I cleared everything off my iPod last night, and randomly loaded a new 1,044 songs onto it. Here's what it spit out this morning:

Paloalto - Pick Yourself Off the Beach
I got this CD, a CD single for "Fade Out/In," for free from Island/ Def Jam when I was trying to put out a compilation CD for a non-profit I was working with. Paloalto is very generic; imagine the most boring parts of U2 and Radiohead. They remind me a bit of Swervedriver (and any number of other early 90's shoegazer bands). This song puts me to sleep (in a bad way). This is full of parentheticals (isn't it?).

Compulsive Gamblers - I Call You Mine
I love all of the Oblivians related music. This is from a post-Oblivians release (as opposed to the pre-Oblivians Compulsive Gamblers material). This album is really great bluesy rock with earnest vocals and terrific rock n' roll.

Nirvana - Stain
I like the drums in this song, and the way they cut through the buzzsaw of guitars. I like that about pretty much all of Nirvana's songs.

The Donnas - Speedin' Back to My Baby
Back before the Donnas took themselves too seriously. I think this song was just as they were switching from the female Ramones thing to a more AC/DC type of sound.

Pere Ubu - Over My Head
From the live disc in their "Datapanik in Year Zero" boxed set. Seemingly as straightforward rock as Ubu is likely to get.

Cheap Trick - Oh Caroline
This is one of Cheap Trick's poppier songs. I've really become a Cheap Trick junkie over the years.

MxPx - Honest Answers
MxPx can churn out some fairly generic pop-punk tunes, and this is one of them. I like a lot of their stuff, but this is toward the bottom of the list.

Big Black - Bad Penny
Pretty much anything by Big Black is great. Pretty much anything by Steve Albini is great.

The Bollweevils - No Time
Fitting, since I am currently wearing my Bollweevils "Survive" t-shirt that I got in '94 or '95. The Bollweevils are one of my favorite bands ever.

The Modern Lovers - Dignified & Old
Jonathan Richman's terrific punk rock band. This is from the live album, "Precise Modern Lover's Order."

A heck of a lot of gratitutde all for one little snowcone.

I realize that not all of America has seen very many feature films set in Japan, or about geishas. I spent a lot of time watching foreign films in high school, and although I'm not sure how many were about geishas, I feel like Memoirs of a Geisha is good, but plays out like a series of scenes I've already seen in other movies. It's all very familiar. There are no guesses about where the movie is headed at any given time.

It does LOOK pretty. The costumes and makeup are nice, as are some of the beautiful sets, but I didn't notice anything very special about the directing. In fact, I thought several scenes lacked in that aspect.

Memoirs is a very long movie for such a seemingly simple plot (which centers around a young girl who moves from servitude to geisha after she is inspired by the kindness of one man to make something of herself and make him a part of her life). I can sense that the book probably went into more detail, but the movie always stays on the surface and yet still endures for two hours and fifteen minutes. Several audience members were checking their watches.

The lead actors were able enough, and even sympathetic, though I never fully believed in Ziyi Zhang as a "legendary" geisha, and some of the characters from the house in which she was raised were outright laughable at times. Yet her story with the chairman was enough to keep me going. It was kind of like going to a movie where half of the scenes work well and interest me while the other half were long and awkward. In the end, I mildly enjoyed it but saw too many flaws in it to let its beauty make up for the rest.

A few peeps have been asking me for my friend codes for my DS games, so I figured I would put them in one handy post so I don't have to keep fishing for them. Here we go:

Metroid Prime Hunters: 0988 5186 5569
Tetris DS: 820228 599132
Animal Crossing: 253466392225
Mario Kart: 468214 507767

Feel free to post your code in the comments if I don't have it yet or e-mail it to me. I usually play late at night my time, but if you want to arrange a meeting, just e-mail me or something. I wish the DS had some kind of IM system so you would know when your friends were online. That's my one tiny complaint about the wifi connection.

I ported an open source web template to b2evolution. Nautica 2.2 Liquid is one of the nicest templates I've seen on Open Web Design in a while. You can take a look at the new skin here. Brendoman.com authors can use the skin by changing the settings in the backoffice. If anyone else wants to download it, get it here.

Wow, it's that time again already. I didn't think this week would go by fast because of my vacation coming up. Here we go....

1. Ocean Blue from How to be a... Zillionaire! by ABC
2. It Takes Time to Build from To the 5 Boroughs by The Beastie Boys
3. Desired Constellation from Medulla by Bjork
4. The Road from Standars by The Alarm
5. Say You Love Me from Greatest Hits by Fleetwood Mac
6. Suffer Little Children from The Smiths by The Smiths
7. Just from The bends by Radiohead
8. Short Circuit from Discovery by Daft Punk
9. The Voyager from Easy Come, Easy Go by Starflyer 59
10. Love Comes Tumbling from The B-Sides 1980-1990 by U2

There you go. Have a happy Friday!