I think I once claimed on this (or some other) blog that if I were to make a movie starring myself, the song I’d want played over the opening titles with me doing actor-y things would be “Fairlee” by Matt Pond PA.

I think I’ve changed my mind. This morning as I walked out of my apartment building into a morning that felt even greyer than usual, “Storm” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor was playing. It kept building as I walked down the mostly empty (and very cold) street toward work, and hit the first crescendo as I got to the busy intersection near work with cars and pedestrians whizzing by. That crested as I got across the street and into my office, and hit the second peak around the time I swiped through the doors and entered cubicle land. By the time I hit my desk the second crescendo was at full tilt, and died down as I powered up my laptop.

I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a perfect soundtrack for the walk to work on a gloomy day, but I think GY!BE‘s got a bunch of ’em.

I have a date next Thursday.

At 7:00 PM, I plan to meet a long lost love, with whom I fought bitterly but have since reconciled. My wife isn’t entirely thrilled about it, but she understands that this love never really went away, despite all the anger.

It’s happening over dinner. I’m thinking pizza. I may even get beer. It doesn’t matter, though; whatever I eat and drink, it’ll be joyful reunion. I’ll be watching my beloved Montreal Canadiens beat the tar out of the Boston Bruins on TSN.

Welcome back, baby. Let’s forget about what happened. Let’s make a fresh start. I’ve missed you.

Very interesting article.

“Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.”

[via]

No basketball tonight; canceled at the last minute. Just as well; my finger’s still hurting and I needed to catch up on some stuff.

Today was a good work day. Got some stuff done in the morning, had a couple of good meetings in the afternoon.

I’d forgotten how much my cats hate the remote-controlled missile-shooting tank my wife got me a couple of years ago for my birthday. I terrorized them a bit today. Michael thought he was being smart by jumping up on the bed so I couldn’t chase him, but I just shot him in the face with a nerf missile. He promptly tried to eat it, and then snuggled with it.

From Cinematical: No Dukes of Hazzard sequel

Tonight we took one more step toward picking all the crap finishings for our condo. While this delights my wife no end, it’s hard for me to get excited about it since the place is still over a year from being ready and, frankly, I don’t give half a shit about bathroom fixtures or backsplashes at the best of times. Still, it went about as well as I could have hoped. I don’t think I hate anything. The things that I would’ve liked to get but couldn’t were beyond my control and not a function of cost. We’ll spend a little less than I thought we might (I was giving my wife lowball targets hoping that she’d at least stay within shouting distance of them). So, there you go. One more trip back there to finalize things and fork over some dough and we’re all set.

In other news, I’m thinking about switching back to digital cable, just so I can get the PVR. This VCR thing is getting on my nerves.

Basketball again tomorrow night and my middle finger’s still feeling kinda sprainy.

Crash (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was one of the big buzz films from the 2004 TIFF, and we only just now got around to seeing it. Pretty good; the cast so was so huge that no one got much focus, but that’s how we’re meant to see these people (and the city they live in): superficially. Each character (save one or two) shows up just long enough to make a few racial slurs or discriminatory gestures; it would’ve been interesting to see director Paul Haggis do a side project with just one or two of the storylines, to see how far he can take them.

Worth the rental.

Speaking of which, because we’re out of Zip movies at the moment, we got these from Bay Street Video, who have a new website. New to me, anyway; I haven’t been there enough lately to notice the URL on the cases.

Last week I watched Mississippi Burning for the umpteenth time, and it still leaves me bewildered that we were once so fucked up.

Apparently some of us still are.

Watch two movies so far this weekend. Would’ve watched three, but Zip’s copy of Vera Drake had a scratch in it the size of a golf pencil. More and more of Zip’s DVDs are arriving like that; I can usually rub the marks out but this one was worst than most. Anyway…

I don’t even remember where I heard of Eulogy (imdb | metacritic), but there it was on my Zip list and they sent it to me kind of unrequested. It has a great cast (including Zooey Deschanel, who I’m loving more and more) and had some very funny moments, but it was really uneven. It’s good rental material when you’re in the mood for a slightly quirky comedy.

On the other hand, it was pretty tough to miss all the fuss about Alexander (imdb | metacritic). Pointless fuss, too; it really wasn’t very good. Everyone overacted, with a few minor exceptions. The action sequences were nothing we hadn’t seen in Braveheart, Troy or Lord Of The Rings. I couldn’t really recommend this one to anybody. Wait for it to show up on NBC some night.

I feel like such a slob, being all lazy and indoorsy on a beautiful day like today.

Last night I bought a few rounds for some co-workers — good guys, all — and then met up with Nellie and CBGB at ye olde Rebel House for some more drinks and food. Then, as usual, Nellie invited them back here for the usual: a 30-second cleanup of the apartment, a nip of scotch and 3 or 4 DVDs from our library for them to borrow.