Year End!

My best of list for 2007 and a reflection on the past year of good and bad (mostly bad).

Top Albums
This list is in no particular order because I don't feel qualified to rank anything. I don't listen to nearly enough music to have a true top 5. Look in the newest issue of The L Magazine for that (I only agree with most of that list).

Bishop Allen- The Broken String My best "new" band discovery this year. This album is amazing.
Arcade Fire- Neon Bible Is it better than Funeral? I can't decide, but I think I like Funeral more overall.
Feist- The Reminder This album was really good and still is but I kinda overplayed it and can't listen to it that much anymore.

Hmm, this is it for anything I can remember off the top of my head. That's sad... I'd put Vampire Weekend on the list, but their album isn't technically coming out until next year. I really just listen to whatever Mike puts on at work or writes about now (Vampire Weekend and Bishop Allen, lolz). There were a lot of 'meh' albums this year for me though. Namely, Challengers (The New Pornographers). It sounded too much like their last few albums. Very indistinguishable. I also don't get all the hype with Boxer (The National). I really can't stand the guys voice, mainly because his voice reminds me too much of a certain friend's ex-boyfriend who is in a band. The new Modest Mouse album was also very meh, I listened to it maybe 3 times and forgot all about it. Cassadaga (Bright Eyes) had a few standout songs (mainly Classic Cars) but other than that, it all sounded like a mash-up of his 2004 efforts A Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake It's Morning but not in a good way.

Some huge disappointments though. Mainly Under the Black Light (Rilo Kiley). So much I hate about this album that I can't even talk about it. American Gangster (Jay-Z) I couldn't really get into either.

I think I've seen like 4 movies total this year in the theater so I'm not even going to bother talking about them. I can't even remember what the last movie I saw in theaters was. If you ask me, the act of going to see movie is a huge waste of money. $12 for 1.5-2 hours of entertainment? Fuck that. I didn't even pay that to go see The Darjeeling Limited. I did see Knocked Up through other means...but it was kind of disappointing. I don't know what all the hype about that was. It wasn't really that funny. Superbad, on the other hand, was decent.

Games
What a great year to be a gamer. Right behind 1998. There were literally so many good games this fall that I didn't know how to play it all- and my wallet wasn't too happy about it either. Started with Bioshock (Xbox 360) in August. What an amazing experience. It's about a man named Andrew Ryan (Ayn Rand, GET IT?) who builds a city underwater called Rapture with no rules where man can further science and art. Of course shit goes terribly wrong because people are conducting unethical experiments and there's a crazy (or brillaint) artist who plasters humans and makes statues of out them.

Of course you all know about Rock Band (Xbox 360)because I've been talking about it non-stop. I was going crazy the 2 days leading up to the release of that one. It was worth it. That game is so much fun and you can learn how to play drums with it! I had a few people over a couple of times to play it and everyone loves it. Jackie can't believe how much she loves to sing and Justine is a pretty good bassist. I don't know what it is about bass and girls. Kevon's girlfriend Julie really got into bass too.

I couldn't help but smile every time I played Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii). It just brings me back to childhood nostalgia and it's so innovative it's mind-blowing. It's colorful, Mario is jumping around yelling "woo-hoo!" and being all dainty. It's great.

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Personally, it's been a decent year, I guess. Time and distance sure took it's toll too (out of sight, out of mind) or another way to look at it is that I'm finally free now. I'm kind of sad and happy about that at the same time. I really wish there were certain people that were close by that I could see more, but everyone has to follow their own path.

I was lucky enough to be hired by a magazine that I enjoy working at greatly. Left my previous job and haven't looked back (literally). I can now proudly tell people what I do when they ask and I think that's a lot more than a few people can say at this point in my life.

I guess that's it. Aside from getting a new job, nothing notable really happened for me in 2007.

Mo Money, Mo STUFF

I spent way too much money in the month of November. I just added up the amount I spent, sans necessities and it is not pretty. I've more or less spent all of my income of November in November.

This whole keeping a spending log thing is scary. Especially since I decided to start it at the beginning of the most costly 2 months of the year for me.

Finally.

It's December. Since I don't go to school anymore and don't mark the passage of time with it, I use release dates of various things now (videogames, movies, new music, ipods etc.). And for all the great things that came out in November to seemingly make the month go by faster, it has actually felt like one of the longest months ever - the final 2 day stretch for Rock Band was brutal.

I really, really hate the month of November. Seems like for the past 3 Novembers now, some bullshit is happening between me and someone I care about. This year it wasn't as much as an instant punch in my chest as the previous two but I'm a lot more disappointed in what is going on right now.

It all comes down to something called loyalty - something not a lot of people I roll with have apparently. I've come to terms that people change and you just have to accept it but it still hurts when you are being treated like a second-rate friend reduced to lunch meetings because you have more important people to hang out with at night. Or not hanging out at all now. And being lied to in the face. Blatantly.