Space Cadets Dressed in Fibreglass

Wow, my 2010 "Top 60" is way late. I've come to the obvious conclusion that my taste in music gets shittier every year, as you'll see below. I think I'm just purely too lazy when it comes to seeking out new bands, though I do honestly feel that some of the craptastic pop in my top ten is acceptably catchy. And I know there's absolutely no reason to have "Fireflies" in there but I think it's cute. 60 Rihanna - Rude Boy 59 Owl City - Fireflies

58 General Fiasco - Ever So Shy

57 Mystery Jets - Flash a Hungry Smile

56 Lady Gaga - Alejandro

55 Plan B - Stay Too Long

54 Delphic - Doubt

53 Taio Cruz - Dynamite

52 One EskimO - Kandi

51 Wakey! Wakey! - Almost Everything

50 Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - Collapsing Cities

49 Miike Snow - Sylvia

48 Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Jackson's Last Stand

47 Marina and the Diamonds - Hollywood

46 Goldfrapp - Rocket

45 The Naked and Famous - Young Blood

44 The Script - Break Even

43 Rihanna - What’s My Name?

42 RPA & The United Nations of Sound - Born Again

41 The Joy Formidable - The Last Drop

40 Usher feat. Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love

39 Ash - War with Me

38 Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait

37 Klaxons - Echoes

36 Broken Bells - The High Road

35 Trey Songz feat. Fabolous - Say Ahh

34 Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce - Telephone

33 We Are Scientists - Ambition

32 Badly Drawn Boy - Too Many Miracles

31 B.o.B. feat. Hayley Williams - Airplanes

30 Tired Pony - Dead American Writers

29 Ash - Return of White Rabbit

28 Hot Chip - I Feel Better

27 Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg - California Gurls

26 Carl Barat - Run with the Boys

25 The XX - Islands

24 I am Kloot - Proof

23 Yeasayer - O.N.E.

22 Jamie T - Emily's Heart

21 The Temper Trap - Science of Fear

20 Kings of Leon - Radioactive

19 Civil Twilight - Letters from the Sky

18 Kate Nash - Kiss That Grrrl

17 Mark Ronson & The Business International - Glass Mountain Trust

16 Fenech Soler - Lies

15 Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love

14 The Joy Formidible - Whirring

13 Ke$ha - Tik Tok

12 Everything Everything - Schoolin'

11 Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work

10 Calvin Harris- You Used To Hold Me

9 Mark Ronson & The Business International - Bang Bang Bang

8 Ke$ha - We R Who We R

7 Two Door Cinema Club - I Can Talk

6 Everything Everything - MY KZ UR BF

5 The Wombats - Tokyo

4 Cee-Lo Green - F**k you

3 Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

2 The Courteeners - You Overdid It Doll

1 One Night Only - Say You Don't Want It

I seem to be going to less and less gigs each year. I'm just too tired! Also, I feel too dumb to take photos so there's only one (I probably should have stopped snapping pics years ago anyway.) Here's my list in alpha order -

Gigs '10

Ash - Santos House Party
Athlete - Bowery
Badly Drawn Boy - Le Poisson Rouge
Better Than Ezra - Webster

British Sea Power - Koko (Mairead made a good point about this on NYE - since they played before and after midnight, what year does this gig actually fall under?)
Everything Everything - Music Hall of Williamsburg
Florence and the Machine - Terminal 5 (the April show, not the bandwagon one)
Howie Day - City Winery
The Joy Formidable - Bowery
Julian Casablancas - Irving Plaza
Mark Ronson & the Business International - Webster

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Radio City

Two Door Cinema Club - Webster

Vampire Weekend - Bowery

Hands down Rodrigo y Gabriela takes the cake for best show of the year times about 29372536. I'm giving Mark Ronson and his all star band an honorary second with The Joy Formidable in third.

I have not been doing much as of late. On Friday night we went to two tapings for Comedy Central hosted by John Oliver (yay for free activities.) One of the comedians was making fun of a video game called Heavy Rain. I guess I should have known about it being that I work in video games, but anyhoo. What I took away from his jokes was that it's total drama, and not the video game type - basically, your youngest son gets hit by a car and dies, your wife leaves you, you're having issues with your older son, then the game actually starts when a killer comes to town. It's all psychological decision making. I want it but it's only available for PS3 BOO.

Check out the trailer, it totally looks like a movie:

On Saturday night we went to dinner with Liz and Graham at The Smith where I mainly spit globs of fat from my steak not-so-discretely into my napkin. After that we went into a gay bar that had a two-for-one drink special: two Grey Geese and two beers for $15! Also, we watched Miss America there which may have been the most appropriate place to watch a pageant ever. PS I can't believe that busted blonde chick won - what state was she from anyway?

Yesterday we were completely useless - we went to the diner and then sat on the couch all day watching Dexter Season 5. Who plays Cole? He looks so familiar. Okay, thanks IMDB, he was Whistler on Prison Break.

Today we spent half of the day (literally) waiting for our landlord to show up, to check on something to do with the "architecture", aka the apt. is set up illegally and maybe he got caught?? Anyway, he was supposed to come between 9:00 am - 12:00 pm, then at 12:30 pm we received a call that he'd be here at 1:00 pm, then nothing. No call or visit at all = GRRRRR! At least I got my crappy old laptop working while I was waiting for him, so I've basically spent the whole day pulling photos, documents, and music onto an external drive before the computer breathes it's final breath (I'm only on H bands - if the system fails and Haddaway doesn't transfer, someone will be held responsible.)
gthzjng
Oh, we also made meatloaf yesterday so that was of course a highlight.
gthnzjng
By the way, I went to London for Xmas. Here are a few photos...

Dave and his new hands (I think this is the funniest thing ever; also Hunter Mountain people should be having a flashback)

Then me, Dave, and his mom hula hooped

I barely went into London this trip ($50 roundtrip for the train!!) but at least I got to see some peeps (Laura, Kat, Joy, Andi, Maristela, Sunil, and Jon who happened to be in town as well.)

Kat and LauraAndi, Joy, Me

On New Year's Eve I was sick but forced myself to go to Camden since we'd already bought tickets to see British Sea Power. Holy mother of God you should have seen the girls on the train from Essex, it was the Whore Express! I know girls get more dressed up in the UK than in the US, but boobs hanging out, stilettos, and no stockings with skirts so short that I can see your twat is NOT okay!!

At Koko (where I was fully clothed), it was me, Dave, Laura, Mairead, Mike, Rich, and some of Alex and Emily's friends (they didn't go bc Emily was sick.) BSP were good but played a pretty short set. New Years came mid-set and one of the dudes climbed up to the canon.

BOOM!

Happy New Year

We were fortunate enough to see the British Sea Power bear!! Of the 8 or so times I've seen them, this monster had only appeared at Glastonbury '04.

You'd think that an NME night with British Sea Power headlining would equal indie music. Apparently it actually means dance music, therefore I did not dance. We stayed until about 3:00 am and knew we had to stay out till the first train back to Essex. Dave and I headed into central London to walk around and kill time. I was completely sober since I was ill (seriously, Diet Cokes consumed all night), so watching all the drunk girls walking barefoot, falling over, and puking was quite hilarious. We contemplated taking Boris bikes to Liverpool Street but decided to just take a picture on them instead.

Then I discovered something slightly unappetizing

We went to Bar Italia, which is one of the few places that stays open all night in London. I had the best panini of my life.

This is Dave after an espresso and a coffee at 4 am

We caught the 5:07 am train back to Essex and stayed at Eggman's house since our train wasn't leaving for another few hours. We finally made it back to ours around 1:00 pm. I was feeling so sick that I didn't get out of my pajamas for the rest of the trip.

Now Dave is playing Fable III and his avatar just burped in someone's face. I heart my husband.

Things I Disliked - 2010 Edition

Let's kick this off properly:

Nicki Minaj

Simply awful. How can anyone listen to her "music" and say it's good with a straight face, let alone get by without their ears bleeding? Someone had to say it and now everyone else can feel free to follow (you can thank me later.)

30 Rock

I still don't think this show is funny AT ALL. Am I missing something, or is it just childish humor that somehow goes over my head? Not funny, and quite bad actually (sorry Emmys Foundation but you're wrong.)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers

It's not really their fault, it's more so 101.9's issue, but I can't hate the station solely because of Matt Pinfield. If you haven't been exposed to WXRP between 8:00 - 9:00 am on weekdays, I'll have you know that hearing a Chili Peppers song is 110% inevitable, and it's been like this every day for at least the past year. It started off as the principal that pissed me off, but now I've convinced myself to actually hate them. They do this with other bands too (ahem Foo Fighters, no thank you), and they recently began repeating The Black Crowes, and I certainly hope they stop because I don't want to dislike them. I know I could change the station, but it's not really an option when the alternative is Z100 playing Justin Bieber and talking about The Human Caterpillar.

Exhausted Phrases

Fail/Epic Fail/For the Win/WIN! These stupid phrases were funny for a nanosecond. If you still say these things you deserve to die.

Vampire Weekend's "Holiday"

This song was fine until they started repeating the Honda Civic commercial non-stop for the past month on both the TV and radio.

Synergy (Astoria)

Words can't describe how much I hate this gym. There is nothing wrong with the physical equipment, my problems are:
1) The instructors. This doesn't go for all of them, but there are a select few whose machismo is intolerable. Being harassed (sexually and being yelled at in general) are not what I paid for.
2) The chick who does "cardio dance" doesn't actually dance. I moved my feet back and forth a few times but that was it. FOR 45 MINUTES. I burned more calories watching the clock in that class.
3) Most of the time the instructors don't play music. NO MUSIC! How can you conduct an hour-long class and not play music? The only thing silence motivates me to do is want to punch you in the face.
4) The few classes I have experienced that do play music have been Eurotrash techno crap which I presume a majority of the 20-30 year old population of Astoria listens to (unfortunately this demographic includes my upstairs neighbor.) This is the one circumstance where it's actually better to not play any music.

Believe it or not, there were some things I liked, and even greatly enjoyed in 2010, such as:

My Fendi Sunglasses

I don't think I've ever owned a pair of sunglasses that cost more than $10 and not bought from a street vendor until now. Hooray for quality.

Dexter and Mad Men Being late to the game is never a bad thing.

Also, one more show (my favorite of the three?) -

Skins (UK version)

I'm totally obsessed with this show and maddened that my following "like" is not streaming Season 4 yet. And while we're talking about this, doesn't Sid look like Badly Drawn Boy's son?

Netflix

How did I not discover the wonders of Netflix sooner? This has basically changed my life - for the better for me, but for the worse for anyone who actually wants to socialize with me.

Mark Ronson

I knew a handful of songs from his first album, but I heard a lot more upon discovering that we had the NME channel while staying in an apartment in Spain. I went to see him at Webster Hall since and can't stop listening to his latest album. "Bang Bang Bang" and "Glass Mountain Trust"for the win! deserve a listen, or 12.

"Bang Bang Bang"

The Bed Intruder Song

51 million youtube hits, what's not to like?

Light Up Beer Pong
Okay, I don't actually like it that much but I thought I'd post new photos.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that pissed me off this year so stay tuned. Ho ho ho.

Your Love is My Drug

About my Flexible Spending Account: I put way too much money into it this year and now I have to spend it all asap - doctors and prescriptions by 3/31 (I have no need for appointments or drugs before then though) OR over the counter medicines by 12/31 (thanks for changing the law Obama...yes, that was sarcastic.) As a result, I have a few hundred dollars to blow on Gas-X. Seriously though, yesterday I bought Tylenol, Alleve, Mucinex-D, a thermometer, Sleep Aids, blister Band-Aids, and yes, Gas-X. Not to mention my mini spree last month of ThermaFlu, Ibuprofen, and Cortizone (note: I don't need ANY of this medicine right now.) Since pills expire (I just found out about this - apparently I've been taking Tylenol that expired in 6/09, whoops), I'm trying to stock up on a variety but I don't know what else to get now. I think I still have about $100 left and it's use it or lose it, so if you have any good over the counter medicines you think I should invest in please let me know asap!

Does anyone besides me still watch One Tree Hill? May I just say that I love how they revived the opening credits - every week they use a different cover of Gavin McGraw's "I Don't Want To Be" (that was the original theme song.) And when I say different, I mean dance versions, acoustic, sung by guys, girls, etc. (not sure what the etc. option represents but you get it.)

I recently started watching Mad Men (thank you again Netflix) and Pete Campbell is total swoonsville. Also, I had no idea that the actress who plays his wife is also Annie from Community - which must not pay so well being that both she and Joel McHale are on two shows at the same time. Speaking of which, did anyone catch The Soup's 300th episode when they did the montage of all the pop-up people? We also just finished watching Dexter season 4. In conclusion, as much as I love Netflix, it's completely ruined my desire to socialize. At this rate, between everything I have on the DVR and all of the shows I have queued up to watch in my head on NF, I doubt my friends will ever see me again.

Though, I will be be leaving my cave to see Better Than Ezra tonight and I am so freaking excited!! I haven't seen them in about two years and I'm all giddy inside. Also, I won tickets (yes, of course I did) to see Tricky at Brooklyn Bowl last night. It was not at all what I expected. I'm only familiar with his music from the mid-90s which is all trippy, but everything he played last night was a lot harder. That was fine, but he barely even sang - he left the girl to do it all (she was good but I don't get why he didn't rename his group if he wasn't doing anything on stage?) Also, he had about 30 people come out while the band played "Ace of Spades" (yes, THAT "Ace of Spades") and he danced with them and they kind of just bopped up and down and took photos with him. I didn't get it at all. And to top it off, he didn't even play "Christiansands!" I put up with the G train for that, I mean come on.

So yesterday I was trying to send a text with the word "proove" but my phone refused to automatically type the word. After retyping it about 5 times and getting frustrated, I realized that it's actually spelt "prove." I was sober.

I started the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus plan last week. The big life change means that I can now eat fruit, which I NEVER would do, since to me it was a waste of points, and now all fruits are 0 (for those not familiar, you're basically put on a budget regarding food, and they just changed how they calculate these points.) Well, I didn't think I did so great, but it turns out I lost 3.4 lbs. this week. Yay for fruit!

I made butternut squash fries for the first time the other day. The peeling and cutting of the squash was time consuming, and although the fries were delicious, I don't know that they were worth the effort.
Spaghetti squash, which I discovered a few months ago, IS worth the scooping and is a good substitute for pasta, especially if you like bland food. But really, I highly enjoy it with bolognese sauce.

I also just bought a ton of zucchini.

And to top it off, I bought canned pumpkin which is new for me, though I have no idea what to do with it.

All this from a girl that never grew up on squash, who would have seen that transformation coming? (You really know I have nothing to blog about when I go on about squash.)

Current Music: Friendly Fires - Photobooth

On the Edge of a Cliff

After buying quinoa a few months ago and asking for advice on how to cook it on Facebook (thanks for the responses everyone), I finally made it tonight. I cooked it with spinach and chicken broth amongst other things (and it's a Weight Watchers recipe for only 1 point per serving.) Although I am super late on the quinoa wagon, I recommend it.

I was listening to Shed Seven while cooking. Back in high school, I used to listen to the radio show "Rock Over London" on W-DRE (RIP) every Sunday night (same night as the ska show "One Step Beyond" - anyone remember that?) I just told Dave about how I used to listen/record the show every week and then make mixed tapes of the songs that I liked. I had one live song which for some reason I didn't have the name/artist of. Years later after the show had gone off the air, I had a flashback about it and decided to do some pre-Google internet searching. Although no results came up for the lyrics, I managed to track down the DJ. So I emailed him asking about the song - the only thing I could tell him was that it was live, and that he'd also played Tasmin Archer on that same show. The DJ had saved all of his playlists and found the song for me!

Have some Going for Gold:
Going For Gold by Shed Seven
Keep in mind I was enquiring about a live version with an orchestra. PS, I still have that tape in my parents' house.

I may as well finish off my Spain trip recap even though I just posted a bunch of the photos on Facebook (it's also a procrastination Sunday.)

On the second Saturday of the trip, Dave and I left Los Alcazares and took the coastal route to our next destination. We picked Nerja to end our travels for two reasons - the first was that Kay, our tour guide from Malaga, had recommended it. Secondly, Kristine had told me that this was the town that she and Travis had stayed at (when I got back I told her I went there based on her recommendation - turns out that she actually went to a place called Nijjar, not Nerja...whoops.) It was a happy accident in any case.

The sea and mountain views on the drive were breathtaking. Also breathtaking (literally) were all of the extremely narrow viaducts that we had to drive over to get there.

Upon arrival (and once again confronting another 90 degree twisty hotel garage) we headed into the main part of town. Nerja is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It had a typical European feel, but really stood out against anything similar from recent memory. There was a circular look-out point in the town that had amazing views of the water and mountains.

Main street leading to the look-out point

View to the right

View to the left

Bonus Photo: View from our hotel balcony

We stuffed ourselves with the biggest pieces of schnitzel I've ever seen (we had olives first so that counts as the Spanish portion of the meal), and got a drink in the evening at the trendy rooftop Buddha Bar. There were heladerias everywhere (that's iced cream shop to you) so I opted to get a flavor called "Chocolate Africa"??

Giant palm

More auto-setting camera action

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel buffet (sadly there was no chocolate cake on offer) and headed to the local beach. The waves were a bit rough so Dave went in for just a bit while I laid under a wooden umbrella.

Old Young Man and the Sea

While sitting in the main square for lunch, a proper race started around us. The first group were adult speedwalkers - they weren't allowed to have both feet off of the ground at any point, which was pretty hilarious. After their three laps around the town center, we thought that was the end of the race, until kids of about 8-10 years old started running. I thought this was probably the cutest thing I'd ever seen until the next race was all 5 year olds! Cute overload.

We walked to more viewpoints after lunch.

Crystal clear waters

I think this is a King. He obviously had no interest in me (maybe because I had my Majorca bag with me and not a Nerja one.)More views

Atop the winding walkway

Little cave

The top left is the main lookout point

BeforeDuringAfter

(Those rocks were extremely painful, just for the record)

After watching some bullfighting back at the hotel, we headed into town again for dinner. Our meal included a pitcher of sangria, and we got to take the jug home as a souvenir. I cushioned it in my squishy, round travel pillow in my carry-on on the way home, and now it's sitting on top of our fridge, so come on over if you want us to make you some sangria in a pretty jug.

Sangria Champion

Dave getting his Mexican on in Spain

The final auto-setting shot

On the last day of our trip we headed to the hotel breakfast at about 6:30 am, before it was officially open. We had signed our names on a list to do this the day before, but we were literally the only people there - not even staff were present. After feeling like Goldilocks, and leaving our table a slight mess for the other patrons, we got in the car to start our journey back to the Malaga airport. This was actually the craziest part of the trip. As you may have read from my previous entries, we had some driving issues in Spain (in basically every place we'd gone to.) Nerja was no exception. So, we got in the car and set off. I thought the drive out of Nerja would be extremely straightforward (it was literally one long road with some roundabouts on the way in.) About a minute after leaving the hotel, the GPS gave us a direction we didn't think was right but figured was a shortcut so we took it. After going down a small hill, we drove down a 40 KM/hour one-lane road (with no sign saying which way to go), in complete darkness except for our headlights. We reached the end of the road which turned to gravel and we suddenly we were at the edge of a cliff over the Mediterranean!! Granted, the cliff was only about 5 feet high, and luckily we weren't going the full 40 KPH, but had we, we certainly would have driven over the edge. Thankfully there were two of us so I was able to get out and carefully direct Dave to make a K-turn, but that certainly shook me up.

To make matters worse, I got a copy of the Daily Mail at the airport which had an article about two men in Spain who had followed their GPS while driving in the dark and actually drove their car (the same kind as ours) into a reservoir and the driver died. This happened the night before. Is Spain trying to sabotage tourists, or what?? Here's the article.

Adios Espana

Current Music: White Lies - Farewell to the Fairground

Gonna Ride My Bike Until I Get Home

In continuing our trip, we decided it would be best to leave Granada in the morning when it was still dark to avoid traffic in the confusing streets. We drove out of the hotel garage down the tiny one way cobblestone street (that had originally confused us when we first arrived) which led us to two directions - drive through a pedestrian plaza or drive down what seemed to be the wrong way towards a church. We opted for the church (because why would we drive through a plaza?), but that led us to a dead end. It seemed too dangerous to drive in reverse back towards the hotel, so at a standstill we simply couldn't figure out what to do. Luckily there was a cop nearby who confirmed that we DID in fact have to drive through the pedestrian plaza. Whatever, I'll never understand the driving in this country at all.

We made it out of the city much easier and quicker than we had entered and were soon on our way through the mountains towards San Javier watching the sun rise. We stopped at a random roadside cafe for a break, which was cool because it definitely did not seem like a place where non-Spanish speaking people tend to stop at. We continued the journey until we excitedly reached our destination...but of course got lost there too. Luckily, we asked directions in a furniture store that happened to be run by people from England, and they set us in the right direction (we had put the wrong town into the gps...whoops.)

Turned out we weren't staying in San Javier, but nearby in a town called Los Alcazares. The Lanes' family friend Brian was kind enough to let us stay at his apartment there, which was actually how our whole Spain trip idea had started in the first place. It was nice to have a place to settle for a few days where we could partake in some GTL. After arriving, we laid out by the community pool before heading to the town's main street.

Holiday Community in Los Alcazares

Well, I have to say I had quite a shock when we went for dinner. The street was full of English and Indian restaurants, no site of anything Spanish whatsoever! We knew this was a holiday destination for Brits (Brian's brother and friends also have apartments in the same community), but literally everyone and everything was straight out of the UK. It was totally fine, just not what I was expecting (nor was I anticipating that my Spanish vacation would consist of having drinks at a place so authentically named Route 66.)

The next day we walked to the beach and just laid out. Although we had beautiful views, another thing we hadn't realized was that we weren't actually on the Mediterranean. We were in fact on an almost fully enclosed sea called Mar Menor.

Mar Menor

The beach had cute wooden umbrellas for shade. Unfortunately that didn't shade me from the many unnecessary beyond-middle-age-saggy boobs that were exposed to the sun. I'll spare you any photos of that.

That evening we stayed in, cooked spaghetti, and watched The Godfather. So we basically had an Italian-themed night in an English part of Spain.

On Friday we rented bikes and rode along the promenade next to the beach. The map was pretty vague though - originally we thought we could make it around most of Mar Menor, but we probably got about 1/12th of the way there and hit a dirt road which seemed like the ideal place for getting lost in the woods in a foreign country. We couldn't figure out how to continue so we found the closest inhabited area (a Spanish part of town surprisingly) and had paella for lunch.

After turning around we headed as far as we could in the other direction until that path too stopped (this time because of a military sign saying do not enter.) The coolest part of this path was that the promenade turned into a wooden single-file bridge surrounded by 6 foot grass, which allowed for a ride with no other people around.

Good job auto camera settings

That evening we ate in again and then went out for a pint. I found myself fascinated by a cockroach that had climbed about 8 feet up the brick wall (we were seated outside) and was hanging out there for remainder of the evening without falling. I wanted to name him and Dave suggested Gregory. This was weird because I had been talking about The Metamorphosis but couldn't remember the roach's name the whole night. Dave, who had never read the book, randomly nailed it on the first try (of course he is Gregor Samsa.)