Another night, another repeat viewing of a movie I saw last year but still thoroughly enjoyed – this time, The Royal Tenebaums. I might go so far as to say I enjoyed it more the second time around than the first, since I was able to focus a little less on the story and more on the wonderful direction and cinematography. I just loved the way every scene in the film was composed and framed – the attention to set detail, the warmth of the colours, just the sheer visual richness of it all. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the film itself has a terrific script and cast, to say nothing of the bang-on soundtrack. The juxtaposition of Elliott Smith’s Needle In The Hay with Luke Wilson’s scene in the bathroom still gave me chills. Wes Anderson is one of the best and quirkiest directors in Hollywood – anything he does is worth investigating… which reminds me, I need to find a copy of Bottle Rocket.

np – The Kinks / Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire

Spent most of this morning reading all of Strong Bad’s email on Homestar Runner. Man, some of that stuff will make you pee yourself. Really, it will.

Watched Spider-Man again last night. Needed to cleanse my palate of the bad taste the Daredevil trailer left in my mouth. Eee-yuck (to DD, not Spidey). Such a great comic book adaptation (Spidey, not DD). When it’s so possible to make GOOD adaptations these days, it’s so frustrating to see them make half-assed crappy ones. Sez I.

np – Velvet Crush / A Single Odessey

Well THIS is exciting. 500 tapes of Beatles sessions, including unreleased material, which was stolen in the 70s have been recovered. It’s from the aborted Get Back album, circa 1969. I’m very anxious to hear what the plans for this material is, though with only Paul and Ringo left, I wouldn’t be shocked to see everything credited to “McCartney/Starkey”… Full story here. I only hope some gets a restraining order to keep Jeff Lynne away from these.

So we found and injured starling in the hallway outside our office this afternoon. It must have gotten into the building through a vent and injured itself against a window or something. It was pretty dazed at first, and seemed to have a broken leg at the least. After an hour or so, it got more animated and began cheeping incessently. It’s in the humane society’s capable hands now. My brother’s girlfriend was particularly interested as her family had a pet starling when she was young and I think it lived to be 18 or some ridiculous such age, and could talk. How about that.

There is currently discussion about bringing another band into the rehearsal space. It could make things a little more crowded, but would also reduce everyone’s rents. There are also some promising leads in the drummer search. Here’s hoping.

New trailer for the Daredevil movie is up. It’s out in just over a month… and it just looks worse and worse. Now they’ve made the mistake of including dialogue in the trailer. I wince. It’s that bad. Whatever voice Ben Affleck is affecting to sound gritty? Um, no. Alls I can say is May 2… X2.

np – Built To Spill / Live

I was going through my web referrer logs a little while ago, and was surprised to see a hit from Playboy Enterprises. Visions of nubile young women in bunny ears and swimsuits huddled around a laptop in the grotto, giggling over my witty and urbane musings on music and life, pranced through my head. Then Hef showed up and things went downhill from there.

But it raises the question – what do people who work at porn companies surf for on the internet when no one else is looking?

np – Superdrag / Regretfully Yours

So walking to rehearsal tonight : it’s almost white-out conditions. In just under a block and a half, I am covered completely and utterly in the dandruff of the gods. The scene is so at odds with the soundtrack on my headphones, Luna’s Romantica, a summer album if ever there was one, that I actually laugh out loud. I am in a good mood.

So at rehearsal tonight : It’s just the three of us, as always. I install my new Z-Vex power plate on the Fuzz Factory, works like a charm. No more batteries in my rig! Huzzah. We actually get a fair bit of work done on two new songs – one a skeletal loop-based affair which I’ve decided to just do five minutes of background squall in, and a simple little country number for which I need to brush up on my chicken-picking and remember how to play 6ths’ without thinking too hard. Good fun. But we still need to find a drummer…

So on the way home from rehearsal tonight : The snow has tapered off and once again, it’s all slush. But this time, the slush on the roadways has been caked down into a super-hard and super-slippery uber-slush. I do not know this, and as I run to catch a streetcar, I wipe out in grand fashion. The right side of my pants is initially covered and snow and slush, and when that melts, is just WET. I landed on my side wrong and *that’s* all sore too. Whee. Oh well, I meant to wash these pants tonight anyway. And you know what? I’m soaked, it’s cold out, my side aches and I’m still in a good mood. Lord only knows why, but I’ll go with it.

My nomination for best domain name of the year : dubyadubyadubya.com

Snarky little article at Slate – The Return Of Mope Rock. Someone got beat up by some dude with a Flock Of Seagulls haircut when he was a kid…

np – Luna / Romantica