My favorite songs of the 2000s

Isn't it crazy that 2009 is nearly over, and in turn, the first decade of the 2000s is coming to a close? Pitchfork and a lot of other blogs have been putting together lists of the best songs/albums of the 2000s so I thought I'd give it a shot as well.

I didn't start caring about music much until late in high school (I graduated in 2001) so the 2000s actually represent most of my music-listening life. Of course, not everything I've listened to has been released in this decade, though, so I've limited this list to the songs that were.

I wouldn't say this is a list of what I'd consider the "best" songs, as I don't claim to be any kind of music expert, but more the songs that at one point I listened to over and over and didn't get tired of, and more importantly ones that I still love years later. I had enough trouble picking these out, so I didn't bother ranking them, they're just listed chronologically. I apologize for the random number in the list also...I thought I was going to get to 50 but fell short. I'll probably add/edit the list as I remember others...

1. New Found Glory - The Glory of Love (2000)
2. Midtown - No Place Feels Like Home (2000)
On a post-high-school-graduation trip to Six Flags, a friend of a friend that I met for the first time that day told me I should listen to New Found Glory. For some reason I took this recommendation seriously and I ended up being very into pop-punk/emo for through the first half of college. And yes, The Glory of Love is a cover of the Peter Cetera version from the movie The Karate Kid, neither of which I'm huge fan of, but I think the cover is awesome.

3. Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet (2000)
4. Radiohead - Idioteque (2000)
I started getting into more indie type music my sophomore year of college, and I found out that there was just SO MUCH to catch up on. I'll admit took me awhile to "get" Radiohead but now they're one of my favorites.

5. Bright Eyes - I Will Be Grateful for this Day (2001)
Yes, I started listening to Bright Eyes because of Seth Cohen (the OC)...

6. Weezer - Island in the Sun (2001)
I remember playing this in my dorm room all the time first semester of college. It was one of the few things me and my roommate actually agreed on.

7. Brand New - Jude Law and a Semester Abroad (2001)
This song cracks me up, the anger in it is so random and ridiculous.

8. Sigur Ros - Untitled #3 ("Samskeyti") (2002)
I didn't actually listen to Sigur Ros at all until I heard it used on the British show Skins. This one is gorgeous.

9. The Flaming Lips - Fight Test (2002)
The song that led me into "quirkier" types of music.

10. Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down (2003)
Even back then I sometimes got annoyed at Dashboard's earnest angst thing but this song is an exception. I always have to sing along to this one.

11. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak (2003)
My friend Ann and I sort of made the transition from emo to indie music together. Ted Leo was one of our early favorites and we got to see them live at a show at our college and say hi to Ted Leo afterwards!

12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (2003)
One of my all-time favorites, as I'm sure is true for a lot of people. Just a really beautiful song.

13. The Format - The First Single (2003)
14. Jimmy Eat World - Kill (2004)
15. Jimmy Eat World - 23 (2004)
Bleed American was released in the 2000s also and I know it's their most popular album, but nothing on it really stood out for me like these two. I saw them live in 2005 and it was pretty amazing. The Format was one of their openers.

16. The Killers - Mr. Brightside (2004)
17. Modest Mouse - Float On (2004)
Both ridiculously catchy.

18. Arcade Fire - Wake Up (2004)
I was completely obsessed with Arcade Fire for a pretty long time. I got to see them live at my college before they really got big and it remains to this day the best show I've ever been to. It was in this relatively small multi-purpose room above a dining hall, the "stage" (just a raised platform) was too small for all the members and their instruments, and Richard Reed Parry was pretty much right in front of my face going crazy. At one point he started banging his drumsticks on the ceiling and pieces of plaster were coming down. I saw them again a couple of years later at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia, and while the music was still great, I don't think anything will compare to that first time I saw them.

19. Tegan and Sara - I Know I Know I Know (2004)
I didn't actually start listening to Tegan and Sara until I heard this song on an episode of Veronica Mars.

20. Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan (2005)
I had a hard time picking a Death Cab song from the decade...

21. Bright Eyes - I Believe in Symmetry (2005)
For awhile, every time I heard this song I would think to myself, "I really like this, what is it?"

22. The Bravery - An Honest Mistake (2005)

23. Mates of State - For the Actor (2006)
I have this distinct memory of being stuck in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) in Philadelphia and being pepped up by this song.

24. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (2006)
25. The Killers - When You Were Young (2006)
26. The Album Leaf - Always for You (2006)
27. Band of Horses - The Funeral (2006)
28. Hot Chip - Boy From School (2006)
29. Midlake - Roscoe (2006)
30. Ratatat - Gettysburg (2006)
31. +/- - Leap Year (2006)
Apparently 2006 was a good year for music. I guess it helped that I listened to Internet radio pretty much all day every day at work.

32. The Veronicas - Untouched (2007)
Not ordinarily my kind of music but I first heard it on So You Think You Can Dance and loved it. (Not as big a fan of their other songs though.)

33. Lavender Diamond - You Broke My Heart (2007)
34. Blonde Redhead - 23 (2007)
I guess 2007 is the year I finally started to like more female voices.

35. Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper (2008)
Just a really great rock song. I love the emotion in the vocals.

36. MGMT - Time to Pretend (2008)
37. Passion Pit - Moth's Wings (2009)
38. Phoenix - Lisztomania (2009)

My favorites from 2008

Was aiming for 5 in each category but it didn't exactly work out...

TV (scripted):
1. Gossip Girl
2. 30 Rock
3. Battlestar Galactica
4. Mad Men
5. Gavin & Stacey
6. Greek
7. Skins
8. The Big Bang Theory
9. Cranford
10. Kyle XY

TV (reality):
1. So You Think You Can Dance
2. Top Chef
3. The Amazing Race
4. Project Runway
5. Olympic gymnastics and swimming!

Songs (released in 2008)
1. Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper
2. TV on the Radio - DLZ
3. MGMT - Time to Pretend
4. The Veronicas - Untouched
5. M83 - Graveyard Girl

Bands I started liking this year (somewhat late):
1. Sigur Ros
2. Mogwai
3. Kings of Leon

Books I read:
1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
2. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Movies:
1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. The Dark Knight
3. Wall-E

My favorites of 2007

Pretty much everyone who blogs about anything entertainment related likes to make "Best of" lists at the end of the year, but I don't think I'm really qualified to do that. I mean, I've probably only watched a total of less than 10 movies in theaters this year, I haven't been keeping up with new music very much as I would have liked, and the truth is that with the exception of TV, I'm just not a very immediate consumer of media. So these are my "favorites" and not "bests" of 2007.

TV
1. Friday Night Lights (season 1)
2. Gossip Girl
3. So You Think You Can Dance
4. 30 Rock (just caught up and realized how much it RULES)
5. Mad Men and Damages (tie)

Movies
1. Once
2. The Namesake
....aaaand I didn't see anything else that I found worth mentioning

Songs (released in 2007)
1. Blonde Redhead - 23
2. Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
3. Radiohead - All I Need
4. Tegan and Sara - The Con
5. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

Songs (released before 2007 because most things get to me late)
1. Lavender Diamond - You Broke My Heart
2. Mates of State - For the Actor
3. Midlake - Roscoe
4. The Album Leaf - Always for You
5. Bright Eyes - I Will Be Grateful for this Day

Books (read in 2007, not necessarily released in 2007)
1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
3. Encylopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal
4. Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Misc.
1. North & South on DVD
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 comics
3. Wonderfalls on DVD
4. Jane Eyre on Masterpiece Theatre
5. All things Anthony Bourdain

my top 5 favorite series (books) ever

I shouldn't be surprised given my penchant for children's books, but every book on this list is like Reading Level 5 and below. Haha.

5. Sweet Valley High, created by Francine Pascal -- This series played too big of a role in my childhood reading for me to ignore it. Definitely would not go as far as saying it was quality reading by no means, but c'mon Jessica and Elizabeth were and still are my two favorite twins (Sorry Fred & George, they came first!).
4. Satin Slippers, Elizabeth Barnard - Probably the little girl in me who always wanted to do ballet or dance...
3. The Mediator, Meg Cabot - Basically Buffy with ghosts instead of vampires. What's not to love?
2. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling - 7 of the most imaginative books to ever exist. The characters, the world created, how could this not be on my list?
1. Emily of New Moon, L.M. Montgomery - Three of my all-time favorite books. Most people tend to love Anne (see below), but I've always preferred Emily. I mean I suppose she was a little more stuck up, and a lot more quiet, but I simply loved her more.

Honorable Mentions:
- Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card - Mostly the first book was just so awesome. The remaining books were perhaps too smart and philosophical for me, though there were still a few bright points -- such as Ender's Shadow.
- Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery - A serious classic. But not on my top 5 just because as a kid there were quite a few books that I just remembered snoring through. Perhaps if I were to reread them now, they WOULD be top 5. But the spunk of Anne, the intensity of Gilbert Blythe's attentions towards her... ::sigh::

So bad they're good: my favorite guilty pleasure movies

Maybe this is just me, but there are these movies that I KNOW are bad but that I will always watch whenever they're on cable. I would probably never name any of them as a favorite movie if someone asked me, but truthfully I've watched them all way more times than is healthy. And really, I will always watch them again...

1. Center Stage: Oy. It's horridly acted, because they hired actual dancers instead of actors, and the story itself is pretty laughably bad too. But dammit if I love this movie! It also features a pre-OC Peter Gallagher (okay, Sandy Cohen the surfer I can buy, but a ballet dancer??), figure skater Ilia Kulik in his one and only acting attempt, and the best so-bad-it's-awesome breakdown since Jessie on Saved by the Bell by Susan May Pratt. But really, the dancing is pretty awesome. Which it should be since all the dancing and choreography was by professional ballet dancers. Geez, who knows why I love dance movies even though I can't dance at all myself.
   
2. Drive Me Crazy: I actually contend that this really isn't that bad of a movie. The story is actually kind of cute, and was based on a book by Todd Strasser, who writes really great teen novels. But two things move this into bad movie territory: the first is the association with the Britney Spears song (which appropriately is one of those bad songs that I secretly kind of like) and the second is Melissa Joan Hart. I mean, don't get me wrong, I watched Sabrina for years, but I doubt she'll ever be taken seriously as an actress. Ironically she was the star vehicle of the movie, while her co-star, a pre-Entourage Adrian Grenier was basically an unknown. Also interestingly Susan May Pratt is in this movie too, hm. She's also in 10 Things I Hate About You which I was almost going to put on this list, but I don't really feel the compulsion to watch that one as much as the others on this list.
   
3. Coyote Ugly: Um, yeah. Really terrifically bad in every sense, but uh, in my defense, the guy in it was hot?
   
4. The Princess Diaries 2: The first movie is a geniune favorite of mine because that was an actually great movie. It perfectly captured a lot of the awkwardness of being a teenager in a genuinely funny and sweet and honest way. The sequel is really hugely inferior but really I love it too. It strays completely from the books and skips forward to Mia as a college graduate and full-fledged princess. Due to some bizarre law she has to get married within thirty days. I know, I know. And of course there is the ridiculous sleepover she throws instead of a bachelorette party inviting all these teen and pre-teen princesses from all the over the world where they, and the queen, mattress surf. Yeah.
   
5. The Cutting Edge:Again, I don't know, I don't think this movie is really that bad either. Maybe I just have a weakness for the figure skating part of it but it's really a ton of fun. I mean, if anything, the "toe pick" scene is classic. Plus Terry O'Quinn is in it, and DB Sweeney and Moira Kelly have great chemistry. I probably saw this movie for the first time in elementary school sometime and to this day I still love it.

my current entertainment obsessions

1. BBC period miniseries. It all started with North & South and now I'm on a Netflix-ing spree. I finished Wives and Daughters last week (also excellent) and now I'm working on the new Forsyte Saga. SO GOOD! Have also queued up Our Mutual Friend, The Way We Live Now, Daniel Deronda, and several more...yay for Netflix!
   
2. Harry Potter. The last book comes out next weekend! My plan is go pick up the book on Saturday morning (no, I'm not crazy enough to do the midnight party madness) and hole up and read it that day. I've been re-reading some of the books and re-watching some of the movies to prepare.
3. So You Think You Can Dance! More posts on this to come, obviously.
   
4. General Hospital?? I used to watch this soap on and off during high school and suddenly I've gotten re-interested in it, thanks to SoapNet. And now SoapNet is going to be running a limited spin-off series, Night Shift, that's going to feature some of my favorite characters (Robin, Patrick, Jason, etc.) and be more of an episodic rather than serial format. Color me interested.
   
5. The trifecta of food reality shows this summer: Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, and Next Food Network Star.
   

My top songs of the year

1. TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me." This song and the album it's on, Return to Cookie Mountain is making best of the year lists everywhere, and for good reason. The album is pretty eclectic, there's some great rocking tracks like this one, some acappella, some jazzy stuff...these guys are real musicians and it shows. I could listen to this song all day long.

2. The Killers - "When You Were Young." I've listened to the rest of Sam's Town, and honestly I wasn't all that enthralled, but I really love this song. I really have no idea what it means but it's catchy.

3. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Cheated Hearts." I recently learned that Karen O is half Korean and the band played a show in Korea this past summer. This article is a pretty interesting read. It's nice to know that Koreans (or at least half-Koreans) are making their mark in the indie music world too.

4. The Flaming Lips - "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song." There are already too many "yeahs" in this post. But this song is so peppy and quirky and I love it.

5. Band of Horses - "The Funeral." I only recently discovered this band, and given that they've drawn comparisons to the Shins and Built to Spill (both of whom I really like), it was only natural for me to like them too. They've got that sort of dreamy, layered quality to their music and I'm really digging it.

Honorable mentions to Thom Yorke - "Harrowdown Hill", Built to Spill - "Going Against Your Mind", Silversun Pickups - "Lazy Eye", Beck - "Cellphone's Dead", Grizzly Bear - "Knife", The Hold Steady - "Chips Ahoy!", We Are Scientists - "This Scene is Dead", and yes, Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy".

The year in review: 2006

Some of my favorite entertainment-pop culture-media things from 2006:

1. The TVGuide Talk weekly podcast. I've mentioned this before, but it's just awesome. I listen to it on Monday mornings and it definitely helps get my week going. The crew is just hilariously funny and sometimes I'd rather listen to them talk about TV than actually watch TV!

2. Degrassi the Next Generation, Instant Star, South of Nowhere, Beyond the Break, i.e. everything on the N. Apparently I will never be growing out of the teen TV shows because the N just keeps churning out more and more of them, all pretty much equally addictive and likeable. The network is pretty under the radar because it's night-time only, and I know a lot of people don't get it in their cable packages, but it's really seriously awesome. They re-run great campy teen classics like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Fresh Prince, and Dawson's Creek, and have late night reruns of My So-Called Life and some other gems.

3. Project Runway and Top Chef. Bravo really knows how to do their competitive reality shows. Plus they always have a lot of great content on their websites to supplement the show, like blogs and video interviews and deleted scenes. Also, gotta plug Blogging Project Runway, one of the best fan blogs of anything out there.

4. The Devil Wears Prada and Ugly Betty. The fashion world is really being deconstructed lately, what with PR and Top Model and now these. The Devil Wears Prada took a perfectly horrible book and turned it into a perfectly amazing movie. And Ugly Betty is definitely the feel-good hit of the season.

5. Lonelygirl15. I know I sort of dismissed this back in September when it was revealed that it really was a hoax after all, but now it's December and I'm still watching it. The story's gotten a little ridiculous and some videos are still stupid but what's great about it is that the videos are short and sweet and come out nearly every day.

What's hot in alt rock

One of the radio stations on my rotation is Y Rock on XPN. It's the more alternative of the stations I listen to (the rest of are more indie-obscure). Anyway, every week they do a list of the Top 11 songs of the week and it's a pretty good indicator of what's popular in the alt rock world. Here is this week's list and my thoughts.

1. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars. Soooo overplayed. Bah. It's not a bad song but it kind of annoys the heck out of me.
2. Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark. Not my favorite song on the album, but it's definitely a good one.
3. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye. I'd heard of this band a couple of months ago and I kept meaning to check them out but never really got around to it. I love this song though, so I'm definitely going to listen to some of their other stuff.
4. Brand New - Sowing Season (Yeah) The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me. Hm, I don't remember this song. I kind of like Brand New though.
5. Incubus - Anna-Molly. I find the title of this song to be really annoying because it's really anamoly in the song. Oh, well. I think I'm kind of over Incubus in general.
6. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy! I like this band. They're a little weird, but I guess I like my bands a little weird I guess.
7. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade. Meh. I liked My Chemical Romance's I'm Not Okay and Helena, but after that I've been underwhelmed.
8. The Decemberists - O' Valencia. It took me awhile to get into the Decemberists but they're really good. I like this one.
9. Muse - Starlight. Ummm no clue what this song is.
10. Beck - Nausea. I like Beck's new album. It's probably the closest thing to hip-hop that's I'll ever like.
11. The Dears - Ticket To Immortality. They sound a lot like Interpol, but that's not a bad thing. I listened to their whole album recently and I like it a lot.

I can now die happy (resurrection of the Friday Top 5)

So earlier today I watched the season finale of Gilmore Girls, which was horribly aggravating and annoying and just plain awful. And I was feeling kind of depressed. Luckily, next up to watch on my DVR was the Office.

AND OH MY GOD WAS THAT AN AWESOME EPISODE. Pam and Jim! The confession! The tears! The phone call! THE KISS!!!!!!!

And what made it even better was that it was just a HUGE HUGE surprise. I was literally gasping by the end. All you stupid dramas out there, you seriously just got trumped by a half hour comedy.

So in the spirit of my ecstatic glee, here is my list of Top 5 Favorite TV First Kisses:

1. Pam and Jim!!!!!!! No words, man. No words.
2. Joan and Adam on Joan of Arcadia. It was just so ridiculously cute and sweet and perfect, especially with the background music. The rest of their relationship was kind of eh, but man was that pefect.
3. Veronica and Logan on Veronica Mars. Hot hot hot.
4. Xander and Cordelia on Buffy. One of the funniest scenes ever!
5. Mulder and Scully on the X-files. Took long enough but I hadn't expected them to show one at all so I loved it.

A really close 6th: Max and Liz on Roswell.

So happy right now! Man I'm almost afraid to watch anything else now for fear of ruining it!

Geek Culture

As evidenced by the existence of this blog, I'd probably consider myself to be one of the more entertainment/media obsessed people on the planet but I'm really also a geek. And over the years I think I've come to some conclusions about geek culture. In college I even took a class in 20th century pop culture and wrote my term paper on the science fiction fan communities of Star Trek, the X-files, and Buffy. That was definitely the most fun I'd ever had writing a paper. You could say that geek culture is always evolving, but here are my top geek culture indicators, probably most accurate for people currently in the twenties.

1. You love Office Space and unintentionally make references to it (i.e. TPS reports, flair, red staplers, Lumbergh).

2. Your favorite book (or at least one of your favorite books) is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

3. You watched and loved Star Trek: the Next Generation. Jean-Luc Picard, man. Patrick Stewart was my high school English teacher's father-in-law. How cool is that??

4. You're familiar with Homestarrunner and you think Strongbad is hilarious.

5. You play a geek game of some sort, like Go, Settlers of Catan, or Warcraft.

Are you a geek?

the most irritating

I haven't posted in a while. I just haven't felt the motivation to. But after a long hiatus, I am back! Anyway, Friday afternoon I saw some almost-crappy movies. They weren't completely terrible, but they weren't all that great either. The first of these was Jersey Girl. Yeah, I know, I know. That's definitely a "why would you think to waste your life away watching that?" movie. But Kevin Smith, so I watched. And it left me with a desire to write...

The Most Irritating Celebrities List
(I'm starting it, Jenn feel free to add on to it both with comments and suggestions)
(in no particular order)
1. Ben Affleck -- Ohmigoodness. To think he was my celebrity crush after Good Will Hunting. Anyway, I've decided that this man is not a very good actor, and he has a dorkiness-trying-to-be-cool aspect of him that is simply, well, irritating. He was the inspiration for this list. (Jenn: I liked him in Chasing Amy but otherwise I agree that he sucks.)
2. Barbara Streisand -- I feel incredibly mean, but she just looks irritating. I adore Robert Redford. I think that for an old man he is quite sexy and in his prime he was even sexier. So what does he have to do with her? Well I tried watching their film 'Til There Was You, and even Robert Redford's sexiness did not help me to get to the end of this film. Her nose (sorry, I feel terrible. It's people like me that lead to celebrity nose jobs) is just BLECH!
3. Julia Stiles -- This lady cannot act. Ohmigosh she is such a stilted actress. Not just in speech, but also in movement, facial expressions, etc. The best example of this can be seen in Mona Lisa Smile where she gives her speech about "fah-mil-li." Oy. Not a fan.
4. Rory Gilmore -- This is not so much an attack on Alexis Bledel as it is an attack on the character she places in Gilmore Girls. I HATE HATE HATE Rory. And as I'm sure our readers are familiar with, so does Jenn. Why do they need to make her so damn PERFECT? Perhaps I'm just jealous. :-)
5. Ryan Seacrest -- At the core of it, he's just got a crappy job. Or maybe he just does a crappy job of MCing American Idol. But lordy, this man needs to get off tv. Actually, there is one role on tv that I think would be perfectly suited for him. Take over for the Wheel of Fortune man. (Jenn: Yeah, he's irritating but dude's a mogul. He has American Idol, two radio shows, a contract with E!, and is taking over Dick Clark's New Year's Eve show. )
6. Tom Green -- He's simply not funny to me in any way.
7. Kevin Federline -- omg.
8. Jessica Simpson -- SHE should've married K-Fed.

There are for sure more celebs I'd want on this list, but these are all I could come up with off the top of my head. :-)

(Jenn's adds)
9. Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise -- No elaboration needed. They've toned it down as of late but they're still pretty gross.
10. Dakota Fanning -- I've mentioned her before, but seriously, can you get any more annoyingly precocious?
11. Michelle Kwan -- Haha I may be alone in this but I can't stand her. I was a fan back in the day, when she should have won the Olympic gold in '98 over Tara Lipinski, but she's stuck around WAY too long and watching her same old boring style year after year after year just makes me want to heave. I almost want her to win in Torino just so she'll just GO AWAY.

more songs

Listening to Indie Pop Rocks! for the better part of the day at work, I've been hearing a lot of new songs lately. Well, "new" meaning I hadn't heard them before. Another top 5 list but not on a Friday...

1. The Pale Pacific - Sucker Punch
2. Tegan and Sara - I Know I Know I Know
3. The Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
4. Sunny Day Real Estate - The Ocean
5. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things

Man I'm an indie music snob.

music I've been listening to lately

I haven't done a top 5 list in awhile and I'm not sure if I'll be picking them up again, but here's a list of some of my current favorites:

1. Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day. One of the saddest and most beautiful and honest songs I've ever heard. What I love about it is that yeah, it probably qualifies as a Christian song but it's about the real struggles and doubts that Christians can have and he doesn't try to offer any answers that he doesn't have.
2. We Are Scientists - This Scene is Dead. Really upbeat and peppy.
3. Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shoreline). I really haven't a clue what this title means and I haven't really paid attention to the lyrics either, but I still really like this song. Kicking myself for not going to go see them when they played a Fanclub Collective Show at Cornell my junior year.
4. Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees. Every so often I get obsessed with this song all over again.
5. Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr. It's strange, last year I couldn't really get into Sufjan Stevens even though he'd gotten so much critical buzz. And I'm still not completely sure about him but there are a few songs that I just really really love. This is another one of them.

top 5 TV villians I loved to hate

1. Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) - I suppose he turned into a semi-good guy by the end there...
2. Cigarette Smoking Man (the X-files) - was always really intrigued by him
3. Krycek (the X-files) - mostly because he was totally hot, haha
4. Lex Luthor (Smallville) - well, he's not fully a villain yet, but his hint of evil has always been there
5. Julie Cooper (the OC) - "this town's really only big enough for one manipulative bitch"

top 5 most hated TV characters

Thanks for the suggestion Mira! These aren't really in order...

1. Lauren (Alias) - Vaughn's horrible wife. Everyone hated her so much before she even appeared on the show that they had to make her evil.
2. Oliver (the OC) - No explanation needed.
3. Joey (Dawson's Creek) - The worst part is that she was the one I related to for the first few seasons. Then the writers made her the annoying perfect girl that charms everyone and every single male falls for. Ugh ugh ugh.
4. Tess (Roswell) - Really hated her at first because she was obviously there to mess up Max/Liz, but then I started to like her a little when they paired her up with Kyle. But then they decided to make her evil after all, and then I had to hate her even more. Usually one really bad role can turn me off an actor or actress forever, but strangely I really like Emilie de Ravin as Claire on Lost...
5. Kim (24) - Annoying to begin with, but the writers made it ten times worse by putting her in the most ridiculous situations possible (cougar anyone?). And then somehow she ends up with a job at CTU? Are you kidding me?

Runners-up: Riley (Buffy) and Rory (Gilmore Girls).

top 5 songs I've been digging lately

1. Radiohead - I Want None of This
2. Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
3. Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin' Down
4. Pinback - Fortress
5. Wolf Parade - Shine a Light

Also listening to new albums from Wilderness, Franz Ferdinand, the New Pornographers, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I've been into the indie rock stuff for a few years now...I wonder what's next?

top 5 strange things I've resorted to watching on TV lately

So while I'm consistently missing weeknight TV shows because of getting home from work late or double scheduled timeslots, I occasionally find myself with nothing to watch and honestly, my choices lately have been a little odd. Here are my newest (and strangest) picks:

1. America's Top Model: I'm not very interested in fashion or beauty but apparently I'm interested in watching tall skinny girls (most of whom are younger than me) who want to be supermodels...
2. Charmed: I can't believe this show is still on. I haven't watched it since like freshman year in college so I'm not too clear on what the heck is going on, but it's really still the same as ever.
3. Everwood: I used to hate this show with a passion, but for some reason it's kind of grown on me. I'm still not too interested in the grown-ups, but Bright is awesome and Ephram and Amy aren't being annoying so uh, yeah...
4. Iron Chef America: I watched the original Iron Chef a couple of times and thought it was amusing but I never got that into it. I prefer the American version for a few reasons, the most important being Alton Brown's commentary. I love Alton Brown. The guest judges can be interesting as well.
5. Degrassi the Next Generation: This is so seriously addictive. The characters are all played by actors of the right age and they're all very average-looking, not super Hollywood pretty. They manage to tackle all sorts of tough topics without getting too afterschool special, but it's still funny and cute too.

top 5 TV shows from my childhood

A trip down memory lane...

1. Full House (too embarassing to watch anymore)
2. Saved by the Bell
3. Beverly Hills 90210
4. Blossom (haha, this needs to be rerun or put on DVD)
5. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (really unsure of why I liked this so much...)

my top 5 fandom moments

Since it's my birthday today (I'm 22!) I thought I'd do a more personal list as well. I used to be pretty involved in a few online TV fandoms and these are some funny things that I did or happened to me as a result of them. They're sort of like testaments to my obsessiveness...

1. I get a bootleg copy of Graduation Day Part 2 (also Buffy the Vampire Slayer) mailed to me on VHS from Canada after the WB decided to pull their airing of it due to Columbine.
2. I write a fan letter to Shiri Appleby of Roswell and actually receive an autographed picture in the mail. I also write a fan letter and receive an autographed picture of Chad Michael Murray who was on Gilmore Girls at the time.
3. Seth Green (Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) wishes me a happy birthday on the posting board.
4. I actually spend $25 on a Roswell fanzine of fanfic and art.
5. I actually write a piece of Roswell fanfic and submit it to a well-known fanfic site. (You can still check it out here).

I laugh at this stuff now, but I know that I didn't really go as far as a lot of other fans. Since I was still in high school I couldn't go to any of the fan parties (all in LA) or meet any cast members or anything like that but at the time I really really wished I could have so I think I still qualified as obsessed. Haha, fun times.