“It's touching that the monkey sits on my shoulder.He's waiting for the day when he gets me”
-Out of My Mind, James Blunt

I’m feeling very mellow today. It could be the lack of sleep, decaf tea, or the James Blunt CD I’m currently listening to. It could also be the numerous “End of Year Lists” that I’ve been reading today. And that makes me want to make my own biased and redundant list for my own amusement and obsessive compulsiveness. So here goes:

Best Movies Seen in Theatres:
-Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
-Breakfast on Pluto
-40 Year Old Virgin
-Million Dollar Baby
-The Squid and the Whale
-Walk the Line
-The Constant Gardener
-Downfall (especially when followed by beer at Hooters with Dirk and Mairin)

Worst Movies Seen in Theatres:
-Elizabethtown…and I paid like $19 to see it at the Film Festival
-Hostel- ditto the $19
-The Brothers Grimm- Thank God Kate and I had free passes

Best “Bad” Movie:
-The Island- I can’t say anything bad about Ewan McGregor. He hates wearing pants.
-Red Eye- not that it’s bad by any means but Dan and I had so much fun mocking it when we saw it in theatres. So predictable. “If I was on a boat, I’d hide my guns at the bottom of the ocean.”

Best Old Movies I Finally Got Around to Renting:
-Captain Blood
-Girl with a Pearl Earring
-The Salton Sea

Worst Movie I rented:
-The Centre of the World- aka the Peter Sarsgaard soft-core porn. “Hey Kate, I rented a great romantic dramedy starring Peter Sarsgaard…”

Best DVDs purchased:
-Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity (On the same day. It was a good day)
-Intermission

DVDs I purchased months ago but still haven’t watched:
-Primal Fear
-Tigerland
-The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
-Nosferatu

Best Albums of the Year (even if they technically came out in 2004):
-Kaiser Chiefs- Employment
-Gorillaz- Demon Days
-James Blunt- Back to Bedlam
-Franz Ferdinand- You Could Have It So Much Better
-Stars- Set Yourself on Fire
-Hard-Fi- Stars of CCTV
-Coldplay- X&Y
I realize that I’m just copying Q Magazine’s list at this point…

Worst Album Columbia House tricked me into buying:
-Destiny’s Child- Destiny Fulfilled (it’s now on the floor to level out my crooked bookshelf)

Best Album Columbia House didn’t have to persuade me to buy:
-The Clash on Broadway Boxed Set

Best Months (where I had the most fun):
-March
-May
-December

Favourite Day of the Year:
-September 10th- The Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang/Breakfast on Pluto/Oh My God I saw Bono and took a picture of the ceiling/saw Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy and Neil Jordan and then went to Mod Club day

Best Concerts:
-U2- September 17th (but not so much the Wednesday show)
-Stars & The Organ at Barrymore’s (also with Montag. His first name is Antoine)
-Franz Ferdinand
-Keane
-Coldplay
-The Bravery- but only because they played a cover of U2’s An Cat Dubh

Best Things Eaten in Foreign Places:
-Delicious Greek hors d’oeuvres in Athens
-Baklava in Mykonos
-More hors d’oeuvres in Istanbul
-My sandwich at the Tower of London in London
-Baked Alaska on a cruise ship off the coast of France
-Pizza in Venice

Worst Things Eaten in Foreign Places:
-Oily French Onion Soup in Paris
-Whole battered fish in Barcelona (which I technically refused to eat)
-That terrible sandwich in Paris

Worst Things Eaten in Canada:
-Anything from those times we went to Nickel’s in Ottawa (but not the Be-Bop Sundae)
-The morning after the Forsey party when we went for breakfast and I had the worst Eggs Benedict ever on a full stomach of alcohol and very little sleep

Best Things Eaten in Canada:
Anything from Azteca

My Favourite “I Think We’ve All Had Way Too Much to Drink” Adventures:
-Post-Zaphod’s at Zak’s Diner with the throwing of water at the innocent girl behind Dirk which led to Dirk’s “Saw-ry!” apology
-Nayeli’s Birthday party where everyone got nametags I ripped off the Residence wall; plus we heckled a guy getting arrested out the window of a bus
-Just about any other time at Zaphod’s or Dance Cave or Revival

That’s all I got. It’s too early. Okay, not really. It’s 11am.

“But I won't be your concubine - I'm a puppet not a whore.”

OVERRATED: Strut Magazine which I went and purchased, not as a token of Canadian journalism but for its glossy goodness, only to see a section of “Over/Underrated” in it that isn’t nearly as good as my personal lists. That and most of their list is wrong.
UNDERRATED: End of year lists. Like Depeche Mode, I Just Can’t Get Enough.

“I'm out of my mind”