Thanks to Brad’s laryngitis and the resultant cancelled band practice last night, I had a free evening to watch Pi, which I’d rented last week. After seeing this and having already seen his other feel-good heartwarmer Requiem For A Dream, I really wish director Darren Aranofsky had gone through with making Batman: Year One if just to see how much of his hyperkinetic, fast-cut, nutty close-up style he would have retained. Both of his films have drawn heavily on the same bag of visual tricks, but its been effective. Pi is a vaguely sci-fi film about a brilliant mathemetician who seeks to unlock the mathematical secret of nature while being pursued by cutthroat capitalists wanting to use his work to control the stock market and a sect of Kabbalist Jews seeking to bring forth the Messianic age through mathematics. It’s sorta tough to explain, but it’s a cool film and not as hard to follow as you might expect. And it’s probably the only place you’ll find hardcore number theory juxtaposed with a driving techno soundrack.

Democratic Presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark doesn’t think that Outkast have broken up. He’s got my vote.

The Daily Show is now on regular network television in Canada. Read: it’s on a channel I get. Life is good.

Largehearted Boy has been playing indie rock evangelist the last couple days, offering a wide selection of mp3s to introduce you to some artists worthy of your attention. Yesterday was Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie/The Postal Service) day, and today The New Pornographers are honoured. If you’ve been curious about either of these bands, head over and see what you’ve been missing. And as a footnote, the all-new New Porographers website has the new video for “All For Swinging You Around” online for your viewing pleasure.

Today sees the release of Ryan Adams’ Rock N Roll and the first of two Love Is Hell EPs. The full-length is getting mixed reviews and a lot of puzzlement, as its about a big a departure from his alt.country roots as we’ve seen yet – it’s his ‘tribute’ to 80s rock, and the snippets I’ve heard certainly seem like a smorgasborg of that oft-reviled decade. I hear the Psychedelic Furs alongside Springsteen… it’s eclectic, at least. I’ll have to wait till I hear the whole thing before offering a firm judgement. The Love Is Hell mini-albums are more traditional Adams fare, harkening back to Heartbreaker. As for why they chose to release it as two long discount-priced EPs (the first one is eight tracks long) instead of one album, I have no idea. Freaks.

I am wearing the same clothes at work today as I did yesterday. Not because I went out last night, got lucky and didn’t make it home, but because we need someone to pretend to be an engineer (read: business casual outfit) for a brochure photoshoot and for some reason I got nominated. We couldn’t take the photo yesterday because of the rain, so I had to wear the same outfit today so we can try again. Yes, after ditching years of engineering school and work, I am being asked to dress up like an engineer. I thought Hallowe’en was over? Irony so thick you could spread it on toast.

np – The Replacements / Let It Be

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