Received Bea's The Critics Call You a Genius in the mail.

I found about her through Flickr, specifically her multiple photos appearing in the 'me' tag. Yes, I checked out her website because I think she's pretty, and her website led to her CDBaby site, which features MP3s and reviews. The music is acoustic guitar rock, and I'm a sucker for well-done acoustic guitar work, especially when the guitar is the only instrument (other than voice, which to me is "just" an instrument).

Purchased Pavement's Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins re-issue double CD.

I admit that my indie rock cred is pretty low, having bought this solely on the basis of two reviews with a perfect rating (an A+ rating by Will Hermes—my favourite music critic—in SPIN Magazine and the 10 at Pitchfork) without ever knowingly heard any of the tracks. After a couple of listens, I'm impressed with the lyricism and the competence of the guitar work, and can hear in newer indie rock songs some of the influence Pavement may have had on them and the industry. The liner notes (more like a booklet) are amazing: photos of the band, lengthy text about memories of recording and touring, and a paragraph on each song from the originally-released album.

Watched Revolution OS DVD.

A documentary about the open source movement, with the major players (Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Linux Torvalds and VA Linux CEO Larry Augustin) receiving most of the interview time. There was only one woman who had an important role, if we're to believe the documentary, that being Christine Peterson of the Forsight Institute who helped coin the term "open source". Oh, and narrator of the film, she was important too.

Watched Carlito's Way DVD.

Beautifully shot, this movie fills in a lot of blanks in rap songs, like the Benny Blanco references in rap songs like (Jay-Z's "Bring It On" (my favourite song of his—mostly for the beat, I admit—drops at least 4 references to movie gangsters, including Blanco). A long movie, and the end was especially suspensful, since we knew how Carlito met his fate, just not when and by whom until the end.

Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind DVD.

My second favourite scene: when Joel calls Clementine for the first time: Carrey gets the shy, brooding awkward guy just right throughout, but especially in that scene in which you can tell he hates phoning people (a deleted scene explains why he took so long to make the first call he made). Mark Pilgrim highlights my first-favourite scene. Michel Gondry, the director, is normally known for music videos, and just like Spike Jonze (who directed two movies, Adaptation and Being John Malcovich both written by Charlie Kaufman), has directed a highly original, sometimes confusing, always challenging and remarkable movie that examines the role of memory and new love in our daily lives. Strongly recommended.

Purchased De La Soul's Grind Date CD.

Not bad. "Church", though, is incredible, and the lyrics throughout are the usual De La positivity though still worrying about the state of hip-hop. If the choice is between buying the CD and downloading, do consider the excellence of the liner notes, which come in the form of cool mini nostalgic posters and a calendar that shows the year in the life of the group.

Watched Elephant DVD.

This movie reminded me a lot about the characters in my high school and the places within it. The high school in this movie is bigger than mine was, but the kids walking through the halls and the mundanity (but also diversity) of daily high school life comes across really well. Required reading before watching this movie is "The Depressive and the Psychopath" by Dave Cullen. Cullen argues that Eric Harris was the psychopathic mastermind while his partner, Dylan Klebold, while not an unwilling participant, was manipulated into killing his schoolmates. (There is an interesting speculation near the end of the movie about the nature of their partnership.) Harris and Klebold had a much higher bodycount in mind when they started out, and that comes across in the movie as well. This is not a documentary, but it is filmed in documentary-style—without commentary—and my heart was pumping from the beginning. I knew what was going to happen, just not when. It was an uncomfortable movie to watch, not least because the tracking shots often lasted significantly longer than the average film, but just like anything, the uncomfortable movies are usually the most important ones.

Finished watching Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD.

I watched this over a period of three days, since it's so long. The visuals are stunning. The story is new to me, not having read the book series, so I can't judge whether the story is faithful to the original. Gollum is probably the most interesting character. He leads such an unpleasant existence, both physically and mentally, it's a wonder that he does not ask to be relieved of his misery.