Top 10

1. Halos Heaven (dreaming of a great 2012 season)
2. Faust IV
3. Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Vols 1-4)
4. Kraftwerk, K4 Bremen Radio 1971
5. Can, Tago Mago (reissue)
6. BBC Sound Effects No. 26 – Sci-Fi Sound Effects
7. Space 1999
8. Vernor Vinge, The Children of the Sky
9. The Hobbit (can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait)
10. Der OTO

Bottom 3

1. Voter Suppression Efforts by Republican governors in 2011
2. Fox News
3. All Republicans (whether running for office or running from the law)

1. Patton Oswalt, Finest Hour
2. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
3. Parks & Recreation
4. Squidbillies
5. Finale for Doctor Who season did not revert to magic and “believing really hard” to solve the day (as previous seasons have)
6. Steve Roden, I listen to the wind as it obliterates my traces
7. Pole, Waldgeschichten
8. Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor rules!)
9. New Arrested Development on the way!!!
10. Thundercats, “Daylight”

Bottom 3

1. Audiences at Republican Presidential Debates
2. Republican Presidential Candidates
3. The last week of the Angels’ season (wtf guys?  golden opportunities just thrown away!?)

Top 10

1. Grendel Drone Commander
2. Louie
3. Leyland Kirby’s Eager to tear apart the Stars
4. Into the Labyrinth
5. The return of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
6. Presonus Firestudio Pro
7. Carne asada
8. The Clock of the Long Now
9. Raxxess rack for my music equipment
10. A long weekend of sitting on my ass watching TV

Bottom 3

1. The horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE Doctor Who specials running on BBC America featuring US celebrities narrating and commenting on Doctor Who (a la I Love the 80s, etc…).  It’s blatantly obvious that these idiots couldn’t name a doctor other than Matt Smith.  I love Doctor Who, but those specials make me want to hate it.  Way to go, BBC America–you’re ruining the only hit you have.
2. The new Amy-narrated opening to this season of Doctor Who that foregrounds the show as about THIS doctor and these companions in the exact way those horrible specials do.  I wonder if they’re showing that opening in the UK.  Please FSM, tell me no!
3. Republicans (of course)

1.  The Great White Silence (unbelievable film of Scott’s Antarctic expedition, newly restored with a soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner)
2. OTO Biscuit (yummy!)
3. David Bowie (for being awesome)
4. Advisory Circle’s As the Crow Flies
5. A Dance with Dragons (great continuation of epic fantasy series)
6. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
7. Boomkat (still best place to get great music)
8. The Guild (another season!)
9. The Shadow Line
10. Jon Stewart and Stewart Colbert (still best thing about the USA)

Bottom 1

Only one bottom this month–the debt limit debate, summarized perfectly in Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Team America:

To use the poetry of this brief scene, the tea party (and the other Republicans) are assholes.  Obama is acting too much like a pussy.  He needs to be more of a dick so those assholes don’t turn the whole country into shit.  Oh, and if he needs lessons, then he should ask his Sec. of State and her husband, don’t you think?  How’s that for a 50 word summary of the whole crisis?

A little late this month.  Oh well.  On we go…

Top 10

1. Parks & Recreation–Amazingly, the coolest show on TV go 100 times cooler this month when Aubrey Plaza’s character April came out as a huge Neutral Milk Hotel (and Jeff Magnum) fan in the season finale.  Nice one, show!
2. Pye Corner Audio, Black Mill Tapes Vo. 2
3. Vermona DRM1 mkIII–my new best friend
4. Barak Obama (see?  First three are pretty awesome to put Barak at #4 after taking out Bin Laden)
5. Moon Wiring Club, Somewhere a Fox is Getting Married
6. Mark McGuire, A Young Person’s Guide to Mark McGuire
7. George R.R. Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire series–am on book 3
8. Doctor Who
9. Meeblip
10. Stewart Brand’s The Clock of the Long Now

Bottom 3

1. Fox News
2. Republicans
3. Eurovision voters (seriously, Azerbaijan?)

• Finally got around to seeing The Social Network.  It’s an excellent film–well acted and directed and all that.  But what struck me most was how similar it was to The King’s Speech.  No, really.  Think about it: both are historical dramas featuring introverted main protagonists who struggle with communication in the technology age.  Yes, the historical eras of the two films are quite different (1930s vs. 2000s), and the communication mediums that focus on are different (radio vs. Internet).  Yes, King George is a nice guy who only becomes a jerk when his stutter gets the better of him, and Zukerberg is a jerk pretty much all the time. However, at their heart, both films are about technology and communication.  King George’s struggle is with technology–being able to deliver a speech on the radio without devolving into a stuttering wreck; Zuckerberg’s struggle is with actual human beings, and he overcomes this struggle through technology (creating a social tool that lets anyone communicate with anyone else).  These are different types of stories with different outcomes, but they are wrestling with the same basic themes.  As I see it, the real difference between the films is that, whereas King George actually learns to control his affliction and emerges triumphant in the end, Zuckerberg really doesn’t change at all from the beginning of the film to the end (that friend request to his ex-girlfriend doesn’t really count, I think–not enough of a change to warrant the audience’s admiration or respect).  That’s a big reason why The King’s Speech won the Oscar–happy ending vs jerk ending.
• I’m using my iPad now more than I ever have.  It’s starting to fit better into my daily activities.  For the first 9 months that I owned it, I used it mostly when traveling and when in meetings at work.  Now, it’s the computer I keep with me when I’m watching TV or hanging out around town.  I watch Netflix on the iPad all the time.  The Google Readers on the iPad are excellent (I use River of News).  Twitter is easier to follow on the iPad.  I can read The Wire magazine on the iPad weeks before my print copy arrives.  And games, of course, are awesome on the iPad (I’ve been playing Plants vs Zombies lately, though I also like 10 Pin Shuffle).   The iPad is improving as a sports fan’s device of choice.  I love the MLB at Bat app, and that’s been on the device since it came out.  I’m going to cancel my DirecTV MLB subscription because I can watch all games on the iPad now.  But now there are other live sports apps for the NHL, the NFL, and MLS (along with the March Madness app).  Most of these require you to pay a little cash to watch the games, and I don’t pay for NFL or NHL, but I did get the MLS package ($40 for the whole season).  So, as a sports fan, the iPad is awesome.
• The iPad’s not perfect, though.  I wish ESPN would open up ESPN3 to the iPad.  Also, Amazon should expand their Video on Demand to include the iPad as well.  And there are some crappy news apps like the BBC’s (though CNN’s is excellent).  And there are other problems, like the lack of cloud storage and document transfer integrated into the iPad (Dropbox is excellent, but you need to go through a few hoops to transfer files created on the iPad into Dropbox).  And there are other problems that others have discussed better than I.  Still, as a first-generation template for the future of computing (nope, I don’t have the iPad2 yet–and won’t get it for a while), the iPad is quite impressive, and it’ll only get more functional and flexible as the years go on.
• UCLA lost their second-round March Madness game today against Florida.  UCLA was the #7 seed, and Florida was the #2 seed, so I can’t really be all that disappointed.  Still, they had plenty of chances to win, and their immaturity at the foul line and their inability to hit shots further than 2-feet from the basket pretty much doomed them.
• SDSU barely won their 2nd game, but they won.  The majority of people where I work went to SDSU, so they’re all excited about their run.  I didn’t go to that school, so I don’t have any particular vested interest, but I always root for the west coast teams in tournaments, so I am happy they are moving on (and will play their next game in Anaheim, which should give them a nice home-state advantage).
• I’m starting to understand Harry Partch, but I’m not completely there yet.  More on that later.
• Recent music purchases: Sublevel’s Total Erosion, Trevor Duncan’s Final Frontiers, Indignant Senility’s Plays Wagner, and The Soulless Party’s Exploring Radio Space.  I’m in a hauntological/hypnagogical spiral.
• Nearly done with my latest album.  I’ll be mastering it soon and distributing it via every online store I can find.  The working title is Riverrun, though that will most likely change.

Top 10

1. PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
2. Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972
3. Smm: Context
4. Quatermass and the Pit
5. Spring Training
6. Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic200
7. HostGator (for saving me from GoDaddy hell)
8. Boomkat
9. Folklore, Myths, and Legends of Britain
10. Wisconsin protesters

Bottom 3

1. Scott Walker (what a douche)
2. All other Republicans
3. Corporate interests

Top 10

1. New Tim Hecker album!!!!
2. Parks & Recreation is back
3. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
4. Egypt
5. The Omega Factor
6. M-Audio Fast Track Ultra
7. Mixcloud
8. Pitchers & Catchers reporting…
9. Grape Vines
10. Cats

Bottom 3

1. Trish Keening’s passing.  RIP
2. Republicans
3. Budgets