December 31, 2005

FOUR BROTHERS
John Singleton (USA 2005)

8.0
think of the film as a western revenge flick. everything will just be perfect from here on out, i swear to god. there's a preposterous nature to some of the actions taken in this film -- but only if you're watching it as straight drama; which it is not. John Singleton shot it as a western and i was bowled over by how much it worked. the writing is so well-done. it's not your Script 101 run-of-the-mill screenplay. David Elliott and Paul Lovett got the cruel and loving nature of brotherly love down without putting it in your face. the dialogue sounds real. you can sense that there's a life behind the relationships and it doesn't feel forced. one other thing i thought the writers and Singleton got right, for a minute, at least, was the departure of a loved one (it's no secret the story revolves around avenging a death). there's this one scene where the image, on its own, just simply related the feeling of having someone you love gone. if you haven't had it happen to you, i don't know if it comes through, but as someone who lost a loved one, i can tell you that i got it and it was heartbreaking. there's a real emotional core that starts this film out. oh, and the performances... wow. they're first-rate, from top to bottom. even Mark Wahlberg finally looks in his element. and no, he's not playing the same "character" he's played for the past decade (outside of his excellent novice performance in Boogie Nights). he's actually a real good leader here. but the most assured, and surprising, performance comes from André Benjamin. there's just a disarming ease that oozes from this man. he's still playing a character, though. he's not André Benjamin playing André 3000. it's the real deal. the only negative note i'd have to mention would be the flaky addition of the obligatory psycho "latina girlfriend". it's clear that the writers (or the people responsible for this) had no idea what to do with her. Sofia Vergara does the best to humanize this character, and it works incredibly well when she's allowed to do so, but there are way too many pointless hysterical scenes to work as a whole. but that's it. aside from that, this is an effective little film. i haven't followed John Singleton's career that closely since Boyz n the Hood and Higher Learning (which were excellent), i know he's had some difficult times in the past few years (2 Fast 2 Furious, anyone?), but here he shows that he's still one damn ballsy filmmaker! he's got it in him. i can easily recommend that you at least check the film out. it's one damn fine, entertaining little flick. but do think of it as a western :)

Posted by Anonymous | 12:32 PM |

December 29, 2005

hey, everyone. i need your help. Future Shop has these Harman/Kardon HKS 3 satellite speakers on sale for $79.99. my surround speakers are the oldest items in my system (which i got as part of a cheap surround combo about 8 years ago at Club Price) so i was thinking this could be a great, and rather cheap, upgrade. but i couldn't find any reviews on these speakers. anybody got anything? thanks :)

11:52 AM

i think i'll go with the speakers. they're not that expensive (a $100 rebate??), they're Harman/Kardon, and they're a definite upgrade from my crappy Pioneers. although i'm not sure about the metalic look, they do seem more discreet than the bulky ones i already have. i might not hear the possible difference right now but i suspect i will once i plug these in.

for those of you (us) who order stuff online and can't wait to get them, here's
Canada Post's Holiday Schedule
... up to 2010!

3:01 PM

psst-- you just might be able to find the A**tic M**keys album right about now...

Posted by Anonymous | 10:32 AM |

December 24, 2005

Happy Jesus Day, everyone!
don't forget to repent.

the Ultimate Sin!! so yesterday i finally put down some cash for the Sin City - Recut & Extended set. imagine my dismay when i opened it up today and was unable to find the advertised DTS track! canadian distributor Alliance Atlantis thought it would be a good idea to take out the track to put in the french Dolby Digital 5.1 track. i understand that but i would've liked to have a choice. maybe put out two versions. hey, wait a minute -- i thought i understood the inclusion of the french track since we're a billingual country -i hate dubs but i understand it- but the track is only on the theatrical cut (understandably so, they couldn't re-dub the new scenes on the new cut) which was already available on the first edition of the dvd! the new set doesn't have anything new on it, french-wise -- the extras aren't even french-subbed!! so the entire set is english-only (save for a couple of spanish subs on the extras) but they took out the DTS track to include a french one that was already available on the old one dvd??? FUCK!! what a fucking waste! i'm pissed. okay - if you got feel cheated like me, please consider contacting Alliance Atlantis and ask them to put out a DTS version, and maybe have an exchange program set up. that would not only be cool, but also incredibly fair to their consumers. thank you.

oh fuck. Martha Wainwright fucking loves us. she's coming back in about 3 weeks to do a show in the same small cabaret-style venue we saw her in this summer!

upcoming Criterion releases i forgot to mention these past few months:

THE BAD SLEEP WELL Akira Kurosawa, 1960
YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (2 discs) John Ford, 1939
THE VIRING SPRING Ingmar Bergman, 1960
THE COMPLETE MR. ARKADIN (3 discs) Orson Welles, 1955
THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US Vittorio De Sica, 1944
LA BÊTE HUMAINE Jean Renoir, 1938
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (2 discs) Robert Hammer, 1949
METROPOLITAN Whit Stillman, 1990
3 FILMS BY LOUIS MALLES Box Set:
LE SOUFFLE AU COEUR (Murmur of the Heart) Louis Malle, 1970
LACOMBE, LUCIEN Louis Malle, 1974
AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS Louis Malle, 1987
VIRIDIANA Luis Buñuel, 1961
FISTS IN THE POCKET Marco Bellocchio, 1965

Posted by Anonymous | 12:29 PM |

December 22, 2005

Radiohead scared the hell outta me (not the first bit; the second one. as for the first bit - hopefully that includes another open-air show in Montreal :) those are my all-time favorite shows).

brilliant: Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell - The Chronicles of Narnia.

Posted by Anonymous | 8:59 AM |

December 21, 2005

the HABS win a fucking GAME!!! ...and Kovalev's back!!!!!!!!!! woo!

Ottawa 3 Montreal 4 (SO)
MTL Game #32, 17-9-6

against Ottawa, no less! and they had a shootout. goddamn. and they came back from 3-0? fucking hell. that's not the same team that's been dragging along for the past month. about damn time they played some inspired hockey. the ex and i are gonna go down to catch the Jan 3rd game against Pittsburgh, Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby. the game's about 10 days away now. Kovalev's been out on the injured list for over a month now, Koivu was out for a couple of weeks. as much as i want to witness this big game -Crosby's first in Montreal- i'd give anything to see Koivu and Kovalev play live. i was praying both would be back for our game. well, hell yes, Kovalev is back :D oh my god, according to that NHL.com article up top, Kovalev fucking owned the game too! ha. god i love him. oops - Koivu was out. i believe it's his groin injury. he came back for a game or so. should be back soon, i suspect.

Next game - Friday, December 23, 2005, against the Washington Capitals (WAS).

Posted by Anonymous | 10:01 AM |

December 20, 2005

FANTASTIC FOUR
Tim Story (USA 2005)

8.0
this film got some bad rap, i'll tell you that much! wow. okay. first things first - i thought the trailer looked good but you could also tell it was gonna end up being a tepid, crappy little flick. reviews confirmed this when the film got released and i passed on it. but then i caught the flick this morning and ... and it's not a bad little flick at all!! it's got an (almost) full-bodied personality of its own. i only have a vague memory of the Fantastic Four; the real reason i got interested in it was because of my recent discovery of MF Doom's oeuvre. lol. Doom looked and sounded so cool and the samples brought back memories of those saturday morning superhero cartoons. actually, Tim Story aside of getting Dr Doom perfectly by this much, almost gets the style right for the entire film (i would've fallen in love with it had it been shot like the dinner scene - moody and lit in primary colors). i can't say how faithful the adaptation is to the comic book or the animated series. i know they changed some stuff around. but from a newbie-ish point-of-view, it's really not manipulative. and the corniness is kept to a strict minimum. even the love story was good and believable! the performances ground that for us. from the trailer you could tell that Chris Evans stole the fucking show as the Human Torch. but what a pleasure it was to see that every lead character, not only had more depth than expected, but were given positive performances by everyone involved. Michael Chiklis brings out a fabulously gruff Ben, Jessica Alba can actually act, and Ioan Gruffudd's Reed Richards was way geekier than i remembered him being - but it worked! although there are some iffy effects at first (Reeds' stretching hands in the beginning are horrendous), as a whole, the special effects are outstanding in this film (and the dvd brings them out beautifully). it was actually a fast and easy flick to watch. given my initial reservations, i was surprised by how much i enjoyed it. check it out if you're in the mood for some good popcorn action.

Posted by Anonymous | 1:14 PM |

December 19, 2005

wow. Americans sure don't like blood in their [ Kung Fu Hustle ] movies.
that's a lot of sad, right there.

so. my xmas surprise to the ex-roommate was... A McGarrigle XMas :)
Kate and Anna McGarrigle are Rufus and Martha Wainwright's mom and aunt. and the show was filled with family and friends singing xmas-y songs. they added a 4 pm show a couple of weeks ago and there's the Carnegie Hall show coming up this week. and then that's it. so i thought it was perfect for the ex-roommate. and she enjoyed it. as did i. it felt amateurish (probably because there wasn't a whole lot of rehearsal time) but coming from the McGarrigle clan it's always alright. and you never pass up the chance to see Rufus and Martha performing with their family in a small Montreal theater. never. if you've ever seen them live, that's just not done. so, aside from some of the heavily christian songs, there were more than a few glorious moments that gave us chills and made us laugh. it just reconfirmed my faith in seeing Rufus perform for a crowd. the man just exudes effortless presence and charm. that's all i have to say :)

Posted by Anonymous | 11:39 AM |

December 18, 2005

IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG
Michael Dowse (UK, Canada 2004)

8.0
i had my fears about watching this film. i was reluctant because films like these (about downfalls) are very much like aggravating withdrawal symptoms - you have to be in a unique mood to be able to willingly sit through them. but i was rather surprised to find the film actually keeping clear of the bleakness (although very well-done, Trainspotting is my prime example of an incredibly rough 2nd act to sit through). what i found instead was a fantastic film that, although it does go through rough patches (including a very devastating storyline that stopped me dead in my tracks and got me doing some serious thiking [ about what, i can't say. i don't wanna spoil anything ]) is still an immense joy to watch. and rather than being depressing, director Michael Dowse makes you sympathize with the characters' tragic elements instead of punishing you over and over with them. Dowse does a superb job creating the feel of the film, but a lot of the credit has to go to actor Paul Kaye. he just came out of nowhere for me and did a spectacular job with the Frankie Wilde character. i can't pinpoint where he gets us to go along with him, because you certainly don't fall in love with the character (at least not in any obvious way), but his immersion is so complete and honest that you believe he is that guy. simply unstoppable. the Ibiza/electronic scene the story's set in also feels very sincere and not a convoluted representation of a hip culture. there's no turn-off like wanting to appear hip. but this film stays very much on the inside and i appreciated that. and the addition of a number of very prominent DJ's surprised the hell outta me and definitely eased me right into the flick. i can easily say that i was floored and astounded by the whole experience. a truly enjoyable ride. definitely one of my favorite surprises of the year and an incredibly easy recommendation. enjoy Frankie Wilde - this was a thoroughly enjoyable flick!

Posted by Anonymous | 3:52 PM |

December 17, 2005

hello, the word of the week, for me, would be heartbroken.
read on if you don't mind me bringing out my Lab Girl story and adding a bit to it :) the week was alright. i'm not in any real pain. but suffering? some of the time i was, yeah. so, about a week ago i couldn't get anything out of New Lab Girl. not one glance (that i could tell). nothing. i haven't seen her since. but who i have seen is the Original Lab Girl. she came back fiercely this week. wow. my two best friends from work, the only ones who've followed this story all along, just glared at me, shocked, once she'd passed by wednesday night. i was like, what? she actually turned all the way around as she passed our table, and me, right on the edge, to look at straight at me. with a table full of my friends. i was flattered, of course. our game is still on and i at least have that. but the other girl is my first choice. how much of an asshole would i look like if word got to her about me and her co-worker's little flirting? when she came back to the evening shifts this fall, i made it a point not to look at the other one because i was serious about it. but she's not here. and the last week she was, it looked to me like she was blatantly ignoring me. but that's beside the point. jump to today. i catch Friendster's horoscope for Libras and it's talking about an intriguing situation but be careful and don't look up. wtf?? it was so my situation with Original Lab Girl. but be careful and don't look up? fuck. it was too precise. the temptation to look at her would be tremendous, though. and i was torn. but in the end, i decided not to look at her during our break. see what would come of it. (yeah, big decisions, aren't they? lol) when our break ended i quickly glanced at the back of her head, though, as i was caught off guard. i hadn't seen her there. so when i first came in, she was actually looking straight at me and i ignored her. fuck. but hopefully one of her friends saw me glancing at her as i was leaving and will let her know. [ that's the part i've felt most torn up about - slighting her. what it made it frustrating was that it looked like she was incredibly interested yesterday. much more so than usual. she usually makes it a point to shoot a glance at me, sure, but yesterday she was very expectant and much more into it. hopefully it was more than the full moon and i'll get more shots at it next week :) but when i got up from our break it looked like she was actually waiting for me to pass by. her body language looked very anxious and expecting. she's usually cooler than this. but this time, her body was turned away from her friends, her legs almost in the aisle. hopefully she'll have taken my ass-inaction in stride, not as a snub, go back to her boyfriend for the weekend, forget about me for the time being, and everything will be back to normal next week. that would be cool :) ] it sure as hell didn't feel right to ignore her like that. i'd take it back in a second. i've felt shitty and torn ever since, and it's been eating me up inside. hence, the word of the week that was - heartbroken :) (albeit, in a very temporary manner.) thanks for listening and being patient with me :)

ooh, this (and the very cool xmas gift i have in store for the ex-roommate for tonight; i can't say what it is in case she ever learned about this blog but i'll tell you all tomorrow :) just brightened up my fucking day!

Posted by Anonymous | 12:36 AM |

December 15, 2005

i have to add another new and exciting trailer to the bunch - The Da Vinci Code, folks!! now, i won't watch the trailer because i already didn't wanna even know who the actors (aside from the big three) were as i was reading the book a couple of months ago. but - Tom Hanks does look relatively good as Robert Langdon in those pics. love the style. good job.

Posted by Anonymous | 12:38 AM |

December 13, 2005

Trailers. of movies i'm actually excited about:

Miami Vice Michael Mann (USA 2006) [ trailer's buried in the Bacardi site. ]
Mission: Impossible III JJ Abrams (USA 2006)

the Miami Vice trailer, with that shitty Limp Bizkit or Korn song, doesn't do anything, but i'm still gonna be there opening weekend. it's Micheal Mann, baby, folks! with Colin Farrell. but you've got that MI III teaser. now that's something! JJ Abrams, i love you. he got an amazing set of actors this film (and that shot of Philip Seymour Hoffman, dressed in white, surrounded by his black-clad soldiers, while flying away in an helicopter, is fucking priceless) and he still seems to know how to do action :) damn!

...holy shit. so that's why there was no Daily Show last night. how the fuck will they do tonight's show? they'll have to address it in some kind of way. and it'll have to show on Jon. wow.
tvtattle:

Posted by Anonymous | 11:09 AM |

December 12, 2005

Montreal's got a 14-hour New Year's Eve party at the Bell Centre this year, called Celebration, starring Paul Oakenfold! (uh, okay. i've gotta calm down on this. his site actually lists a 2nd new year's eve party in New York. dunno what his times are, though. i'd take New York. okay, so the Montreal show is from 9PM to noon the next day. i can't see Paul Oakenfold warming the place up at 9 so he could be in NY for midnight. so i say he's here for the New Year :) oh, but the New York party is called, wait for it... New Year's Eve with Paul Oakenfold. ha. 9PM to 9AM. ah, 'and Special Guests'. so they can fill up some time, but i'd expect him to be there for midnight with those prices.

1:22 PM

Danni wins Survivor: Guatemala !!!
hurrah!
sorry if that's already old news but i'd taped the show :) i've been on Gary and Danni's team since a couple of weeks before the merge, but it never dawned on me that Danni would be the ideal winner for this Survivor until last week's episode where she, once again, pulled through the eye of the needle. i was in love. so congrats to her. btw, Rafe was my 2nd choice for the win because he continuously won every immunity challenge and did it with a heart of gold. hurrah for that. btw, i was totally with him when Cindy decided against giving the other four survivors their own Torrents (...does it come with an iPod and a dvd player??). as soon as Jeff said she could give up her car to give one to each other contestant, i immediately jumped. i would've given the cars, no question about it. dunno what the big deal is. as Rafe said, it's one car against four, and making your four friends happy. forget about them voting for you in the end, that's not about that. it's about giving. need a car? fuck, you'll make money after the show. i thought she was an ass.
btw, if there's one lesson Survivor continually teaches us is that ... makeup uggs people up :) the contrast, from natural to fake, is striking, to say the least.
now on to the next season - Panama: Exile Island, which looks brilliant. dunno the details of the game but they gave us just enough to get me interested in the game once again. btw, i haven't followed any season of Survivor with as much interest as i did this one. i believe i am a fan now.
oh, and CBS - try to get Danni and Gary on the Amazing Race, okay? them and Kaysar.

Megstasy. brilliant.

Posted by Anonymous | 9:41 AM |

December 11, 2005

THE INTERPRETER
Sydney Pollack (USA 2005)

6.5
a political thriller involving an African-American U.N. interpreter (Nicole Kidman). after a bumbling attempt at introductions, Pollack and company finally get their shit together and put together the first good scene of the movie. the story confused the crap outta me, switching sides, terrorists, and motivations at every turn. the movie is smarter than your average Hollywood thriller, i'll give it that, and writer Steven Zaillian probably had a huge hand in that, but i think the rewrites tangled the plot lines a bit too much so that it was hard to follow every line through. at one point, they even seemed to be going for a linear message - Killing is ...wrong? - but the second and third acts brought it more into focus about the two lead characters. and so, for me, this film was more about mourning than anything political (it's hard to do politics on-screen -- you either do a documentary or go with a fictitious story that feels pretentious and fake). i liked the emotional content much more. i was actually expecting a cleaner thriller than this. the storylines, although incredibly well-thought out, were too messy and quick. quick sidenote - i was surprised to see Catherine Keener's name in the credits. she's a very fresh and indie kind of actress, so i was pleasantly surprised. but her character was disposable - at best. a bit sad to see so much potential talent getting wasted in such a manner. back to the film. the performances were alright. Nicole Kidman wasn't anything special, but Sean Penn gives a notably grim performance, grounding us into some sort of reality, giving the world in which the characters live the credibility it deserves. so, i was initially letdown by the film, but, at one crucial point, it picked back up spectacularly well, finally getting its legs and running on for a good bit before dwindling down into a convoluted end piece (but a quick look at the excruciatingly bad alternate ending makes me thankful we got this one instead). blander than i expected, but it does have some life if you give it some time.

Posted by Anonymous | 4:36 PM |

December 09, 2005

i haven't written a lot this week, have i? well, not much happened. as always, there's work. oh, New Lab Girl (my #1 crush for the past 6 months) has been steadily working evening shifts!! that's great news for me as we can deepen our glancing relationship with even more vague eye contact and/or outright elusiveness (the latter has been happening on her part, i believe, for the past few days; no idea why). and i rediscovered this one girl who could become a new crush. we'll see. in other personal news, i started listening to the Dalai Lama's Four Noble Truths on my iPod this week. there's some tiresome repeating through the conference but it's damn illuminating and definitely something i wanna pursue. that's it for the personal. now here's a tale of the materialistic :)

so this morning i got up and had planned to finally swing by Future Shop to get the 24 (Season Four) and Roseanne (The Complete Second Season) sets. so i check the store availability for both items ... and they don't have the 24 box anymore!! i debated ordering them online but i had to go out anyway so i decided to see for myself if they had it first. i wanted it badly; waiting until next week, although i wouldn't watch the series this weekend, would be frustrating :) but i'm glad i went - they still had about 4 or 5 sets on the shelves, ready to be bought. and that's today's lesson in trusting your instincts :) end.

Saturday, 12:39 AM

oh, Rachel McAdams, how i admire you even more.

Posted by Anonymous | 2:09 PM |

December 06, 2005

24 - Season Four is out, folks. i kept forgetting this was coming these past few months until a coworker pointed it out to me last week. after being excited back into the wonderful world of 24 ...i forgot about it again. lol. but here it is. Amazon.ca has it for a steep $69.99. pick it up at Future Shop for the usual $57.99. [ whoa -- DVDTalk (link above) seems to love this set!! fuck. i was gonna pick it up anyway. that was a no-brainer. but whether i picked it up today or in a few weeks, i had no idea. shit. but there's this teaser for Season Five on there...and they just revealed one tiny info about the new season...lol. i had no idea. every tiny new info i get always makes me jump for joy somehow. did they finally get out of their rut? it's sure leading up to it. i can't wait to be surprised all over again. ]

holy mother of god - Spike Jonze is a genius.
goldenfiddle:

Posted by Anonymous | 10:32 AM |

December 05, 2005

there's still life in Arrested Development. Brian Grazer's interested in other networks to pick up the most hilarious show on tv. see? don't count this bestest show out. we're only warming up to the fight. btw, the biggest surprise to me was seeing a preview for tonight's triumphant return of our Bluths. i'd actually counted them out for 2005 and was looking forward to new episodes in January. count me surprised. also back on tonight (for a bit): Kitchen Confidential. with the much-talked about Michael Vartan episode(s?).

shit. looks like Blogspot is under some kind of maintenance right now (Blogger works fine). no biggie.

just wanted to say that i've tweaked Firefox a bit since yesterday and i've almost got it to working like my good ole Mozilla Suite. i must say that Firefox is lighter and comes back to life quicker than Mozilla did. probably because Mozilla has a bit more running with it - Composer and Mail client. and i don't wanna switch over to Thunderbird just yet - the Mozilla Mail client has done a wonderful job. and i've managed to bring that into Firefox, thanks to some nifty tweaks. so that's it for now. that was my Firefox update.

Posted by Anonymous | 8:08 PM |

December 04, 2005

CINDERELLA MAN
Ron Howard (USA 2005)

6.5
i vowed never to see A Beautiful Mind as soon as i heard Ron Howard and Imagine had taken liberties with the still-living couple's life to make it more palatable for a mainstream audience. Ron Howard is a good director. but for some reason, he's been making pap sentimental "Oscar contender" flicks these past few years. i don't remember why i decided to sit down and watch this film, though. 'cause i sure as hell wasn't interested when it went into theaters. it seemed to be the same kind of lazy, over-produced flick i've hated Ron Howard for. but i did, so here we are. the film starts out rather awkwardly with some pap and corny characters (even one of the kids -you'll spot him- seems to have a Child Actor tag all over his tacky performance). i couldn't find a way into the film. tales of courage set against the Great Depression are hard to make fresh and real. especially when they're so transparently manipulative. and although Braddock even states early on that you can't fight something you can't see, such as poverty, it is exactly what he's fighting against in the end. yeah - hokey. but after about 40 minutes to an hour, something happened, and i won't say what, but it chnaged the film for me. it let me in. never quit on a poor film; there's always the chance you'll be missing a gem. it was a thing of beauty and i have no idea how they did it because, god knows, for the first hour or so they made asses of themselves, stumbling over each other, in order to try and make a proper film. but that saved it for me. it was actually exciting. and for almost the rest of the flick, things went more smoothly for me. i'm not saying it was a great film. not at all. but it was at least an acceptable, passable one now. the story's pretty much telegraphed the whole way through, though, and it's simple enough so that everyone will understand. i don't get these kinds of films. and for some reason, i still believe Ron Howard is a decent director under it all. but either he chooses poor material, or he simply boils it all down to one or two simple things and the film suffers from artificiality. it does have some guts to it. although it's sentimental, i don't believe it's consciously Oscar-bait (the overdone strings are). Howard and company just seem lost these past few years. out of touch. so a story about courage and the po' man feel a bit out of their grasp. it's mostly all surface. so, if you're looking to get lost in a film, this doesn't seem to be it. one thing i did notice that i thought showed some creativity was how quiet Howard kept the film. that was a nice touch. and a gaunt Russell Crowe does a fine job here, working with a stereotypical noble underdog character and fleshes him out so you believe him even when you're laughing at the failures of the flick.

Posted by Anonymous | 7:01 PM |

FINALLY!!!

NHL
L.A. 2 Montreal 3
MTL Game #27 of 82, 15-7-5

i was at the office xmas party so we couldn't watch the game. but at some point i heard a fellow fan dejectedly mention a loss during shoot-outs. but i just checked out the score to put it up here and -whoa!- an actual win! (i actually had to also check out the NHL.com Scores section to make sure. lol.) i'm surprised, and really pleased, to see them at least have a win (it doesn't sound like it was a solid gamethe whole way through). after a tumultuous and intense first quarter third of the season that saw the team sometimes playing 4 games a week, now the gang actually has a full week off and won't be playing until next saturday. i don't think i've ever seen this. it'll be interesting to see them come back after a week's rest (although i'm sure the coaching staff has planned for this week since September).

Next game - Saturday, December 10, 2005, against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (MTL).

oh, i'm also finally trying out Firefox for the nth time. i dunno what the big deal is. i've been using Mozilla Suite for the past few years and everything that appears in Firefox is already in Mozilla. but i found a nice Skin for Firefox (iFox Graphite) so i'll try it out for a bit and see. i like the way the bookmarks drop down in Mozilla better, though. Firefox seems clunkier.

9:03 PM

Shirley and Butch's 'Record Collections' (the link includes Shirley's cool highlights of the year) in Filter magazine!

Posted by Anonymous | 2:28 PM |

December 03, 2005

that was close. we almost got a poor 16-track cut-down version of Pretty Little Head, Nellie McKay's sophomore work. but Nellie bitched about it at a show and Sony's backtracked and the full 23-track album will see the light of day. (as a sidenote - Nellie still insisted on stealing as much anyway? :)

Posted by Anonymous | 11:56 AM |

December 02, 2005

well, my brain's been turned off this week. been busy during the day and working every evening (there has been an upside to working so much, though - i've been going through a lot of newly-acquired music). no big posts this week. sorry about that. i even mananged to forget about the Habs' two games. here are the sorry results:

tuesday, Nov 29 2005
Montreal 0 Ottawa 4
Game #25

thursday, Dec 1 2005
Buffalo 3 Montreal 2 (OT)
Game #26, 14-7-5

at least they lost in overtime last night, taking a point in the standings. hopefully (i seem to say this a lot lately when talking about the Habs) they can take L.A. tomorrow night (hey, will Elisha Cuthbert be there? probably not since it's not Montreal. it would be cool, though).

here you go. i knew U2 had some surprises left in them for the second Montreal show, and this was kinda inevitable at some point:
Arcade Fire + U2 - Love Will Tear Us Apart

Posted by Anonymous | 10:53 AM |