After I stopped trying, my XBox 360 finally found (and I noticed today) my laptop, which is set up to stream music to it. This is cool because then I can take advantage of the nice built-in speakers on the TV of DOOM, as long as I keep my laptop on anyway. I copied about 40 GB of music to my laptop today from one of my external drive backups and am streaming, currently, Great Big Sea to the XBox 360/TV.

Also, movies:

• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Now, yes, it’s my first time seeing it. After playing LEGO Star Wars, I figured I’d gleaned enough plot and didn’t have to torture myself, but it turns out that my current co-workers and friends rely rather heavily on Star Wars for metaphorical communication, so I decided to rent and watch. It’s awful. Anikin’s actor couldn’t act his way out of some old aerogel. All he does sort of well is angry and even that is pretty non-committal. About halfway through the movie I was wishing he was played by Keanu Reaves, which should let you know how bad I thought it was. Anyway, now I have the plot I can try to forget the acting. Lots of pretty CG, though.
• Stomp the Yard. Good movie. Tearjerker, and it made me nervous enough to start sweating, but it was a good flick, and the protagonist’s actor is not only good looking, but compassionate, and for me, a very sympathetic character. Anyway,  I watched it partially because I have a fascination with stepping, but didn’t know it’d be a decent movie beyond that.

Saw a number of things on both Netflix streaming and just via renting from Netflix.

• Italian Job (2003, w/ Seth Green) - Netflix streaming - I liked it. I thought it was well put together and did a good job of explaining the caper and complicating things and then working out in the end.
• Italian Job (1969, w/ Michael Caine) - Netflix rental - I liked it, but not as well as the 2003 version. It was more comedic, abstract, not as apparently well-planned from the audience’s point of view, and crime didn’t pay.
• Word Wars (2004) - Netflix streaming - I haven’t gone back to finish up the last 20 minutes, but it’s a good documentary about a trainwreck between 4 Scrabble champions who all know each other. These people are various forms of incredibly neurotic. It was a stressful watch, even though a good documentary. I’d sort of like to reserve that degree of stress watching for documentaries about real human tragedy, though, not neurotic Scrabble players.
• A Galaxy Far, Far Away (2001) - Netflix rental - Good documentary about folks obsessed with the release of Star Wars Ep 1. Various whacked fans. Pith-helmet guy was genuinely frightening. I’d look over to H, watching with me, during the times when pith-helmet guy was being interviewed and her look of horrified fascination was priceless. We both agreed that especially these fans in this documentary, were far more frightening than those portrayed in the various Star Trek cons we’ve seen or seen documentaries about.
• Îlé Aiyé (1989) - Netflix rental - An interestingly produced documentary (not the conventional narrative style, mostly un-commented-on video with some picture-in-picture presentation and a very few short clips of subjects talking without filmmakers apparent). I think I learned a lot, but probably not as much as I might have with a more structured narrative, about Candomblé, and African spirit cult that has a lot of crossover, to my mind, with Vodun or Voodoo, as far as the pantheon goes.

I have also been using Netflix’s streaming to enjoy some of the early episodes of the A-Team and Knight Rider.