Music: Okie Dokie (The Orb)

After leaning toward pop, The Orb leans back to their nifty off-center, melody-agnostic, found-sound, sleepy-eyed surrealism that I like so much. Pieces are still short, unlike the groundbreaking 40-minute Blue Room that grabbed me years ago.

Listeners expecting melody, harmony, and rhythm should buy other material. This is more like observing a Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol art exhibit while eating a great big bowl of your favorite ice cream after a really long nap on a sunny afternoon. ...with mosquitoes.

Movie: Pride and Predjudice

The best love story I've seen on film. A little hard to follow due to the fast complex dialog (turning subtitles on helps) - but such is a witty intelligent work. Excellent work all around. Emerging from the social issues, earnest worries, hearts broken and mended, and sheer confusion, it is pervasively funny - few films have kept me chuckling for so long.