Nope, not a post about Austin Powers: Goldmember (saw it Saturday--after the fun fun opening sequence, I was surprised to discover I was bored when all the familiar characters showed up again, doing their thang...could it be, Austin is old news?).
At Eric's birthday BBQ and bocce affair, heard clips from the new Shirley Bassey Remix Album, Diamonds Are Forever. Hot stuff. The Propellerheads, John Barry, and Groove Armada? I'm in!
On a tangent, the best track to listen to while driving really fast? The Chemical Brothers Out of Control, featuring vocals by New Order's Bernard Sumner. The bassline is evil, it always inspires me to downshift and blow by the next ten cars on the highway.

6 days

Two of my favorites, DJ Shadow and Wong Kar Wai, were surprised to discover they were big fans of each other. So they decided to collaborate. Cool.
WKW directed the video for DJ Shadow's 6 Days. The video stars Chang Chen from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (he played Zhang Ziyi's lover, lucky SOB) and features Christopher Doyle's trademark velvet crush cinematography. It's not as visible streamed over the Internet, but check it out for yourself. It's at DJ Shadow's website--I found the link buried in current news.
WKW, like Soderbergh, doesn't really storyboard. Just figures it out as he goes. Shows up, then decides how he wants to shoot different scenes. That takes a lot of guts in one's abilities, especially when shooting scenes out of sequence, as Soderbergh did while filming Ocean's Eleven.

Happy birthday

To Eric and Laura! It was a birthday weekend.
Also, welcome back Kate. Just in time, a cycling buddy out of the blue.

Down with Bruce Kimm

New Cubs manager Bruce Kimm left Mark Prior out on the mound for 136 pitches today. Kimm should be shot for doing that to Prior's golden arm. Teams invest millions of dollars in these players, then mismanage them so badly. That was a travesty. I wanted to jump through the TV and b-slap some sense into Kimm. Even Kerry Wood's arm wasn't abused this badly his rookie season. Let's hope Kimm is fired at the end of this season and that Prior's arm isn't fraying at the seams before he has a chance to build it up.
Many of you will skip this baseball post, but I'm hopping mad. Being a Cubs fan provides a lifetime's worth of, as Tony Soprano would say, agita. If I ever become wealthy enough to purchase a sports team, I'm buying the Cubs and taking them to the World Series. I could be mayor of Chicago at that point.