It's almost the end of June, and music sites all over the internet are crammed with lists of their favorite albums so far this year. It's been a great year for music so far. I've discovered some great new and old bands over the past six months (obsessively, you could say).

( And the winners are... )

I have quickly become a fan of the strange and fantastic worlds and cities of China Miéville. When I heard about Un Lun Dun, though, I wondered how his liberally-descriptive narrative style would translate to a young adult novel.

( There should have been no question to begin with. )

Yay, I'm updating my LJ! I never do memes, but I thought one that alexiscartwheel posted might be interesting.

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

alexiscartwheel picked Babylon 5, Veronica Mars and Slayers for me. So here we go!


( Cut for length and maybe tiny spoilers )

My messed up extended family has finally made it into the big times. 10TV news in Columbus, Ohio, baby! Seriously, when you hear a news story and are like "WTF why would you do that?" The possibility that my family has been involved in something similar is quite high.

Seriously. My cousin, shot by her crazy son?

Yep, just another one for the Farley family saga.

Star Trek was awesome! I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was amazing. I do want to know, though, what is J.J. Abrams' obsession with giant, floating, reflective 3-D lettering? Also, I may have become a Kirk/Spock shipper.

What a lovely surprise when I got home to find the Animal! vinyl on my doorstep! I haven't put it on the turntable yet, but the album art is just fantastic.

Also, I listened to This Is the One today, Utada Hikaru's second album here in the U.S. I've got some things to say about that, but I'll save it till later. For now, I'm off to go fall into a blissful Margot-induced coma!

Seriously, amazon is the best place to buy music downloads. They almost always have a lower price than iTunes. Also, if you go here you can get a list of album downloads that are only $5 this month.

I'm a little peeved because I've already bought some of these, like Neko Case and Metric. But hey, what a great opportunity if you haven't got them yet! ::nudge nudge::

I'm considering using twitter. Thoughts/opinions?

Yes, I know I already posted today, but this is too awesome not to share.

Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond) singing Tainted Love


Just scroll down and you can stream it or download it (because it's awesome!)

( If history had been like this I would have paid attention in Mr. Foley's class )


And now, for an addition that madmuppet2k reminded me of:

I just came to the conclusion that my "To Read" list is so huge at this point that it needs to be an Excel spreadsheet.

Help, I'm out of control!

I think Slayers Evolution-R episode 13 just killed me.

As did the most current Sarah Connor Chronicles episode.

More coherent ramblings later, maybe? I do have to wait in an airport later this week ...

If you're gonna be up late tonight, NPR is streaming some live concerts from the South by Southwest music festival. The Heartless Bastards are on right now, which is a band that I've just recently come to love (thank you Kansas City Public Library for having one of their cds!). At 1 a.m. Eastern time, The Decemberists will be playing their entire new album live. Unfortunately, I will not be staying up that late. But maybe someone else can benefit!

Every so often my dad will send Matt, Phil and I an e-mail with a pic he's taken with his iPhone of a sign with bad spelling and/or grammar. I just have to share today's because not only is the bad spelling amusing, I find the content quite funny as well.






Also I have to share that my favorite song of the moment is The Rake's Song by The Decemberists. You can get it and some other cool stuff for free off iTunes through NPR, which has a blog covering the South by Southwest music festival. Can't wait till this album comes out!

What song can't you stop listening to lately?

I haven't posted in forever! But I was so inspired by this post I found just a few minutes ago that I have to link to it. I'm not even sure I can properly describe this, but it's two scanned pages from an awful fantasy/romance novel that someone shared because they are hilariously horrible. Also, check the bottom of the post for amazing fanart and even an mp3 of someone dramatically reading this.

Killswitch Engage's Holy Diver video is the funniest thing ever.

[EDIT]: Um, wow, the video I posted was removed a couple hours after I linked to it? Geez. I guess if you're interested you can go here. Apparently it's only licensed for last.fm.

I had almost forgotten how much I love Howard Jones' voice. And really, can you beat heavy metal musicians in medieval garb?

If you want to see a good adolescent vampire movie, check out Let the Right One In, the Swedish vampire thriller madmuppet2k  and I saw last night. This movie is a much darker, deeper look at the idea of "adolescent meets vampire, sees some fucked up stuff, falls in love, etc, etc." It's about 12 year old Oskar, who is picked on at school and doesn't really have any friends. One night mysterious neighbors move in next door and he meets a young child, Eli, who is also 12--more or less. Suddenly a series of brutal murders begin to crop up in the small town, and Oskar is drawn by Eli, who has quickly made friends with him.

Despite the gore, it's also a really cool psychological thriller and drama. Check out your local "artsy" theater and see if they're playing this, it's totally worth going to see!

So back last December I decided to keep track of everything I read for the year. While I certainly didn't read as much as alexiscartwheel , I think I did pretty good--just over 50 books (and I managed to kind of have a life at the same time!). I may go back and link to any comments I may have made about these books, or add some new ones, or something, if I have time.

( I'm such a dork! Yay! )

Christmas = insanity. And to prove it:


Matt: "If I had just taken one more class, I would have gotten a 3.5 and graduated cum laude."
Dad: "And if I had pulled out, you wouldn't be here!"


Matt: "If I had to describe Danielle in one sentence, it would be: 'Danielle wishes she could cast Giga Slave.'"



Really, Matt is so right about that. If I could cast Giga Slave, my life would be so much better.

Last.fm has just released the best albums, new artists, and tracks of 2008 on their site, as determined by the number of plays each got over the course of the year. Can't say I'm too surprised about anything in there, and I'm especially not surprised that the most-listened to new album of the year was Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

This list is especially interesting when viewed after checking out NPR's All Songs Considered poll for best albums of 2008. Something like that tends to become somewhat pretentious (though don't get me wrong I love the critics on NPR and discover a lot of new music through them). Whereas some of the NPR commenters seem to be trying to up each other in throwing out more and more obscure names, the Last.fm list is purely by the numbers, which begs the question: Are the best albums of the year the ones that reached the most number of listeners? Or are there other criteria to take into account? Of course personal taste plays a huge role in this, but there really are a lot of largely successful and talked-about albums out there that make me wonder what else appeals to people.

So what are your favorite artists/albums/songs from 2008? As for a quick list from me, I'd have to throw out some obvious ones:

• Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
• My Brightest Diamond - A Thousand Shark's Teeth
• Computer vs. Banjo - Self-titled
• Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos - Not Animal
• Utada Hikaru - Heart Station
• Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
• Tilly and the Wall - o
• Okkervil River - The Stand Ins (srsly, a million thumbs up for this album and its companion album, The Stage Names)

Since I'm apparently an audio whore, look forward to my rant on the best podcasts of 2008. <3