I began playing basketball again this week, which means I've been a little beat up this week. We trained on Monday and had a game on Tuesday and it looks like the plan is that from now on I'll train once a week and play games on weekends. I have absolutely no game right now and couldn't make a three pointer if my life depended on it. But hopefully that'll change in the next couple of weeks/months. Obviously, joining a team wasn't my idea. I haven't played ball for years (for three or four years we used to have a game every Saturday morning, but that's been over for ages), so although I've thought about joining a team I just never got around to it. But a friend of mine is a basketball coach, so Saturday night (after the Phoenix guys had left) he asked me to come train with his boys and without thinking I just said I was up for it.

I have a tendency to just say yes no matter what people suggest. Like, a couple of weeks ago we're watching an Arsenal game and someone suggests that we go to Holland to watch the Eindhoven game and I immediately said I was up for it. I don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out off, so I'm going to have to do some thinking to figure out how I'm going to rustle up enough cheddar to finance a trip to the Land o' Pot. But I'm sure it'll work out somehow and so far we are five friends, who'll be going together to my first ever Arsenal game, so I'm way excited about going.

I took these pictures in my neighbourhood recently. The name Marquart is written on a closed down bikeshop, which looks really terrible. But for some reason I really like the sign which totally clashes with the rest of the building's appearance. The other picture was taken around the corner from my apartment, where apparently someone was doing a spot of redecorating and decided they had no room for a trashed piano. Why they stuck a bike in it is still a mystery, though.

I still listen to as much music as always and I still watch a ton of movies. I just haven't gotten around to writing about them. But I have to mention "Together We're Heavy" by The Polyphonic Spree, which I've been listening to lately. Imagine if you can an even more positive, happy, and life affirming version of The Flaming Lips and you've got a pretty good idea as to what The Spree are about. I'm definitely from the school of the-more-depressing-and-whiny-the-better, but there's just something really great about this record. I've also been listening to "Red Bedroom" by The Fever a lot lately and it's really cool if you like bands like The Killers and The Strokes.

I found an article on Elvis Costello yesterday, which I thought was pretty interesting. Besides his collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Wendy James I haven't really followed up on his collaborations with musicians from pretty much all existing musical genres. The article also mentions his attack on Ray Charles in the late 70s, which I'd heard about before, but wasn't really sure what was all about. So I did a little research and found an old Rolling Stone article, where it's mentioned in a bit more detail. It's hard for me to imagine Elvis Costello as an aggressive drunk spewing out racial slurs, because to me he seems like the nicest guy ever. But I guess debating music you think sucks can bring out the worst in even the nicest guy.

I've been following the I Found Some of Your Life weblog lately and I just think it's one of the most interesting blog ideas I've seen in a long time (seems like something's wrong over there right now though, but hopefully it'll get fixed soon).

Angels in America, which was awarded eleven Emmys the other night, is running here as a three part mini series, which will end on Sunday. The weirdness factor is definitely up there, but it's a fairly remarkable piece of work and since I've rediscovered Mary-Louise Parker first in the terrible Cupid & Cate and later on The West Wing I pretty much watch here in whatever. The rest of the cast is equally fantastic and especially Jeffrey 'Basquiat' Wright is really cool.