a note: this time difference shit is fucking me up. i had added the following to the post i began today, but then the site listed it as tomorrow - eastern standard time, i guess? - even though i am writing from colorado, where it is just past eleven pm. given my rule of new day, new post, my anal retentive side would not allow it to remain as such even though technically both sections were written on the same day. hence, the new post. AUGH.

we spent a couple hours today at the denver aquarium. i think i was more excited about seeing some of the exhibits (is that the right word for an aquarium? the animals?) than alison was. especially the otters. they just tickle me. overall it was pretty cool, but i was still left with a few questions:

does an aquarium really need a full bar, and a pretty posh bar at that?
isn't it a little bit weird that an aquarium is owned and run by a chain of seafood restaurants?
why does an aquarium have live tigers?

pictures of the above to follow; i have been taking pics a-plenty but didn't think to bring my USB cord with me. duh.

this evening tanja and i sat down to watch garden state. i have had the dvd from netflix for over a month now, maybe even longer. my preoccupation with lost and various other factors had somehow kept me from watching it - the latter of which seems slightly nutty. anyway. i dug the movie* but realized i was completely watching it with the wrong person. i puzzled it out until i came to the conclusion that my sister and i do not at all share the quirk gene (although my father possesses it in spades).

i like quirk. no, i love it. in fact i daresay i require its regular presence in my life - situationally, in the people i associate with, in fashion, in music, in film, etc, etc. my sister, on the other hand, might be a little odd at times -who isn't, really?- but is not really a being to whom the adjective of quirky could really be attributed. so it just felt a little off to be watching a movie which was, in itself, and integrally, a little off, itself. i think it quelled my enjoyment of the film a little to be peering over at my sister to see if she was laughing or smiling or … anything.

the soundtrack to the movie intrigues me, with almost a cameron crowe kind of feel to it in that i feel like zack braff had his songs picked out before he even got the script written (not that there's anything wrong with that).

and that, in turn, reminded me to finally do some investigative work online about a song from "v for vendetta"? you know the where nattie P and V dance to music from V's jukebox? in the theatre when the music began i got way psyched and leaned excitedly into todd to whisper to him that the vocals belonged to beth orton, who is, IMHO, the world's greatest "folktronica" artist. i waited through the credits (as i am apt to do, particularly when the film is of the ass-kicking variety) but then was confused and disappointed not to see her name listed in the credits with the music included. i was embarassed and confused to think i could be wrong, as her voice is so distinctive - i have, after all, practically worn out my copy of "central reservation" with repeated listenings.

anyway, i finally remembered to check it all out and after quite a bit of hunting, i have found that i was right, but for whatever reason, the song is not included in the soundtrack. or basically mentioned, um, anywhere. why is this? i do feel vindicated somehow. now i just need to figure out what song it was that they danced to and i will have made right with this particular little neuroses. one down, several (thousand) more to go . . .

* unlike tripp, who thought it was "too easy"