the puzzle piece behind the couch that made the sky complete

I owe this blog an apology. And the readers of this blog. All two of you.

I'll admit I haven't been paying much attention to this blog, and I haven't been doing the work that I normally do to keep it going. Last Thursday, for example, I took a Neglected Record to work, but I didn't even go through with the project. I listened to about half of Stephen Malkmus' Pig Lib, but I gave up on it. Monday night, I took a Neglected Record, but I made no attempt to make mental notes in preparation for blogging about it. For the record,though, it was Morphine's Cure For Pain. I liked it.

The other night, I took in one of my Netflix selections, and it was a real winner. I can highly recommend Novocaine, featuring Steve Martin and the super-sexy Helena Bonham Carter. Now, I know what you're thinking. Steve Martin, screwball comedy. No! Not at all, actually. This is sort of a thriller/dark comedy/romance/dentistry flick.
It has a lot of Hitchcockian style to it, which is a big plus for me. There's a scene that mimics Vertigo, and the music is slightly Bernard Herrmann-esque. I kept thinking that it also reminded me of North by Northwest but I wasn't able to put a finger on it. When I listened to the commentary, it turns out that they intentionally made up Steve Martin to look like Cary Grant. If you haven't seen it, you should see Novocaine.

See, the thing is, I've been monumentally busy with the other blog and with the Hurricanes message boards. I'm feverishly trying to keep up to the minute on all the rumors and signings and all that stuff. I won't bore you with all the details (those are available here), but I'll just say that this is an exceptionally busy off-season for the National Hockey League. In a nutshell, more than half of the players are free agents, so there's a lot of action going on. Teams trying to re-sign their own players and pick up superstars out of the free agency market. The first day (Monday) was really slow, but yesterday was very busy. Not a lot has gone down today, but there are a bunch of big names who are rumored to be on the brink of signing new contracts with new teams.

I need to get my hair cut.

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