Heres we goes bitches...THE top 20 of 2K5:

Albums

1. Mindless Self Indulgence – You’ll Rebel To Anything
2. Venetian Snares – Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett
3. DJ? Acucrack – Killing Mobius
4. Sigur Ros – Takk…
5. Nine Inch Nails – With Teeth
6. Kanye West – Late Registration
7. Team Sleep – Team Sleep
8. Idiot Pilot – Strange We Should Meet Here
9. Richard Devine – Cautella
10. Cyanotic – Transhuman
11. Autechre – Untilted
12. Boards of Canada – The Campfire Headphase
13. Fawn – Frozen
14. Coil - The Ape of Naples
15. KMFDM – Hau Ruck
16. Korn – See You On the Other Side
17. t.A.T.u. – Dangerous and Moving
18. AFX – Analord
19. Prefuse 73 – Surrounded By Silence
20. The Residents – Animal Lover

Singles

1. Hope There’s Someone – Antony and the Johnsons
2. Hate It Or Love It – The Game (ft. 50 Cent)
3. Gone – Kanye West (ft. Consequence & Cam’ron)
4. Stay Fly – Three 6 Mafia (ft. Eightball & MJG w/ Young Buck)
5. Everyday Is Exactly the Same - Nine Inch Nails
6. Shut Me Up – Mindless Self Indulgence
7. Loudmouth – DJ? Acucrack
8. Ever (Foreign Flag) – Team Sleep
9. Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani
10. Hung Up – Madonna
11. A Day In the Life of a Poolshark – Idiot Pilot
12. All About Us – t.A.T.u.
13. Don’t Save Us From the Flames – M83
14. Balls Out – Bloodhound Gang
15. Twisted Transistor – Korn
16. Dayvan Cowboy – Boards of Canada
17. Random – Lady Sovereign
18. Pagina Dos – Prefuse 73
19. Everybody Knows That You’re Insane – Queens of the Stone Age
20. Trapped In the Closet – R. Kelly


And if you don't like it, then hey, fuck you!
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Yeah, so I guess the skit has become an internet phenomenon...there goes my originality. Anywho...great shit:

Slate's Take
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Dan Cortese, MTV SPORTS!, comin' atcha with some totally XXXtreme Ironing! This new sport, riding on a wave of popularularity thanks to stars like Starch and Steam, combines the "thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt."


Whoa, brody! Ahahahaha


Chiggity-check this slideshow for MEGA-ironing madness.
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For those of you who do not already know Brie and I got engaged over the Christmas holiday. We are very excited and a little over whelmed with wedding preparations. Stand by for official wedding announcements as they become planned. For those of you who have gone through these shenanigans before, any advise is greatly appreciated. See you all soon... El Posto
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Have you seen the trailor for Hostel yet? The trailor makes the film look like some kind of Saw spinoff with executive producer Quentin Tarantino's name plastered all over it. From what I heard of Saw, the film wasn't that bad, with lots of off-camera, sound-only gore. Early word is that Hostel brings the pain full-on.

Early press on the film notes that Tarantino and director Eli Roth got the idea after stumbling upon a website offering a "vacation" package where for $10,000 you can fly to Eastern Europe and torture someone to death. The two claim that they aren't sure if the website is real, but I wouldn't doubt it -- who really knows what's going down in the dark corners Eastern Europe these days?

Anyway, I am a total pussy when it comes to torture movies, or even scenes, so I'll be sitting this one out. The film did land an R rating (as opposed to NR or NC-17) so it couldn't be that bad, right? I propose that Donnoe go see this sick shit and let us all know.

UPDATE: Here is a clip that is supposed to demonstate how hardcore this film will be -- the infamous "eyeball scene." Again, I am a little sally-boy and will not watch this, but please...
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In the spirit of the holiday season, check out this brilliantly edited cuss-out match between Bush and Tony Blair. (thanks for the link, Ben)

Also see the previously-posted classic and editing triumph, Super Mario Brothers 3 in 11 minutes. Watching this guy dominate the 8th world is unreal.
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This is absolutely hilarious...and actually pretty good too...chiggity check it yo:

The Chronic-als of Narnia
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Check it out, the two worst teams in the NFL, the 2-12 Texans and the 2-12 49ers, will meet in week 17 to determine who gets to draft mega-stud Reggie Bush this off-season. Assuming both teams lose this weekend it will be interesting to see if Vegas issues some kind of inverted spread for this game considering both teams would be idiots to try and actually win.

My prediction? All scoring will be the result of accidental safeties. Should either team even get close to the "red zone" they will proceed to run in the oppisite direction and go out of bounds at their own 1 yard line. For the sake of this matchup, North-South running will simply be known as "South." Defensive schemes will be strictly 11-man fronts with the all-out blitz on every play. Record lows will be set on both sides of the ball.

Should the game end in a tie, I believe Houston would have the statistical edge since they have the most horrible division and conference record. Though I'm not sure that tie-breakers actually apply to teams at the bottom of the standings. Yup, this is shaping up to be the best worst game of all-time.
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Howdy y'all! It's been a while, but after an extended vacation at an underground bathhouse in Hanoi, I'm back and fully refreshed. I'm sorry to say that my loyalty to the world of Blog has fallen by the wayside. My personal Blogs need updating and I've left only snide comments here at the Watts. Recently, my time has been consumed by blood thirsty tyrannosaurs and more importantly, an Indianapolis publication that has solicited my services for a couple of stories. Two stories, one about Casey Malone's infamous bachelor party and another about my armed robbery experience, are to be published in the January issue of Indy Men's Magazine. Teddy, you may click here.. You may recall a post on my blog about my thuggish experience in Broad Ripple. That post was removed at the request of IMM's editor for publication in the magazine. While most of you treasonous bastards have turned your back on this great city, I know that some of you remain loyal. I encourage you to pick a copy of this great read. It's a growing magazine that I think most of you would enjoy. Pick one up at any Marsh, desecrator of Letterman's former Atlas food market. More to come...
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Yo dude, I heard you were going sobor and all but this whole poster campaign is taking that shit a little far.

(Check that goatee! That guy is so Ian!)
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Big City of Strike. It was preluded to without a kiss. Tis no biggie for Chicagoites, but I feel that it is a great way to talk about the difference between here and the rest of the world.

The foreigner: "This is beautiful," she said, walking through the dazzling lights of Times Square before dawn. "I like it up here."

The New Yorker: "They should all go to jail," said Jim Giannella, 53, standing outside a Times Square station closed off with red tape. "They should have sat there and stayed on the job. It's just going to make everyone miserable."

One is used to shit like this and takes the best of what's given to her. The other is a selfish fuck.

I mean I don't think anyone has gone to France or Italy without a strike.
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Of all the records that Teddy did not hear this year (with the exception of one) here are my favorite, along with some honorable mentions. Special attention was paid to the rules for making a hip year-end list. (via Perfect Face for Radio)

11. Eels - Blinking Lights...
10. Hot Chip - Coming On Strong
9. Sigur Ros - Takk
8. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Naturally
7. Antony & the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
6. The Decemberists - Picaresque
5. Gorillaz - Demon Days
4. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
3. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
2. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
1. Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die (download)

Big-ups to some other great discs this year that just missed the cut and would probably round out my top 20:

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Superwolf AND Summer in the Southeast
DJ? Acucrack - Killing Mobius
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic
Isolee - Wearemonster
Lemon Jelly - 64-95
Jamie Lidell - Multiply
M.Ward - Transistor Radio
Sam Prekop - Who's Your New Professor
Spoon - Gimmie Fiction
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

Here's a group of slackers, most of them highly anticipated follow-ups that let a brother down in 2005:

Broken Social Scene - s/t
Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures
Beck - Guero / Guerolito
Metric - Live it Out
Prefuse 73 - Surrounded by Silence
DangerDoom - Mouse and the Mask
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I thought I'd do my small part to publicize an interesting, developing case out of Mississippi. Fellow traveler, Hoosier, and blogger Radley Balko at The Agitator is primarily responsible for identifying this case and publicizing it. In fact, if his optimism is to be believed, the case is on the verge of a tipping point into national media cause celebre.

The subject if Cory Maye, who was convicted of shooting and killing an officer in the course of a late night/early morning drug raid into Maye's apartment. You can go here for exhaustive first and second-hand coverage of the story and it's details.

Sympathy for the defendant, who is currently appealing the case, stems from the fact that Maye's name was nowhere on the warrant, and selection of his residence seems to be something of an accident, if not an overshooting of the warrant. My own inherent sympathies tend to look with furrowed brow at unconstrained, or overzealous, policing powers (the policy, not the cops themselves), both on theoretical and practical grounds. But I'm willing to acknowledge, and in fact am grateful for at times, a well-defined enforcement of laws by a monopoly authority.

This case is novel because the defendant is not a slam-dunk, sympathetic character. The raid did find some trace amounts of drugs in his apartment. Also, according to Radley, he has a rather unusual facial tic that makes him look like he's smirking all the time.

For a single post wrap-up of the case, see here, as there's simply too much for me to possibly summarize, and that first link may be too much for any one person to read.
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Piggybacking on A-rock's post, I left a comment with some links but I just came across some additional commentary that I thought merits its own post.

As I mentioned before, see here for a summary of why giving the FDA the authority to regulate drugs may in fact costs hundreds of thousands more lives than it saves.

I also mentioned this op-ed which does an admirable job of putting together just a few of the reasons why people should be skeptical of the advertising-childhood obesity link.

But then I came across these posts from the Becker-Posner Blog. When either of these guys speaks, I make sure to listen. Becker's a Nobel Laureate in economics and one of the most incisive writers on human behavior. (Judge) Posner is one of the top 10 most cited legal scholars in the world (owing, I imagine, in large part to the fact that he is probably one of the most productive). Both teach at the University of Chicago.

Here's some highlights from Becker:

--"Obesity has increased for most of the past twenty -five years among all groups and at all ages, including the elderly. Presumably, advertising of goods like Big Macs and Coke Cola has less influence over the consumption of adults, particularly that of older men and women. Moreover, obesity has grown in all developed countries, even those with much sharper controls over advertising."

--"most of the increase in sales to a [fast food] company when it advertises more tends to come at the expense of sales by competitors."

--"virtually all the studies available to [the Institute of Medicine] examine the effects on children's weight of greater or lesser exposure to television....The problem with such studies...is that they cannot separate the effect on weight of greater exposure to advertising through watching more television from the effect on the propensity to gain weight from other activities correlated with watching TV, such as more sedentary behavior, or eating popcorn and other snacks while watching."

From Posner:

--"A factor that the economist Tomas Philipson and I have emphasized is the increasingly sedentary character of activity in both work and the home, as a result of the shift from manufacturing to services and the growth of labor-saving devices in both the workplace and the home....Today one has to pay to expend calories by joining a gym or otherwise taking time from work or leisure to exercise."

He and Becker also refer to current and recent research on the topic.
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SO some gay group (the Institute of Medicine) says that cartoons sell bad food to kids. Does that mean that the coolest cat around won't be able to be the trademark for Cheetos?? Nothing's been official yet, but if they start regulating this...I will start up my own lobbying team..because this is just going way too far. This means that a whole new bureaucracy will be created just to decide what kinds of food are considered healthy. Is it those with no fats, no sugars, only monounsaturated fats and so on. Besides, my nickname in elementary school was Chester Cheetah...please don't let me lose him.

On a side note: I've been getting a lot of my initial news from the tv in the elevator of my building. I work on the 32nd floor and many people get on or off before I get there, so I have a lot of time to stare at the screen. I have to say this is on of the coolest additions to an elevator I have seen in a long time. Anyone else gots one of these and agree?
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What does everyone think of the Patriot Act? As far as invading privacy and taking away freedoms I think it's a fucking atrocity. I find this administration and its dealing with terror only slightly less outrageous than McCarthy's dealings with communists. Yet, I also have a funny little story.

I received an email on accident from the Committee for International Relations with their statement on the Patriot Act(for Congress). Please read, only one page. It does bring up one valid point and ideal for the Act, and probably its only one. The Act does allow the government to obtain and arrest those dealing in drugs outside of the United States. In so much as using the argument that the drug money is going towards the funding of terrorists.

I thought this statement to Congress was also a kind of cool little extra I was able to obtain. It all happened because this summer I applied to work for the Committee of International Relations, I guess the person there was trying to send this to a different Aaron but got me instead.
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It is OFFICIAL. The aldermannnnnnnns have voted and it has passed. Bars and restaurants with bars have until July 1, 2008 to comply. I'm surprised, but not surprised. We've already had this discussion before. I don't agree with taking away freedoms, but what can you do. It's a social normality in big cities and it was only a matter of time. Mayor Daley may be the greatest mayor ever. Read the article and his comment, "They're next," it refers to whisky and wild women.
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So, fellas, I heard you guys got a little snow in the Midwest. I bet this weekend was epic at Paoli Peaks, EPIC! But next time you grab your knit hat and head outside into the brisk Indy/Chicago weather, remember that it's well below zero in Jackson. It was -20 degrees at the base of the Mountain yesterday, even colder in town. It got down to -45 in West Yellowstone, setting a new record. Of course, that didn't deter us bro-brahs from shredding the knee-deep pow all week. As new lifts opened each day, so did new terrain full of freshies. The pic is from the opening of one such lift (a Tuesday morning, I believe) and I was likely a few chairs back. Ehhhh ... we mostly ski knee-deep pow in Jackson, mostly.
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Since we're officially into December, it's time to make New Years Eve plans. I'm officially inviting all the Giggers to a party in Lincoln Park. Yes, I will once again be making an appearance in Chi-town, and you're all welcome to join me.

My friends and I will be celebrating another year of not having all the wondrous, futuristic inventions that those 1950s films said we would by now. At midnight, we will make the toast: "may we all work for Spacely's Sprockets in 2006."

Just e-mail me and I can give you the info, if anyone's interested. I'll actually be around for a few days, if anyone has any other bright ideas for the rest of the pre/post-NYE period.

And Tedro, just because you didn't invite me up to go "shreddin" this Winter, you are implicitly not invited!
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Seriously, this may be even better than the girl(in Norway) who got fined and sentenced to jail for giving that guy a blowjob after he passed out. Both of these, though, did happen on a couch. Although many of you ladies may be saying, "What the Fuck is going on in Canada?" I find it very hard to believe that they weren't already naked on the couch together or else how else do you not wake up if someone takes your clothes off...in which case...it's possible? Anyway, this seems to change the ol' line to, "I'll be in and out in a few seconds, I won't feel a thing."
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How's it going, boys? Busy day in the ol' cubicle? Ehhhhh ... just wanted to let you guys know the Mountain opened on Saturday to a 55-inch base after receiving 238 inches of snow so far this year. That's about 236 more inches than Steve has. Of course, your's truly was on hand with Mary Jane in tow to shred the knee-deep pow -- the photo is from opening day. With well over 100 days left in the ski season and Jackson already halfway toward its yearly snowfall average, looks like there's lots of shredding to be had in the days ahead. All are welcome to visit, just let me know. And here's to the Horse and IU -- big seasons ahead. All Hail Petyton!
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Check out this classic excerpt from ESPN's Page 2 today. Anyone who watches Sunday Night Football... well, you'll get it. The only thing missing is a pointless McGuire / Theisman argument.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Wouldn't it be pretty funny to hear ESPN's "Sunday Night Football" crew give a eulogy?
-- Alex, Syosset, NY

SG: Actually, I was hoping for a Pat Morita tribute during the Saints-Jets game...

Patrick: Guys, we'd be remiss if we didn't say good-bye to one of the great, great actors of our generation, Pat Morita -- what an actor this guy was! Just a great, great, great actor.

Theismann: Mike, when we talked to John Avildsen, the director of "The Karate Kid," he told us that Pat Morita was one of the greatest actors he ever worked with. I mean, here's a guy who was simply robbed for the 1984 Best Supporting Actor by Dr. Haing S. Ngor.

Maguire: I'm gonna tell you what a great actor this guy was. Watch this clip from the first "Karate Kid" when he saves Daniel-San on Halloween ... watch him jump this fence and take out the Cobra Kai -- here it comes, here it comes, WHAM! BAM! Right there! And look at his feet! See his feet moving! Is this guy something? You think this guy doesn't know karate?

Patrick: What a scene for Pat Morita! HOLY COW!

Theismann: And guys, when we talked to Jimmy Franklin, the head writer for "Happy Days" back in 1977, he told us that Pat Morita was the easiest guy he has ever written for -- and this is a guy who wrote for Pat Schneider, Vic Tayback, Conrad Bain and pretty much every great sitcom actor from that decade.

Maguire: And Joe, you want to talk about a guy who could steal a scene? This guy could steal scenes. He'd steal 'em right out of thin air! And you know the thing about Pat Morita -- when he belted out a line like "wax on, wax off," I'm gonna tell you somethin' right now: You believed him. You waxed on, and you waxed off.

Theismann: I'm not so sure he wasn't the greatest character actor of all-time.

Patrick: What a great, great actor and what a huge, huge loss -- you cannot say enough about it. So long, Pat Morita.

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Teddy, you want to know why we have music critics? Despite what you may think most of them are pretty good at their job by comparison. Shit, just look what happens when you let normal people review music. Case in point: Amazon.com's customer reviews for the Baha Men's perennial anthem "Who let the dogs out?"

ESPN's preview for (stasitically speaking) the WORST game in NBA history: the 1-15 Toronto Raptors meet the 2-12 Atlanta Hawks. If this were an NFL game it most certainly would have appeared on Monday Night Football.


Alison pointed this out over at Lipstick, but you really have to watch this newfangled trailor for The Shining that makes a pretty damn good case for why that movie could just as well been a romantic comedy (full story at Slate, read it).

Some guys just need 5,000 channels and 12 satalite dishes.
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Here's a new post I'll put up every once in a while when I feel the urge.

So the US is paying newspapers to print propaganda (allegedly). I'm not surprised, but it's just another great sign of our amazing teaching skills when it comes to democracy. I hate this administration.

Moving forward I pose these few questions about the article itself. Since when does WHouse become an abbreviation for the White House??

Why is it that every time detrimental news comes out about this administration, they interview John Kerry? Did they interview Bob Dole everytime bad news came out about Clinton?? And even more especially, why do they have to say, "Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who was defeated by Bush in the presidential election"??

And finally, read the bottom paragraph. "the Education Department had paid commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to tout President George W. Bush's landmark education plan, "No Child Left Behind."I don't remember hearing about this? When did this happen??
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Something we can all agree on - them Hooz put up a great fight last night. That fucking Redick kid is unreal, but at least Marco made Shelden Williams look like a little boy in the paint. Sure, everyone says "if only we had DJ White." It's true. With DJ guarding the nest none of those little floaters and layups would have even touched the rim, we'd be looking at probably 6-7 more team rebounds and the inside-out game would have actually freed up an open three or two.


If DJ had been in the lineup last night there would be articles on ESPN this very moment proclaiming the Hoosiers as a top five team in America, if not the best. We all know they're a top five team, it's just going to take a little bit longer to prove it. Anyway the what-ifs don't matter because this team is dangerous with or without White. Bring on Charlotte, Kentucky ... we fucks 'em all ups.
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