Home and Hogwart's

Spent the last few days visiting the fam in Maryland. Got down to FedEx Field to check out DC's well-played
2-1 loss to Chelsea, played a rather ugly but fun round of golf, and ate a lot. It was a good chance to get out of Indianapolis for a few days, since work and other things have been taking their toll lately. In this case, absence certainly did not make my heart grow fonder of Indy, but then again, that phrase implies that you're fond of something to begin with.

Latest book: The trip also gave me a chance to read J.K. Rowling's latest novel/doorstop, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. After slogging through the last one, I wasn't terribly excited about starting this book, but that feeling quickly disappeared as soon as I started reading. Gone is the angry, bitter Harry from Book 5. Instead, Rowling gets back to the feeling of some of the earlier books (albeit with more hormones flying amongst the kids), with mystery and adventure taking center stage. I agree with some of the reviews I've read that said the action in this one felt a little rushed, but as is usually the case with the penultimate book in a long series, the events of Half Blood-Prince are mostly there to set up the denouement. I enjoyed this book so much that I finished it in a day and a half, and now I'm looking forward to what promises to be an exciting conclusion, whenever she manages to get it written.

Latest music: Billy Bragg. I've owned his first collaboration with Wilco, Mermaid Avenue, for a few years, but I had never really listened to his solo stuff until now. I picked up Don't Try This At Home at the library the other day, and I'm really enjoying it. His lyrics are very English, and his voice seems to be an acquired taste, but I've always liked it. The music falls somewhere between protest folk from the 60's and punk played on an acoustic guitar, and seems just about right for the current political situation in this country.

Synchronicity

Anyone shopping for a birthday present for me this year should send George Lucas a thank you note now, because your search will be quick and painless. Both the Episode III DVD and Star Wars: Battlefront II will be released on my birthday. I couldn't have timed that any better if my network of spies had infiltrated Lucasfilm and paid off the Man himself to choose such a fortuitous release date.

Not that that would have worked anyway. I mean, have you ever tried to bribe a multi-billionaire on an art director's salary? They tend to find it quite funny. Well, I hope you can sleep at night knowing your laughter still stings me, George. Right down to my very bones. Wha...huh? Oh, sorry, I have no idea what I'm saying. These blackouts just keep getting weirder and weirder...

Continuing the gift-giving theme, know any big Calvin & Hobbes fans? I do, and now I also know what they're getting for Christmas. Thanks to My Mean Magpie for the heads-up, and also for making me feel like crap about the generic template design of my blog.

Above the Net

Spent another enjoyable weekend in Chicago playing in a volleyball tournament on Saturday with Todd and Cynthia. Despite a bit of morning rain and an initial forecast of 100-degree weather, we made it through. We advanced out of our group as one of the final six teams in our division, where we promptly got smoked. Disappointing, but not enough to ruin a great day. It never really got all that hot, and we got to play five games, hang out on the beach, meet some fun people from other teams (including a few other Miami alumni) and take in a beautiful view of the skyline from North Beach. I love the summer in Chicago. The more I visit, the easier it is to imagine myself living up there.

Today I got a much-needed day to sleep in, and then stuck around long enough to get my Dunkin Donuts fix, play some Halo, watch the US defeat Panama in the Gold Cup final, and enjoy the air conditioning on a day that did get over 100 degrees. It was nice to have a relaxing weekend before what's shaping up to be a busy and stressful (but thankfully, short) work week.

Galactic Collision

The LA Galaxy of MLS faced one of the toughest matches in their 10-year history last night, taking on Spain's Real Madrid at the Home Depot Center. Madrid is basically an international All-Star squad with seven massively famous players known as "The Galacticos" (including France's Zinedine Zidane, pictured in white) and they put on quite a show for a sellout crowd as they rolled to a 2-0 victory. The L.A. Times' Grahame Jones, ESPN's Jen Chang, and even Madrid's English striker Michael Owen were quick to praise the Galaxy for putting up a good fight and not embarassing themselves, but it was pretty obvious that Madrid was not playing at full-steam. Even in early preseason form (the Spanish League begins at the end of August), Madrid moved the ball in an incredibly fluid manner for most of the game. Any MLS team would kill to pass the ball like that for 10 minutes. At one point, Madrid completed 26 consecutive passes which ended with David Beckham drawing LA 'keeper Kevin Hartman out and chipping the ball over him, but just wide of the goal. LA did have a few decent scoring chances and defended rather well for most of the game, but against a team of Madrid's quality, two brief defensive lapses are enough to cost you the game. MLS can feel good about how far the league has progressed in 10 years, especially with upcoming matches between DC United and Chelsea of England and the Chicago Fire and AC Milan of Italy in the next two weeks, but the league office should also be breathing a sigh of relief that Madrid was not in mid-season form. Otherwise, at least one of the many dipping, knuckling 40-yard shots off the foot of Roberto Carlos goes in instead of straight into Hartman's hands.

Latest band I'm digging: Athlete. I debated going to see them with Snow Patrol in Chicago earlier this year, and now I'm regretting that I didn't get up there. "Wires," from their latest album, Tourist, is an amazing song.

It's hot.

That's all I've got. This weekend was a snoozer. Watched High Fidelity for the 27th time. It is in fact still as good as the last 26 times I watched it. Read quite a bit of The Egyptologist, picked up the new Harry Potter, played a few hours of Tiger in honor of his British Open victory, and tried to ignore the fact that it's been so humid for the past few days, I could drink the air.

Today was the grand finale of the Indiana Black Expo, so there are massive crowds outside my building. If nothing else, today reinforced my opinion that med students today should be studying to be hearing specialists, because in about 5 years, they're going to be raking in the dough. Nobody's going to have any low-end hearing anymore. It also made me happy that my self-esteem isn't based on whether I have a car with 22" rims and a speaker system that can shatter eardrums at 500 yards. (Instead it's based on music, books and movies, but that's a story for another post...) But the worst part about today was truly seeing with my own eyes how much the fear of the black male still governs our society. I made the 4-1/2 minute drive over to Dairy Queen for a little dessert after dinner, and there were literally groups of police officers on every corner downtown. I understand being prepared to handle large crowds, but I've been to a bunch of big events here, and I've never seen a third of the number of cops I saw tonight. And the saddest part? 90% of the cops were white. I'm sure the irony of perpetuating all these stereotypes as they're closing out a celebration of the advancement of African-American culture isn't lost on the organizers.

Chocolate goodness

Just got back from Tim Burton's "re-imagining" of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'll have to watch it again because there was so much happening visually that it was hard to process everything at once, but generally it was a positive experience. Lots of laughs from the audience (but not in that bad Fantastic Four way).

Here's a few observations:

• This one is much closer to the book than the Gene Wilder version, which is a good thing. The ony real differences I noticed were the ending and the backstory that Tim Burton invented for Willy Wonka. I had my doubts about the backstory going in, but I think they did a good job with it, and the ending was changed to allow them to wrap up Wonka's story as well. But surprisingly, not much of a setup for a sequel. Guess there's no plans to adapt Great Glass Elevator?

• Loved the way the Oompa-Loompas were handled in this one. Those little orange guys in the first version always creeped me out.

• Johnny Depp's weird hybrid Canadian/Wisconsin accent was mildly annoying. And he definitely was reminiscent of Michael Jackson in some moments.

• CGI animation is starting to annoy me. It should not be used unless it absolutely has to, because nothing annoys me more than seeing a shot that's not composited correctly or obvious CGI versions of main characters when it's not necessary. There were a couple of moments like that tonight, but thankfully not many. Just because you can doesn't mean you should... *cough*George Lucas*cough*

The world is full of incompetent people

But I don't hate them. I just wish they would quit making my life so complicated. After putting in a 13-hour workday, I came home to find a second notice on a bill for a recent medical procedure that I underwent. I appear to have some type of difficulty communicating with hospital employees, because when I call them tomorrow, this will now be the third time I've had to call this same billing office at the same hospital because one of their drones entered my insurance number incorrectly. How hard can this be? I tell them the number, they punch the keys, it goes into the magic box with the glowy screen. The magic box makes paper come out of the printy thingy, and then somebody takes that paper and sends it to my insurance company. This in no way resembles rocket science.

I wish I had some fun and interesting goodies for you, but lately my waking hours have consisted of Photoshopping photos of fried food and toothless yet charming Hoosiers eating said food. Now that's excitement! No sir, never a dull moment here in the Circle City.

UPDATE: Turns out the hospital did resubmit my bill to my insurance and they paid almost all of it. The good folks at the hopsital billing office just forgot to update my account before sending out the 2nd notice on my no-longer-valid bill. So, not only did I save about $1,485, but I got an entire night of unnecessary stress for free!

Air conditioning is my friend

I spent the morning sitting on the patio at one of the seven Starbucks within legitimate walking distance of my building reading The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova's enthralling novel about a hunt for the historical Dracula, but when the temperature got hot enough that I was sweating through my shirt just sitting there, I did what any sensible person would do... I went running. Now that my temporary insanity is over and I've hydrated myself back from the brink of collapse, I'm devoting the rest of my day to indoor pursuits, starting with listening to my new music purchases. Before settling in at Starbucks, I stopped by Luna Music and picked up Fountains of Wayne's new double-disc b-side collection, Out of State Plates, and Doves' Live at Eden, an import EP from 2002. If this EP is half as good as their show I saw in Chicago, it's bound to be be worth every penny of the $6.99 it cost.

I also threw together two more mixes. The first is mellow and largely acoustic, and the other is because I decided to capture a momentary bout of nostalgia for high school on CD. Here's the track lists:

Disc One:
The Man Who Told Everything, Doves
On The Bus Mall, The Decemberists
Still Be Around, Uncle Tupelo
Part of the Queue, Oasis
Going To California, Led Zeppelin
Scattered Black And Whites, Elbow
Weight Of The World, Chantal Kreviazuk
Paul Simon, The Russian Futurists
Only The Strongest Will Survive (James Lavelle Remix), Hurricane #1
The Sulphur Man, Doves
Come With Me Tonight, Bob Schneider
It's All in My Mind, Teenage Fanclub
A Message, Coldplay
Wires, Athlete
Casimir Pulaski Day, Sufjan Stevens
May This Be Love, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Fix You, Coldplay
Buffalo Herds And Windmills, The Samples

Disc Two:
The Needle And The Damage Done, Neil Young
Get Off My Cloud, The Rolling Stones
American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
I'm Looking Through You, The Beatles
Rock & Roll, Led Zeppelin
Limelight, Rush
Can't Stand Losing You, The Police
Swingtown, The Steve Miller Band
Feel Like Makin' Love, Bad Company
White Room, Cream
Don't Stop Believin', Journey
Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith
Communication Breakdown, Led Zeppelin
Peace Frog, The Doors
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, The Beatles
Cold As Ice, Foreigner
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black), Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Beast Of Burden, The Rolling Stones
Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles
Baba O'Riley, The Who
Take Me Home, Phil Collins

MTV under new management

I took a vote*, and these guys are now in charge of making every music video for the rest of recorded history.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the voters consisted of me, a Frodo and a Darth Maul action figure, a horsefly that's been stuck in my window for three days, and a couple of dust bunnies.

Technology Changes Everything

Among all the coverage of the aftermath of yesterday's horrible bombings in London, the LA Times had an interesting story about how cellphones with video capability are affecting how quickly the media is able to cover a story. Apparently, some British news outlets had video files emailed to them mere minutes after the bombings occurred. Despite the obviously poor quality, networks were falling all over themselves to get this stuff on the air since security would not allow their camera crews into the bomb sites.

Setting aside the somewhat disgusting thought of no one ever helping anyone in need anymore because they're all to busy trying to capture the moment with their phones, this does raise some interesting questions about the innocent bystander's role in recording history. I would also expect to see a fairly rapid jump in the video capabilities of phones over the next couple of years.

Fantastic Four? Uh... not really fantastic in any way.

Went to a preview screening of Hollywood's latest comic book adaptation, Fantastic Four, with a couple of friends tonight, and boy, was I underwhelmed. This is pretty much a dumber version of the same basic story as Spider-Man... only there are FOUR heroes this time. Ooooo, I'm confused, they're changing it up on us! There are more clichés in this flick than in an entire season of Two and a Half Men, and the dialogue, ugh. There were a few funny moments, but the special effects are pretty average, the few action sequences are snoozers, Mr. Fantastic's gray hair comes and goes, and I probably could have left after 10 minutes since I already knew how the movie was going to end. Absolutely no envelope-pushing here. And Jessica Alba, despite proving she's insanely hot as both a brunette and a blond, was not really the best choice for Sue Storm. Not because of her ethnicity (the subject of some internet controversies), but because I just didn't believe her as a super-smart scientist. By and large, the most telling result is that 90 minutes after leaving the theater, I've already forgotten most of the movie.

I can't say I didn't get my money's worth, since I secured our seats courtesy of some free passes from a local radio station. Sadly, most of the audience seemed to really enjoy the movie, even applauding at the end. That's middle America, folks. My advice? Spend your money on Batman Begins if you want to see a superhero movie done right.

Freddy Adu makes too much money

Today's Washington Post has an article about player salaries in Major League Soccer, and according to the documents they're working from, 16-year-old Freddy Adu has the third-highest salary in the league, behind only National Team stars Landon Donovan and Eddie Johnson, both of whom are being rewarded for choosing MLS over European offers. These figures don't include endorsements, so you've got to figure Freddy's pulling in a pretty nice chunk of change beyond his base salary. Now don't get me wrong, with all the demands on the poor kid's time as "the face of MLS" and "the savior of US Soccer", he works for his money... off the field, anyway. But let's say I'm Freddy's teammmate Josh Gros. I'm 23, I've started every game but one this year, scored twice as many goals as Freddy this season, have been an integral part of DC United basically since I stepped on the field last year, and I make $28,000. By my calculations, that's a little more than 5% of what my 16-year-old teammate who comes off the bench is making. I'm barely making a living wage, while this kid who just got his driver's license is shopping for Escalades and Lexus SC's. I'd love to be in that locker room tomorrow after everybody's had time to read this article. Freddy sure as hell better be buying dinner tomorrow night. And the next night. And the next...

Other crap:
SPIN magazine says that Radiohead's OK Computer is the best album of the past 20 years. I tend to agree. On a related note, I have a couple of friends from a past job who work at SPIN now, and those bitches know how to keep a secret.

Buy this CD. Lush, pretty, acoustic songs that are sometimes upbeat, sometimes wacky and sometimes heartbreaking, but all around beautiful. And for those of you readers who live in Illinois, you get the added bonus of all the songs being about your state. Neat-o!

Add to the list of CDs that get better everytime you listen to them: The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. I know nobody could ever make this album today due to the expense of licensing all the samples, but that just makes the Dust Brothers' production that much more amazing. This is the sickest mix CD anybody ever made.

Canadians booed Celene Dion. Dan Aykroyd begged them to stop. Do I even need to say anything else?

Music geeks, unite!

Anal about your music listening habits? Want to keep better stats of what you're listening to beyond what iTunes "Recently Played" list provides? Then Audioscrobbler will be a fun toy for you. Here's how it works: I downloaded a plugin for iTunes (but they have them for a variety of music players), and it uploads the title and artist of every song I play to a server. I get my own page which shows stats based on what I've listened to (Recent Tracks, Top Artist, Top Tracks), and once I've uploaded 100 tracks (which I'll do sometime today), it matches me up with other members who have similar tastes in music. There are forums where I can chat with other members, and I can also join groups. I heard about Audioscrobbler on the BigSoccer message boards, so I joined their group with a bunch of members who I've traded mixes with before. Each week, I can see a chart of the artists and songs that our group listened to most. I can also see charts for any other group on the site, plus a variety of other categories such as the country members hail from, age, sex, etc. The most amazing thing about these charts is that no matter how you divide the thousands of members, from Buenos Aires to Oslo, from Bush haters to Bush lovers, The Beatles invariably end up in the top ten of everybody's Top Artists chart. Apparently, love really is all you need.

Dot dot dot

Time to do some housecleaning, Larry King-style!

Layer Cake: good movie, great ending. But I just don't see Daniel Craig as James Bond... Podcasting is sweeping the nation. I recently joined the masses, and I've been using iPodder to listen to press conferences from US Soccer, Apple news from Inside Mac Radio, and Modern Rock Minutes from WOXY.com. As someone who hates talk radio, I have to say I'm surprised how much I like this. I guess it makes a difference if they're talking about something I'm interested in, and if the podcasts are interspersed in my music library. Now Apple's jumped on the bandwagon, adding podcasting to iTunes version 4.9. They've got a pretty limited selection of podcasts to start, but I'm sure they'll get up to speed soon... Speaking of WOXY, I've been enjoying their new audio stream lately: WOXY Vintage. Billed as "Classic Alternative Rock," this is what WOXY sounded like when I was in college. Some Clash, some Velvet Underground, and a whole lot of late 80's-early 90's college radio tracks. It's classic rock for the 120 Minutes set... And finally, didja hear the one about the Republican Senators who are blaming recent poor Army recruitment on the media? I know, it sounds like a joke, but it's true. Apparently, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma seems to think that "Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting 'because of all the negative media that's out there'." Spot on, Senator. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the large number of young men and women getting killed daily in the Middle East, dying far from home in a "war" that more than half of the country no longer believes we should be fighting. I can't see how that would have anything to do with how families are advising their loved ones. You know, I bet you're right. It's probably the media's fault.