Thursday, December 21, 2006

The (Obligatory) Best Albums of 2006

It's that time of year again, isn't it? Well, in no particular order, here's my top ten:
  • Mute Math - Mute Math
  • Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
  • Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
  • Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime
  • Hank Williams III - Straight To Hell
  • Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
  • The Black Angels - Passover
  • Oh No! Oh My! - Oh No! Oh My!
  • Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That
  • TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
If you're looking for a #1, I'd have to give it to TVOTR and/or B&S. Deal with it.

In case you're curious how they made my list, here's my slipshot, entirely subjective criteria:
  • published this year (duh)
  • be an original album or ep release (no remix, best of, or collection albums)
  • be a solid listen through the whole album (no one or two song wonders)
  • have kept itself on heavy rotation on my iPod at some point during the year (gotta love it)
  • ... but still be able to relisten to it when the initial sheen wears off (staying power!).

Friday, December 15, 2006

Behinds the scenes at the Zune Design Laboratory

Have I mentioned how ugly I think those things are? RIP DOA Zune.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

New job!

Howdy all! I just accepted a position at the University of Chicago to do full-time Linux systems administration. I'll be managing a couple of computation clusters that analyze data from the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Yeah, that's right, my dream job. No more Microsoft. Living in a bash shell.

So, on the flipside, if anybody wants to be an IT manager for a division in the Northwestern Med School, let me know. ;)