All I wanted was to quietly ride out the short week and slip unnoticed into the long weekend. Instead, I got to work 45 minutes of overtime getting a project finished up. This is what happens when you work with people in other time zones – you get little accomplished in the morning and everything is crammed into the late afternoon. It is consolation, however, that everything went as it needed to and I don’t have to worry about this stuff again till Monday.

It was also of consolation that tonight’s rehearsal was one of the funniest damn nights I’ve had in ages. We were tossing around potential album title names. My contribution – Dorf on Lake Holiday. The added celebrity cachet of Tim Conway posing on our cover would put us over the top to that gilded road to fame and fortune. How could it not? Clay came up with the clever and catchy Lake Holiday Die In A Fiery Car Wreck not long after we were nearly plowed into by a Ryder truck on the drive home. Where he comes up with stuff, I’ll never know. Five Seventeen liked Murder Smells Nice. Don’t ask. My project for this weekend is to get the Lake Holiday blog up and running. Brad demands a soapbox for his insane, syphillis-induced rantings and who am I to deny him?

Web developers who use Mozilla/Netscape 7 (and if you don’t, why the hell not?) are encouraged to download and install this toolbar. It’s got some very handy development tools built in for checking pages.

Live Elliott Smith mp3s. Click and download.

np – Jeff Mangum / Live At Jitter Joes

My friend Nicole is such a funny girl. She finally sends in her and Jim’s money for the hockey pool, and cleverly wraps it in the front page of the Hamilton Spectator sports section from the day after the Flyers smacked around the Leafs last week. Ho ho ho. Was that a taunt? Well Miss Nicole (Mrs, actually), I have some choice headlines for you this morning:

“Ducks sweep defending Stanley Cup champions”

“Ducks fly past Detroit”

“Seeing Red: Wings Fall”

“Wings and Joseph eliminated”

“SO LONG, STANLEY – Anaheim sweeps Cup champions from playoffs”

There is no joy in Motown. People in glass houses, my dear.

ADDENDUM: Apparently Nicole had tickets to game 5. HA HA!

My daytimer states that today is Maundy Thursday. What the hell does ‘Maundy’ mean?

np – Neutral Milk Hotel / In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

Please excuse the brutally obvious title of this post.

Went to see Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk To Her tonight. It’s the story of two men who bond when they women they love are gravely injured and end up in comas. Like his last film, All About My Mother, Talk To Her is richly detailed with subtle, nuanced performances of people dealing in very believable ways with personal tragedies. I think what I like most is that at the film’s end, the characters don’t live happily ever after, but simply continue living. You’re welcomed into their worlds for a time and then excused, and that’s ultimately more satisfying.

Check out this ridiculously cool Honda Accord commercial thingee.

Excellent Online has an interview with Mark Gardener here.

np – Matthew Sweet / In Reverse

The French Kicks will not be opening for Idlewild on Friday at Lee’s. Instead we get Windsor rockers Full White Drag. I don’t know Full White Drag. But I didn’t know the French Kicks either, so I guess it’s a wash.

The new GBV finally seems to have a finalized title. See the cover art for Earthquake Glue here. Link from Largehearted Boy.

A Mighty Wind opens today, the new film from Christopher Guest. Spinal Tap for the Birkenstock’s set. Hilarity will ensue.

np – Bright Eyes / Lifted, Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground

I have just made an appointment with an accountant to take care of the business end of my taxes for 2002. I figure if I can save as much off my taxes owing as what I will pay him, it will be worthwhile. I feel like such a grown-up!

I had forgotten that Friday is a holiday. I had been planning my week around five days, and now I have four (or one and a half, from this point). It’s left me all rather confused.

Bad night for the good guys on my Tuesday night TV shows. But Kim was noticably absent from 24, which just happened to be one of the best episodes of the season. Coincidence? I think not. And Faith was back on Buffy.

Yeah, not much going on this morning. I’m hungry.

np – The Flaming Lips / Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots