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12.29.05 only prime numbers are funny
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NP: "Wipe Me I'm Lucky" – The Clean.
NP: "Wishbone" – Architecture In Helsinki.
NP: "Everyday Feels Like" – Of Montreal.
NP: "Tips For Teens" – Sparks.
NP: "They Removed All Traces That Anything Had Ever Happened Here" – Hood.
NP: "Take It Easy" – The Eagles.
NP: "Hungry Freaks, Daddy" – Frank Zappa.
NR: The New Yorker. One more page and I'm completely caught up!
blah blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah blah
blah blah blah
just listening to music and reading and not thinking about too much.
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12.21.05 Dumb as a post
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NP: "Among Friends" – Sarianna. Making myself listen to lots of new music today. Downloaded tons of stuff from random blogs, myspace, whatever. Here's some of the stuff that really stuck out. I don't know anything at all about this woman, but I like the songs. A debt to Aimee Mann and The Magnetic Fields, but she knows how to turn a phrase.
NP: "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend" – Channels. J. Robbins' new band. Nice cover.
NP: "USA=#1" – Avenue D. Ah, Avenue D. I didn't even know they were still around. Catchy fucking song.
NP: "You Owe Me One" – ABBA. One of their last recorded songs, apparently to be on an album which never came out. Just released on some complete ABBA boxset thing. Amazing song. Do not ever ask me to take ABBA or The Carpenters out of my ipod. It's not going to happen.
NP: "Monster" – Ladyfuzz. Haven't a clue about this. But I like it. Reminds me like 1% of Peaches, and like 3% of if Britt Daniel were a chick.
NP: "Chariot" – Page France. I don't even remember where I grabbed this. I can't put my finger on what this reminds me of. Vocally it's drawing me to something that's on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't make it out. Frustrating. I guess maybe The Arcade Fire, but it's something else, too.
NP: "The Fall" – Peter And The Wolf. Kinda plain, but pleasant.
NP: "Down At Columbia And Cameron" – The Physics Of Meaning. John Vanderslice meets The Posies?
NP: "Collection" – Young People. I hear there's a new Young People album coming soon. Here's a song from an older record.
NP: "10 Gallon Ascot" – Tapes N' Tapes. The first British band with a strong Clap Your Hands appreciation?
NP: "Black Refuge" – Junip. Jose Gonzales' band.
NP: "No One's Gonna Love You Like Me" – Mary McBride. From the "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack.
NP: "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" – Emmylou Harris. Also from "Brokeback Mountain." One thing I DID like about this movie is that the music was very minimal and kept in the background and never was used as a bullshit editing device, or to cover up for bad writing. This song was used to great affect, however, if only for about twelve seconds.
NR: The New Yorker. Almost caught up!
Brutal poker. Played in the $120 freezeout at BBBB, started 10 minutes late, already 2 of the 10 players are knocked out and one guy got 'em both. He's tripled up and everybody else is basically even-stacked. I whittle away, whittle away, play well, play smart, get some good cards, make good decisions, and eventually it's down to two players, me and the guy that was the big stack the entire tourney. We have exactly the same amount of chips. And before we even play a hand heads up we decide to chop up the $990 evenly, tip the dealers $90, and walk away with $450 each. A nice little $330 profit, and finally a good tournament performance from front to end.
And then i decide to sit down at the 1-2 NL table. And I get a horrible beat on a stupid stupid STUPID move by a horrible player, go on tilt (after losing $600 to him that hand), and then proceed to lose $1750 on the cash game table.
Really bad.
And this after losing some dumb money over the weekend that I shouldn't have, and an internet session that went from being up $250 playing 3-6 limit to being even to being down $300 playing 5-10 limit.
So, basically I pissed away $2000 over the last couple of days.
And then I get bored and put $50 online, to just play 1-2 limit and waste some time while doing other things. First hand I get AA, and it loses. Next hand I limp with A5diamonds, flop a gutshot and a flush draw, hit the flush on the turn, and the guy hits a boat on the river. The next hand I limp on the button with K3 hearts. The flop comes 2 hearts, including the Ahearts. No flush this time, and I fold on the river. Two hands later I limp with A10spades, the flop comes with the Kspades and Qspades, I ram and jam the pot until I get all-in, but... no flush, no straight, no straight flush. Seven hands of 1-2, down $54.
Amazing.
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Finally saw "Brokeback Mountain" last night. Definitely been thinking about it a lot, but haven't really formed my opinion of it yet. One thing going against it is that afterwards I read the Alice Munro short story "Wenlock Edge" in The New Yorker from two weeks ago. It's one of the finest pieces she's ever done, and in some way it's triggered some of the same synapses to fire.
Which also leads me to such an obvious question: why hasn't any of Alice Munro's stuff been converted to screenplay? I mean, I know most of her stories involve flashback, internal monologue. But converting the story being told in a character's head into a story being viewed by an outside observer... It IS possible. I'm guessing Brokeback Mountain in the original short story form may be quite similar. It could be something along the lines of Robert Altman turning Raymond Carver short stories into "Shortcuts", or something like Wallace Shawn's rendering of "The Designated Mourner" (or even this: watched the PBS taping of the original John Malkovich + Gary Sinise version of Sam Shepherd's "True West" and was spellbound). As I'm thinking about trying my hand at a screenplay of some sort, this just seems like an idea that could be done. And NEEDS to be done.
Speaking of "True West": it IS amazing just how much of "Adaptation" is taken from "True West". The base / criminal brother showing up, writing a cliched "modern western" screenplay, the conflict between the two. I'm shocked nobody seems to have picked up on it, at least in the reviews I ever read. A quick google search for "true west adaptation charlie kaufmann" does kick up a bunch of responses, but... it's weird how nobody called it out immediately.
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I've never been so ashamed of my state, or of my college. The whole Dover School District "intelligent design" case. At least the judge (and the Dover voters) did the right thing. But not until one of the leading "scientists" for the intelligent design cause, a professor at Lehigh University, made me cringe a million times over. Combine that with the fact that the sophomore class president of Lehigh robbed a bank last week, apparently to pay off online poker debts, and I'm definitely... ashamed. Ashamed is the right word, too. Makes my skin crawl.
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12.19.05 "You're an idiot, you're retarded, and nobody will ever love you."
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NP: The playlist listed below. Not posted, because it's huge.
NR: Just started "Encounters" by Juan Garcia Ponce.
A dinner party playlist (cocktails, dinner, dessert, and more cocktails):
Nick Drake | | Black Eyed Dog
Otis Redding | | These Arms of Mine
Steely Dan | | Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Talk Talk | | Ascension Day
Bob Dylan | | It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Simon & Garfunkel | | Mrs. Robinson
Willie Nelson | | Pick Up The Tempo / Phase And Stages (Theme)
Francoise Hardy | | Loving You
Johnny Cash | | Oh Lonesome Me
The Concretes | | Say Something New
The Velvet Underground | | Sweet Jane (Full Length Version)
Squeeze | | Tempted
Spoon | | Car Radio
Sea Ray | | Revelry
Monsieur Mo Rio | | Bonne Chance (Good Luck)
The Waterboys | | Fisherman's Blues
The Aluminum Group | | Easy On Your Eyes
Leona Naess | | Learning As We Go
Van Morrison | | Caravan
Brian Eno | | Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
The National | | Daughters Of The Soho Riots
Django Reinhardt | | Brazil
Antonio Carols Jobim & Luiz Bonfa | | Samba de Orfu
Amadeus Quartet | | Brahms - Streichquartett a-moll, op. 51 No. 1 - 1.
Amadeus Quartet | | Brahms - Streichquartett a-moll, op. 51 No. 1 - 2.
Amadeus Quartet | | Brahms - Streichquartett a-moll, op. 51 No. 1 - 3.
Amadeus Quartet | | Brahms - Streichquartett a-moll, op. 51 No. 1 - 4.
Amadeus String Quartet | | Brahms - Quintett f-moll, op. 34 - 1.
Amadeus String Quartet | | Brahms - Quintett f-moll, op. 34 - 2.
Amadeus String Quartet | | Brahms - Quintett f-moll, op. 34 - 3.
Amadeus String Quartet | | Brahms - Quintett f-moll, op. 34 - 4.
Cowboy Junkies | | Blue Moon Revisited
Bedroom Walls | | I've Been Thinking A Lot About Dots On The Wall
The Magnetic Fields | | Busby Berkeley Dreams
Aretha Franklin | | Since You've Been Gone
Charles Wright & Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band | | Love Land
Jamie Lidell | | Multiply
Shrimp Boat | | Honeyside
Tom Waits | | Downtown Train
David Bowie | | Changes
The Coral | | Dreaming Of You
Neil Young | | Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Billy Bragg | | Greetings to the New Brunette
Pixies | | Dig For Fire
Electric Light Orchestra | | Mr. Blue Sky
Modest Mouse | | Paper Thin Walls
Pavement | | Silence Kit
Ride | | Vapour Trail
The Kinks | | The Village Green Preservation Society
Ladytron | | Blue Jeans
The Cure | | A Forest
Creedence Clearwater Revival | | Bad Moon Rising
Bloc Party | | Banquet
The Replacements | | Can't Hardly Wait
The Who | | I Can't Explain
Violent Femmes | | I Held Her In My Arms
Neutral Milk Hotel | | Holland, 1945
The Go-Betweens | | Spring Rain
The Cult | | She Sells Sanctuary
Jawbox | | Savory
The Pogues | | Haunted
Mercury Rev | | Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp
Ike & Tina Turner | | Bold Soul Sister
Four Tet | | A Joy
Hüsker Dü | | Green Eyes
The Replacements | | Alex Chilton
Blur | | There's No Other Way
The Psychedelic Furs | | Pretty in Pink
My Morning Jacket | | Lowdown
New Order | | Ceremony
T.Rex | | The Slider
Broken Social Scene | | Lover's Spit
The Kinks | | Waterloo Sunset
Nick Drake | | Hazy Jane II
Built To Spill | | Car
Elliott Smith | | A Fond Farewell
This Mortal Coil | | You and Your Sister
Echo & The Bunnymen | | Bring On The Dancing Horses
The Magnetic Fields | | 100,000 Fireflies
Clearlake | | I Dreamt That You Died
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