags]logitech wireless mouse, montreal canadiens, ottawa senators, battlestar galactica, spring, constantines, kensington heights, income tax return[/tags]
Sorry I haven’t been writing much. Normally my brain is spinning with so much delicious wit, razor-sharp criticism and profound innovation that I find I need to spill some of it onto the blog, but lately I find I have only two modes: “work” and “recover from work.” I’m glad it’s a long weekend; I may yet be able to reclaim one of the other settings on that dial.
.:.
And how will I do that? By watching hour upon hour of college basketball, interrupted only by sleep and rich food. Yes, it’s March Madness time and while I haven’t been able to give it the attention I’d like, I’m still doing pretty well in my pool, so there’s that. In between games: dinner with M2 at beerbistro on Thursday (which I think made me sick in some weird way) and dinner tonight at Tutti Matti with CBGB.
.:.
Also in between games we’ve been trying to clear off the PVR. We have it down to about 50% now, having watched two movies and an episode of Extras. We waited a long time to watch the second season — not on purpose, we just never got around to it — and so far the episodes have been fairly funny, but this episode with Daniel Radcliffe killed me. Not because of Radcliffe (though it was pretty funny to watch Harry Potter throw a rubber at James Bond’s wife’s head) but because of a scene between Stephen Merchant and Warwick Davis. That might’ve been the funniest 60 seconds I’ve seen on TV in months.
Anyway, the two movies we watched were Bobby (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a terribly dull movie about a terribly interesting man, and Beowulf & Grendel (imdb | rotten tomatoes), not the recent rotoscoped film with Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie, but the one with Gerard Butler and Sarah Polley. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either. As much as I love Sarah Polley, she seemed out of place here.
[tags]march madness, beerbistro, tutti matti, extras, ricky gervais, daniel radcliffe, harry potter, stephen merchant, warwick davis, bobby, beowulf, grendel, sarah polley[/tags]
Oh god. No. Please, please no.
The popular 1990s TV series Beverly Hills 90210 — the numbers refer to the wealthy enclave’s zip code — may be getting a spinoff. The CW network is said to be developing a contemporary spinoff of Aaron Spelling’s teen soap, which starred Canada’s Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty as Minnesota teens who move into L.A.’s richest community.
The rumour is that Rob Thomas — creator of the excellent (at first, anyway) series Veronica Mars — is supposed to direct. Culturally speaking, I’d say this is the rough equivalent of Weezer covering the debut album by Color Me Badd.
[tags]beverly hills 90210, rob thomas, veronica mars, weezer, color me badd[/tags]
The Wire is dead. Long live The Wire.
I agree with the critics who say it was the best show on television during its run. Each of the first four seasons was the best show I’ve seen related to whatever topic they were portraying that year: police, blue collar workers, politics, schools.
If you haven’t watched it, I beg you to go rent season 1; by the time you finish watching season 4 the final season should be available on DVD.
.:.
So while my toe does appear to be broken — or at least really badly sprained, ’cause it’s the color of an angry plum right now — it’s more or less stopped hurting. I might actually try running on it tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get it into my new shoes without hurting.
.:.
If you have ten minutes and thirty-five seconds to spare, I recommend downloading and listening to “Ghost Blues” by Ladyhawk.
[tags]the wire, broken toe, saucony running shoes, ladyhawk, ghost blues[/tags]
BlogTO is single-handedly trying to kill me, listing the best places to buy chocolate in Toronto. Of course, I was already aware of them, especially JS Bonbons and Soma, but those pictures are making me hungry.
.:.
Quick thoughts on the Oscars: for the first time in quite a while I have no problem with any of the winners (or rather, with who didn’t win). Also, it’s a good thing “Falling Slowly” won best original song, ’cause if it’d lost to one of those Disney songs from Enchanted I’d have flown to L.A. and burned the Kodak theatre to the motherfucking ground.
Watch the performance (and acceptance speeches) here at Cinematical.
.:.
I just finished reading Incendiary (indigo) and need a new book. Fortunately I own about 60 that I haven’t read yet.
[tags]blogto, chocolate, soma, js bonbons, oscars, falling slowly, once, incendiary[/tags]
I got home around 8:30 tonight and am rather wiped, so blogging tonight will be terse.
[tags]fortune cookies, kung hey fat choi, weakerthans, degrassi, caitlin, the onion, tennessee williams, cat on a hot tin roof, toronto, blizzard, thundersnow[/tags]
Nellie and I went to see two movies in a row today:
I had incredibly high expectations for There Will Be Blood (imdb | rotten tomatoes), but it still paid off. I think as the film sinks in over the next few days I’ll get even more from it, but even at first glance it’s huge and chilling and epic and staggering. Daniel Day-Lewis, once again, proves himself a mad genius. At no time in any of his movies do I think of him in any of his other roles. Paul Dano and the other actors kept up, but Day-Lewis was on the screen for virtually every second of the film and swept it along. You may not like this movie, but if you can’t recognize it for the classic piece of filmmaking that it is, maybe you should stick to reality TV.
Cloverfield (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a completely different animal: a beastie-thriller, but done with a little more flair than we’ve come to expect. The handicam viewpoint was a useful little device, and kept the film from lapsing into the usual cliches (hey look, a spunky scientist finds a way to save the day!), focusing instead on showing the mass confusion of such an event. A pretty decent escapist flick. Oh, and Jessica Lucas: girlfriend du jour.
.:.
Absurdity piled on absurdity: the FCC is going to fine ABC $1.4 million because they showed buttocks on the air. Five years ago.
[tags]there will be blood, cloverfield, jessica lucas, fcc, nypd blue[/tags]
Exciting news: I’m going to go for a run tomorrow. It’s the first time since my killer cold last week that I’ve felt up to it (and didn’t have an early meeting to get to). Sad that the idea of a 3 mile run is attractive to me at this point.
.:.
While I’ve quite enjoyed the television writer’s strike — network is for shit anyway — I had to laugh at Conan O’Brien’s strike diary.
With little to sustain me, I am forced to subsist entirely on Reality Television. I gorge myself on marathons of The Real Housewives of Orange County and Flavor of Love, then collapse in a wretched heap. If this is living, I welcome death.
It’s short. Go read.
.:.
I hear a lot of complaints about Starbucks & music…exclusive sales agreements and such. This week, as I walked by the Starbucks every day on my walk to work (actually I walk by three, but there’s one I pay particular attention to) I heard Sia, James Brown and Radiohead. I don’t recall Monday, so either I wasn’t paying attention or it was bad/generic enough not to grab me. In any case, if a Starbucks wants to push decent music to coffee junkies, I’m not going to criticize them. Maybe it’ll counter the Wal-Mart influence.
Speaking of music…what in the sweaty hell happened to Bob Mould? I have no problem if someone mellows out in their old age, I don’t. That’s not my problem. My problem is that the music is (to steal a line from High Fidelity) generic pappy crap, and the man’s used more voice modulation on his last few albums than Cher. This morning “Jesus Cradle” from the Sugar album Beaster came up on my Zen, and I was momentarily stunned by how good it was. Compared to what I’m listening to right now — a leaked copy of Mould’s latest, District Line — it’s just tragic. Genre differences or not, they’re still worlds apart.
.:.
My brother sent me this link yesterday in an email titled “There goes your day.” He wasn’t lying.
[tags]conan o’brien, starbucks, bob mould, cher, tony-b[/tags]
I have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Haven’t looked up from work long enough to do anything, let alone read anything. Last night I did work while I watched the hockey game, and stopped long enough to watch the latest episode of The Wire (which, by the way, holy crapmonkey!) and then go to sleep. Gonna be the same tomorrow.
Heeeeeeeere Friday Friday Friday…C’mere boy.
[tags]the wire[/tags]
I’m starting to feel ever-so-slightly better. I went to work today but I was still in pretty bad shape and my boss sent me home. I was about to enter a meeting room full of executives and had I gotten them all sick I would’ve been personally responsible for at least $0.50 off our stock price. Nobody wants that.
Tonight rather than doing work (did that already), doing schoolwork (nothing to do until the 27th) or watching a movie (Nellie’s not in the mood) I think I’m just going to…wait for it…read a book. Like, a book book. Not a textbook. I’ve been reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine since September but [overshare] the only time I really have in which to read it is when I’m on the can [/overshare] so it’ll be nice to just sit quietly and read a book…on a couch.
.:.
We watched episode 3 of The Wire last night. Every episode is producing classic moments (e.g., the look Bunk gave Fremon last night) and the tension took a big jump last night at the end of the episode, so I just can’t wait for what’s coming. Seven more episodes just doesn’t seem like enough to pack it all in.
[tags]the shock doctrine, the wire[/tags]
