Shipping Logic

Shipping Logic

Ever wonder who packs the stuff you order via the internet?

Best Albums of 2007

Best Albums of 2007

1. Sunset Rubdown
Random Spirit Lover







2. Josh Ritter
The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

3. Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha

4. Okkervil River
The Stage Names

5. Elliott Smith
New Moon







6. Jens Leckman
Nightfall Over Kortedala

7. Beirut
The Flying Club Cup

8. Iron and Wine
The Shepherd's Dog

9. The Frames
The Cost

10. The Good, The Bad, The Queen
The Good, The Bad, The Queen

Honorable Mentions

Fountains of Wayne
Traffic and Weather

Bright Eyes
Cassadaga

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Some Loud Thunder

The Arcade Fire
Neon Bible

2007 Still Need to Listen to

Radiohead
In Raindbows

Paul McCartney
Memory Almost Full

Rilo Kiley
Under the Blacklight

The New Pornographers
Challengers

Rufus Wainwright
Release the Stars

Spoon
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Wilco
Sky Blue Sky

Modest Mouse
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Love is in the Air

Love is in the Air

Best Albums of 2006

Best Albums of 2006

The year of two thousand and six is nearing an end and alas I have constructed a list my favorite albums of this years. Before actually listing I would like to clarify that these are My choices from the music that I have heard. I do not claim to have heard everything released this year. I also do not claim that this is a definite list of what is good and what sucks. This is simply my opinion from what I have exposed my self, and been exposed to.

1. Sunset Rubdown
Shut Up I Am Dreaming

There really isn’t much I can say about this album. There is just something amazing about it. Its so….weird, in an amazing way. Coming to the realization I can’t really find words for it, I leave it up to you to listen to it and formulate your own opinion.

2. Islands
Return To The Sea

Return of the Unicorns (mostly) It sounds like the Unicorns, it’s produced by 2/3 of them, and yet it seems to have matured since “”Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone”. Islands brings the same craziness the Unicorns had, and added an interesting and fun summer/tropical sound, yet at the same time this album seems to have an added polish and maturation. Great album.

3. The Decemberists
The Crane Wife

Oh Colin Meloy, what have you done to The Decemberists? Where have the pirate songs gone? Where are the chimney sweeps, the clipper ship fleets, the man eating whales, and prostituted mothers standing in shipyards? And by the way I did not hear a single pirate jig. Not only that, I didn’t hear any jigs! And yet, this album holds strong standing against anything these Portlanders have put out.

4. Pony Up!
Make Love To The Judges Wth Your Eyes

This album is the reason I have a description for any of these albums on this list. Pony Up! is a Canadian band comprised of 4 females. I first stumbled up them after the release of their first EP. It was rough, it was edgy, and some times it was ugly, yet I could see some serious potential from it. I very eagerly awaited this album, which really was a form of make or break for them and they pulled it off magnificently. They seem to cover a lot of ground, experimenting with several styles; some of them work, some of them don’t. For instance I feel the opening track really tries to pull off a style of singing she really isn’t the best at. But at the same time it’s the trying everything new that makes this such a magnificent release. In contrast from their EP there is huge maturity. It seems very introspective and personal. I was so shocked I actually read through the album cover to see if they actually wrote their own music. It’s still sexy, its still fun, but it’s on a new level. Amazing stuff, especially from a band still under even the indie radar.

5. Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
The Swell Season

The Swell Season really would be up higher than even 5 on my list if it wasn’t for my sincere respect for the albums I placed above it. This album is so much; it’s emotional, thoughtful, and overall amazing. Created by The Frames front man Glen Hansard along with his female vocalist The Swell Season cannot be described in words. An amazingly polished work of musical art, though not designed with interconnecting tacks it truly seems to have been designed as a single larger though than mere tracks.

6. Belle & Sebastian
The Life Persuit

7. Ben Kweller
Ben Kweller

8. Josh Ritter
The Animal Years

9. Sufjan Stevens
The Avalanche

10. Destroyer
Destroyer's Rubies

Honorable Mentions

Midlake
The Trials of Van Occupanther

Flaming Lips
At War With The Mystics

The Mountain Goats
Get Lonely

Paul Simon
Suprise

My Brightest Diamond
Bring Me The Workhorse

Band of Horses
Everything All The Time

The Fiery Furnaces
Bitter Tea

Reincarnation

Reincarnation

(As seen on my door)

Foreword

What is the wall of news? On Saturday February the 11th, of 2006 Vice president Dick Cheney wounded a hunting companion while perusing the elusive quail. There was much media coverage of the accident however; I found that very few people had actually heard of the incident. The next day I found it my civic duty to inform the people of the on-goings of the outside world. Thus on Sunday February 12th, the year 2006 the wall of news was founded on the wall beside my humble door at Western Oregon University. I missed my wall greatly over the summer. Many artcles worthy of the wall appeared on various news sites such as ‘Alternative Interogation Not Torture, Bush Says’ by CNN. My first week here in Bloss I have been disheartened by a lack of wall worthy articles. That was until on the night of September 29th I found an article on the New York Times entitled ‘In Many Public Schools, the Paddle Is No Relic’ which featured a large African American male clutching a paddle. The article enlightened me upon a practice I believed long banned with our homeland, walloping the backside and love handles of young fire-brands with a large wooden paddle, something I had lived my life believing remained doomed to a life of fraternity initiations and more interesting mating rituals. But I digress. The “Wall of News” has returned this time resting upon the door of room 312 Bloss Hall of Oregon State University. The purpose of this humble scrapboard of news articles is to inform you, the citizen, of the more obscure and interesting highlights of the worlds ongoings from reputable news oragnizations. If you have read this entire script I thank you, yet stand in amazement that anyone really has.

-Nathan *******

Article Link

Summer End (Here Comes the Rain)

Summer End (Here Comes the Rain)

Summer is over and it's time once again for me to get my blog that I'm sure no one reads up and running again. So a summer in re-cap. Went along well enough. Spent it in the 'ol Roseburg. From there I began the arduous task of finding employment. I found a suitor in the local call branch of Dell computers, taking in-bound calls for home sales. So full time work there throughout most of the summer. Other than that my dog died, I had a bit of a nasty patch with my girlfriend(ex-now), I nearly died when floating with my friends (not really......but seriously I almost did). I bought a crap load of CD's mostly from amazon.com, of them the tops are "Shut Up I'm Dreaming" by Sunset Rubdown, all of the Yann Tiersen albums, and "Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs." But the largest single expenditure of my paychecks was for my Gary Fisher Wahoo. That got me into mountain biking on the North Umpqua trail. I'm planning to eventually ride peavy arboretum. The North Umpqua trail is quite amazing though. Other than that I think that pretty well covers my summer. I did go to a Cake concert also featuring The Decemberists. That was pretty good except the place was packed. Now I have two tickets to two concerts. Sufjan Stevens in mid-October, and Ben Kweller in early October. I did a lot of running to train for the Prefontaine last week and now I've got the Fall Festival 5K Sunday. Still deciding on that 15k trail run, sounds intense. Now I am sitting in my dorm room at Oregon State. More posts to come as exciting things happen, which knowing me don't happen very often. You can now check out my pictures at my Flickr account Here.

Soccer and the World Cup

Soccer and the World Cup

Lately I have become, if multiple sources can be relied on, obsessed with soccer. I really should
be studying for my biology final right now but instead here I am posting about football. If you haven't so far you really should watch the world cup. It's on ESPN2 and ABC usually at 6:00 9:00 and 12:00 o'clock in the A.M. If you are not aware the US team got destroyed by the Czech Republic. (once a commie ALWAYS a commie!) Well I'll leave off with a bunch of nothing.

Games to watch:
England V. Trinidad/Torbego 9:00 6/15
Italy V. US 12:00 6/17
Brazil V. Australia 9:00 6/18
*Portugal V. Mexico 9:00 9/21 (Gonna be a GOOD match)

I looked so long for this Simpsons clip on soccer.
My neighbor Tim Juggles the ball on his head an ungodly amount of times
Me Juggling..........I could have learned so much in the time I've spent practicing this