What I'm up to

LISTENING! to St. Elsewhere, the debut CD from Gnarls Barkley. I was never a big fan of Goodie Mob, but this collaboration between Cee-Lo and DJ Danger Mouse is what The Love Below should have been. Danger Mouse can do no wrong of late, with this disc coming on the heels of his work on Dangerdoom's The Mouse and the Mask, The Gorillaz' Demon Days, and the Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up The Grey Album. If you're not listening to this, you are missing out.

Also listening to the classic Doolittle by The Pixies, something I picked up from the library. Being major influences on some of my favorite bands (Nirvana, the pillows, et. al.), I wanted to check them out. Not what I expected, but I can see their influence.

READING! Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. About 100 pages in and it's aight. No Freakonomics, I liked that a lot more.

The most entertaining read I've had lately is Jin Kobayashi's School Rumble, which is a high-school romance mixed with slapstick comedy. The main characters are pretty dense, but endearing enough so as not to be annoying. It was thoroughly enjoyable and gets a recommendation from me.

On the manga front, Battle Royale came to a close with volume 15. I'm a big fan of BR in general, so I'll save my assessment of the films, the manga, and the novel for a future blogging. I will say that despite the brutal and over-the-top sex and violence of the manga, the ending was surprisingly upbeat, as explained in the interview with the manga-ka in this volume. Very interesting how something like 9-11 can be pervasive in popular culture.

WATCHING! not much of anything. In the last couple weeks, Lost, 24, Ghost in the Shell 2nd Gig, and Alias have all come to an end for the season (in the case of Alias, permanently). Alias lives on on my DVR, as does the last 3 or 4 Sopranos episodes and the IFC run of Samurai 7. So with seemingly hours of free time a week freed up by a lack of castaways and soft-talking killing machines, I should be able to finally clear that DVR and move on to Fullmetal Alchemist (thank you, Santa Clara County Library) and the mountain of fansubs I have.

WAITING! for AX 2006. Found out this week the pillows were returning to San Francisco, conveniently the day before we leave for AX. Immediately plunked down the plastic for three tickets so Rhonda and Sara and I will be there. I am determined not to wuss out and blow it like last time.