YOUR TIME IS TICK, TICK, TICKING AWAY

More point form stuff:

- So, Raising Sand won the best album award. I'm not that upset, out of the field it would have been my second or third choice. I'm kinda miffed that "Please Read The Letter" won for best record, becuase that was one of the sort-of bad moments on that album. But, "Gone, Gone, Gone" (the album's best song, in my opinion) won last year, so, I guess that's fine.

I am also fully aware that the Grammys don't mean anything, but it's still fun to dissect the results, even if I never watch the telecast.

- I watched the first part of that NBC miniseries XIII last night and it's okay (and, hey, it's got Val Kilmer). However, given that basically the only good thing about the video game was its visual style, I wonder if rotoscoping might have made the show better. Either way, it was a decent way to pass two hours and I see no reason not to watch the conclusion next Sunday.

- My computer is making a godawful buzzing noise as I type this.

Movies I've seen in theatres so far this year:

- Curious Case of Benjamin Button: It's kinda long (though it changes enough that I never got bored), it's super-sentimental and the end bit is sort of inane when you get down to it but I liked it a lot even so. The slow-mo and lens-flare antics were outside of Fincher's usual enviroment but he worked well-enough with them, and the romance in it was the sort of meta-physical, totally unrealistic nonsense that I dig. And that scene with the piano near the end (no spoilers) nearly brought me to tears.

- Taken: If you ever wanted to know what 24 would be like with Liam Neeson as Jack Bauer, this is the movie for you. The action was solid and frenetic without being confusing, Liam Neeson was a pretty convincing badass and the story was solid-if-formuliac with enough turns to keep you going. Small thing that is either a flaw or hilarious, depending on who you are: Every Arabic person is a slimy prositution runner or an evil hitman.

- I'm seeing Gran Torino on the 'morrow with some friends, it should be a fun time.

- Why, exactly, does the government give you a T4 form if you didn't pay any tax?

- Pretty boring day at school today, I have a couple of homework things to do though.

In fact, I should probably do that homework.

Comments welcome.

WELCOME BACK TO THE STAGE OF HISTORY

If you really need a detailed background on me, just check out my Facebook page. But since if you're reading this, you probably already know me, I'm not going to give much of an introduction.

I'm feeling sort of lazy right now, so, I'm going to write out my current thoughts in point form:

- People I know are really into that movie Zeitgeist but, for the most part, I don't get it. The religion section makes sense, sure, but it also presents things that anybody could tell you as if they're grand revelations. The 9/11 section makes a few decent ponts (mostly in regards to the lack of preparation) but is mostly Loose Change-esque BS. And don't get me started on the banking part. The level of paranoia that went into that movie is just insane, and I'm not even a guy who is particularly trustful of the government but you can take that shit to a level even I'm not comfortable with.

There's also the general problem with all of these conspiracy movies: Namely, if the conspiracy is so well-organized and wide-ranging as they claim it is, why are the movies themselves allowed to exist?

- I'm of two minds about Valentine's Day: One the one hand, it's obviously commercial Hallmark-holiday BS. On the other, I'd probably feel a lot better about life in general if I had someone to celebrate it with.

- The last episode of Lost was sort of boring, barring Sayid's take-down of that med-tech. I still like the show, but as it's starting to come to a close, I'm worried that the drive to answer all the questions could make the individual episodes less entertaining. We're probably not gonna see another "The Constant" (which is great but only somewhat connected to the overrall plot; in fact, it could almost be a stand-alone thing). However, Jin still being alive at the end of the episode made my day.

- Why is 24 going into an inane "Find the president's husband", kidnapping plot? That's season one stuff; the death of one dude doesn't cut it anymore, 24 writers (even if that dude is Colm Feore). This had better be just a front for another massive-scale-damage plot by the terrorists. Dubacku's conversation with his girlfriend at the end was hilarious, though.

- "You Found Me" is basically the perfect melding of every form of popular music made by white people in the past 5 years. It's like Coldplay and Keane got together and got some uber-sincere emo-band guy to sing and write lyrics, it's awesome. I have zero interest in listening to The Fray's actual album, but this one song is pretty great.

- Crank 2 looks even more gleefully insane and offensive than the first one, which is saying something. It's like the directors went "What minority groups did we not offend last time?". The answer: Latinos and Asians. At least judging from the trailer, which features kung-fu master dudes with long eyebrows, dragon-tattoo sporting Yakuza goons, a guy who looks like the one dude from Ichi The Killer and fat Cubans driving sportscars. It's a gaggle of stereotypes and stupidity and I wouldn't have it any other way. One potential flaw: Amy Smart's character is now a stripper; that doesn't make a whole lot of sense since she was the "nice, naive girl" who provided contrast to the Maxim model-types otherwise featured in the first film.

- Coldplay should win Album Of The Year, not because they made the best album but because it's the best out of the ones nominated. Radiohead's album was fine but it was also regressive for them. What I heard of Ne-Yo (i.e the singles) was bland, formulaic modern R & B . Raising Sand was inconsistent; the good parts were great but you could tell when they were inspired and when they weren't. Same story, Lil Wayne (he also fell into the typical rap-album trap of "make one song for everyone", it's just less noticeable with him because he's more versatile than, say, Nas). My vote for best album would probably be either Kanye's 808s and Heartbreak or The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem.

- I also do not care about this whole Coldplay/Joe Santriani situation. Santriani might be a brilliant guitar player but Coldplay run circles around him in terms of making actually good songs. In the words of Metallica, sad but true.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. If you'd like to comment on anything, leave a, uh, comment.