She Don't Think Straight

If it was practical for bands to release multiple videos for the same song, I submit this girl's webcam performance of Bloc Party's Banquet as an easy contender for potential video of the year. I wish I could say this is the youngest fan of theirs known to me but there was a 6-8 year-old with his parents at their Detroit show last April. At least you can commend them for not listening to Simple Plan.

HBO: One Medium Pony?

With season five of Curb Your Enthusiasm now complete, despite a few lackluster episodes the show remains in top form and is still a testament to the overall quality of HBO's entire program lineup (Lisa Kudrow's The Comback notwithstanding.)

With most of their competitors now pushing their stronger shows online, it would only seem natural for HBO to have some sort of presence at online content stores given their critical appeal. Yet as of now there is little if anything to be found. Maybe more development will come with the debut of The Sopranos' new season.

One thing that was discovered was an HBO podcast featuring the stars of CYE answering the questions of what appears to be an overmatched and underwhelmed HBO intern who somehow was afforded the opportunity to ask Larry David himself all kinds of inane questions. It's worth listening to if only to hear David's answers to questioning that has no relevence or direction at all. His character and demeanor can be better understood if you took the experience of playing Q&A with an intern as a microcosm of the frustration he sees in everyday events.

Since I can't seem to find it on iTunes any longer (although the three other interviews with Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin and Cheryl Hines still seem to be there) here's a link to the mp3 on another site. This is simultaneously the most awkward and hilarious 12 minutes you'll hear all January.

HBO's Larry David Podcast Interview (mp3)

Watching Man City-Tottenham says otherwise

According to a study done in New Mexico soccer is the most exciting sport of all, with baseball following in second place. Much to North America's collective shock it is possible for a sport that nobody watches here (almost) to be exciting. The study evaluated sports based on the unpredictability and surprising results to measure how interesting the results are to those who follow them.

While everyone likes seeing an upset, it's interesting that among the sports listed in the article (all team sports btw) the one they found the most exciting is also the sport with the most tie games. When you're discussing unpredictability surely the fact that nobody foresaw a 0-0 draw between Arsenal and Manchester United doesn't make it more enticing to the casual viewer to watch.

Soccer is the most exciting sport of all: study (Yahoo)

2006: Year of the Playlist

Happy new year, chinese new year, merry russian orthodox christmas, etc., etc. Hopefully MitM returns from its tryptophen-induced holiday coma to post with a little more regularity. No promises however.

An easy way to start off the dreary month of January is a playlist. Been listening to more experimental/jazz/hiphop and less of the indie/electro/techno lately, who knows how this will affect tastes in the upcoming months. Not having seen any release schedules for the first quarter I can only hope we start getting some quality albums better than the new Strokes album (which coincidentally got a PFork 5.9 today, too bad they had to wait a month to realize what everyone else was saying.) On with the show, click on the list to enlarge.