A terrifically drab and wet day out today. Lots of wind, too.

The new Bettie Serveert album Log 22 is getting a North American release on March 11 on Parasol. Yay Betties.

np – The Shins / Oh, Inverted World

Watched Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back. Urmm. Not worth spending too much time discussing. Liked – monkey content, Shannon Elizabeth and Eliza Dushku a) in leather cat suits and b) wrasslin’, the genuine albeit lowbrow satirical content. And that’s about it. Yeah.

I think my main complaint is that Smith doesn’t stand behind his work. Explain? He hedges his bets all the way through – on more than a few occasions, the characters would crack a joke about how stupid this movie was, then mug at the camera knowingly. It’s like Smith was leaving himself get-out-of-criticism-free cards so if anyone complained the film was dumb or sub-par, he could just say, “Even I knew it was stupid, you complaints are wasted on me!”. The overall impression I got was that he wasn’t willing to stand behind his work 100% or that he didn’t care that there was material in there that he knew wasn’t up to snuff. And I’m sorry, but I can’t accept that.

Look at me, panties all in a bunch over the artistic intent of Kevin Smith. But I think that’s been my overriding complaint with all his work – it’s never as good as it could be because of creator carelessness or indifference. It’s like when he was the writer on Daredevil – the work was good, but as one guy put it, ‘he’s the biggest pot-head in the industry’, and successfully turned a monthly comic into maybe 8 issues a year. Sorry man, but that just sucks. Anyway.

So my friend Ross is now engaged to a girl he met four months ago in Colombia. This was unexpected. Congratulations.

Scored the new J Mascis & The Fog disc today, used. It’s ostensibly a concept album about skydiving? I dunno. J was phoning it in on the last couple Dinosaur Jr records, but the last Fog disc was surprisingly good. The recipe never changes much – J will always sound like J – but it sounds like he’s having fun again, and that’s good enough. If nothing else, it’s like a fuzz pedal clinic.

Another fun link… Ben Affleck is such a lucky man.

np – J Mascis & The Fog / Free So Free

Interesting bit in The Star today about how Dubya’s not a moron, but is actually a sociopath.

It’s amazing how quiet the Internet gets on American holidays. All my usual haunts are conspicuously silent today. Everyone devouring bird and watching football, I guess. Thanksgiving has also trumped band practice tonight (that’s two weeks off now…) as Mr Brad has the nerve to be of Yankee blood. I hope they at least made him work today.

This is turning out to be a very slow day. S-L-O-W.

np – Love / Forever Changes

So my Best of 2002 list is up – click on the banner up top or here to have a gander.

And just so this isn’t a totally vacuous post, a fun link:

Exploding Dog

Oh yeah – Happy Thanksgiving to all our American viewers!