Christmas Eve eve y’all. I don’t know if any of you saw, but today the blog was flat-busted. Yup, something was wrong on the server-side and all my scripts weren’t working. I couldn’t even log into the blog, so I’m writing this in a text file (just like the olden days). Anyway, chatted with the live tech support and they’re working to fix the problem, but I made a local copy of the database just in case. (Yeah, I’m stealing some neighbor’s wireless connection here at my folks’ place.)
The nine hour drive yesterday wasn’t all that bad, although the majority of it was in the dark and a little foggy. We made good time, and even stopped at a casino for a buffet dinner and a really bad cabaret show. By the end of the trip, there wasn’t an album in the world that sounded good. We listened to everything, and got sick of everything. I nearly crashed several times trying to watch Ben play Altered Beast on his laptop in the passenger seat, MAME is just too distracting for front-seat play.
The day we left, Pitchfork posted their top 50 albums for 2004. I always look forward to PF’s toplist, and usually find a few good albums I may have missed during the year. This year, I wanted to see how my personal top 10 stacked up against PF’s list. And, the results are in… they don’t prove much, other than that Funeral really was, by leaps and bounds, the best album of the year. Anyway, it was fun to see if I could remember the HTML for a table from memory – so here goes:
| Dave’s Top 10 | Position on PF list |
|---|---|
| 1. The Arcade Fire – Funeral | #1, I was pretty sure about this one. |
| 2. The Killers – Hot Fuss | Didn’t chart, not surprising… this is pure retro-pop indulgence, but I love it. |
| 3. Brian Wilson – SMiLE | #5, not bad for a 37 year-old LP. |
| 4. The Radio Dept. – Lesser Matters | Didn’t chart, but don’t let that turn you off… it’s great. |
| 5. Interpol – Antics | #27, we agree, it’s the half-best album of 2004. |
| 6. The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike | #8, go team, go. |
| 7. Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News | #23, not bad for a commercial sellout (OK, they still rock). |
| 8. The Stills – Logic Will Break Your Heart | Didn’t chart, again… commercialpop at it’s best and most addictive. |
| 9. DJ Danger Mouse & Jay Z – The Grey Album | Didn’t chart, which surprised me… bringing a whole genre to the masses. |
| 10. Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand | #26, we both be likin’ the Franz. |
I’d like to type more, but I’m tired and my laptop says I only have 13% battery left (there seems to be an outlet behind the couch, but that seems like a lot of effort right now). Tonight we introduced my folks to Ben’s folks in a large spaghetti dinner at the farm. Ben’s folks cooked, and we had a nice dinner for eight. It was a good time, but now I’m ready for bed.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- the elastic band on your underwear - 2020
- those things often turn out best - 2020
- awfully bored humans - 2010
- contrary science is fun - 2009
- mr. miles - 2005
- wanna be hero - 2003