Did they skip over the scene of Hank bringing Gomez up to speed? Last I remember Hank hadn't told anyone except Marie.

I was blown away by Gimme Fiction, which is where I jumped on. Then I listened to the rest of their stuff and was like "oh… okay, sure, I get it." Then I went back and listened to Fiction again, and was less impressed. I still like them a whole lot.

Oh hell, also We Want A Rock.

Whistling in the Dark, Birdhouse, Istanbul, Road Movie To Berlin, Dead. Minimum Wage!

The effect doesn't wear off. I've heard it dozens of times if not more, and I always get choked up.

You know, thinking about it now, I'll just say Flood without all those qualifiers I had before. It's a wonderful album. My ladywife and I have been doing the "Whistling in the Dark" call-and-response ongoing for about two weeks now.

Seasons 1-4 just landed on Netflix instant.

And then: "went back to Fringe season one, to see if there were any plot holes. Just as I suspected: AIR. TIGHT."

This is a good point. For me it's either Dare To Be Stupid, or TMBG's Flood. Neither of them really represent where my taste is at now. Flood does, I guess, and I still listen to that sometimes. But there's some seriously rough patches in there, and the production sounds so shallow compared to what the band is capable…

I repped for this already on the Synthetica review: if you're on spotify, get with "Fantasies - Spotify Acoustic EP". Great start-to-finish. "Satellite Mind" is really stellar.

Trouble I have with their stuff prior to It's Blitz is that it's plodding. Every song is "here's 4 measures of this, now here's 4 measures of the next thing, now 4 measures of another thing," until the song just sort of ends. There's no dynamic to it. But when you disco that up, it works!

I can only handle their ironic, slightly sincere pop mode. It's Blitz, really; and not much else. But I goddamn love that album. Am I not a proper YYYs fan?

Douay, I really like that description of the Maquis - with a situational, not fundamental, objection to the Federation. This is why even on DS9, when they're in the context of their situation, they seem like a poorly-formed story idea.

This, and other stuff like the death from "The Ship" last week. We always knew that Starfleet was a military operation (if not exclusively, or even primarily) but the audience was usually welcome to ignore that. DS9 was good about exploring the messy fringes - what does it cost to maintain an empire? What does it look…

That is more plausible than what I said.

Every time I sit in on an episode and they use the source material in a stupid way, I say something about how good Fables is. This is because I'm a jerk. I'm no longer allowed to speak.

But that's the man's style. Remember the (possibly bullshit) fact that Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards weren't informed Starship Troopers was a satire? I expect Eszterhas meant every word of the script, but that doesn't mean the movie is playing it straight.

I maintain that Showgirls is precisely as it was intended to be. Verhoven made a good-bad movie on purpose, which should be impossible. I wouldn't change a frame.

My wife watches that and says "I make no excuses. It's shit."

When I listen to Drums & Guns I keep wishing it would goddamn explode already. So much tension, so little release. And I enjoy Retribution Gospel Choir, but the punches there aren't as effective as they would be after three minutes of hums and clicks.