Congrats are due to our boy J.C., he was birthed today just like this blog was exactly two years ago. I am at home listening to You are the Quarry, which likely would've placed in my top 15 if I'd properly done one. Christmas feels rushed this year and very secular, which I suppose is fine for some people. I mean, it's not a good idea to offend anyone shopping at the mall, so maybe it should be more gold and less frankincense and myrrh. And this romanticism is coming out of nowhere. Love Actually was nice in a charmingly befuddled sort of way. Different characters and stories with British accents intertwine and make one big heart. That even happens here in Wilmington on occassion, maybe once a year around this time where we get blue in the cheeks and do what we shouldn't some more. Because if you can't say it at Christmas, then when can you?

Tomorrow will be fun.

so. much. franz ferdinand? nah, brah. More like Seven Swans Sufjan, Mike Kinsella's I Do Perceive, Madvillainy even though every indie rock white boy agrees, the one-two Animal Collective-Panda Bear punch, Aloha's Here Comes Everyone, the Despistado EP for the obligatory Jade Tree release, my Erlend Øye discovery, and the Make Believe disc should bring more good things our way. Those are, of course, in no particular order and I'm likely missing some.

Oh, hello. I'm not in any real rush to get out of here. I was home just a few weeks ago and the snow is kind of pretty. The novelty of shoveling the front steps and walk probably won't wear off for a while. Soon I'll probably wake up and exclaim, "Good morning Mr. Backache" like in that moderately amusing Raymour and Flannigan commercial, but for now the powder on the ground feels really light as I bend and pick it up with the shovel, managing to make my body into some sort of lever with a fulcrum and everything.

I am taking a final exam online tomorrow morning. That's exciting and somehow terrifying, too. The fate of my answers will be in the hands of a Submit button that I will click once and then be on my way. Shit, that's just like blogger. It's like all those times Mark and Sauce would write nice things here only to have them lost along the way. I will have to be careful with this History of Jazz test.

Tenthly, I'm glad that Mr. Shaw Flick has stepped up to moderate this year's mix cd madness celebration after I shrugged it off with a "I'm busy, maybe next semester." This looks to be the biggest year yet, for sure. Songs I desperately wanted to include on my mix but couldn't due to Patriot Act-related stipulations:

Juvenile - Slow Motion / Any and all Toad the Wet Sprocket / Europe - Final Countdown

'night

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: On Being a Candidate to Take Over a Late-Night Network Talk Show.

funny haha, M.I.B