Well today I am feeling much better, and like Mike said, I’m sure you all are quite ‘ill’ of seeing me write about being ‘ill’. Yes I mean ‘ill’ in the hip-hop sense of the word. So you da illest, alright alright, you da dopest, okay okay, you da flyest- man why you tellin’ me this? In one ear and out the next all I keep on hearing is: blah blah blah….

That’s enough of John Reuben.

Well, in other news I just picked up the U.S. version of The Notwist: Neon Golden, and for those of you who have ever heard of this amazing band from Germany, you’ll be happy to hear that there are 3 bonus tracks on this non-import version of the disc which are all instrumental and amazing. I also picked up Further Seems Forever: How To Start A Fire on a whim today. It was cheap. Fantastically so. I haven’t listened to it yet, but The Moon is Down was a very nice album. Tooth and Nail is so awesome, though, not only did I get the CD for dirt cheap, but it came with a free sampler of some nice music. Andrew, if you’re reading this you’ll be happy to know that one of the songs is from Twothirtyeight, it’s called Modern Day Prayer. Anyhow, back to The Notwist, which (Neon Golden) deservedly was listed as one of the year’s top ten albums by the New York Times. I’m going to be going to their concert at The Majestic in Detroit on April 9th! Wooooo! I’ve been planning to bring a roll of dough so I can pick up their earlier CDs at the show hopefully. They started out as a metal band, but hey, I’m open to anything. Plus that and their earlier stuff was compared by one reviewer to the sound of Dinosaur Jr., which is just dandy. I’ve heard some sound bytes of their earliest release, and it still sounds like a sweet album.

I had to film a Coke commercial for my video class, which was fun. I have to say, it’s amazing how hilarious smashing cans on the ground and pouring pop down the front of your shirt or drinking too much and shooting it through your nose can be. This is going to be a nice commercial.

Well now I’m ready to write some more for you all. Following Wednesday I continued my sad decline into being sick for longer, and I still am as miserable as I was back then. But I have some news to report.

I went to see Adaptation on Thursday afternoon, which was quite a nice experience. There were some excellent lines from that film, and I confess that Nicholas Cage did his best non-Nicholas Cage performance EVER. Meryl Streep turned in a great performance as the despairing writer of The Orchid Thief, the book that Cage’s character is struggling to adapt for film. The Orchid Theif concerns the life of one John Laroche, a colorful individual from Florida who specializes in orchid cultivation (and thievery). This is a Spike Jonze picture, who did the acclaimed Being John Malkovich and the less-than-acclaimed Human Nature. “Every orchid looks like the insect that pollinates it… once you see your flower you can’t let anything get in the way.” These were some good quotes from good ‘ol John Laroche. At any rate, I’ll let those few of you who haven’t seen it go and see it if you are inclined to do so. Right now I have business elsewhere.

Elsewhere is right here, two lines below my previous paragraph. This paragraph is devoted to raving about Spirited Away, which I had the privilege of seeing in the company of Josiah Shepard and Mike Edwards, who are both sick just like me. In a word: WOW. This film gives you a type of welcome fatigue, because it is so consitently fresh, beautiful and stunning. And the fact that it manages to continue to wow you for its entire 2 hours is amazing. That and it has one of the most unique and creative stories I have experienced in a great deal of time. Go and see it now, or wait for a few weeks and then rent it and watch it and after that buy it and give it to me.

Yeah, my room is rug-doctored now. Cool, huh?