Everyone's making their "best of" lists for 2008, and I'm not going to be any different. The obvious choice for me would be a favorite albums list, because as some people might know from previous posts, my music collection is one of my primary obsessions.  So in a somewhat particular order, these are the albums that helped me get through many work days, hours of driving, and 52 lazy weekends.

1. Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV

I'll get the obvious out of the way first and start with this one. For sale on the Nine Inch Nails website as a digital-only version for $5 or as an ultra-deluxe limited edition version for $300, this was a 2-disc album containing 36 entirely instrumental songs. There are no official videos for this album, but there was a partnership with YouTube to allow fans to create their own custom videos, sort of like an online film festival.

2. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

Another obvious one for me, this album was released for free online in digital form as a gift for the success of Ghosts I-IV. It saw a physical release on CD and Vinyl, but was limited to 250,000 copies worldwide. Many critics said it was Trent Reznor's strongest work since The Downward Spiral in 1994.
 

3. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons...

Everyone teases me for listening to rap music, but they don't know what they're missing. Atmosphere released several small EPs the past year, but their strongest was definitely this album. I was somewhat disappointed with their previous full length album so I didn't have the highest expecations for this one, but my doubts were erased when it was released.
 

4. Portishead - Third

This album made both Last.fm and Pitchfork's best album lists from 2008. It is their first studio album since 1997, although I was never a fan until this year.

 
 

5. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Another favorite on Last.fm, also one of the catchiest albums I've heard in a long time. This is MGMT's first full length album and is sure to be played in my car for a long time.

Embedding for any of their videos is disabled so just watch it directly here.
 

6. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark

This album fits into my "silly electronic music" phase that I've been in recently, along with several other albums released in the past couple years. This is the only one making the list, since it's the only one released in 2008.

 

7. Justice - †

Another electronic album, although not really that silly. Somewhat similar to Daft Punk in style, this one is best enjoyed when played very loud with a lot of bass.


 

8. Man Man - Rabbit Habits

I first heard of Man Man when I saw them opening for Modest Mouse. Their genre is hard to describe, so I'll just quote Wikipedia: "Their musical style has been described as Viking-vaudeville, Manic Gypsy Jazz. Man Man is known for their exuberant live performances. When performing, the members of the band dress in white outfits and wear war paint."

Their albums really don't do the band any justice. You have to see them live.

 9. Why? - Alopecia

Another favorite weird band of mine, Why? is from the primarily hip-hop record label Anticon, although their genre is described as psychadelic pop. Alopecia is the strongest and my favorite album of theirs to date.

 
 

10. Restiform Bodies - TV Loves You Back

Yet another weirdo band from Anticon, Restiform Bodies is an experimental hip-hop group. I don't really know what else to say about them other than they're probably an acquired taste.


 

Honorable Mentions

• Crystal Castles - Self Titled
• Ratatat - LP3
• Beck - Modern Guilt
• Ghostland Observatory - Robotique Majestique
• Ladytron - Velocifero

That's it for 2008. I am not very good at reviewing things, I just know what I like, so I'm sorry if some points weren't as thought out as you'd like. GET OFF MY BACK.

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I am not at my computer right now, but I trust the trained monkey I left at my desk to deliver this message to you:

Happy New Year, everyone.

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There are some problems that I encounter from time to time that make me say to myself: "Somebody must have figured out an easy way to do this by now", and most of the time I am right. There are times, though, where no matter how hard I search, the solution always evades me. Today was almost one of those times.

I found a great deal on a Acer Aspire One netbook, so I couldn't help myself from buying it with some accumulated Christmas money. The only problem was that it came with Linux and I really had no desire to figure it out. I might leave that challenge for another day. I told myself I'll just format it and install Windows XP, no problem. It doesn't have a CD drive, but you can boot the setup files from a USB disk, right?

Hours of Googling resulted in several completely over complicated guides on how to create a bootable USB disk, and I was beginning to think that I would have to buy an external CD-ROM, or at least find somebody that owned one. It wasn't until later today that somebody pointed me towards a handy little application, oddly enough, called WinSetupFromUSB. The nice folks that made it basically packaged up all the complicated steps in creating a bootable USB disk into a simple application with a GUI. By following this guide, I was able to create my bootable setup disk in just a few minutes.

Now here I am, writing to you on my fresh installation of Windows XP. On my brand new netbook. In bed.

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This morning was the second day in a row that I woke up with a pounding headache. It wasn't as bad Saturday morning, and since I was out of the house for most of the day, I generally felt pretty okay. Billie seemed fine, too, so we didn't think much of it. This morning, though, we both woke up at 10 AM with worse headaches, dizziness, and outside our window were two firetrucks and an ambulance.

Turns out for the past day and a half we were breathing in carbon monoxide. The culprit, a poorly maintained furnace in the building. A lack of CO detectors in the building also meant that a couple people were sent to the hospital with mild CO poisoning. We were all evacuated for roughly 3 hours while the fire department ventilated the building, meanwhile Billie was interviewed by CTV news regarding the whole situation (we don't have cable, so we couldn't watch it).

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Color me surprised. After sending an email to the Tim Hortons website, expressing my frustration with their staff and attaching a photo of my burned bun, I got a call today from the corporate office with an official apology. The lady on the phone was very polite and informed me she would be contacting the specific Tim Hortons that sold me the burned sandwich, and that she will follow up with me in 2-3 business days.

Stay tuned as the story develops.

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