Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Wildlife: Big black Cormorants have been either migrating through or taking up residence on Middle Foy's Lake.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Near-frost this this morning at my house -- frost elsewhere.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site A half-dozen charities could use your clicks.

Media Watch: Bend It Like Beckham (2002) on satellite TV last night. It was directed by Gurinder Chadha, who recently did Bride and Prejudice with Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai. Her cast for Beckham are all capable actors, if not as stellar as Ms. Rai.
I like BOTH movies, but they have similar flaws (from my point of view) -- The tangle with Jess, Joe, and Jules would have be much better if it would have been a one-way crush on Jess' part, with Jules protecting innocent Joe from the consequences of false, but perceived intimacy with his players, while Joe tried to spare Jess' feelings while keeping her on the team. What romance there was in the movie wasn't really coherent, and was a serious flaw. Strong, affable Papa-ji (Anupam Kher) had every right to punch not-completely-innocent Joe in the nose. Jules' mom (Juliet Stevenson) was just plain badly written, much like the male lead in Bride. Stevenson looked as if she was doing a parody of Jennifer Saunders' Edina character from Absolutely Fabulous without the necessary humor, and as Spike Lee says: "Bad acting is the director's fault."

Gig photo -- Norton Buffalo & The Knockouts
F.O.E. Club, Kalispell, Montana; September 30, 2005


Tyler Eng, first-rank drummer for Norton Buffalo
(formerly with the Greg Kihn Band)

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Wildlife: TWO Blue Jays are hanging out near the feeders now.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Oops, it's Autumn now, not Indian Summer -- the snow line is just over our heads.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help a half-dozen charities.

In The Community: Ground-breaking for our new buildings at Flathead Valley Community College -- I shot some video of the ceremony last Friday, and I'm editing it RIGHT NOW!

Media Watch: Football season is starting to get interesting -- Oakland finally won a game. (Maybe they kept their penalties down for a change.) The Packers came from 'way behind and made Monday Night Football a contest, although they lost. The Philadelphia Eagles not only overcame a points-deficit on Sunday, they STOMPED Kansas City in the second half -- good going for Donovan McNabb! Mad TV's Frank has been pretty funny on Fox's preview show. Jillian hasn't been quite as droll as she's been in the past, but she's dressing sillier.
We have been fans of the show Sell This House on A&E. The same crew made a new show called Move This House, but I'm afraid that turkey's not going to fly. Everybody faces the task of sprucing up a place for sale or rent or some dam' thing, so it's easy to relate to Sell This House -- Tanya Memme and Roger Hazard are engaging personalities too. The magic doesn't quite work in the new show when Roger is hired as somebody's interior designer. There is a germ of a good idea in figuring out what old things to keep, use, store, or discard during a move, but it wasn't developed enough to be interesting to me.


A rare double rainbow in the western sky at 8 AM yesterday.
The sun was peeking through a tiny slit between low storm clouds
and the Rocky Mountains for about ten minutes.