And tonight… Morrissey in concert in GDL

First off the good news. If you like insanely paced, utterly unbelievable, adolescent male wish-fulfillment films, Crank (2006) will be right up your street. I was feeling slightly sleepy, but it picked me right up. Jason Statham’s heart will explode if his BPM goes below 150 and spends 87 sex, violence, drugs and jumping around-filled minutes trying to kill the baddies before he expires… Excellent stuff. Snappy dialogue too… He’s goes to a hospital to get some Ephedrine, “I’m looking for something beginning with E”… “England?” asks the chemist. Fine editing and SFX. Never a dull moment… 4 Lulus.

Next up The Killers- Sam’s Town (2006)… not so good. As every review will tell you it’s a change in direction from their excellent debut album. I went right off the actual band after reading an interview in Q with the vocalist who came off like an immensely irritating git. Still I’ve never let my feelings about the members of a band change my opinion about the music. However this album is not my cup of tea at all. According to most reviews, they’ve rediscovered Bruce Springsteen as an influence, and that’s definitely apparent. not being a fan of the Boss won’t help you here, but worse still they appear to have rediscovered Meat Loaf too. And that’s unpardonable. 1.5 Lulus

No sos vos, soy yo (2004) was the only option at the cinema on Sunday night. A film about a fairly nasty break-up and the aftermath on one very sensitive young man. It was very tenderly observed and, though predictable, a nice little film. Even though I’m not sure about the redemptive powers of dog owning… Always nice to hear argentine spanish in the cinema though. 3.5 Lulus

Need sleep. Can’t…read…any….more… mainly cos Sr. Frog came round for a bit more recording of his propagandas last night. The first takes are hidden Easter Egg/Strongbad style somewhere on the pinguino frog page if you’d like a sneak peak of the raw material. we’re going to do a bit of filming this weekend to go with them and see what occurs.

Sita had some good news yesterday in terms of grants and stuff. She loves emails, ask her all about it…

Normal service tomorrow, etc. etc…

Alas, we’ve come to the end of out initial lump rent payment of 5 months + deposit, so I had to go to the bank and pay April’s installment. First off, my (may very bad things happen to them) Wells Farrago card wouldn’t cough up enough money to cover it so I was forced to use my offshore Barclay’s card, but even that wouldn’t give me enough. I hightailed it over to another bank with my WF card and it gave me just enough that I could pay the rest with my remaining 40 dollars in my wallet. All this is happening on a very hot afternoon and involves crossing an 8 lane carriageway to move between banks… Anyway, I take a number and wait my turn (40 minutes) to change my remaining dollars, hand over the cash and pay the rent. When it’s my turn at 3:50 I go up to counter number 3 please, and say “well first I need to change these dollars”. And she tells me they don’t do that after half past three. I have this reaction in banks where the red mist comes down and I can barely suppress my anger. I managed not to swear too much and just pointed out how displaying this piece of information could save people a lot of time in the future and she agreed. It’s not her fault, I suppose… but you can choose where you work, same with traffic wardens, immigration officials and Nazi stormtroopers…

There, I’ve vented. And now on to the V for Vendetta review…

Sita’s left me in Downey while she gallavants to sociologise in Philadelphia. Back on Monday. Is what she told me anyway…

I’ve made some lovely DVDs with photo slideshows and musical accompaniment and everything in the last few days, there’s little else you can do in the excrutiating heat. I chose not to go to Philly because it’s the same heat with 10 times the humidity and I’m melting fast enough here…

Anyroad, last night we went to Santa Monica pier where Plastilina Mosh were playing, who i’ve been quite fond of since Guadalajara in 1998. I’ve started to figure out the night settings of the camera a tad better but there’s still work to be done. Have a gander’s at the pix here.

There’s also some photos from our revisiting of our wedding locales, they’ll be at the end of this here link then. And yes, the weather’s just the same with a lower cloud level. Bring your pully.

We got back last night from our Bay Area Tour, Summer 2006… and it excelled in every way. First off we went round Meg’n’Matt’s and sampled the oenophile delights of their trip to Italy and various vineyard visits while learning the ropes of the home version of Dance, Dance, Revolution. There are videos of us jumping around in the living room to Block Rockin’ Beats and Crazy in Love but I neglected to get the appropriate waivers signed so they’re probably not going to on the blog any time soon. Despite the back button on the floor carpet not being too sensitive we managed to give the downstairs neighbours a close approximation of what the next big seismic disruption in Oakland might very well feel like. Day 2 we went to the Bay Area beauty spot known as Kronkite Point (sp?) where we got hitched, and soaked up the views and listened to the Tunnel Singer who sings. In tunnels. Then for a few swift pints and table football and then to Berkeley for our annual bluegrass dose. Afterwards food, drink and dance, dance continued into the early late hours.

Monday was off to Santa Cruz to catch up with mates and some academic stuff too. We had a few ales in Red with some friends and left for Tanya’s before it turned into something variously described as a frat boy meat market / hell hole. things have gone downhill since we left. Luckily Tanya’s was as welcoming as ever and, aided by Liz, we cleaned her out of cheese and beer and went back to the hotel. For day 2 in SC, we did the traditional walk along Westcliff and gawped at surfers. The breeze was in just the right direction to be able to hear those in the water spouting their Keanu-Reeves-circa-1989isms at each other, but they’re fairly photogenic so I’ll let them off. I picked up some orders from downtown (unchanged, but no Umbrella Man), so Victor I’ve got your books and that’s one more thing off of Jose’s list of things to do. Tanya made an unparallelled veggie bbq with all the trimmings including her Torte ™ made to exacting standards and one of the best desserts. Evah. T’was also grand to see Becky, Scott and their kids and Heather & Gayle. T kindly let us stay in her apartment while she slept on the floor. Over and above the call of justice, THANKS!

Next day: I spent the morning relaxing in T’s garden finishing About a Boy again. Very readable especially fuelled by gourmet coffee and then later we went to Piedmont for continued merriment, dog walking and BBQery (far from veggie this time). The whole gang turned up but I left my camera in the car which was down far too many steps so no photos of Jerrod’s mad meat-cooking skillz nor Chili the cat and his ‘paunch’.

Yesterday we had a long drive from SF to Downey. Full of lorries and dim-witted drivers who refuse to change lanes, while listening to the sounds of the latest fall-out from Heathrow on NPR. I understand the no liquids bit (although some airports clearly don’t) but no books seems a bit excessive. I’ll be flying Virgin Atlantic next time if I have to soley rely on the plane’s entertainment as I’m buggered if I’m sitting through another Jennifer Anniston/ J-Lo film marathon to pass the 11 hours with nothing to read.

Full flickr photo set of the last few days here

Other news: last week saw Taladega Nights or some such, the most willfully stupid film I’ve seen in a while with the worst French accent ever committed to celluloid. Thoroughly recommended. I’m intrigued to know what the Spanish title will be…