My Top Albums of 2010

My Favorite Albums
1. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
2. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
3. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
4. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
5. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding
6. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
7. Wavves - King of the Beach
8. Vampire Weekend - Contra
9. Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme
10. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
11. Robyn - Body Talk
12. Les Savy Fav - Roots of Ruin
13. Best Coast - Crazy For You
14. Wild Nothing - Gemini
15. Ted Leo - The Brutalist Bricks
16. The Soft Pack - s/t
17. Yeasayer - Odd Blood
18. Tokyo Police Club - Champ
19. Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring
20. Jaill - That's How We Burn
21. Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love
22. Frightened Rabbit - Winter of Mixed Drinks
23. Poison Control Center - Sad Sour Future
24. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
25. Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
26. The Drums - s/t
27. The New Pornographers - Together
28. Spoon - Transference
29. The Hold Steady - Heaven Is Whenever
30. Shout Out Louds - Work
31. DOM - Sun Bronzed Greek Gods [EP]
32. Sun Airway - Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier
33. Against Me! - White Crosses
34. The Thermals - Personal Life
35. Violens - Amoral
36. The National - High Violet
37. Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts
38. Band of Horses - Infinite Arms
39. The Love Language - Libraries
40. Broken Bells - s/t

Most Overrated Albums
Sleigh Bells - Treats
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
MGMT - Congratulations

Biggest Disappointments
MGMT - Congratulations
Interpol - s/t
Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard

Most Underrated Albums
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Superchunk - Majesty Shredding
Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme

SantaBOT

me: i want death

SantaClaus: I've got a billion children to keep track of -- so could you ask me something a bit more manageable? I'd very much appreciate it.

me: i want katy perry

SantaClaus: My goodness! You certainly are direct!

me: i want a puppy

SantaClaus: Wonderful! Now we are getting somewhere.

me: i want a puppy with wings

SantaClaus: Ho! Ho! Wonderful.

me: and i want his tail to be a machine gun

SantaClaus: Oh, Ho Ho! O:-) Now let's get serious! Anything else?

me: tell santa i want a kitten

and a robot

SantaClaus: I suspect that's not all!

me: you're right. i want to fly

SantaClaus: What would your last Christmas wish be?

me: i want an empty box of hate

SantaClaus: O.K. that's quite a list! Why don't you type, poll and vote for your favorite holiday album?

me: why don't you suck an egg(nog)

SantaClaus: Santa loves eggnog!

me: damn right he does

SantaClaus: Hmm. I'm afraid that kind of language won't get you into the nice column with me.
That's a lump of coal for you.

me: oh, no! not coal!

SantaClaus: O.K. then. Well, have a merry Christmas in any case.

me: you too, good lookin'

SantaClaus: That's a good question, Santa is no hypocrite: I've been on my best behavior, all year.


me: what? are you drunk?

SantaClaus: Oh dear, I am Father Christmas. You really don't remember me?

me: you used to touch me

Playground Law

There is absolutely no logic behind "Whoever smelt it, dealt it." None. It has always bothered me.

Robyn Good

Guilty pleasure...

Robyn - Hang With Me [official video]

Watch "Money Hunters"!

[self-promotion alert]

This Saturday, May 1, the Do-It-Yourself network will be premiering a brand new series called "Money Hunters", produced by my company, Nancy Glass Productions. It stars licensed contractor Matt Blashaw, and engineer extraordinaire Deanne Bell. They'll show you how to renovate on a budget using alternative materials and products, giving tips and using gadgets along the way. Take notes.

Our pilot episode will be airing at 8pm, and my producing (solo) debut will air at 8:30pm. Set your DVRs and tell momma!

Yes, Master

what i learned from watching the masters:
- anthony kim has the best worst belt buckle ever.
- the bunkers are filled with crushed marble.
- the commentators think it's possible for one to have the shot of their career, yet that same shot is not their best shot of the tournament.

Best. Anything. Ever.

This video cannot be topped lyrically, nor visually. It's educational, entertaining, and inspiring all at once.



Best 2 lines:

"Water, fire, air, and dirt /
Fucking magnets, how do they work?"

"I fed a fish to a pelican at Frisco Bay /
It tried to eat my cell phone, he ran away."

Pure. Mother Fucking. Magic.

iChrist

The 4th generation operating system for the iPhone was announced today. Does anyone else see a Christian cross and shadow? Talk about a God complex...

Tend To Be

Gillians tend to be brunette, motherly, and surprisingly into athletics.
Jillians tend to be blond, with a youthful energy.

Sarahs tend to be bookish, yet very sexual.
Sara's tend to be spunky and might punch you solidly when horsing around.

Kenny Kohle

Have you ever had your dreams come true one second, and then your heartbroken the next?

It happened to me yesterday as I perused the correspondence section of RollingStone Issue #1101. There it was: I had a letter published in the magazine I grew up on! ... and they misspelled my name!

And the real kick in the penis is that they e-mailed me a few weeks ago to confirm the correct spelling of my name. Tragic.

Still, I'm pretty happy, especially since my letter contained references to LOST and The Jersey Shore.

I have a remedy though: I will be taking the necessary steps to legally change my name to "Kenny Kohle" (I envision it being pronounced like "Coal", but some of my co-workers imagine it to be "Colé" ... that might be too exotic for a German / Irish boy like me).

Philly Craft Beer Festival

I attended the Philly Craft Beer Festival (my first beer festival) on Saturday and it was, I have to say, pretty remarkable. What's also remarkable is that I kept myself intact. Here's what went down (literally):

Note: an "*" denotes a brew I recall especially liking...

Stone Brewing Company - Stone Smoked Porter
Thomas Hooker - Watermelon Ale
Coronado Brewing Company - Mermaids Red Ale *
Brew Dog Beer - Dogma Heather Honey Infused Ale
Boulder Beer - Planet Porter
Hometown Beverages - Pennsylvania Lager
Manayunk Brewery - California Dreamin'
Caldera Brewing Company - Ashland Amber *
Magic Hat Brewing Company - Vinyl Lager *
Troegs Brewing Company - Pale Ale
Doc's Draft Hard Cider - Hard Apple Cider
Doc's Draft Hard Cider - Hard Pear Cider *
Ballast Point - Calico Amber Ale
Sixpoint Craft Ales - Mason Black Wheat
The Bruery - Orchard White *
Beer Valley Brewing Company - Black Flag American Style Imperial Stout
Atomium Beer - Het A Hernitef Hik Brune *
Blue Point Brewing Company - Rastafar Rye Ale *
River Horse Brewing Company - Brewer's Reserve Double White Belgian Style Ale *
Voodoo Brewery - Pilzilla
Original Sin Hard Cider - Pear Cider
Lakefront Brewery - Fuel Cafe
Cigar City Brewing - Jai Alai India Pale Ale *
Intercourse Brewing Company - Bareville Pilsner
Roy Pitz Brewing Company - Best Blonde Ale *
Dark Horse Brewing Company - One Oatmeal Stout

Afterwards we ventured out for some additional food and drinks so while I'm "link-happy" I'd like to shout out the Lucky 13 Pub for their awesome juke box, delicious food, and hospitable owner, Clark.

Cantina Los Caballitos was quite amazing as well, although by that point my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I'll be enjoying my pork and chicken taco leftovers tonight.

Surfer Blood

Surfer Blood at the Barbary was awesome! For such a hyped band it was cool to see they were having fun on stage and not worried about playing perfectly. Here are 2 videos I shot last night:

"Swim", their "single":


"Anchorage", my personal favorite:

Down With the Update

Absurdly, I haven't updated my 101 in 1001 since July 13th. Here's the rundown:

2] Run 3 Marathons - I completed the Philly Marathon on 11.02.09. It was my second marathon overall, and my first towards completing three for my 101. I bettered my time from the previous year by almost 30 minutes, and my knee held up the entire time.
25] Paint a Room for Someone - In August we went over Brian & Dawn's new house for their Painting Party. Barb and I tackled the bedroom.
31 / 32] Do something charitable every Thanksgiving / Christmas - I totally dropped the ball on this and didn't do anything significantly charitable for the holidays. However, I allowed myself to make up for it by donating money to Haiti via the Red Cross.

41] Donate 100,000 Grains of Rice on freerice.com - Currently up to 30,200 grains of rice.

43] Donate a garbage bag filled w/ old clothes - Check. I can't believe some of the clothes I at one time liked and/or fit in.

49] Figure out my credit score - Check. Satisfied.

50] Save up for and buy an Apple computer - This one is tricky. I did save up enough to buy one, but then we were dumb-struck when we received one as a gift. I'm counting it as done.

54] Cook 50 Different Recipes - Done!
- Lime Basil Cous-Cous
- Moroccan Chicken Kebabs
- Grilled Pork Tenderloin à la Rodriguez with Apricot Glaze and Orange Jalapeno
- Burger with Red Bell Pepper and Feta Spread
- Chicken with Grilled Onions and Plums
- Greek Roast Chicken
- Southwestern Salmon
- Beet, Goat Cheese, & Arugula Salad
- Emeril's Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin
- Corbi-Fein Brussel Sprouts
- Bacon Herb Wrapped Pork Tenderloin
- Broccoli with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Parmesan
- Lemon Glazed Sweet Potatoes
- Maple Glazed Spiced Carrots
- Weight Watchers Cheeseburger with Grilled Onions
- Beef and Vegetable Cheese Casserole
- Balsamic Chicken with Mushrooms
- Lemon Grass Chicken and Noodles
- Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs
- Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
- Open-Faced Tuna and Artichoke Melt

55] Drink at 5 Different Breweries - 2 new ones, 4 out 5 done total.
- Dogfish Head. Amazing. The vintage 120 Minute IPA was memorable for sure.
- Pocono Brewing Company. It was OK. The brews helped nurse my newly fractured distal radius.

57] Maintain an herb garden for an entire summer - Done. It helped that I was pretty much laid off for the entire summer. It was nice to have so many herbs at my disposal. It definitely helped out grilling meat and amping up my omlettes.

58] Enjoy a glass of real spiked egg-nog (bonus: next to a fire!) - Done and bonus achieved with some local Pennsylvania Dutch egg-nog.

63] Learn the basics of a popular editing program - In September I was responsible for cutting together some casting videos and had a crash course using the Avid. I am no maestro, but I no virgin either.

65] Learn 5 "popular" (read: recognizable) songs on the guitar - 2 new ones, 4 out 5 done total.
- R.E.M. - "Man On the Moon"
- The Wallflowers - "Three Marlenas"

69] Attend 25 concerts / shows - I've missed out on a lot of good shows that have come through town but I did see a few. The count is now at 11 out of 25.
- Sunny Day Real Estate at the Trocadero
- Brand New at the Electric Factory
- Sainthood Reps at the North Star Bar
- Brian Fallon, lead singer of the Gaslight Anthem (acoustic show) - First Unitarian Church

72] Geek-out on iTunes #2: Give star-ratings to all of my unrated songs in iTunes - I have a few unrated right now, but at one point everything was rated. All 20,000+ songs, aka approximately 55 days worth of music. Booyah.

73] Compile a playlist of my favorite song each week for a year (each selected song must be new to me that week) - This was completed, and has since been dubbed "A Year In the Ear". If anyone's interested I'll send you a copy. Let me know. Additions since the last update:
- Crocodiles - I Wanna Kill
- Dinosaur Jr. - See You
- The Exploding Hearts - Modern Kicks
- The Rural Alberta Advantage - Edmonton
- The Big Pink - Dominos
- The Knife - Heartbeats
- Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - More News From Nowhere
- Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor
- Julian Plenti - Only If You Run
- Brand New - At the Bottom
- Girls - Lust For Life
- The Drums - Let's Go Surfing
- Comet Gain - Brothers Off the Block
- The Feelies - The High Road
- The xx - VCR
- Woods - Rain On
- Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
- The Raveonettes - Gone Forever
- Best Coast - When I'm With You

78] Read 30 books by 30 different authors - I've had a major slow down with this one, but a few updates. Currently at 18 of 30.

- About.com Guide to Web Design - Jennifer Kyrnin
- Learning Web Design - Jennifer Niederst Robbins
- 33 1/3: Gentlemen - Bob Gendron
- 33 1/3: Murmur - J. Niimi
- Open - Andre Agassi <-- highly entertaining

86] Visit the West Coast - Unexpectedly done. It was a very last-minute thing, but I was sent to LA for work. Luckily it wasn't all business. I got to see my good friend and old college roommate, AJ, as well as experiencing a culinary tour de force thanks to Gerry and Carla. Check out the LA run down in this older post.

94] Photograph 5 sunrises in 5 different places - 2 of 5. An early call time on set out in LA generated this shot:
95] Photograph 5 sunsets in 5 different places - 3 of 5. AJ took me down to Venice Beach and I happened to catch this shot:
99] Visit 10 new places in our Philly guide book - 5 and 6 out of 10. I'd really like to concentrate on this more. F'real.

- The Ritz-Calton / 10 Arts by Eric Ripert. We ate at the restaurant, we didn't stay at the hotel. We went because we're huge fans of Top Chef and this is where Jennifer from the latest season works. We went while the show was towards the end of the season, before Jennifer was kicked off, and we didn't know if she'd be there or not. Barb can tell you she was, because as soon as I left to use the bathroom she walked out of the kitchen with her trademarked scowl.

- North Star - We got to see our friends Derrick and Cesco's new band, Sainthood Reps, here over the holidays. Check out their music!
This is long. I bet you didn't read all of this. Did you?

Los Angeles

At the end of January I was lucky enough to take a last minute business trip to LA. It was my first business trip and it was frustrating to not be able to handle it like a vacation. Normally I would have the entire trip planned and spend every wakened hour out and about exploring. Instead, I spent most of my time on set dealing with landscapers and setting up time-lapses. I can't complain though because I got to experience a plethora of amazing food and shared a baggage carousel with Andy Dick. When all is said and done, let it be known: LA is a ridiculously good food town.

Here's a list of where I got to eat, loosely ranked from my favorite to my least favorite:

- City Sip (great wine deals, great cheeses, stoned waitstaff)
- Kogi (Mexican style Korean BBQ served out of a truck whose location you follow on Twitter)
- The Kitchen (I'm embarrassed to boast about how ridiculous their turkey burger is)
- Soy Cafe (1st pho experience)
- Wurstkuche (snake sausage, truffle oil fries with curry ketchup)
- Malo ($1 taco night!)
- Bacon-wrapped Hot Dog outside of the Drawing Room (a dive bar frequented by Kiefer Sutherland)
- Lemongrass (really good appetizers, but I ordered off of the Specials and it was a tad under-seasoned)
- Vinoteca Farfalla (again, really good appetizers, but my short rib was not spicy like advertised, although it was remarkably tender)
- In-N-Out Burger (Animal Style. NBD)
- The Oinkster (I regretfully ate healthy here, but the goat cheese crouton was cool. Their pastrami looked nuts.)

... and this doesn't include all of the authentic Mexican places we ordered from on set. One word: "sopa".

And watering holes:

- The Dresden (yes, the 2 singers were there)
- Silverlake Wine ($4 wine tasting + free cheese. Somehow Carla noticed some New Melrose Place cast members. And I thought no one watched that...)
- The York (food looked/smelled really good, but only got drinks. Cool interior, nice local beers.)
- 4100 (darkest. bar. ever... good juke box)
- Formosa Cafe (I think this place is "known". Not sure.)
- Good (was OK. Large beer list, but nothing too crazy. Waiter was weird. And there's no bar, only tables)



"If patience started a band / I'd be her biggest fan" - Elliott Smith

Giving Up the Gun

Although I find the new Vampire Weekend album, Contra, to be somewhat lackluster their video for "Giving Up the Gun" is anything but. I'm a sucker for tennis, but throwing in the following motley crew really seals the deal:

RZA, chair umpire
Jake Gyllenhaal, drunk tennis player
Lil Jon, French speaking coach
Joe Jonas, uncoordinated tennis player


http://video.aol.com/aolvideo/AOL Music/giving-up-the-gun/67301247001

Ashes to Ashes

I love Ash Wednesday because it never fails to deliver a "What the fuck?!" moment. I undoubtedly forget that it is, indeed, Ash Wednesday. I'm going about my day like any other day and then - BOOM! - it hits me. I spy with my naked eye a person with a black smudge on their forehead and my mind instantaneously goes: "What the fuck?!" Then it all makes sense. Ah, Ash Wednesday, you son of a bitch. You got me again, you...

Crisp!

Kashi's new GoLean Crisp!: Toasted Berry Crumble is excellent. It has a different "mouth feel" than other Kashi products. It’s almost grainy, but in a good way. It's very similar to Bear Naked plain granola in texture. I like when the pieces cluster together and give a satisfying crunch. Oh, and the berries are chewy, which is nice compared to a Special K berry that is dehydrated. I would pay up to $3 per box.

Damn the 24hr News Cycle

What's with CNN and their weird obsession with annoying hip-hop personalities? It all started with the hologram will.i.am on election night! This is what I just witnessed on CNN:

“Wyclef Jean just sent this Tweet and I want to share it with you: ‘buildings falling N da Capital of haiti, but n order 2 clean up da capital we need a massive Exodus.’ He says the buildings are falling. He says they need everybody to leave. He says, ‘I am calling on da US Army.’ That’s Wyclef Jean making that statement a little while ago. He Tweeted that and we wanted to share that with you. We think it’s relevant, we think it’s important, we think it’s news worthy.” – CNN’s Rick Sanchez.

Naturally, this was followed up with CNN’s “Most Intriguing Person of the Day” segment. Of course it was Larry Platt, the mastermind behind the viral “Pants on the Ground.”

Death Cab for John Hughes

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip