It was a deceptively sunny winter day. I had the morning off, for civic duties, such as voting, and had dreams of warmth. And it was warmer. But, sadly, not warm enough.

And I had the Apples in Stereo "Superpower" Powerpuff Girls song in my head all day. That is definitely a warm sun kind of song.

But assimiliation progresses in a happy way. The grocery man assured me that the worst of the cold is over, that there are even thunderstorms forecasted for this week. I didn't tell him that all the meteorologists, despite their recent fued of boasting on the editorial pages of the local paper, are either incompetent or damn liars and in any case are always wrong.

Oh, and probably you saw this already but here's an article from USA Today about a planned prisonbreak using as its base text the prison guard memoir of Ted Conover, NEWJACK. (Link via Moorish Girl.) My favorite part is this: Conover says he "always welcomes new readers." NEWJACK is a good book, and Conover an interesting and undoubtedly committed writer. I hope this doesn't mean they ban his books in Sing Sing.

It's worth listening to Robert Rodriguez's commentary track on ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO. He makes the most convincing argument I've heard yet for high def digital as opposed to film. They prepped the movie in two weeks and shot it in seven on high def digital video, which Rodriguez talks about the wonders of in great detail. I had no idea the movie was all digital until he started talking about it -- it looks great. His opinion is that digital high def allows greater creative freedom and flexibility because it enables you to see exactly what you shot when you shot it in much higher quality than film playback monitors allow (which in turn makes lighting and knowing whether you got the performance you need much easier), allows for much cheaper FX additions, and is better at capturing what you're actually looking at. I have to say I'm one of those people who has leaned toward the film side of the film/digital debate (kneejerk) but when parsed as he does -- that film is not organic, it's just the best technology that was available at the time and is not what the essence of movies is about and that digital is actually a better technology that can give the artist more freedom -- I'm very nearly convinced. Anyway, worth seeing/listening to. There's a whole separate commentary on sound design (which he does himself as well). The thing I like most about Rodriguez is that he seems to have figured out how to truly work the system so that he's able to do what he wants with minimal interference and still enjoy the process. Success often seems to have a way of sucking the ability to do that out of people, especially people in show biz.

There are other things and perhaps I will say them later but for now, my brain is still tired. There really will be pictures -- as soon as Mr. Rowe gets time to transfer them to the web for me.

earworm: "Let's Go (Superpower)," Apples in Stereo

rec: pretty flowers, 75 percent off

namecheck: Alex "Mad Skills" Irvine