The annual Art Car Parade is *so much fun*. It might be the most fun you can have for free (apart from the usual sorts of entertainment), and it's certainly one of this city's highlights. It's so cool that it's worth timing visits to Houston every April. 250ish *insane* vehicles, bespangled and bedaubed and constructed into all sorts of weird shapes and themes. There's another ambition: to one day have my very own art car. Of course, I'll have to learn how to drive first.

I am deeply ashamed of myself for posting this. Sorry. But it had to be done.

So I'm at the Spiritualized/Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show on Monday, and due to a weird back-muscle pain I sat down (primly, I might add) on the edge of the stage by the giant speakers, facing the crowd, in order to give myself some relief. So there I am, bopping about in the sitting-down position to some extraordinarily lengthy songs (four gui-tar-ists and a xy-lo-phone... where it's at!), when an extremely crusty drunken man came up to me and asked: "Would you mind if I tried to look up your skirt?"

*Huh*? I mean, when has that *ever* worked? Am I supposed to think it's charming that he asked permission? What possesses these people? Why, why, why???

Explanations of his behaviour welcomed. dimsie1@yahoo.com, people. Help me to understand.

Sorted! Not for Es and whiz (that's the Chemical Brothers next week), but for Costello-centric LA fun on the way home to NZ. Three shows! No extra flying or driving! Free accommodation with friends! I think it's fair to say that I Am The Fucking Man for working this one out on such a limited budget.

If I speak in more detail I will jinx it. But I think I may be about to pull off the Elvis Costello travelling deal of the century (so far). Please, please, please... this *must* work out!

This Onion story both hits me viciously where I live and makes me laugh until I am uncomfortably close to peeing. "I haven't seen this much senseless hipster carnage since the Great Sebadoh Fire Of '93," said rescue worker Larry Kolterman, finding a green-and-gold suede Puma sneaker in the rubble. Bwaha!

Oh. My. God. Worst. Movie. Ever.

I have had two of these moments over the past week. During both films I was extremely stoned, which allowed me to survive with my mental faculties intact.

The Other Sister and Smokey and the Bandit. I don't think I need to say anything else.

I want to talk about Gilmore Girls for a second. I am very defensive about this show because I know that it's a glorious, soft-focus fantasy world which could never exist... yet I want it to so desperately! Everyone is funny and eccentric and the diner has gorgeous forties tables in it and everyone has ridiculously great taste in music, and the mother/daughter relationship is so lovingly drawn and all the fights ring true... it's insane. Last night I saw a show from the first season I'd never seen before, in which Rory takes Dean to a Chilton dance, and they played *XTC* and *Mazzy Star*. Then - I thought I would melt into a big puddle of love for these people right then and there - Big Star's 'Thirteen'. Just to hear 'Thirteen' broadcast on national TV... it almost hurts.

It would never happen IRL, of course. But we can dream...

I forgot to mention the Beta Band, who we saw on Tuesday night. The Engine Room inspires two repetitive themes: seemingly, we are and always will be stuck behind an incredibly tall rabid fan of the obscure band, and someone near us gets and always will get into trouble with security because of some drug issue. This time it was a tall schlumpy white dude who kept making strange hand gestures towards the stage, while someone else unwisely thought they could light a joint next to the door guy. The glorious seventies are long gone, my friends. (No Kiwis on ecstacy this time, though... more's the pity!) The Beta Band themselves were very fun - I really liked the wacky little short films shown on the screen behind the stage, and the final performance-art maniacal drum freakout was groovy! In fact, I want to be their constant friend and take pictures of people wearing silly moustaches and run around Scottish fields with tinfoil on my head, and then fashion these experiences into trippy filmic moments while playing bongoes. Can I? Can I, huh, can I? They're a strange musical amalgam, actually. The whole 'vibe' reminded me very much of the Looper/Flaming Lips concert we went to a few years back - all the multimedia things and the humour - but the DJing, loops, and drumming were all much more groovy, like Salmonella Dub and the Stone Roses got together (another highly unlikely pairing). They could also, as Brent puts it in stoner voice, 'bring the rock!' if necessary. And the last time I heard a Jew's harp being utilised somewhere was on the Muppets album! (Hrm. Surely there's a better name for it than 'Jew's harp'? That sounds so ethnic stereotype-y or something. Have I missed some revolution in folk musical instrument naming? I hope someone lets me know...)

There is a spinoff of Changing Rooms called House Invaders! Thank god! I was beginning to watch repeats on an almost daily basis; plus, I have been driven to the American version, Trading Spaces, which - the horror, the horror - is both overly earnest, like many American DIY shows, and a whole *hour* long! Although it does have a kind of 'watching a train wreck' fascination, since nearly all of the finished rooms are triumphs of mediocrity. Does everyone in this entire country shop at Gallery Furniture or something?

Spent this evening bonding with Billy Wilder films on Turner Classic Movies. The Apartment is comfortingly witty and touching (how many films do you think there are which feature someone running through New York streets to be with their loved one on New Year's Eve?), but The Lost Weekend, which I had never seen before, is pretty old-school. Quite drained by it. Imagine a double feature with Days of Wine and Roses... I wouldn't be able to leave my bed for days, I'm sure. And I hardly drink.

Billy Corgan was right. And I don't say that often. But the world *is* a vampire. An exemplary specimen of humanity - kind, funny, a dedicated newlywed to another lovely person, an excellent speller and grammarian, an extremely talented blogger, with a taste in music which puts my own to shame, a *historian*, for crying out loud; I ask you, how does a guy with these numerous fine qualities, which are obvious to even a mere internet-based friend such as myself, get laid off? By *phone*, no less?

Fuck The Man, I say.

I apologise to my legions of devoted readers (Ben, mainly) for being silent for ages. This month is not panning out well on the 'aimless babbling about pop culture' front. It's my last real month of coursework, since the semester ends on May 10th or so, and I'm not really doing very well with time management...