Oh you're so silent

I hate it when I get to work with the intention of listening to specific albums and then realize that said albums are definitely not on my iPod. My desire for weirdo organ music (aka Caroliner Rainbow, Mudboy and other similar artists) will have to go unfulfilled for today and I’ll just sit here and listen to the melancholy Jens Lekman to cheer me up. I also find that working here I tend to think of bands or movies or shows that I want to read more about but then by the time I get home I totally forget my previous thoughts.

thoughts...
Christmas, couches with blankets, Freaks & Geeks, bizarro dreams, tattoo ideas, cuckoo clocks, DIY synths and drum machines, being more assertive, amazing gift ideas, money worries, hotel plans, winter clothing, baking cookies, my favourite movies from 8 years ago, combining my past with my future.

"You know who I blame? The Large Hadron Collider.  It is the world's largest and highest particle accelerator. You may remember we were warned that it could create a black hole and destroy the Earth. Consider this: it launched in mid-September, when John McCain was leading in the polls. I believe it jolted us into a parallel universe that was exactly like our own, only Barack Obama is president and the Phillies are world champions." 
---Stephen Colbert 

My new job has allowed me to read more blogs in the past week than I pretty much even did when I was still at Convergys yet I still manage to get a sizeable chunk of work done in a day.  It's certainly quite a change from working 'assembly line' style jobs (aka Convergys, GWL) to spending more than a day on a particular project, and certainly a welcome one.  Here's some of best of the blogosphere that I've been following in the past week.

With the US election there certainly hasn't been any shortage of stuff to read, be it Palin being thrown under the bus, McCain conceding and actually acting like not too bad an individual (his SNL appearance swung me to him comedically at least) or the crazy close races for senate/house.  In particular, the senate seat for Minnesota appears to be going to a run off/recount because the difference between Franken (he's good enough, he's smart enough...) and Coleman is less than 300 votes as of me posting this, which is frankly insane considering the number of votes is in the several million range. Looks like things are swinging towards Franken but I guess we will see in a bit!  Nothing is nerdier after an election than all the sweet statistics and maps that are presented in the media.  This link has some of my favourites that I've seen.

Slashfilm is very quickly becoming one of my favourite blogs (thanks Ashley) and the 2 podcasts they operate are frankly amazing, extremely nerdy, and yet incredibly hilarious.  Too bad they're reporting that there is talk of remaking Oldboy with Will Smith and Steven Spielberg........ ugh.

Speaking of new blogs I've been checking out, I've also fallen in love with Lifehacker (which I used to read occasionally) and moreso MAKE Magazine, which is getting me excited to actually start building something electronic/instrument-ish in the future at some point.  But it seems a lot of the time they also just post about awesome iphone apps, with the most amazing of course being:

Definitely some stuff I'm forgetting I'm sure, and I'll likely post more highlights from my blog reading sometime this weekend!

Last days

This is how I spent my last day of work, compiling a list of my 25 must-have albums at the behest of Ashley who was prompted to do the same by her boss.

Sonic Youth - Dirty

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Descendents - Milo Goes To College

Sebadoh - Bakesale

Pixies - Bossanova

Air - Moon Safari

Sloan - Twice Removed

Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction

Black Flag - My War

Bad Brains - ROIR

Velvet Underground w/ Nico - Self Titled

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World

Of Montreal - Satanic Panic In The Attic

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy

Jets To Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary

Love - Forever Changes

Joy Division - Warsaw

Beck - Midnite Vultures

De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising

Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique

Dead Milkmen - Big Lizard In My Backyard

Sparks - No 1 In Heaven

Hurts to leave off so many great things but oh well, notable omissions by bands like The Replacements, Suicide, Jonathan Richman, Beach Boys, Pavement, etc.

In other news, life is pretty awesome all around.