As Rade slept here, we watched a little of Eddie Izzard, off his "Definite Article" which is a brilliant stand-up comedy performance. See it or die! Izzard's really my favourite living stand-up comedian, even though Woody Allen and Richard Pryor are really close. Woody Allen, you say? Yes. He was a master at stand-up comedy, which seems to be a fact a lot of people have over-looked in recent decades. To my knowledge, he has only had three stand-up albums released, but I think they're on Rhino, so go check. Or Google.

Rade and I then played NBA Live 2005 where we ruled the Lakers, lost (as usual) against Golden State and then lost by one point against NY. Argh, the pain!

Frederic came by in the evening, and we talked, ate some brilliant food that Mikaela had made: a vegetable mix with bulgur, a tzatziki with fresh garlic, some canned pindjur (=vegetable mix with paprika being the dominant additive) and sucuk (=Turkish sausage). We then sat down and watched "Pumping Iron", a radiant documentary of a Mr. Olympia contest, 1976. Arnold Schwarzenegger had won it five consecutive times, and tries to win it in competition with several worthy opponents, like Lou Ferrigno and Franco Columbo. As John Ulmer off the IMDb comments pages writes:

First of all, this is the movie that started bodybuilding. It's hard to think of a time when bodybuilding wasn't strange and abnormal, but when "Pumping Iron" was made, bodybuilders were considered insecure freaks with big egos. Bodybuilding ads were printed underneath the comic strips of daily newspapers. People took them as a joke.

Arnold is often referred to as the father of modern bodybuilding (he literally started the entire craze you see today), and a lot of people who criticize his intellect and films and tabloid sexual assault claims forget that everyone is flawed, but not everyone has enough self discipline and motivation to move to the United States from Austria, become the king of bodybuilding (boasting the largest chest every measured--to this day), then moving into film and grossing billions of dollars at the box office in total, then becoming Governor of California.

Well, we must add the fact that Arnold is a fanatical George W. Bush-supporter, and is hence mad. He often references opponents as "girly-men" and boasts of Dubya's "muscles". Saying "muscles" instead of "killing innocents in another continent just to rape the biggest natural resource of their country" (=oil) is, for me, a sure way of labelling oneself as an idiot. I'm sorry, Arnold. Take your face-lift and go to hell. You go to hell, and you die! You dieeee! I wish I could say that with Cartman's voice.

Frederic then tried out "Katamari Damacy" and managed to collect 60 cm's of katamari, but I'll be damned if I'll break the 1 meter-mark! The soundtrack is smashing though, go get it. Innovative and melodic throughout.

Frederic, Mikaela and I then started to check out "House Of Flying Daggers" (the trailer is available here). They quickly turned off the story, but I continued watching with some interest. It turned into a sort of love-story and I was actually quite drawn in by it! Very unexpected, even though that (and the rest of the film) was filled with a bunch of clichés. Well, it's an epic story, so no wonder, but it also contained good audio and great photo at times. CGI and wires abound, it reminded me of "Shogun Assassin", especially when the guys with the rice hats turned up. And don't go saying that's from "Big Trouble In Little China"! SA was first.

Today I spoke with my parents. That's always nice. It was a while since the last time. I'll really try to see them the next week-end.

Now it's time to check out some episodes of Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour", which, apart from being a book about his travels across the globe, checking food out, is a nice bunch of TV-episodes.