First Video from the latest American Idol

It's safe. It's relatively uninspired in terms of the video, but I still kind of like the song. It has a certain level of Counting Crows meets John Meyer vibe going for it. I'm disappointed that his voice has been processed so much, since I thought the rawness and occasional gravelly note was what made his singing appealing. Still, I think this is a good first foray and I'll probably take a listen to the album.

People Search For Very Strange Things

I was looking through the stats for the blog -- something I've never done because I never noticed that tab before -- and despite there being a large amount of pageviews (honestly never would have guessed that many people actually came here, unless of course, it's just one person who really really likes it for some strange reason).  I did notice that there are some very strange things being searched for, such as "latex weather balloon" and "daughter lipstick fuck".  Who are these people?  And moreover, why are they searching for it here?

Oh, and for some other reason the largest contingent of readers that I have come from Russia.  Bizarre, that, but well, "Hi, Russians!" :-)

Unintentionally Funny?

I caught Stuart Gordon's film, Stuck, tonight starring Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea.  I'd seen bits and pieces of it before, but this was the first time I had seen it all the way through.  Basically, it's about a woman who strikes a homeless man with her car while under the influence, and then proceeds to spend the rest of the film figuring out what to do with him while he continues to protrude from her windshield.  I am relatively certain that this was a plot from an episode of one of the CSI shows as well.

The film revels in incredibly bonehead reactions to the different problems in the film, which adds to the dark humour and absurdity that Gordon was likely going for, but I think the scene that stood out for me was when Suvari confronted her boyfriend's booty call, played by Sharlene Royer, and proceeded to beat her, while naked no less and with a frying pan, out of the apartment.

Why Don't You Give Me Some Love?

I caught part of the new video from James Blunt, "Stay the Night", earlier today.  I haven't necessarily been inspired to look it up on YouTube yet -- despite being catching, it felt fairly samey compared to his other work.  It did, however, make me go back an listen to his second album, All the Lost Souls.  Although the songs from his first disc, especially "You're Beautiful", got incredibly overplayed, I still quite like him.  His second disc I thought was better, so, of course it got less notice.

In general, it's fairly straight-forward guitar rock.  Kind of like David Bowie, minus the weird, and dialling the ennui up to eleven.  While listening to the album, though, I did notice that backing riff for "Carry You Home" is essentially Snow Patrol's "Run".