all I can face is my television

• Almost caught up with No Reservations, I must say I like this year's director (I think they got a new one, the shows have a slightly different quality and very different intros) better than last years. I guess Tuscany made them realize they needed a better guy. I dunno, it's cool though.

• Reg forced me to watch the first episode of Generation Kill, about some cleverdick foulmouthed Marines right at the start of Gulf War 2. It's pretty fascinating, hilarious, and frustrating. Based on the book, it follows a Recon group that has a Rolling Stone reporter attached to their crew (originally to write a story, but it got expanded) and all the fuckups present. Most of the fuckups are due to their commanders who want medals, so keep putting them In The Shit. Highly recommended. (I then watched the next 3 of my own volition.)

• We also watched Snuff Box, a BBC3 comedy that is loosely based around this British Guy and his American Coworker who are career hangmen. It's more sketch comedy with that loose plot thread, and it's totally transgressive and gross and evil and hilarious. Watched 4 episodes.

• Bought a new DVD player, at last, yay.

I also grabbed a set list

How I got into Spiritualized:
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So in short I'd been excited for 11 months about the new tour, and excited for 4 months about this show specifically, with really high hopes, to put it mildly. I listened to the first 3 albums (we try to pretend the next two didn't happen) and some Spacemen 3 stuff and then the new album Sunday afternoon, prefunking etc.

Left just in time to get great Standing Spots near the stage, 10 minutes before scheduled on-time, the band was of course fashionably late, but whatever. He opened up with a Hendrix-style "Amazing Grace" with the guitar pedals and wah-wah and everything, and I was like FUCK YEAH. After a few songs I moved even closer, so I could see the sweat dripping off his forehead, and get a good look at his shiney shoes. I did watch the other performers, they were On as well. The bassist, oh my god. There's nothing like standing on the floor in the center of a concert and feeling the bass rattle your ribcage.

Beyond the fucking amazing shredding going on onstage, there were some really amusing characters pushed up front with me. There was one really skinny tall guy - well, several, but this one kept talking to me. Some weird couple in front of me that stood stock still the whole time, except when I came into their range of comfort, at which point the girl would give me stare of death. So Seattle. And there was one guy who has Martin Gore hair styled into a mohawk - and one drunk as hell hesher-type who cracked me the fuck up, and we moshed together.

They played like three Spacemen songs - most of the audience totally didn't know them - and while there were five or so new ones, the rest were classics. Good mix, I wonder if he went back because he felt like being in that place, or if he wanted to re-engage the audience after such a long break. Either way, whatever, it fulfilled all my very high expectations. The music he does is about "the spaces between" and that really came across last night.