• January:
  got old
• February:
  did a whole lot of naval gazing
  celebrated 2 years with the wifest
• March:
  bought my first car, ever.
• April:
  quit smoking, under protest
  became addicted to  wordpress geekery
  went to the dentist for the first time since high school.
• May:
  became an award winning designer
  lost a cat
  had fun in san francisco, since chicago wasn't any.
  well, except for meeting a strange man in daley plaza
  started mission101
• June:
  Moved into the best apartment i've had yet.
  Started smoking again
• July:
  Had some friends over, and took them to canada
• August:
  took a tour of chicago
  lost my job
  which kinda erased the possibility of having a decent anniversary
• September:
  found a better one
• October:
  Had our first party in the new apartment
• November:
  the new job made me really like architecture again
• December:
  weirded out my entire family

Wow, it's like the whole year is a footnote to may. I also saw a bunch of shows, including: stars, deftones, dog fashion disco, the dresden dolls, cut chemist, and in flames.

I think overall it was more good than bad, by a nose. Until i read the wifest's list, i'd almost completely blocked out forgotten the bad stuff.

1. hover over the links for the (sometimes sarcastic) commentary

Indie

It's not that i didn't listen to independent music this year: Voxtrot's EP's made my year. but somewhere this spring, it all started sounding samey. i suppose my picks are odd in the context of that remark, since they're all new albums by bands i've been listening to since 2003.

Cursive - Happy Hollow
Let's be honest. The Ugly Organ is still Cursive's best work. It's in the running for my top 5 albums of the decade. I thought i would have to hate every cursive album after it for not being in the same league. Especially after i heard that gretta cohn, the cellist, had left the band. Tim Kasher turned the band around and added a horn section that gives 'happy hollow' a new energy, that's totally different from anything they've done previously. Also vastly different is the anti-christian theme, which leads them well out of the emo cliches.

Mates of State - Bring It Back
after burning out on the first two mates of state albums, i never got into team boo. it's hard to keep up with new music from a band, when you find yourself describing all of their songs as "you know, that one, where they sing in a round... ?" Bring it Back is their first proper album. it flows well and the songs are more varied than anything else they've done. "Think Long" and "Fraud in the 80's" are great pop songs that stand on their own, whether you like the couple-rock moog-and-drums aesthetic of mates of state or not.

Mogwai - Mr. Beast
Mr. Beast got slammed by pitchfork for being 'restrained', in their songs length and scope. i think i better word for these songs is 'distilled' the album has the same breadth and scope as their previous works, but the songs on this album stay within their own themes. They play off of each other, like a proper album. The whole albums works in a way that their previous works haven't. Veering from quiet piano to the volume and fury of metal, the album is more memorable precisely because each song is so distinct.

Metal

In Flames - Come Clarity
Hands down, this is the best album of the year. This is the reason my taste diverged. I haven't loved metal this way since i was an angsty suburban pre-teen. The intricate, technical riffs, and the layered progressive songwriting took me right back to the first metal i ever loved. I'll admit, It was tempting to give up on in flames after 'soundtrack to your escape'. it sounded like they were selling out for good, buying into corporate american 'metal'. Turns out, they were just biding their time. come clarity is their best album, ever. It's as intense as clayman, but they've layered in the songwriting they learned from the two intervening albums.

Dog Fashio Disco - Adultery
I'm not really sure DFD qualifies as metal. They span punk, funk, jazz, and a dozen more genres. But the dark, scary Noir themes of the album, and the mike patton influence make metal a decent attempt to categorize them. Every album on this list has an excellent flow and dynamic, but there's a special place in my heart for concept albums. The strange and different musical influences all find their own niche in this dark murder mystery.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain
there's not much i can say about mastodon that hasn't already been said. They're being painted as the saviours of metal. That's is a bit much, metal is clearly alive and well, and 1 band didn't save it. but they have that indie/hardcore cool that makes them accessible. I don't feel like an angsty pre-teen when i'm convincing people to give them a listen. The metal is technical and progressive, but maintains that gruff, aggressive edge that keeps it from being as egomaniacal as metal sometimes is.

Hip Hop

Peeping Tom
It's pretty much a given that of the albums mike patton releases in a given year, one of them is going to be one of my top 5. 5 years in the making, and with an amazing guest list, this album had an impossible amount of hype leading up to it. It blew it all away. the album is pop perfection, in the dark and twisted sense only patton could make it. This album showcases mike patton's vocal range in a way that's enjoyable, not just awe-inspiring. The songs are catchy and melodic, which is a change for patton, but each song is so different, he still manages to tour the entire genre before the album closes.

Cut Chemist - The Audience's Listening
This album is everything that i expected from DJ shadow and Jurassic 5, that they didn't deliver. It's smooth, dancey, intricate, and progressive. Clearly, Cut Chemist is the reason that J5 was so good, and isn't anymore.

Pop/Rock

i don't know what else to call this section. Some of these bands were indie when i started listening to them. Some of them have always been 'alternative top 40'. it's hard to find a common thread in the albums, so i'm just going with the most general category there is.

Muse - Black Holes and Revalations
Outside of a few songs with sentimental value, I've never been much of a muse fan. This album is completely different. Every song has more groove than their entire previous collection. There's something else about the album, too. The previous albums were showcases for Matthew Bellamy's incredible voice. This time, most of the songs have Queen-esque harmonies that give it a punch that makes them better than previous efforts.

The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia
It's hard to listen to the dresden dolls without developing a crush on amanda palmer. the lyrics are personal to a disturbing level, and her wild vocals give you the feeling that you've caught her before she's had a chance to collect herself. The cabaret style piano leads the songs careening from gleeful violence to angry stomp to quiet sadness and back again, in a single pop song structure. The songs are so catchy, it's almost their downfall. I'm now afraid to listen to "Backstabber", for fear of going another week unable to listen to anything but Dresden dolls.

Honorable Mention

that's 10. in no particular order (other than In flames, at #1). It's thoroughly unfair to stop here. It's not that there were so many good albums to choose from, it's that the good albums were all great, and each nearly flawless. In another year, these albums would probably be in my top 5:

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided
I'm still confused by this album. It's a pop album. It has brilliant and clean songs like "Wasted State of Mind" that hang in my head long after i'm done listening to it. Confusing, because my first introduction to the band involved lots of emo and atonal singing. By contrast, "Naked Sun" is a straight ahead rock song that's clean and fun, and catchy. i don't know when they switched gears, but i hope they don't switch back.

The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
The quirky indie-pop here isn't as polished as their 'EP', but the songs here are more well rounded and diverse. This brother-sister team is probably the creepiest thing i've listened to this year, which is saying a lot, considering the goth brother-sister team mentioned above. You never know what bizarre revelation is going to leap out of the lyrics next, or how the music is going to suddenly twist and shift around to highlight them.

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
After the awkwardness of their self-titled album, and the general 'meh' i got from team sleep, i had given up on the deftones. i figured white pony was an accident. Saturday Night Wrist isn't another white pony, but it is the follow up i've been waiting for. it's dynamic and intelligent all the way through. It has the experimentation that was missing from team sleep, and the lean songwriting and emotional vocal intensity that was missing from the self titled album.

hey, look at that: 13 albums and no emo! granted, The Appleseed Cast and Thursday turned out great albums this year, but they're at least farther down in the list than Yakuza and ISIS. With so many great albums, it's no wonder i bought more CD's this year than the last 2 combined.

CREDITS

This is a port of Ben Gray's Unsleepable to Sandbox. It's mainly a proof of concept, although Sandbox does provide some useful features. Theme Author: Ben Gray This theme has been slightly modified from the base theme, K2 by Michael Heilemann Header code base gleaned from Foogaming.com All elements of this theme are protected by the GPL. Unsleepable uses Fam Fam Fam Silk Icons IMPORTANT: This is a proof-of concept release. The classes and ID's of sandbox are not final, so i may need to update this.

PREPARATION

Number of entries: Unsleepable was designed to show only 2 entries on the front page, with the remaining entries showing as links directly below, in the bottom block. (It still works just fine with more entries.) Date Formating: Again, this is optional. Unsleepable looks best with the following date and time settings:

Skin: This is designed for use with Sandbox. It does not work as a standalone theme. Header Image: Unsleepable uses a clickable header image. you'll need to create one, otherwise your blog will say 'unsleepable' at the top. There are tutorials for GIMP or Photoshop to create a header image. GIMP is free and open-source, Photoshop is $600-ish. your call. After creating the image, you'll need to save it as 'title.gif' and upload it to wp-content/themes/sandbox/skins/unsleepable.

DIFFERENCES

Sandbox is not Unsleepable. I've done my best to make the differences as minimal as possible. here they are:

• Tabs are not all the same width. they depend on the length of the name of the page you create. (casualty of needing to re-write the header)
• The footer doesn't span the entire page. If I find a way to change this, I will. I'm not sure it's possible, though.
• The edit link is at the bottom of the post. This is one of the many structural differences between unsleepable and sandbox. But hey, at least you get the cool Silk pencil icon.

FEATURES

Aside from the afformentioned clickable header image, you'll notice that unsleepable uses a widgetized bottom block. The secondary sidebar (the bottom block) only shows up on the front page of your blog. If you add more than three widgets, they will wrap to a second line., and cause a very large bottom block. If that's what you like, go nuts. You may want to make sure that the third widget (farthest right) is taller than the rest so that the wrapping looks nice. Noteworthy Posts: If you create a category called 'Noteworthy', you'll notice that any posts in that category will have a star next to the title. You can show a list of Noteworthy posts by adding an RSS widget to the sidebar, and adding the feed for that category (see the RSS link on your archives page). Page Navigation: When you create new pages, they will show up as tabs in the top menu. Unless, of course, you use give them a Page Parent while you're writing. Then they will only show up in the Pages widget. The pages widget, in turn, will only show up when you're viewing a page. if that doesn't suit you, feel free to remove this section:

body.home .widget_pages, body.archive .widget_pages, body.single .widget_pages { display: none; }

Then the pages widget will show up on all pages. Either way, I'd recommend putting the pages widget near the top of the primary sidebar. Archives and Links: This skin includes fully styling for the archives and links pages built into Sandbox. They're based on Ben's original design for the Extended Live Archives Page.

DOWNLOAD

Sandbox Unsleepable 0.6.1.zip

INSTALLATION

extract the zip file, and place unsleepable.css, unsleepable.png, and the unsleepable folder into /wp-content/themes/sandbox/skins.

You may have noticed a comment a couple of days ago from Scott Hiles, saying he'd seen the protester in Washington D.C., protesting on the steps outside the Supreme Court. I'm not sure yet why he's moved. As of June 23rd, his case was still in chicago. This guy still seems to be a black hole as far as the internet is concerned, the only other reference on google is a myspace girl who seems to have gone out with Mr. Saviano. *shiver* The photos below are from Scott

WordPress widgets are a fantastic plugin. and a fantastic platform. the links widget, however, was rather an afterthought it seems. I'm not the first one to replace it. it's a shame. The wordpress link administratration panel offers massive customization options, but most of the wordpress template tags completely disregard them. The standard widget is much the same, completely disregarding the widget API.

Links block is interesting, and it follows the API, but it requires more effort from the user. King Links does everything the original links admin page does, but it's a replacement for the entire panel. and it requires modifying core files.

So, this is a simple replacement for the links widget. I originally released it as part of the Disconnected theme. It gives back all the functionality of the admin panel, and conforms to the widget API. This isn't some great achievement, all of this code comes straight out of the codex. Which is why the Tarski Links Widget is nearly identical. I'm still working on adding the option to use something other than a list. Since it's pretty rare that anyone changes the before and after link values, I'm going to release this now. So I can waste my brain power on other things.

Links List 0.1.beta(zip)

Per andy's comment below, this widget is for WordPress 2.0.x only. version 2.1+ is set to contain bugfixes that will supercede this widget

This plugin is now hosted in the wordpress plugin database. Please file any bugs or feature requests in trac.