Obligatory end of year music post

I don't do a lot of top ten posts, or top twenty, or whatever. I can do lists like that when I'm dealing with quantifiable things, e.g., money made (for movies), albums sold (for music). It gets harder when the list is based on something arbitrary and unquantifiable, like enjoyment, or perceived worth. Part of that is because my tastes are very much a varying thing. One album I'll listen to compulsively thirty times in one month I might not play again until two months later.

With that out of the way, here is a list of albums I have enjoyed that came out in 2005, in alphabetical order. Albums that I particularly recommend are asterisked.

• Beck - Guero
• * The Decemberists - Picaresque
• Ehren Starks - Lines Build Walls
• * Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
• Gorillaz - Demon Days
• Harvey Danger - Little By Little
• Iron & Wine - Woman King - EP
• LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
• Moby - Hotel
• * The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
• * OK Go - Oh No
• Robbers On High Street - Tree City
• * Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
• * Victor Wooten - Soul Circus
• * The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

These are all albums that I have listened to many times and have enjoyed. However there is one album which is my total favorite.

My favorite album of 2005: Sufjan Steven's Illinois. It is fantastic on many different levels.

It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad

Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah. Have a nice Kwanzaa tomorrow.

My present to you is this link to Sufjan Stevens' free Christmas album, Hark! Songs For Christmas. Download it and play it over and over and over again. Because it's that good.

Maybe I am dead

Well, it's been a month since I last posted. What's happened since then?

Perhaps most notably, I failed at writing my novel. Pretty badly, too. Any jeers you direct towards me are deserved. In the end I was defeated by depression and my arch-nemesis distraction. I do plan on working on the book and hopefully finishing it, but, you know, no promises this time.

Some events:

• November 2: My friend Rachel's birthday.
• November 20: My birthday. I turned 2⁴ years old. Woo. I got some good stuff, but I'm only going to tell you about one. My new Fender jazz bass. It's incredibly sexy. I spent my birthday at the Mohonk Mountain House. It was super-cool.
• November 24: Thanksgiving. Good, I guess?
• November 28: Ben's birthday, as well as Jon Stewart's. Coincidence?
• December 1: My grandmother's birthday.

So, can you expect more regular posts from me in the future? Yes, so long as I have things worth posting about. I'm just not feeling the push to blog anymore.