Oh, Berlin

...your heart has been / drawn and quartered again.

At the behest of Jeremy, I went to go see my old summer camp / high school friend Alana's band Cherryfix play tonight at the Mercury Lounge. She and the lovely Serena used to be in an outfit called Contraband, whose patch I still have on my "punk" sweatshirt that my dad got me from the Gap. This new band has a very different sound -- it's kind of a not-so-hard hard rock thing. Which is not to say it's not good; they're certainly a lot better than I remember from listening to the MP3s on their web site. Those readers who are up on their Juliology may remember that the Headliners had a song about her called I Wanna Be Alana's Boyfriend (MP3 no longer available, sadly, from Hey Suburbia), that went a little like this:

Last time I saw her, she was lyin' on the street
Kids were all dancin' to that punk rock beat
Took her for a ride on the ferris wheel
But she'll never know just how I feel

I wanna be Alana's boyfriend
I wanna hold her so tight
I wanna be Alana's boyfriend... tonight...

I tell you, I still kind of want to be Alana's boyfriend. I really really wanted it on the bus to summer camp in Long Island when I was 12 years old. And her band covered "Heart Shaped Box" last night. So they've got my vote, Mr. A & R man.

In preparation for Vegas, I've been watching gambling movies this week. Last night I watched Rounders with Tom, who claims, inexplicably, that Matt Damon is a better actor than Ed Norton (I mean, I'm not a guy who likes either of those creeps that much, but Matt is obviously Bigger Scumbag). That movie is not so good -- like Sophie said, it's not a movie that presents poker as a metaphor for human interaction or anything, it's just a movie that's literally about poker. And it doesn't really even involve Vegas, which made me feel foolish after I figured that out. Tonight I rented The Cooler, which is an extremely dopey movie, even though everyone in it is sort of working really hard to make sure you don't find out. Alec Baldwin's quite good, though, and so is Maria Bello. This sounds like a movie review... I'm just talking about some movies that I watched, man.

What else, what else. Tom and I hung out with Eve at O'Connor's on Monday night and stuffed ourselves on these delicious cookies that she baked. I'd never been to that place before -- it's nice and quiet (at least on a Monday) and it's got a good jukebox. And you can't beat $2.50 gin-and-tonics, even though they're so weak you gotta drink like 10 of them to get effed up. Eve: What a gal.

Listening to the fucking Strokes album non-stop at work. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Reminder: Change the cat litter before getting on that fucking plane!