Reasons not to walk home through the West Village.

Ooh. Gelato.

*walk three blocks*

Ooh. Cupcakes.

Open Letter to Last.fm

I wanted to like you. I really tried. But we're done. First, you kept screwing up my iPod updates by occupying the little machine and preventing me from ejecting it. That, however, was only a minor annoyance. Yesterday, I plugged "antifolk" into your search bar, hoping, maybe, for some Moldy Peaches, some Regina Spektor, some Grizzly Bear. Instead? Ani DiFranco --> M.C. Hammer.

Today, I went back to Pandora. So far, the Okkervil River station has provided M. Ward, Elliott Smith, Matt Pond PA, The Decembrists, The High Strung, and Sufjan Stevens. In other words, shit that makes sense.

Sorry, last.fm. You are dead to me.

I forgot a Wiki challenge

Damn you, Tom for posting it in the comments section of another post. Tricksy hobbit.

Anyhoo. The HMS Kent is, obviously, the official sailing ship of the royal family of England. Their aquatic Air Force One, if you will.

Pandora is lazy or has been hijacked by some subsidiary of Virgin Records

Bands that Have Made an Appearance on Every One of My Pandora Stations (from The Shins to Hem to Ben Gibbard to Me'shell Ndegeocello) (an ongoing project):

• Tarkio (the band that Colin Meloy was in before The Decembrists and whose songs average six minutes in length)
  
• Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos
  
• Heatmiser
  

The Recommendations Section, Podcast Edition

In honor of my favorite podcast, Once More With Feeling, this is the recommendations section. This week, it's podcasts.

1. Once More With Feeling
   
2. Jonathan Coulton's "Flickr" (available for free on iTunes as part of his Thing a Week podcast). Actually, any of the songs are really hilarious -- "Code Monkey" has gained some notoriety for its inspiration of a really embarassing YouTube video.
   
3. Kevin Smith's SMODCast, which you probably all knew about. But it's better than his blog, which has fortunately moved away from detailed descriptions of his frequent fucking of his wife. In bragging news, I have met his wife and she is very nice, but needs to eat about seven sandwiches.
   
4. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. The NPR podcasts are all famous and shit, so this one is lamely obvious, but it's a really good resource for those of us who like to pretend we keep abreast of current affairs and have witty things to say about them.
   
5. IndieFeed. Learn four band names a month that you can drop at illegal Williamsburg loft parties and look significantly hipster-er than you are. Which, for me, is not at all, so listening to this shit (and, let's be honest, like your average mid-90s Ani DiFranco album, about 80% of it is) allows me to barely hang -- or at least distracts people from my the clothes which I so boringly purchased first-hand.
   
6. All Songs Considered. More obvious NPRage, but you can get whole concerts by excellent bands like Spoon, The New Pornographers, Belle and Sebastian, and Sleater Kinney. Some episodes are guest hosted by such rock and roll luminaries as M. Ward, Joanna Newsom, and (wait for it) WEIRD AL.
   

That's all I've got for now. What was it I told you about being a sucky blogger?

I continue to be bad at the internets.

Two weeks since I last posted. I suck.

In the meantime, I have become a knitter. My adult ADD means that my knitting has tons of mistakes, but perhaps I can retrain myself to concentrate. There's a part of my personality that's really attracted to the idea of making clothes for myself. I guess there's an anti-social agrarian streak in me. Every now and again I have a powerful urge to move to a shack in the Vermont woods, raise a couple sheep, a cow, and some chickens, and wear sensible shoes and homespun housecoats. And, you know, write a profound memoir about the entire experience. By hand. On, like, papyrus.

If I'm being honest with myself, of course, the closest I'll ever get to that is making scarves and hats and shit. I've also already promised The Itchy One a couple of pairs of socks to guard against the ever-m0re-frigid Maine winter. Even looking at pictures of people knitting socks on four tiny needles gives me hives, though, so it'll be a while before I work up to that. Gratefully, I took knitting classes at a really neato place (The Point!) where they're always happy to see me come in to sit, have a latte, and squint at and puzzle over my yarn.

I learned to crochet when I was a volunteer, too, and have no intention of giving it up -- mostly since I've recently become privy to this whole, weird Japanese craft culture surrounding amigurumi, small crocheted items -- usually animals, but sometimes other stuff, like mushrooms, aliens and, awesomely, dolls (I found a pattern for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Hedwig the owl!). So, really, I continue on my long journey to becoming a Jack of Lots of Trades, Master of None at All.

Someday soon I'll get a camera and then I'll post pictures of what is certain to be some incredibly crappy handicrafts.

Baron Hesketh

My guess about Baron Hesketh was that he was a mid-16th century German nobleman. Who was a pedophile. From Alsace, the only region of which I can remember the name at the moment. Apparently I'm almost right; I'm sure The Itchy One will soon set us straight.

Also, I met Dave Eggers last night. I don't have time at the moment to get into how nifty it was, but suffice it to say he was very nice, very captivating, and extremely handsome. Damn him for having a beautiful wife and adorable child.