Pithy Title Here

Well, folks... it's that time once again. My annual roundup of all things music from my own selfish perspective. You might want to refresh your memory on last year to see if this holds up at all over time. Anyhow, we'll get to the 10 best albums soon. For now, partially because rankings in and of themselves do not sum up a year in music - and partially because I need more time to write the albums blog - let's just get to some of the musical housekeeping for the year that was: Creed of the Year I'm going to take some pain for this one, because Creed is probably not the best parallel, but... Kings of Leon. I say this because I have their most recent album. It has some good songs. They are all overplayed. They are far overrated as a band. They have vague religious righteousness about them. Maybe Creed is a good parallel. That said, if Creed could write a song as good as "Sex on Fire" the world would be a better place. Band I'm Glad I Got Into This Yea...

It's my birthday and I am feeling punchy. And since I can barely look at my Twitter feed, turn on the TV or leave my house without hearing about how good SEC football is, I'm going to have my wits with people. For those unacquainted with the issue, the Southeast Conference is widely touted to be the best college football conference ever in the history of the universe. At least by ESPN, which slathers the love on the SEC like my dog does to my bare feet. I guess that shouldn't be too surprising. Much like ESPN overhypes the NBA (a league ESPN paid a lot of money to broadcast), ESPN's talkies love to hype up the SEC. Some of these idiots go as far as to say a team that loses a game in the SEC might still be better than an undefeated team from, say, the Big 12, another major football conference. You would think ESPN signed a deal to televise SEC games... oh look: they did ! Beyond this, though, annoying fan after annoying fan is happy to remind me about how much bett...

For the past three years, I have worked to compile a mix of Christmas/holiday music that celebrates the season, but is performed by current indie bands. It's not because I dislike the old standards of the season... I just choose to not take the holidays quite as seriously as my local all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station might. In 2007, the mix kicked off with The Dandy Warhols ' psychedelic take on "The Little Drummer Boy," segued right into Save Ferris' Judaic send-up of "Christmas Wrapping" and, if I can say so myself, killed for 30+ minutes. It included the modern classic Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and more. Last year, I felt I upped the ante with 40 minutes of spirited tunes. Ringing in with The Raveonette's "Christmas Song" and rolling right through to Coldplay's lovely cover of "2,000 Miles." This year, it was a harder task. The simple fact of the matter is that t...

Last week, when I flew home from a conference in Phoenix, I was a mess. I had known I was due for a cold and, sure enough, it hit with a vengeance. This was unacceptable. I had to fly to Seattle on Tuesday night and Sarah was going to meet me in Portland for the following weekend. I had to take action. When I fight disease, I fight to win. And while, the cold lingered well past its sell-by date, here's how I went from on my ass last Friday night to a cross-country flight Tuesday night and managed to feel OK: I stop drinking - I know. Rare is the night I don't have at least one drink. It's OK. My doctor says it's fine. Anyhow... From when I got on my flight in Phoenix until this past Thursday night, no alcohol. Zip. Don't need my body processing anything but a virus. I drink all kinds of other stuff. I have a rule with a cold... if I stand up, it's time for a glass of water. I must have had 6 cups of tea a day, too. Lunch? Soup. I basically challe...

CNN analysts are going on and on about the New Jersey governor's race, extrapolating what it means in the national scheme of things. One analyst talked about how big an indicator Chris Christie's election is... the fact that a Republican could win the governorship in a liberal state like New Jersey! One analyst even called it "shocking." Friends, here are the governors of New Jersey since 1982: 1982-1990 - Tom Kean (Republican) 1990-1994 - Jim Florio (Democrat, lost in 1994 in a landslide) 1994-2001 - Christie Whitman (Republican) 2001-2002 - Don DiFrancesco (Republican) 2002-2004 - Jim McGreevey (Democrat, resigned) 2004-2006 - Richard Codey (Democrat) 2006-2010 - Jon Corzine (Democrat) So, since 1982, in New Jersey, the "unlikely" party managed to hold the governor's office for only 16 years, with no democrat serving two terms. If Christie winning tonight is "shocking," I can only assume the person - or anyone - saying it has never been to ...

Today, folks, we learned that an afraid 6 year old can control the national media by hiding in an attic. A quick note... A few weeks ago, someone asked me which reality TV star I'd like to wish ill on. I chose a certain cable news pundit. The point being: the news shouldn't be called "the news"anymore. News is boring. But people don't tune in to see boring. And, today shows me we've reached the point where broadcasting the drama of the day - in many cases endlessly debating the drama of the day, if the issue at hand is political - is the key interest vs. informing the public. Seriously, think about it. A prototype balloon is released accidentally from a home near Ft. Collins, Colo. Would that normally interest you? Granted, the thought of a child in the balloon, helpless up in the Rocky Mountain air... sure, that's scary. But to broadcast the entire incident live - and psyching up viewers with statements along the lines of "what's going to...

In 1999, I decided to take on a 10-year project. Toward the end of my sophomore year in college, the U.S. Mint started the 50 State Quarters Program and, despite not really being a coin collector, I thought this would be cool. It was a conscious decision. I decided it wouldn't go seeking out quarters or anything of the sort. I wanted to simply come upon them. With five quarters released each year, I knew I had at least a 10-year project on hand. And so it began. First, as a small stack of quarters in my dorm room. That summer, after I told my mom I was doing this, she picked me up a $5 folder with slots for each state's quarter. Last week, after 10 years of looking carefully at virtually every quarter that came my way, I found a Montana quarter from the office vending machine... and my collection was complete. One of the reasons I started the collection was so I could sit back and see just what transpired in my life between acquiring that Delaware quarter and the comple...