Fair Weather Fan?
Posted on | October 6, 2008 at 7:00 am | 2 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: Lightning. What’s the worst nightmare of a Denver Broncos fan? No, it’s not getting beaten 33-19 by the Kansas City Chiefs, which happened last week, although that does come close. It’s sitting down to watch the game on TV on a Sunday afternoon only to have the transmission tower of the local station broadcasting the game get knocked out by a lightning strike. It affected satellite viewers (both HiDef and Standard Def) as well as over-the-air (both analog and digital), and supposedly some but not all cable customers. Since I have satellite and OTA, I just got a blank screen.
I guess I must be not be as big a fan as I thought I was, since once that happened, I didn’t have a lot of interest in waiting around to see if service was going to be restored. I got caught up in watching other things I had recorded, and never went back to fully watching the game against Tampa Bay even after the broadcast came back. I did check in at one point in the third quarter and saw the score was 16-6 Broncos, or something like that, so that was made me feel good. They wound up winning 16-13. I do kind of wish I had watched it, since apparently the Broncos defense finally came out to play for the first time all season. N and I will be attending the game against the Jaguars next week, so I hope the donkeys can keep it up. We’ve haven’t had much luck attending winning games in the last few years. I don’t want to see a repeat of last week’s Kansas City debacle. Do us proud, Broncos. A 4-1 record at this point ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
Yeah, I didn’t watch the Broncos win, and that was bad of me. But at least I pretty much got caught up on my TV watching after the vacation…
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 49°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Stop Shooting Off Stars” (The Innocents)
- “Downtime” (Blake Babies)
- “Clock In Now” (The Deathray Davies)
- “Bad Seed” (Three Lb Thrill)
- “Dripping With Looks” (Game Theory)
- “Healing” (Trotsky Icepick)
- “ME 262 (live)” (Blue Öyster Cult)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “crunchwrap not crunchy”.
There Will Be Blud
Posted on | October 5, 2008 at 10:16 am | 9 Comments
Hey, we’re back to Movie Review Sunday!
Last night, I finally got a chance to watch the last of the 2007 Oscar nominated Best Picture candidates that I hadn’t seen, There Will Be Blood. All 2.5+ hours of it, in glorious rented Blu-ray disc form. I’m generally a fan of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s work. I loved Magnolia even though I know a lot of people hated it. So I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile.
This film does take a lot of concentration. There isn’t even any dialog until 15 minutes into it. Daniel Day Lewis deserved the Best Actor Oscar he got for the role of turn of the century oilman Daniel Plainview, as it was clearly his show. He’s in pretty near every scene and has a mesmerizing screen presence as always. That mustache alone is very distracting. Paul Dano plays his nemesis, self-righteous preacher Eli Sunday, in a role that first seemed one-note, but ended up having some different shades to it. The movie pretty much builds toward their big confrontation at the end (much like the George Clooney/Tilda Swinton throw-down at the end of Michael Clayton), and that’s an extremely captivating scene. In between, there’s a lot of rise-and-fall of Daniel Plainview, and a lot of oil well drilling (although, strangely, not as much as I would’ve liked to have seen). The cinematography and the HiDef presentation really show off the grimy aspects of the profession well. If I never see an oil-bespotted worker again, it will be too soon. The story arc with Daniel and his adopted son H.W. is also very interesting, as the father-son relationship between the two of them takes some twists and turns. There’s pretty much no women in this movie.
Sad to say, I didn’t like the score from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. It just drew attention to itself too much, and I prefer movie music to be unobtrusive. It has to underscore scenes, not draw focus away from them. That was the same problem I had with the score in Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love. The Greenwood score was definitely fascinating, but it took me out of the movie too often.
As a Best Picture nominee, I liked it better than Atonement and No Country For Old Men, but less than Juno and maybe a little less than Michael Clayton. I liked it less than Anderson’s Magnolia and Boogie Nights. I look forward to seeing what he does next. I’m hoping for a light children’s fantasy – maybe something where kids get drawn into the suddenly-real world of a board game or something.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Jason Sudeikis’ Joe Biden dissin’ on Scranton in last night’s SNL spoof of the Vice Presidential debate. Hey, leave Scranton alone! It’s a nice place.
Prepping For Asphalt
Posted on | October 4, 2008 at 12:13 pm | Comments Off
It’s Saturday! The day no one reads blogs! So I’m not going to talk about anything substantial. Please refrain from the obvious jokes. Actually, I have a longer, more interesting entry already composed that I could post, but why waste it on a Saturday? That will probably show up Monday morning.
I took my camera along with me on my jog this morning, since I actually jogged when it was light out. This past week, they’ve had a road closed off on my route, and I could tell in the early morning darkness that there was construction a-goin’ on, but I didn’t know the extent of it. Way back in April, I blogged about how they appeared to be extending a road to go to the new nearby upscale housing development. However, since then they have not really made much progress on that front. Now they are at least putting in the sidewalks, as you can see from this picture (click to go to the Flickr page and view larger versions). And since the sidewalks and roads leading up to it are actually closed off and detoured, I assume they are going to really finish the road and put in the asphalt and everything within the next few days/weeks. There’s only a few workmen out there today, which you can barely see in the picture, but I think they’re just working on a median in the proto-road.
I don’t think this will hurt my jogging much, since there aren’t a lot of cars on the road anywhere at the time I usually jog on weekday mornings. I’ll have to be a little bit more careful crossing streets and such, but not much. I’m also not sure how much the new road will increase the neighborhood traffic in general, since there are easier (more main street) ways of getting to and from the new development than taking this extended street. But I will be very interested to see how all that develops.
I’ll try to take and post some new photos when the intersection is done. Isn’t this exciting?
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 55°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Walking To Do” (Ted Leo)
- “Astronaut” (Luna)
- “Sensations” (Alphaville)
- “52 Pickup” (Brown Eyed Susans)
- “Everywhere With Helicopter” (Guided By Voices)
- “Pool Song” (Longwave)
- “White Cocoon” (The Point)
- “Asleep and Awake on the Man’s Freeway (live)” (Loud Family)
Pet Peeve of the Day: Calls from charitable organizations trying to get you to donate, who actually put you on hold: “Please hold for an important message from the American Athletes Foot Society. We’ll take your money, but it may take us a minute to find an actual person to pry it out of you”.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “got sick of cornflakes”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: None, but I did download Wipeout HD and the Bioshock demo from the PlayStation Network, as well as some Little Big Planet videos. Haven’t played them yet though.
Digital Download Blowout
Posted on | October 3, 2008 at 7:32 am | 4 Comments
My friend Miles (who has a great new blog), recently reactivated his eMusic subscription and was asking me the other day for download suggestions. Rather than reply to him, I’d thought I’d make a blog entry out of it. Here’s stuff I downloaded from eMusic in 2008 that I enjoyed. Some of it was actually released in 2007 or thereabouts, but so what. And actually, a few of these I own on CD instead of digital-only, but I mention them because they’re available on eMusic. There was also a lot of stuff I downloaded that I didn’t like so much, but I don’t mention those. And there’s still a lot of it that I downloaded but haven’t listened to yet (like the new Sparks, which I’m sure I’ll love). So here’s the list, complete with links. (Note that the links make this post more substantial. Or at least more time consuming to compose.)
Bell X1: Flock
British Sea Power: Do You Like Rock Music?
The Buddyrevelles: Don’t Quit
The Bye Bye Blackbirds: Houses & Homes
California Oranges: Imperial Hearts
Dengue Fever: Venus on Earth
Destroyer: Trouble In Dreams
Don Dixon: The Nu-Look
Liam Finn: I’ll Be Lightning
Firewater: The Golden Hour
The Green Pajamas: Box of Secrets: Northern Gothic 2
Head Of Femur: Great Plains
Hello Dragon: The Quantum Explorers
I Was Totally Destroying It: I Was Totally Destroying It
Ladytron: Velocifero
The Long Blondes: Couples
Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster
Mystery Jets: Zootime
Nerf Herder: IV
Piñataland: Songs For The Forgotten Future Vol. 2
Graham Parker: Don’t Tell Columbus
Ray: Death In Fiction
Scissors For Lefty: Underhanded Romance
Sloan: Parallel Play
Statuesque: The Grape & The Grain
Statuesque: Calling Nature’s Bluff
The Whitsundays: The Whitsundays
Happy Downloading!
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 57°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Into The Fire” (Stranglers)
- “Under the Milky Way (acoustic)” (The Church)
- “Genius Is Static” (Statuesque)
- “Daddy’s Girl” (The Dream Syndicate)
- “You’re Not Supposed to” (Field Music)
- “So Begins Our Alabee” (Of Montreal)
- “Wheel Of Femmes” (The Celebrity Pilots)
Cool, Soothing Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “safeway hemorrhoidal ointment”.
Unknown Pain
Posted on | October 2, 2008 at 7:11 am | Comments Off
I missed Movie Review Sunday, so here we are with Movie Review Thursday!
I finally got a chance to see Control, the biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide in 1980 at the age of 23. Though I have their albums and recognize how hugely influential they were, I was never a huge fan of the band. The music is just too depressing and a bit too monotonous for me. (Among non-aficionados, Joy Division is probably best known for the song “Love Will Tear Us Apart”.) I much prefer the band that they morphed into after Curtis’ death, New Order. But I really wanted to see this movie, because I find the Curtis story fascinating, especially after seeing 24-Hour Party People, the first half of which covers much of the same territory as Control, but from a different perspective.
Control is a dramatization of the events that led to Ian’s death. It was directed by rock photographer Anton Corbijn in his first directing role, and was filmed in artsy black and white. (I found that distracting, but it did seem to fit.) The story includes the formation and rise of the band, and stars people who look and sound uncannily like the band. The actors playing the band actually played the music for the concert sequences in the film. Sam Riley plays Curtis as an enigmatic lost little-boy poet. I never really felt the film offered up much in the way of explanation for his suicide. Yeah, he married too young, and he had epilepsy, and he was evidently in love with two different women and suffered a lot of guilt for it. But mostly, he just seemed to be the tortured poet type and so was doomed from the start. Though perhaps I’m not reading between the lines enough. I do wonder how biased the account is, since it was based on a book written by Curtis’ wife Debbie. The movie naturally put a lot of emphasis on their relationship, but I couldn’t help thinking that element of his life (and death) wasn’t being portrayed completely truthfully.
It did make me appreciate Joy Division’s music more, and Curtis was undeniably talented and a fascinating performer. As always with this sort of thing, the main question for me is “What would have happened if he had lived?” Would he have found happiness? What kind of music would he be making today, assuming he was still in the business at all? Would he have become a commercial sellout? Or would he have been a forgotten footnote in musical history? It would be interesting to peek into those alternate realities.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 53°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “These Days” (Lloyd Cole)
- “We Came to Dance” (Ultravox)
- “Where You Belong” (Ecotour)
- “Chrome” (Catherine Wheel)
- “Gas” (The Dentists)
- “Feeling Fine” (L’Arc-en-Ciel)
- “My Biggest Thrill” (Mighty Lemon Drops)
Cool Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “destructo tank the tank game”.
Turning To The Right
Posted on | October 1, 2008 at 7:19 am | 6 Comments
Okay, enough about snakes and elk and leaves and mountains. It’s time to get back to indoor issues. For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about towels lately.
Specifically, the fact that my obsessive compulsiveness forces me to always hang towels so that the open side faces to the right. I’m not sure why I do it or where I got it from. Maybe that’s just because it’s proper etiquette and that’s the way I’ve seen it done elsewhere? Maybe my mother always did it that way and I picked it up from her? Or does it have something to do with the fact that I’m right-handed? I know I do like to dry my right hand first -it has to be ready for anything- and having the towel open on the right does facilitate that. It also facilitates drying an object, such as a knife, with a kitchen towel, because the object is usually held in my right hand. So do left-handed people hang it the other way?
I will even do this with bath towels, even though I don’t use them while they’re hanging. I guess I just like consistency.
Occasionally, my girlfriend will turn a towel or two around, mostly just to mess with me. And then she takes note of how long it takes me to switch it back. Sometimes I’ll mess with her back and just leave it that way!
Until it gets to me, then I’ll put it back.
So, is this a universal thing? Are towels supposed to be turned a certain way? How does everyone else do it? Are you consistent with your towel hanging, and if so, what direction do you hang them in.
As I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.
Latre.
Next: Pillow cases.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “don’t really need them glasses”.