Well, reports of my convalesence were greatly exagerrated. I managed to be productive for the first bit of yesterday at work, but my condition deteriorated enough that going home again at lunch and sleeping was a pretty good idea. I’m irritated, because I usually don’t get sick to the point of incapacitation. I’m feeling a little better today but think I’m going to give myself one more full day of rest before forcing myself back to work again.

One of the pluses of being laid up at home is I’ve been watching movies. Since I’ve gone into work for a little while the last couple days, I’ve been able to stop in at the video shop before heading home. First, I saw the original The Italian Job. I liked last year’s remake but for some reason, I thought the original was more serious. How wrong I was – the Michael Caine-starring original was a seriously lightweight caper. It was fun and had a lot more ineffable coolness, but the remake (a very loose term – it basically borrowed some names, the traffic jam heist and the mini coopers and that’s it) was actually much more solid in terms of plot and characters. Think about that for a minute. It also had Charlize Theron in a nightie. That counts for a lot as well.

Next up was The Cooler, also pretty lightweight. By its very premise – William H Macy is bad luck incarnate and is hired to “cool” off customers winning too much in a Vegas casino – it can’t be taken very seriously. Macy is good in the ultimate sad-sack role that seems custom-written for him, as is Maria Bello as the woman who changes his luck and Alec Baldwin as the casino boss who needs to keep him unlucky. The film falls a little short in the execution, however, and I thought everything could have been a little more fleshed out. It gets by on its peculiar sort of charm despite multiple William H Macy bare-ass shots (ugh), but could have been a little better.

The Toronto Star finds that Jeff Tweedy is feeling much better now, thanks for asking. And Doctors Without Borders would like to thank the JustAFan.org movement for raising over $10,000 USD from Wilco fans. That’s bloody impressive – if you donated, give yourself a hand.

Old 97’s have some songs from Drag It Up available for you sampling pleasure on their website right now to tide you over till July 27, when the record is released. You can also get a gander of the album artwork.

Hayden fans may be interested to know that he’s playing an exclusive and intimate little show at the Gladstone May 25 and you can win tickets or other prizes by entering this contest. To enter, you have to complete the following statement in 50 words or less: “My favourite Hayden song from Elk-Lake Serenade is ____________, because …” Thanks to Chris from Waste Your Days Away for the tip.

Metric have finally redone their God-awful website. Much better now. From For The Records.

Have I really already done 23 of these silly 24 commentaries? Sweet fancy Moses. Okay, who else cheered when Sherry got punched out? And who cheered when she got plugged? Sickos. I guess she won’t be back in season four. All she ever wanted was to be Mrs David Palmer again. And really, isn’t that what we all want? Jack was pretty badass in threatening to put Saunders’ daughter in the hotel – I think it’s a testament to Keifer Sutherland and the writers in general for having written and portrayed Jack Bauer so well to this point that you really believed he’d do it. That’s impressive. However, with one hour left to go I think season three will be staggering to the finish line. There’s really not much left in the way of surprises they can throw at us with just an hour left to go without it coming off as a desperate last-minute curveball (not without precedent – see last season). I won’t close the book on season three just yet, but I don’t have great anticipation for the season finale next week.

np – Sea Ray / Stars At Noon

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