Y'all're just not that into me

Well, shit, stranger! Where the hell have you been? With a few notable exceptions, not calling or writing to me or commenting on this corny blog, is where. Well, nuts to ya's negligent types. I'll still write and pretend you give a shit, which I'm apparently very good at...

Lately, I've been hanging with my cousin Yorik and my uncle Dennis, both visiting from Seattle; that's been cool. I threw away a ton of old cassettes, stuff I nor you would ever listen to. Some old Polish pop music, unlistenable demos I was handed at shows, useless promo samplers, tapes worn out from too many listens, albums I'd replaced on CD, a melted original copy of Pestilence's "Consuming Impulse", shit like that. Oh, and I need to share something with "the whole world" before I take it off my wall and throw it away forever. It's an actual item that was featured in a Johnson Smith catalog, circa 1996-7(?):
I'm still kicking myself for not ordering that. That monkey's shirt is off tha heazy. He knows he looks like a total asshole, but he doesn't care. And with every loud noise, he jitters and blares Los Del Rio's festive classic, a favorite wedding party annoyance to this very day, through a tiny, tinny, treble-heavy speaker. I never got into those singing fish or even the dancing Coke cans, but this thing obviously transcended every animatronic novelty trend. Or so I like to tell myself as I "get down" by my lonesome here.

I went downtown Saturday morning to see a top-secret early screening of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Of course it was awesome, although with the movies staying around the same length but the books they're adapted from getting longer, it does leave quite a bit of the story out. To be fair, I only have a few minor gripes, all the essential stuff is really there. For the most part I think the cuts were judicious here. However, there's just no way they're going to be able to cram all of "Order of the Phoenix" into 2 hours. It's totally the best Potter book so far, and it's almost 900 damn pages long. Anyway, I feel compelled to issue a S-P-O-I-L-E-R A-L-E-R-T for anyone who doesn't want details, because here they come. Y'all'll want to skip the next paragraph.

Yep, they cut a lot of stuff out, more than in any of the other movies. In the case of Winky's complete absence and the very suitable plot workaround, it's totally welcome. (Those house-elves can suck it. Sorry Hermoine, but fuck S.P.E.W., too. Not even a factor in this movie, and that's fine.) The beginning is much quicker - they've streamlined all the World Quidditch Cup shenanigans to the bare essentials, although the movie does reveal one pivotal character much earlier than necessary. The principles are all fine, and the casting of the new characters is generally pretty good. As Alastor Moody, Brendan Gleeson's got the right tone, and his magical eye looks a lot less goofy than it does in the ads. Why there's not a chunk missing from his nose, I don't know. The folks they got for Bartemius Crouch, Cho Chang, Cedric Diggory and Viktor Krum are perfect, but Fleur Delacour comes off as fairly inept and hapless - she's not even part Veela, as there are no Veela in the movie at all. Miranda Richardson, a great choice for Rita Skeeter, gets the shaft, too, as Rita doesn't cause nearly as much trouble as she should. Finally, Ralph Fiennes is a pretty good Voldemort, even without the red eyes. Toward the end, the plot feels kind of rushed. The third task comes very suddenly, and I find it hard to believe that the climax is sufficiently explained so that anyone who didn't read the book will come out knowing exactly what happened. But like I said, everything that needs to be there is there, and it still looks all murky and shadowy like "Prisoner of Azkaban" did, which can only be good for the storytelling. I liked it just fine.

Goddammit, whaddya want? You know I'm a nerd. Left to my own devices, it was only a matter of time before I got serious Pottermania, wasn't it? A hearty thanks to Meredith for getting me started. Just for her: Ween playing "Polka Dot Tail" in Denver, '00.

Four days until the condo closing. In a few weeks, y'all'll be able to visit. Like you're gonna!