Netflix Round-up

Quick catch-up on our Netfix activity. Picking up from my last post on the matter we have:

The Brothers Grimm was a lot better that I thought it might be. Heath Ledger was especially good, as was actor who played the sadistic Italian. You know, the head nihilist guy from the Big Lebowski, that guy.

Candace watched a couple without me, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and In Her Shoes, mainly because I've been working a lot of nights lately. Not, I repeat, NOT because they are girl movies. I would have gladly watched them with her had she wanted me to. So there.

Watched Citizen Kane for the first time in a while, and of course, it's brilliant. Interesting sidenote: I had no idea that the White Stripes song, "The Union Forever" was about Citizen Kane. Go figure.

Got Bad News Bears but the disc was scratched and the two minutes we saw were just foul and not at all funny, which is a shame, because Billy Bob's one of my faves.

Finally, Elizabethtown. I was really nervous about this one. Entertainment Weekly was not very enthusiastic about it and I'd heard mixed reviews here and there. I dunno, I really enjoyed it. Not Cameron Crowe's best work, but still, it was funny, moving and beautiful. What more do you want? I mean, besides cyborgs with laser eyes and a couple bloodthirsty dinosaurs, of course.

We have The Corpse Bride here and Walk the Line up next, bot hof which I've been dying to see, especially Walk the Line. Candace & I went to see the last Harry Potter (which, by the way, was friggin' ACES! Loved it to little bitty bits!) at the cheap theater here in town and they showed a preview for it. I just had to lean over and tell Candace that I thought that "Johnny Cash was one cool sonuva." She simply nodded. That's my gal.

Up next in the queue:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Work of Director Spike Jonze
Guided by Voices: Watch Me Jumpstart
and...
Sliding Doors

Y'know What Song Rules?

"Keep the Cosmic Trigger Happy," by Super Furry Animals. From this album right...here:

Recent Work

Here's a board for a typeface I designed for my Advanced Typography class. Think it turned out pretty well, with the glaring exception of the fact I realized that my body type in the lower right hand corner being altogether too huge after I'd printed it out and mounted it. Should probably be at least 3 point sizes smaller, but, it's done now, so, oh well.

Yes, I Am Now A Pod Person

That's not the title for my upcoming science-fiction novel (though it is pretty good). No, I joined the cult of the iPod. 60 gigs. Black. Video. Beautiful. I know it's wrong to love something that can't love me back, but still...

Mmmm. So pretty.

I Loves My Ladies

Nothing too much here, but I just wanted to give a shout out to my two favorite girls. Love ya. Yr my world.

Recent Acquisitions

I've acquired a lot of CDs lately. I got a lot from Huston before I left (thanks, brother):
Animal Collective Feels
Apollo Sunshine Apollo Sunshine
Appleseed Cast Low Level Owl, v.2 and Two Conversations
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat
Hawaii Hawaii
Josh Ritter The Golden Age of Radio
Red House Painters Songs For A Blue Guitar
Sufjan Stevens Come On Feel the Illinoise!
Ben GIbbard and Andrew Kenny Home, v.5
Seriously, a lot of interesting stuff here that I'm still working through. I really need to send him a big box of stuff, but just need to find time somewhere to do it.

Also got some comps from V2 when we visited:
Brendan Benson the Alternative to Love
the Greenhornes Sewed Soles
Josh Ritter the Animal Years
Various Luaka Bop Remix
Talked with their art director, David Calderly there. Super cool guy.

I went birthday shopping in the Village and picked up:
Belle and Sebastian the Life Pursuit
Frank Black Teenager Of the Year
the Cloud Room the Cloud Room
Robert Pollard Fiction Man and From A Compound Eye
Like I said, I'm all up on Bob Pollard right now.

Finally, when I got home, Candace and Sadie had a birthday present for me:
We Are Scientists With Love and Squalor
Not a bad haul, if I do say so myself. If there's anything better than new CDs, I don't know what it is.

RDT [hearts] GBV

For some reason, I've been all up on Guided by Voices lately. Got this book in NYC in an after midnight trip to the Virgin Megastore in Times Square as reading material for the plane ride home. A good read. Maintains the GBV mystique, tells some amusing anecdotes, explains the music (a little) and gives a handy discography for those of us that want to hear more of GBV and Pollard's side albums but have a heckuva tim etrying to figure out what's what.

Out With the Old...

I'm selling all of my Heroclix over on ebay. It's a little depressing because I had no idea I had so many sitting in that shoebox, but there you have it. I'm hoping to make a little money so that I can start in on my newest obsession: urban vinyl figures. I went to Kidrobot in NYc and picked up a couple of Pete Fowler's Monsterism v.3 figures and well, now I'm hooked. I mean, just look at these guys:

Freakin' rad. That's Sancho in the foreground and Chef in the back. There's a fluffly orange fella that reminds me of a cotton-balled version of my comic book patron saint: Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing. I must have this fluffy orange figure.

Aaaah, a quick perusal of Fowler's Monsterism site (www.monsterism.net, a cool site) tells me that this guy is a Grynt. Cool, I want this Grynt fella. Oh, and I also want a flying Snorse.

Seriously. I was reading Candace's blog this evening and realized that I am the exact same person I was 15 years ago: rock music, art, books, toys, comics. The only difference between the me then and the me now is the love of a good woman. Cheers! Here's to never growing up!

NYC Rocked - But It's Oh So Good To Be Back Home

Got back from a week-long school trip to NYC on Saturday night (Candace & Sadie picked me up sometime after 1am, so is that technically Sunday morning?). Visited some magazines (Time, thanks to a sweet hook-up from my cousin Jesse and the Martha Stewart magazine empire), an environmental design firm (Applebaum & Associates, they do a lot of museum work), a design legend (Milton Glaser, who was, if nothing else, interesting), an illustrator (Bret Helquist, whose gorgeous lineowk graces the Lemony Snicket series of books) and, thanks to some cold-calling on my part, a record company (V2 records, an imprint of Virgin, they handle David Byrne's Luaka Bop a well as their own roster which includes the White Stripes, Mercury Rev and Grandaddy).

As if that weren't enough, I saw Spamalot (the musical based on Monty Python's Search For the Holy Grail), spent (literally) a day in the Metropolitain Museum of Art (an amazing place - just massive), a night at the Museum of Modern Art (with the exception of most of the contemoprary art section, an amazing collection), an afternoon at the International Center for Photography (the upstairs - cool, downstairs - ridiculously depressing) and another few hours at the AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts, for you square daddy-o's out there, www.aiga.org if yr curious) annual design competition display (some cool stuf there).

In-between all of that I went shopping at Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, Kidrobot (more on that later) and a couple of CD stores (again, more later...).

Oh yeah, I also peed in a subway station.

Needless to say, I was one busy boy, but had an amazing time. Learned a TON and feel a little better equipped to go out in the workplace in the (way too) near future. It was nice to see the old town again, to ride the subways, to pound the pavements, to see the lights and smell the pretzel and nut carts (seriously, I'm craving some honey roasted almonds right about now). It was also nice to see my girls again. As much fun as I had, there was part of me that just wanted to be at home with them, and now I am.