I was planning on writing a post not dissimilar to Fil’s except I realized that I probably only bought a dozen albums this year. So, it would be a little disingenuous for me to say “these are my top 10 albums of the year” – it makes it sound like I bought hundreds of CD’s and these rose to the top. Anyhow, there was a bunch of stuff that came out this year that I really enjoyed and purchased.

Albums I really liked:
– The Killers – Hot Fuss
– The Twilight Singers – She Loves You
– Ray LaMontagne – Trouble
– Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
– Tom Waits – Real Gone
– Interpol – Antics
– Badly Drawn Boy – One Plus One Is One
– Bobby Bare Jr. – From the End of Your Leash

Albums I found to be pretty good:
– The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
– The Zutons – Who Killed The Zutons
– Grant Lee Phillips – Virginia Creeper

Albums I wish I’d bought:
– Arcade Fire – Funeral
– Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
– Magnet – On Your Side

Here’s a picture of my balcony from inside my apartment right now. It’s still snowing.

Good times. I’ll post again if it accumulates significantly higher, and I remember to take another picture. I went to the grocery store yesterday and it was a madhouse. I just wanted some laundry detergent, but I ended up having to leave and go home. Shopping carts were wrapped around the building. People were yelling at one another about their place in line. The whole thing was a disaster. It appears that some parts of Massachusetts are even in a “State of Emergency.”

Yesterday, January 19th, was the first day of the winter season that I had to turn my heat on. I has dropped below zero several times this season so far, but I guess the recent culmination of consecutive cold days pushed my apartment’s temperature down so low I actually had to turn on the heat.

This year, with the addition of a new computer (for a total of 5 running full time), I thought I could finally heat my one bedroom through the winter on the power of consumer electronics alone. Between that and the fact that I live on the top floor, and thereby get heat leaking in from the people below me, the unit generally keeps itself warm.

There’s really no reason for me to want to make it through the winter without turning on the heat – heat’s included in the lease. It’s more of a nerdy challenge to myself. Well, we’ll see how it goes next year. Making it 2/3 of the way through January in Massachusetts wasn’t too shabby.

Fil, knowing how much I love Jeopardy!, sent me this fairly interesting post written by a guy who was on the show.

Every night I come home and watch Jeopardy!, which I have MythTV record for me each day. Today, mysteriously, the MythTV process crashed and I don’t have it set to auto-restart. Also, today, my now dear friend Ken Jennings lost at Jeopardy – so I don’t even have it recorded. This is terrible. Please, someone tell Ken I said goodbye.

This Onion article hit a little too close to home – “Wild, Unattached Twenties Spent At Work.”

“Man, it’s the greatest feeling in the world, knowing that I could do anything right now,” Anderton said, sitting at his desk at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

A student from Carnegie Mellon won the Jeopardy! College Tournament this year. Kermin Fleming makes us alumni proud.

Note the excessively nerdy headline on the CMU page linked to above.

I saw Saw last night. It would have been a pretty cool movie (creepier than Seven, but slightly less clever) with the following major exception:

Cary Elwes in Hot Shots! – Classic
Cary Elwes in Robin Hood: Men in Tights – Hilarious
Cary Elwes in Saw – F’n terrible

If Cary Elwes had been replaced with a better actor… say someone like Edward Norton, and if they’d tweaked a few stupid parts, I think this movie would be mentioned in the same breath as some other great thrillers.

The Red Sox are one game away from winning the World Series. The Patriots have won an NFL-record 21 games in a row. Boston rules right now. Everyone else can suck it (especially you, New York).

So, this story might not be very funny but the weekend had it’s moments.

On Friday I e-mailed Parzick asking him if he was busy this weekend, and that night I bought tickets to fly down to North Carolina. The tickets were purchased Friday night around 8PM, and the flight departed Logan Saturday morning at 6AM. The Internet is great.
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