when we were having drinks on saturday, somebody suddenly asked what my best night was. after 30 seconds i came up with an answer. it must be the night i was back home, playing a gig with me band, having all my friends there, got wasted and still remember everything, and basically had an amazing time. so far that gig is my last gig and i was treating it as such. i had fun, and it could be one of the best nights of my life. most other good nights i can hardly remember due to the alcohol intake.

friday we went to the beach party and now i'm starting to reap the benefits of going to 'football'. it's a social thing. saturday was fun, went clubbing.

alonso has made history. the youngest GP winner, first spaniard, etc etc etc. i just read that his birthday is the same as mine. no wonder i like this wonder kid. i've always seen something in him that reminds me of myself. if i was a formula 1 driver i'll probably be like alonso. and it has to do with sharing the same birthday i suppose.

oh well, life goes on...

The Italian Job

Just watched the premiere of The Italian Job here. It was raining in an open cinema but that didn't stop me from going. Just the thought of seeing a couple of Mini Coopers running around wildly is more than enough to bear the rain.

I haven't seen the original one, but I know that the Minis are pretty much part of it. And with BMW producing the new Mini Coopers, a remake of the movie seems a good advertising method for BMW. (BMW owns Mini, just in case you are confused). The remake has Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron and Seth Green. A nice bunch of actors.

It's pretty much a heist movie, just like Ocean's Eleven or Heist. Clever tricks and ideas to steal a lot of gold. It's an easy entertaining movie and you can figure the plot out from the minute you see Steve's (Edward Norton) moustache. I was hoping to see the Minis in Venice, but then I remember there ain't much road in Venice. So the Minis had to wait until LA.

For this movie they used the Mini Cooper S Works. Those beasts are powerful and fast. And the handling is amazing. So I heard. I would love to get my hands on one of the fat-free Minis that Wrench prepared for the team.

There was a nice running joke about Napster in the movie, with a cameo from Shawn Fanning. Even though it seems a bit out of date, the idea of it is fresh and entertaining. And even though this movie is a remake, it's fresh and entertaining.

it was a lonely lonely weekend... the only weekend i was more lonely was when i first came here about 4 years ago... friday after work i tried calling up people... i ended up going to my local after sitting restlessly at home by myself... had a drink, talked a bit, played some music, then home... no real conversation, no jokes, nothing... luckily saturday i managed to get hold of some people so we went out for a drink... but sunday was another lonely day, just watching chelsea vs liverpool at the pub... watching football in the pub is a good thing to do when you're alone, cause it doesn't really matter if you're with somebody, you'll be focused 100% on the game anyways... it's just the 15 minutes in between...

there are some viruses going on and it attacks corporate networks etc... so a good reason not to work...

58 years of independence... independent from what?????

after two (or maybe three) months of hot weather, today i can finally see clouds. and not just normal clouds, but black clouds with a thunderstorm waiting to be unleashed. i don't know why but i really welcome this cloud. two months of 30+ weather is just too much. i can barely do anything in that kind of weather. i need to be cooled down, to be able to sleep at night, to be able to sit down and not sweat.

anyways, my arm hurts a bit from yesterday. i need to train more.

i guess plans for the open cinema tonight is not going to go through...

spun

when music video directors cross over to make a motion picture, there is something expected from them. spike jonze, the genius behind the beastie boys and fat boy slim's videos, set the bar with being john malkovich. until now, no other former music video director has even gone close to that standard. yes there was McG with charlie's angels, but that was nowhere near being john malkovich. or f. gary gray, but his movies are also below jonze's standard. the latest music video director to try a movie is jonas akerlund.

jonas akerlund is probably the best music video director right now. remember madonna tripping on ray of light? or robbie williams walking around in his underwear for come undone? just samples of his work. the former drummer in a scandinavian goth-metal band has done his fair share in music video. and now he's trying to make movies. his first movie is called spun, a tale about three days in the lives of speed junkies.

ross (jason schwartzman) is trying to score some metamphetamines, better known as speed. he goed to his dealer, spider mike (john leguizamo). there he meets mike's girlfriend cookie (an ugly mena suvari) and nikki (britanny murphy). from there on ross meets the cook (mickey rourke), the guy who makes all the speed. somehow in between, ross landed a job as the cook's driver.

there's not much of a story, it's more of a portrait. in trainspotting, the story was about how hard it is to escape the life of drugs. in spun, nobody is trying to escape. even though paranoid, most of them seem happy. a portrait of three days of speed usage and what it does to someone's life. and the way akerlund directed it, it makes us - the audience - feel as if on speed as well. every time somebody takes a bump we all get high. and at the end when they all crashed, we all feel drained and tired.

most of the critics compare this movie to requiem of a dream. i haven't seen that movie yet, so i can't comment on that. what i do know is that i like akerlund's style. being a music video director, he obviously knows this drug and knows what effect it brings, which he has portrayed in this movie. if trainspotting is about crack and go is about ecstasy, then spun is about metamphetamines.

Remember this band: Vega4. I just got their album and they're really good. It's a mix of Coldplay, Radiohead (circa The Bends), and a bit The Verve. Some of the songs are just happy uplifting songs. I saw this CD a couple of months ago but hesitated. Then I read a review in Q and I just went out and bought it without even listening to it. I love when things like that happens, getting a great album unexpected.

Another on I really like right now is Brendan Benson. A simple singer-songwriter, he puts a lot of emotions in his songs. Some songs are simple, some are really deep. I just love metarie. Not a lot of songs can capture that sense of rejection. Brendan Benson already has captured the music industry. Jack White mentioned him as his favourite singer. And his album got great reviews everywhere.

So if you want to get new albums but don't know what, go get Satellites from Vega4 or Brendan Benson's Lapalco.

it's hot... it's really really hot...

friday was wicked... had drinks over at josie/thomas' and then clemence and then shakers... i was wasted... slept in shakers, dragged out, pushed around in a trolley, and somehow made it to a couch... woke up totally dehydrated with a splitting headache... when will i ever learn???

saturday took advantage of the sun and went to a swimming pool... water is so refreshing when it's hot like this... enjoyed the fireworks... really really big fireworks... and then somehow ended up at shakers again... but this time didn't get wasted, just got hungry... back to home and sleep...

i wanna do something today but don't know what... it's hot... it's too hot...

Phone booth

Went to see phone booth yesterday... It's a nice movie... Colin Farrell plays Stu, who is this hotshot PR guy and gets stuck in a phone booth while some guy is playing with his life via a telephone... Who is the bad guy here? Is it Stu, who tries to cheat on his wife, who lies to people, who is practically a 'fake'? Or is it the madman holding Stu hostage in the phone booth?

Just like Se7en, this movie, this movie tries to draw a thick line between black and white. But this is 2003 and New York. Everybody is a fake. Everybody lies. And if you are presented with Katie Holmes, of course you want to cheat on your wife. So why did he pick Stu and not Bush or any other congress member? Picking Stu doesn't get his message out in the world.

It's entertaining and the plot is pretty easy. It's just that I don't get what the bad guy wants and why. Anybody could have picked up that phone. And if you want to be a real criminal, don't go all Oprah on somebody. Just kick the guy in the ass.

http://www.virtualbum.ch/pages/ShowAlbumImage_cardinal.cfm?BigImage=1&ImageName=%5C%5Caxiomatique%2Ech%5Cwww%5Cactipub%2Eaxiom%2Ech%5CBackoffice%5CAlbums%5C26%5C117%5F9%5C092%2EJPG

it's so hot now... apparantly there's a heatwave going on in europe and temperatures are rising high... today it was something like 38 degrees... and i still played football at lunchtime, even though i played defense (because nobody else was there to play D)...

weather like this makes me just wanna stay in a swimming pool the whole day and not work at all... it's too damn hot!!!

got trigger happy tv... funny as hell... sort of like jackass, but british... really good... i just keep cracking up...

just got the fantalega list... how the hell can i make a team with prizes like that????

oh, it's too hot...

came back yesterday night after a hectic weekend in hockenheim...

started off on friday 6pm, ended on sunday 11pm... in between i drove 1230 km in my golf, spend two nights in a nice b&b, and met up with some F1 drivers... full story of the F1 race will be on my website...

now i'm a bit tired, but pretty psyched for this week, although not sure what is going to happen to me this week... hopefully something good...

i'm dead... i just did some sports today... i tried what they call 'ultimate'... when i first heard about it, i just laughed... but after seeing a game and trying it, i'm interested and i just went to my first practice today... it's really hard and with my fitness level it's harder... do you ever had that feeling when your mind thinks you can run faster, but your body just gave up? that happened to me a couple of times... oh well... hopefully i'll be as fit as i was when i was 8 so that i can run for ages and be a good athlete... smoking and drinking sure damages the health...

tomorrow i'm off to hockenheim to watch the F1 race... don't have tickets, no place to stay, but it sure as hell will be fun... just watching those car pass by... hearing the sound of an F1 car... that's the best sound ever... trust me...

anyway, i'm dead... i should try streching my muscles next time...