Stefan Hayden

Election is a wonderfully odd movie with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon and Directed by Alexander Payne who also directed such great movies as Sideways and About Schmidt.</p>

This DVD Commentary is really about Alexander Payne's directing and writing and directing process. Alexander is extremely well spoken and does a good job of mixing his commentary with out completely blotting out the movie in the background. I had not seen the movie in a long time and the way Alexander's comments intermixed with the actual audio made it easy to remember what happened.

Very few commentaries are worth listening to but this is definitely worth it if you have any interest in either Election or how directors come to create their own voice.

In an effort to keep my self looking for new music I want to share an MP3 with you each week for the next year.

Song 1: We're From Barcelona (MP3)
We're From Barcelona from the band I'm From Barcelona is just such a fun song I can't help from listening to it several times. They really do encompass a weird Indy Kitsch that come across really strongly in the music video below. I think only an Indy band can truly own these kind of postmodern jokes that would fall on deaf ears in the main stream.

PopMatters Picks: The Best Music of 2006. A short but solid list.

The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006. There needs to be more coverage of news stories that don't get coverage. If that makes any sense.

This podcast on the history of the Byzantine Empire is amazing and that it is available free on the internet speaks well for the future. It focuses on 12 rules and effect on the empire.

The quality is amazing and the depth of information is incredible. For me it is a little dense and could have used a slightly slower pace so I could better absorb the information but other wise this is a college coarse in MP3 format. I feel I deserve credit just for listening to it.

If you have any interest in history or Byzantine, which I have both, you must give this project a listen.

Give it a try: 1 - Introduction (12.8 Meg MP3 13:55)