Fri, Jan 05, 2001 05:04PM -0600

Just listening to music pretty much all day, after I went and got me a new bookcase...it took me about two hours to find one for a reasonable price...I suppose that's not too excessive an expenditure of time, but for some reason, it feels like everything takes forever to get to out here in Illinois. I guess that's what happens when you have no mountains by which to judge distance traveled. Or something. Seriously, though, this flatness makes me really disoriented. I hate it.

But anyway, me and a few friends from college, we've started this thing every year where we'll exchange our favorite songs from the year. (Heh, just think, as recent as 1998, I had to get all the songs I hadn't already bought through FTP, and Scour seemed like a godsend.) Of course, I left some of their CDs/tapes behind, along with my CD player because I am an absentminded moron, but they should be coming along any day now through the USPS. I hope. Anyway, since I didn't write down a playlist or (like my friend Ben did) write down explanations for why I chose my songs, I thought I'd put my playlist for 2000 on the web for now. And maybe my playlist for 1999, too.

I also gaffled a few songs from my brother and my sister, and found "Evaporated" by Ben Folds Five, which pretty much stuck an icepick in my heart when I heard it. The lyrics seriously sent shivers down my spine and made me all teary-eyed. But that's just where I am in life I guess. And no, I am not experiencing menopause.

Finally, I tracked down a song I kept hearing when I was briefly in the Bay Area last weekend called "I'm Like A Bird" by Nellie Furtado. The lyrics "I don't know where my soul is. I don't know where my home is." struck a chord with me. (Ugh, a cheesy music metaphor. Kill me now.)

Lastly, I've been incredibly obsessed with the movie "The Gladiator" lately because my dad decided to buy it on DVD, even though he doesn't really know how to use the DVD player and has to wait until me, my brother, or my sister come home in order to watch movies. (Which is kind of funny and sad at the same time.) But anyway, I, of all people, realize that the movie is horribly scarred by the complete lack of historical verity (there is no Maximus Decimus Meridius, for one thing, nor anyone even remotely like him), anachronisms from 20th century America (the Roman Senate was more like the 18th century British House of Lords than the U.S. Senate, and Roman senators pretty much didn't give a damn about the plebians... or maybe they are similar after all.... Maybe Ridley Scott foresaw the degeneration of the American Republic?), and just general defiance of biology (The pneumothorax Maximus suffered by Commodus' blade should've had him on his knees within seconds.) And not all of the fight scenes were all that great, except for the massive battle in Germania in the beginning and the stand against the charioteers and archers in the middle. (Sorry if these are spoilers, but if you haven't watched the movie yet, it's unlikely that you're the type of person who'd want to anyway) But there's just something about the movie that gets to me. I don't know what it is.

l i n k s