Wrap Up 2008

2008 was a weak year for music. No song came anywhere close to the favorites in my past lists (and nothing can touch 'Charlotte' by light years.) I decided to do a list this year because I was smart and started a Best of 2008 playlist on my iTunes from January and added music gradually, so I figured, why let that go to waste? Totally unenthusiastic about this list but nevertheless, here are my top tunes of '08 (well, of course, the tunes that either came out or I first heard in '08):

60. Kid Rock - All Summer Long
59. Panic at the Disco - Nine in the Afternoon
58. Duffy - Mercy
57. The Pigeon Detectives - Romantic Type
56. Jack Penate - Have I Been a Fool?
55. Madonna - 4 Minutes
54. REM - Supernatural Superserious
53. Panic at the Disco - That Green Gentleman
52. David Cook - Light On
51. Take That - Greatest Day
50. Scouting for Girls - Elvis Ain't Dead
49. Paramore - That's What You Get
48. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Epic Last Song
47. M.I.A. - Paper Planes
46. Sam Sparro - Black and Gold
45. ADELE - Hometown Glory
44. We Are Scientists - Lethal Enforcer
43. Kevin Rudolf - Let it Rock
42. Ne-Yo - Miss Independent
41. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry on Their Own
40. The Streets - Everything is Borrowed
39. The Kooks - Always Where I Need to Be
38. Jesse McCartney - Leavin'
37. Oasis - Bag It Up
36. Cherry Ghost - Thirst for Romance
35. Britney Spears - Piece of Me
34. Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You
33. The Fratellis - Mistress Mabel
32. Gavin DeGraw - In Love with a Girl
31. The Ting Tings - We Walk
30. Kaiser Chiefs - Always Happens Like That
29. Keane - The Lovers Are Losing
28. New Kids on the Block - Summertime
27. Coldplay - Violet Hill
26. Snow Patrol - Take Back the City
25. The Ting Tings - Shut Up and Let Me Go
24. Kate Nash - Pumpkin Soup
23. Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
22. Glasvegas - Geraldine
21. Ray J - Sexy Can I
20. Justin Nozuka - After Tonight
19. David Archuleta - Crush
18. The Verve - Love Is Noise
17. The Streets - On the Edge of a Cliff
16. A.i. - Tell Me U Love Me
15. The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name
14. Carolina Liar - Show Me What I'm Looking For
13. Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
12. Oasis - Falling Down
11. The Answering Machine - Lightbulbs
10. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
9. Pigeon Detectives - This Is an Emergency
8. Beyonce - Single Ladies
7. The Ting Tings - Great DJ
6. The Enemy - This Song
5. MGMT - Electric Feel
4. Carolina Liar - I'm Not Over
3. The Wombats - Moving to New York
2. Keane - Spiralling
1. Ladyhawke - My Delirium

So much pop in there. I'm kind of grossed out by myself right now.

2008 Gigs (Band/Opening Act - Venue)
AC/DC - Wachovia Arena
Ash/Levy - Music Hall of Williamsburg
Augustana/Wild Sweet Orange/David Ford - Bowery Ballroom
Bell XI - Bowery Ballroom
Delays/Scouting for Girls - Bowery Ballroom
Editors/Louis XIV - Terminal 5
Elbow - Webster Hall
The Enemy - Bowery Ballroom
The Fratellis/Airborne Toxic Event - Webster Hall
George Michael - MSG
Jack Penate - Mercury Lounge
Longwave - Mercury Lounge
New Kids on the Block/Natasha Bedingfield - Nassau Coliseum
Oasis/The Cardinals - MSG
Panic at the Disco/Dashboard Confessional/Plain White T's/The Cab - Izod Center (it was free, alright??)
The Pigeon Detectives/Your Vegas - Bowery Ballroom
The Stills - Bowery Ballroom
The Ting Tings - Mercury Lounge
The Ting Tings - Bowery Ballroom
The Ting Tings - Webster Hall
The Verve - WAMU Theater
The Who - Orpheum Theater
The Wombats - Blender Theater

I'd have to say my fave gigs were:
#1) Ash - Music Hall of Williamsburg
#2) New Kids on the Block - Nassau Coliseum (I shit you not)
#3) George Michael - MSG (I double shit you not)
#4) The Who - Orpheum Theater
#5) Oasis - MSG

And for a final shit you not, Keane's 'Perfect Symmetry' was my favorite album of 2008. Really! I'm sooo not kidding!!

Other albums I enjoyed (I did not hear much new music this year as you can tell by both my song list and albums):
Carolina Liar - Coming to Terms, The Wombats - A Guide to Love, Loss, and Desperation, Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns, The Enemy - We'll Live and Die in These Towns, The Streets - Everything is Borrowed

People I enjoyed in 2008: Chuck Bass, Rhet Butler, my Weight Watchers leader, Danny Boyle, Desmond, the casts of Spring Awakening and 13, my new fave football team "Dumb," and the chick from The Ting Tings.
uguiug
People I wanted to punch in the face in 2008: Katy Perry and Secondhand Serenade for making two of the worst songs I have EVER heard, Piers Morgan, Sarah Palin, whoever was in charge of the ticker announcing the Stephen Gerrard incident every three seconds, Ogden Cap Properties, Nanny Carrie, Obama supporters, Led Zeppelin for waking me up every morning, the step teacher Monday nights at the 91st St. NYSC, Deanna Pappas, the asshead who attacked Noel Gallagher forcing the cancellation of the Terminal 5 show, and finally, anybody involved with the film Nights in Rodanthe.

2008 was a mega year for me. A few downers - job hunt was still on for the first quarter of the year, my grandfather passed away in December. But, a lot of amazing things happened as well - in April I was offered a job as a manger in my department (which came as a complete surprise to me.) By May I had lost 15 lbs. In June I moved back to the city into ahhhh a luxury building. Fire Island was spread out through the summer. In July our dept. had a great E3 including sitting in the 3rd row of a 1000 person theater for a private concert by The Who. A few weeks later I went to London on a work trip (for something unimaginable) and on that trip I got engaged. In August, Dave and I had a small civil ceremony in order to get the visa paperwork going. We did it at the last minute on a sunny day in the conservatory gardens in Central Park and spent our wedding night celebrating with pints in the pub watching the Olympics. I went on a couple of work trips in the Summer/Fall (I'm all for traveling for work) including LA, Vegas, Dallas, and San Francisco. In October we announced our Beatles video game. The end of the year saw us book our wedding venue and I took two trips to London with the GBP down to less than $1.50. 2008 was one of the best years I have had in a loooong time. 2009 has been uneventful thusfar but that's okay, it's only halfway through January. I did get a load of stuff on mega discount today including a pair of $25 workout pants for $2.99. I hope the recession goes away but not the sales!

Vampire Weekend

Heather and I are heading to Jenn's apt later on so I thought I'd blog while I'm waiting. Watching What a Girl Wants for the tenth time. Amanda Bynes, will you switch bodies with me? Thanks!

Speaking of that, I decided to rejoin Weight Watchers today. I've gained back 6 lbs. since July, and with this being the year I'm getting married, I need to take care of flab sooner rather than later.

I also went errand psycho today. First to Dunkin Donuts for coffee, to WW, the bank, food shopping, back to the apt and cleaned, kickboxing, bought a birthday gift, CVS, did laundry, and cooked a low-fat Shepherd's Pie (suck that Gordon Ramsey.)

I saw Twilight last night. It was um...hmm how to describe it. Well, Meghan and I (and the entire theater) laughed at all of the parts where it was inappropriate to laugh, to give you an idea. Some things were just bizarre, like Edward's stares were intense (as they should have been), but they were overly creepy. I know he's a vampire, but something about him did not look right throughout the film. Some of the running bits looked totally ridiculous too. This will still probably be a movie I end up buying on DVD in the end just because.

Tomorrow I'm going for brunch to meet Kat's parents who are visiting. Then I've got a surprise party for a former co-worker in Port Washington. I'm going to try to go to step aerobics at 9 am but I doubt that will happen.

There's a song my kickboxing teacher always plays for the cool down which I really like. I just looked it up and it's Kelly Clarkson, I can't believe it! She shocks me every time, I never think it's her when it is and it's usually great. Oh, song is "Sober."

London Calling

I'm back from my 2+ weeks in London all refreshed and ready to get back to the daily grind (NOT!!!)

The day I flew, there was a big blizzard in NY, it probably snowed from 10 am - 3 pm and then it turned into an ice storm, though my flight was shockingly supposed to leave on time. That was until we got on the plane only to find out that one of the toilets was broken. The pilot explained that they all worked while in flight, but they use a different system for flushing while grounded, and one was not working while we were on land. Um...who cares - no one goes to the bathroom on the plane while on land!! They had to call the specialty toilet tech to fix it, but there was only one and he was on another plane. When that was fixed, they had to get the specialty guys to de-ice the plane. After that, they needed another set of specialty guys to dry ice the plane. THEN we had to wait for MORE specialty guys to direct the plane onto the runway. That totaled 2.5 hours of me sitting on the plane with two screaming kids sitting behind me, and quite frankly it was torture.

I landed on Saturday and Dave picked me up from the airport. His roommates were away the whole time so I was able to throw my shit all over the flat, yeah! We cooked loads and watched a bunch of movies (I recommend The Machinist and In Bruges.)

Dave looking all hubba hubba in the kitchen

Hugs

On the night I arrived, we went into Clapham and met up with some of Dave's friends for Xmas dinner and drinks. I pulled something really dinky out of my Christmas cracker, can't remember what it was but it was plastic and probably broke.

kds

We met up with Jay a few times and I met Joy for lunch that first week. Dave and I also searched high and low for quiz machines around St. Christopher's Place, one of my favorite areas of London.

We actually "did" some things on this visit. A pub quiz in Clapham. A panto (I'd never been.) The movies (Burn After Reading.) We also went ice skating at the Natural History Museum.We didn't fall at all
We heard a big crash (garbage or something) and I was like "Uh oh, who knocked the dinosaur over?" Hahahaha!!!! Well, I thought it was funny.

We went to his parents' house for Xmas. On Xmas eve we played the Wii and went to the Red Lion (the village local pub), Xmas day at the house we had dinner, played my new Spot the Intro game, and did karaoke till 3 in the morning, Boxing Day his brother et al came over, and the day after all of the cousins put on a nativity play.

Little GoodmansDave's uncle from Texas via Saudi Arabia came for a visit on the Sunday. We went into Clacton and it was about -23 degrees by the water. You can tell by the photo:The following day we went to Colchester Castle.

First capital of England (I think? I can't remember, I drank too much over the holidays.)

Olivia with her medieval shield
Dave, my soon-to-be slave

On New Years we went to Brixton for the XFM night. It was okay, I'm not a fan of Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip who were playing but good music otherwise. Long queues but at least we were able to walk there and back. They confiscate your gum there by the way.

jh

We went to Canary Wharf to meet Shiraz for lunch. I'd never seen these "men" before.

We did a London Pub Walk along the Thames. It was a tour of places on the south bank with stops at 3 pubs. I finally got to see where Bridget Jones lives!

lh

We stopped in the Tate Modern as part of the tour. The giant exhibit with huge spiders is up at the moment.

On my final night, we met up with Ben, Alex, Dan Dan and Andy C. at Liberties for a drink. I left on Sunday and it's back to the visa countdown now. Blegh.

jhg

I'm watching The Bachelor right now. Since when do the girls get out of the limo and tell him he's gorgeous, handsome, beautiful? Are you kidding me? The dental hygienist walking up to him with fake messed up teeth was really funny (until she confessed that she'd been stalking him.)

jh

On Tuesday night I saw Glasvegas at Bowery. I only knew a few songs by them but the hype over them in the UK has been ridiculous so I thought I'd go. Yeah, so I'm not convinced. I think they would have sounded better in a bigger venue as they have a powerful sound, but I just wasn't that into the music. That may be because I don't know the lyrics of anything and you can't understand what the singer's saying but still I wasn't feeling it. Also, they had these super bright spotlights that shined on the audience for at least half of the show - that's the first time I'd been to a gig where the audience was squinting or looking down for a lot of the time. I saw Keith Murray from We Are Scientists downstairs afterwards though. First indie band spotting of the year yippee!

jh

Last night a few of the girls from work hung out and ordered in Indian food. Amazingly I tried something new!! The food was actually from a kosher vegetarian Indian place so I couldn't get my usual chicken tikka masala. I had Palak Paneer instead - it was cheese chunks in a spinach sauce and it was delicious.

mh

Something I have to share with you - my new favorite commercial. Watch it here, I love it!!!

uh

Time to read Twilight, totally obsessed.