ם Top Five Albums of 2006

Posted on December 31, 2006 at 10:31 pm

1. The Mountain Goats — Get Lonely: John Darnielle remains one of the few people that can successfully pull off an exquisite concept album. Absolutely fantastic piece of work. And the album cover reminds me of the cover of Led Zeppelin IV.

2. Regina Spektor — Begin to Hope: I’ve always had a soft-spot for Regina. This album is a nice follow-up to Soviet Kitsch, with cleaner production but just as many academic references (think “pop-culture references”, but regarding 16th century literature or Biblical judges instead of Nicole Richie). Anti-folk for the academic.

3. Girl Talk — Night Ripper: If you’re not familiar with Girl Talk, please read the first paragraph of this as a bit of a primer. Then go ahead and read the list of samples in each of the songs and just try to not want to immediately listen to this album. Night Ripper ends up being a 42-minute dance party, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all.

4. Bob Dylan — Modern Times: “I paid my time / And now I’m as good as new.” Amen, Bob-o.

5. Band of Horses — Everything All The Time: Not a particularly original sound, and they’re not really exploring unchartered territories, but they certainly know how to make a solid indie rock album. I just really dig it.

 
 
 
Honorable Mentions:

• Belle & Sebastian — The Life Pursuit: Some gems, some duds. A strong album, but just not quite top five.
• Approximately one third of the brand new Brand New, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. Those other two thirds let me down.
• CSS — Cansei de Ser Sexy: Super fun Brazilian dance rock, full of broken English lyrics.
• The Decemberists — The Crane Wife: The best history rock in town, as sung by Homestar Runner (c’mon, how am I the only one that thinks that?)
• The Hold Steady — Boys and Girls in America: As much fun as this band is to just listen to, I absolutely recommend trying to see them live. They put on quite a show.
• Quiet Company — Shine Honesty: Endearing music from Texas.

What’s your top five? Leave it in the comments. Chris, Mark, J.J., Indra… I’m looking at you. Anyone else is also welcomed to share.

ם What’s Noka Worth?

Posted on December 30, 2006 at 4:15 am

Noka is a Texas chocolatier that sells “luxury chocolate” at a luxury price. DallasFood takes them to town in an excellently written (and lengthy) exposé on the price of their chocolate.

My favorite revelation: Noka chocolate ranges from $309/pound all the way up to $2,080/pound. Other gourmet chocolates range from roughly $30 to $85 per pound. In fact:

To make some “apples to oranges” comparisons, Noka chocolates cost more than:

-Foie gras — $50 per pound
-Domestic sturgeon caviar — $275 per pound
-American Wagyu and Japanese Kobe beef — $100 to $300 per pound
-Sterling silver — $170 per pound
-Marijuana in El Paso — $350 per pound
-A fat stack of dollar bills — $454 per pound

That’s right, Noka chocolate costs more per pound than money. Well, $1 bills at least.

ם Gerald Ford Not Eaten By Wolves

Posted on December 27, 2006 at 1:53 pm

Gerald Ford was not mauled senselessly by a circus lion in a convenience store, as previously predicted in this SNL sketch starring Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw prerecording news briefs for every possible death of the former President. (via Defamer)

Farewell to both of you, Gerald Ford and SNL being funny. Rest in peace.

ם Rubik’s Redux

Posted on December 26, 2006 at 3:33 am

Just to keep you up to speed on my challenge to Will Smith, I’m now down to 3 minutes, 13.47 seconds.

Watch your back, Fresh Prince!

Also, being the good brother that I am, I got my kid sister Megan a cube for Christmas. She’s been playing with mine for a few days now, and she’s hot on Big Willy’s tail too. She’s down to four and a half minutes. I’d say we got a good gene, but one of my other sisters spent 4 hours with a cube without any luck, so that’s clearly not the case.

So how was your Christmas?

ם Merry Christmas Everyone!

Posted on December 25, 2006 at 1:17 am

All the best to you and yours.

ם Rubik’s Cube

Posted on December 17, 2006 at 3:17 am

Just a follow-up to yesterday’s post, it took me a solid few hours to solve my brand-spankin’-new Rubik’s Cube for the first time yesterday. After a day of practice though, I’ve significantly improved. About 10 minutes ago, I solved a thoroughly scrambled cube in 7 minutes and 15.86 seconds.

Alright, so I’m a nerd. But just wait until you and I run into Will Smith on the street and he challenges us to a Rubik’s Cube Solving Challenge, and you can’t even accept. Then we’ll see who the real man is.

UPDATE: 5 minutes, 42.18 seconds.
UPDATE: 5 minutes, 39.83 seconds.
UPDATE: 5 minutes, 34.27 seconds. I’m coming for you, Will Smith!
UPDATE: 4 minutes, 38.31 seconds.

ם Happy Birthday to Me

Posted on December 15, 2006 at 1:46 am

Another December 14th has passed, and thus I’ve gotten another year older.

A birthday + Facebook = a completely full inbox:

Wowza.

That continued on for another few pages. And being the nice guy that I am, I personally responded to all of them.

I also got pretty much the only two gifts I’ll ever need: an external hard drive from my mom and a Rubik’s cube from Deb. It’s like nerd heaven.

Sorry about the hiatus. More soon, I promise.