V showed me a couple of highlights (... it's all relative) from last week's MTV Video Music Awards last night. Britney's performance was utterly laughable, while Chris Brown's impressive dance number only left me thinking, "does anyone even make the pretense of actually singing anymore?" However, i was mystified when Veronica fast-forwarded to a clip of one of MTV's "hotel parties", in which they rented rooms in random Vegas hotels and had all-star bands performing for a small crowd of fans. In one room, members of System of a Down and Foo Fighters were jamming. Playing a cover. Of the Dead Kennedys "Holiday in Cambodia".

Am i the only one who considers this complete and total blasphemy? If Jello Biafra isn't spitting fire about this right now, then the world as i know it is truly over. The Dead Kennedys HATED MTV. With a passion. For Christ's sake, they recorded a song on 1985's Frankenchrist called "MTV Get Off the Air". This has got to be the ultimate "fuck you, we won" from the media conglomerate to Jello's grass roots campaigning. Don't get me wrong, i have plenty of respect for SOAD and Dave Grohl et al, but i can't believe they would degrade a classic punk track in this way, subverting it on MTV's annual flagship gala. Just absolutely disgusting.

No new novel excuses, just the usual "w" word.

Been seeing a lot of movies lately. Perhaps i've been looking for media where i can just sit and be forcefed entertainment rather than having to ... gasp ... interact. Although my recent addiction to Bioshock (more on that later) speaks to the contrary. Here's a few one minute reviews of my recent fare.

• Superbad: As i said previously, i had high high hopes for this film. They were mostly fulfilled, with Michael Cera recapitulating his role from Arrested Development as an awkward teenager, trying to get laid with his gutter-brained friend Jonah Hill. Some hilarious moments, some tender ones ... and some really bizarre bathroom humor. I'm still wondering whether compulsive penis drawing really is a common childhood affliction. I came out having enjoyed it, but didn't feel like it met all my expectations. Still recommended, though.
• The Bourne Ultimatum: V and i did the "clandestine double feature" thing a few weeks back, first checking out the new Matt Damon spy flick. That guy has done well to grow into a Hollywood heavyweight, unlike his former Beantown buddy whose career seems to have flamed out after a series of lousy role choices. The third Bourne installment boasted some of the best chase sequences since the French Connection, particularly an early scene in which Damon guides a hunted reporter through London's Waterloo Station, evading a team of CIA agents. The ending didn't exactly bring the supposed trilogy to a definitive close, but i was once again greatly satisfied with Bourne's adventures.
• Knocked Up: The second of our double feature, we wandered into another Judd Apatow offering about fifteen minutes in. Somewhere in between Superbad and the 40 Year-Old Virgin on the maturity scale, i was thrilled with how well Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl captured the divide between the sexes. Several scenes, most notably Paul Rudd's secretive fantasy baseball incident, did well to illustrate just how disparate men's and women's viewpoints can be. Ultimately, this film left me with that simultaneous apprehensive/nostalgic/contented feeling that i wanted out of Superbad but didn't quite achieve.
• Thank You For Smoking: Veronica tivoed this a while back and we finally got around to watching it on a movie-packed weekend (the same one as our double feature outing). I enjoyed Aaron Eckhart's depiction of a tobacco lobbyist, a master of double speak and arguing in spite of evidence. The film does well to skewer both sides of the tobacco debate, but in the end i felt it made one too many plot contrivances to really drive its message home. Eckhart's kidnapping and nicotine overdosing was especially useless.
• 16 Blocks: While in DC for a grant review panel a few weeks back, i caught fifteen minutes of this flick on cable before absconding downstairs for dinner. I was sufficiently curious to tivo it when i returned home. While not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, its players succeed enough in their roles to make it worthwhile. I love Mos Def, he's a truly multi-talented performer who should continue to focus equally on acting and music. As with Thank You For Smoking, some plot points are rather far-fetched (see: Bruce Willis evading a SWAT deployment in a bus with no tires).
• Ocean's Thirteen: Saw this on a plane returning from Boston to San Francisco. I was tempted to continue reading my airport purchase, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, but when they restarted the movie five minutes in due to audio problems i figured this was a sign. Pretty good, better than the second but not the classic web of misdirection of the original (remake). It was entertaining, humorous and intriguing, but i was able to figure out several of the twists. The first movie had a great, and more importantly believable twist as its climax, while the second had a huge U-turn that seemed a bit manufactured at its close. The third was fun but not head-slappingly creative.

We hit the Guild Theater in Menlo Park late late last Saturday night for a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, accompanied by a performance by the Bawdy Caste. I've seen the film before on TV, but never been to an actual showing. Let alone one where actors performed the movie in front of the screen, the audience was all well-stocked with the necessary paraphernelia (toilet paper, toast) to interact with the flick, and the local troupe was shouting things constantly. My favorite bits were those where someone would ask a question that would be answered by the next line of dialog. Such as "How do you say jello in Spanish?", to which Riff Raff replies (opening the door for Brad and Janet), "Hellloooooooo ...". I didn't get chastised as a Rocky Horror virgin, mainly because i answered the Caste's MC's question "Have you seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show before?" in the literal sense ... yes. Never mind that it was on Channel 7.

The next great video game is out, and Bioshock be its name. The piratey dialect feels appropriate for a game set in an underwater city. But make no mistake, this gem isn't about buccaneers but an art deco utopia gone awry from genetic experimentation and power struggles. The aesthetic is carried throughout, driving home the sensation that you're wandering through a time capsule from the 30's. The combat mechanic is interesting, interspersing conventional FPS weapons with superpowers gained by injecting yourself (in quite brutal cutscenes, i might add) with plasmids to alter your genetic makeup. Another aspect in which the game excels is the moral choices built into the story. To continue your development into a transgenic superman, you need a sort of genetic currency known as Adam. And the only way to get it is to collect it from Little Sisters, small girls who've been transformed into soulless Adam factories by amoral scientists. But do you kill them and retrieve maximum compensation, or take pity on them and free them from their enslavement? It may sound like another cheap video game trick that's more hype than innovation, but it actually imparts a very real conscience into your character. While i generally lean towards helping the little scamps, it's difficult to quell your anger and look on them with pity after you've gotten the s@$# kicked out of you by a Big Daddy, the tough-as-nails dive-suited juggernauts that protect the Little Sisters. Beautiful, exciting, and engaging ... the video trifecta. And hot on its heels is the long-awaited Halo 3, due in a few weeks. The Xbox 360 is rolling.

Unlike the PS3, which continues to suffer from a decidedly unimpressive (a polite way to put it) game library. Heavenly Sword has gotten good reviews, but after playing the demo i wasn't convinced it was anything more than a God of War clone. And now i see Katamari is heading to the 360? Where's Sony's killer app? Metal Gear Solid 4 just can't come out fast enough, and i'm not sure that's the game to get the PS3 on the next gen radar. I was at the Metreon the other day and saw what may be the white flag from the Sony camp ... a Wii booth with six systems, mobbed by curious gamers eager to try their hand waving the Wiimote. In the middle of the bastion of all things Playstation?

Although the Wii is certainly the hands down winner in the console wars (so far), i realized a few weeks ago that i hadn't even turned it on in a couple of months. As i suspected before it was even released, it feels very gimmicky to me. The Wiimote is an interesting concept, but i'm not sure you can hang an entire console on that. And that alone, really ... no HD support, last gen computing power, a paltry library unless you're a Nintendo fanboy (although at present, but not for long, it still outweighs the PS3's offerings) ... it's not anything that's going to draw (my) attention away from the eye candy of the 360 or PS3.

V and i bought some late tickets for last Thursday's show at Cobb's Comedy Club. Although V had probably notified me, i remained ignorant that favorite Brian Posehn as well as current hot commodity Patton Oswalt were performing. The openers were worthwhile ... never a certainty at a comedy show. Even Greg Berehndt ... yes, he of the morning talk show. Patton had us crying for over an hour. Unfortunately the late night meant that my early morning trip the next day for the ASTRO translational research symposium was more painful than it should have been. I should go to more comedy shows, especially as i'm listening to more and more comedy albums these days.

The first few weeks of the English footie season have shined on some of my preseason Premiership predictions and made others looks silly. Of course the big shock out of the gate was that Manchester United didn't win a match until their fouth try. "Win the league comfortably"? Not on this evidence. Of course, losing Rooney to another broken foot and having Cristiano Ronaldo banned for three matches isn't helping. My Chelsea has looked solidly ... solid. Not bad. Not fantastic. I watched the entirety of the duel with Liverpool, a contest in which we should've lost by three or four. Instead, thanks to an inexplicable decision by the ref we got awarded a more-than-dubious penalty and drew 1-1. Liverpool definitely look capable of beating us to second, if not winning the league outright. Arsenal may not be as bad as i'd thought, but it's still only September so we'll see how their youngsters handle the pressure of the long season. Somehow i think Newcastle may have been the wrong dark horse.

Back to the Blues ... i saw the last ten minutes of our Lampard-less defeat at Villa Park last week. Not pretty. The team hinges around him so much, i'm mystified that Abramovich and Kenyon would even flirt with the idea of letting him leave. Who else scores goals? Didier Drogba, but he can blow hot and cold. Salomon Kalou? Please. Claudio Pizarro has been mildly intriguing in his first few performances, but it would be incredibly foolish to assume he can provide a Lamps-esque contribution at this point. The team seems incongruently constructed as a whole, not the flowing unit that United was last season or Liverpool appears to have at long last become. The promise made before the season by management that Chelsea would evolve into an attractive attacking side seems to have been a load of hooey, made to look all the more silly as the scousers are playing beautifully. I'm currently in disbelief about all the crowing over Michael Ballack's exclusion from Chelsea's Champions League group stage squad. First of all, he's injured. Secondly, it's not like he's torn up the pitch in his time at Stamford Bridge. If Kenyon and Mourinho are conspiring to try to offload him in January, more power to them. Oliver Bierhoff says "This is no way to treat a Germany captain". Boo freaking hoo.

What is it about me and meetings lately where the one day i decide to take off or go do something outside the conference center, it pours rain?

words are flying out
like endless rain into a paper cup
they slither while they pass
they slip away across the universe
pools of sorrow, waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
possessing and caressing me