YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

you know I'm not really sure how I feel about Callum Keith Rennie being so astoundingly hot in Harper's Island. Okay, wait, yes, I know: I am totally okay with Callum Keith Rennie being astoundingly hot in Harper's Island.

The wonderful:

Last Sunday (the second), ecce_homosexual, my dad and his partner, and I went to see Zappa Plays Zappa, the appeal of which is perhaps only understandable if you're a bit of a Zappa nut. It was FABULOUS. I have left off posting about it because I don't really know how to describe it. It wasn't the best concert I've ever been to (Mars Volta), the most life-changing (Nick Cave (uh, I was high when I wrote that)), the most extravagant (Robbie), the most fun (Dirty Three, every time), blah blah blah. But oh we were all so keen to go! And we had such good seats! See, with it being seated, with a large component of the music being cerebral, you didn't get that swept-away feeling (although I cannot speak for ecce_homosexual, who was looking pretty orgasmic the whole way through, and who scored Dweezil's plectrum, the lucky little bitch).

But gosh they were impressive. I remember being knocked out by their exuberance, their raw jazz power, and their punctuality. They went on at eight with no support band (The Zappa Family has no warm-up band! The Zappa Family needs no warm-up band!) and didn't stop except for an encore pause until eleven. And they played phenomenal, technical, passionate music the whole way.

It was just excellent, and a real dream to hear Zappa's music like that. It was especially moving to see them play a few songs with the projection of Frank on the screen behind, using the voice and guitar tracks from old concert footage. He's the fucking coolest guy. And Dweezil was great too; he has a lesser, dorkier charisma than his dad but he was gracious and charming and really, really accommodating nonetheless. He stayed at the end until everyone who wanted one got an autograph. Also, Steve Vai looks like about twelve and, I think, weighs less than his guitar. But he sure seemed to be having fun.

( What I can remember of the playlist, all mixed-up )

There were definitely more but I've forgotten them. And there was, in the middle of Pygmy Twylyt, this improv bit where each band member would get some time to show off and it was excellent. And then Ray White, who was so charismatic and funny and adorably eager to tap along out of time with the rest of the band and had a great rapport with the sax/keyboards/backup vocals chick, had to improvise a song out of the audience-supplied phrases, "city of churches," something I can't remember, and, fabulously, "point Percy at the porcelain." He turned it into this gospel-flavoured, man-love-in-jail epic.



The awful:

I thought, it's got Callum Keith Rennie, Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cumming, how unwatchable can Tin Man really be? And the answer is VERY, VERY unwatchable. I am talking excruciating. By halfway through I was skipping all the non-CKR bits and I certainly won't be downloading the second two parts. I deeply resent the first; that could have been a Top Gear! You bastards! It is glacial and uninteresting and over-acted (not in a good way. I'm looking at you, um, everyone not Alan Cumming). The CGI was unoriginal and poorly done. The stunts were terrible. It just felt like no thought had gone into it at all. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Atrocious.


PS: Am I the only person avoiding going back to tag all their old entires because they're cringeworthy-ingly embarrassing?

Today was my last day at uni (GOD it's nice to be a student. Except for pending assignments). So it was my last chance to ask Cute Girl from Contemporary Medievalism Seminars what her lj is. She is the only person, in three years of uni so far, that I know for sure poked around in my corners of fandom (I've had my suspicions, never before confirmed). Well, goodbye Cute CM Girl! I hope you happen to randomly stumble upon this post. I'm not a stalker!

I am SO CLOSE to finishing Mists of Avalon! SO CLOSE! There is not one. single. character. in this book that is lighthearted. EVERYONE has issues big enough to hang an entire ongoing epic fantasy series on. I can't decide whether it's intense or infuriating.

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Aw! Ray's "dorky," "nerdy," and "geeky" moods all prominently feature his glasses. God bless the glasses!

Seems like all I heard about today was the Oregon Supreme Court's overturning of about 3000 gay marriage licenses issued. So it was nice to get home and get on comp and see that it's not all bad news in this arena. Even though there's a few tacks littering the ground for this new step forward, I choose to be happy about it.

Well, that's not ALL I heard about. Also high on the list was yet another repulsively stomped on Howard election promise.. Surprise! Hey, all we need now is the US-Aust free trade agreement and then we'll have rilly expensive medicine and a two-tier health system that means the poor have Buckley's and then we'll be just like the US! And Howard can retire a rich, fat, happy man.


But more importantly than all that OMG CKR was finally on Battlestar Galactica the other night! Till now I have been watching every show with a little tingle of anticipation that he would show up, studying the blipvert in the credits ever so carefully, etc. And then this latest episode seemed to consist entirely of Really Significant (from the way the camera kept on them) photographs of him and him getting punched in the face all the time. So now I'm a happy chappy.

Just got finished watching Hard Core Logo for about the billionth time. There are many things I love about this movie (and a couple I hate, like, could the lip syncing be any worse? Is it meant to be ironic? I don't know!) but there are not that many other movies out there I could watch over and over again and still be fascinated by the performances, always finding something more. Plus I'm not sure exactly what's happening but I think somehow CKR gets more beautiful every time I see it (*has the SERIOUS hots for CKR atm*). Maybe it's just my DVD player.

Was going through CKR.net for screencaps and I'm really beginning to think that I've got to get the other version of the movie; I have the special edition which is pan-and-scan, which by itself I absolutely loathe, but the colours also appear to be remarkably different: sepia or blue where mine is b&w, for instance. Or perhaps it really *is* my DVD player. Well, when I have money to spare, maybe.