Unfun (2010 Remastered Edition) by Jawbreaker - 12 Credits

As a former emo kid, I owed it to Jawbreaker to finally get their classic album, especially with it recently remastered. Sounds like early emo, so a bit more abrasive and punk than when I got into it, and way more abrasive and punk than when it became popular. You have been warned.

Mulatu Steps Ahead by Malatu Astatke - 9 Credits

A fun Ethiopian jazz album that serenades up and down the emotional chart. While I prefer his Ethiopiques efforts, this is not too bad for 9 credits.

Subiza by Delorean - 9 Credits

While Rebekah cannot stand the opening track, this is still an impressive dance album that grows on you with each listen. Someone compared the repeat listening experience to Merriweather Post Pavillion. While different genres for sure, you do get something new out of Subiza on each listen.

Yesterday You Said Tomorrow by Christian Scott - 10 Credits

Grabbed this one as it was recommended as the top jazz album so far of the year by Amazon, and eMusic gave it a Pick. And really, can you go wrong with a jazz cover of Thom Yorke? I need a couple more listens of this to really evaluate it, but so far I like what I hear

A Man and His Music by Ravi Shankar - 8 Credits

The legend Ravi Shankar at his finest. A steal at only 8 credits, you get nearly over 2 hours of amazing music.

Djelika by Toumani Diabate - 8 Credits

Just adding to the Toumani Diabate collection I have going. Once again, amazingly peaceful music that is complex but utterly listen-to-able.

Zoetosis by Telomere - 7 Credits

Some nice chill electronic music that is great for getting work done too. Mostly ambient, so no standout track really, but the album is pretty good.

Mysteries of Turkey by Talip Ozkan - 7 Credits

Adding some more world music to my collection, this time the long-necked lute from Turkey. Nice Middle-Eastern rhythms here and if you are into this sort of thing, you will enjoy it. Yeah, I know that is basically just an accurate statement, but I don't care

Reading

Reading books on the iPad is a joy, and i can honestly say that it would be tough to have me go back to the printed version of books. That being said, I much prefer the Amazon Kindle app to iBooks with the primary reason being selection. There are so few books on the iBooks store compared to the Kindle, and when you add in the fact that you cannot disable the goofy page turning animation the Kindle app hits a home run to iBooks double.

In addition to reading books, and maybe more important, browsing the web on the iPad is the best way I have ever seen to browse. Being able to position the Internet where you want, then zoom in to just the content makes it absolutely amazing. Using a desktop or laptop browser after the iPad feels like using ancient technology, that is that impressive. Oh, and I don't miss Flash one bit.

Writing

The portrait keyboard is pretty much useless. The keyboard is too big to thumb type, but too small to use all of the fingers. Landscape is a different story. While it isn't perfect, it is pretty darn good for writing, especially short notes. I am writing this entire post on the ons screen keyboard and while it isn't great, I can get it done. Drawing apps are also a blast on here, and I was able to diagram something really quick on it.

Apps

While the apps are more expensive, it makes sense to me. The iPad apps are much closer to desktop apps than the iPhone, so the price should be closer to. The Netflix and ABC apps are killer first generation apps, along with the iPhone classics like Instapaper make it a good start, but really makes me excited for what the next generation of apps will be. My only gripe is there isn't a great Google Reader app yet, that is reasonably priced and not called NetNewsWire.

Overall, I love the device. It has caused me to try not having a laptop for work since I can do so much of what work I would do at home on it now. If you haven't tried one out yet, head to an Apple store or Best Buy and give it a whirl. You might not buy one, but you will definitely be impressed

Black Sands by Bonobo 12 Credits

I have been a fan of Bonobo since I was introduced to him in a promo video for Songbird. His newest album is his most complete album so far, with sweeping sounds throughout.

In the Heart of the Moon by Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabate 12 Credits

Grammy award winning album from the combo of Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabate. Just beatiful music, I picked this because I was seeing if eMusic had their new album (which they don't yet), but I didn't even have to preview this before getting it. I cannot imagine someone not enjoying this album.

Life of Leisure by Washed Out 6 Credits

eMusic recommended this based on my Air France downloads, and this is in the same vein. If you like the Cut Copy, Air France, Hot Chip sound, you will likely dig this too.

You wake up in the morning and notice your digital photo frame. You sit down to eat, check your email and read the news. You commute into work and read a book on the bus or carpool in. You head to a meeting at work and take some notes, then email them out after. Over lunch you take a break and watch a video, then check your schedule. On the evening commute, you decide to listen to some tunes and play a video game. As you go to bed, you lay down to read a novel.

That could be a pretty typical day that has all sorts of things involved. Your laptop, book, video game system, folio, etc. Now imagine if you could have one device to do that all. That could be the iPad. That is why I think it is going to be a huge deal. The biggest thing for me, is that it doesn't have to do all of the things I described well, it could do three of the things, like playing games, checking your email and reading a book, and it would still be worth it.

When the iPhone came out, it was a big deal because it condensed my phone, iPod and digital camera into one device. The iPad has a chance to do that again, but with more things around the house and office. And again, it doesn't have to do all of those things well to be valuable. But the awesome part is, it very well might do all of those things well!

Changes the Web

I see the potential for all of the things the iPad can change, but from my web tech perspective I am even more excited. The iPad puts the web on the same playing field as print media finally. If you want to argue that the laptop was fine for viewing the web, go ahead. But in my experience, reading a magazine to read an article was nicer than trying to read a lengthy article on the laptop or smartphone. With the iPad, the web is now on equal footing with size and ease of reading.

The other huge thing is the fact that Webkit continues to support leading edge web standards that web designers and developers want to use. This means designers have the ability to mimic magazine article layouts and now have a platform to present them in a similar fashion. Imagine seeing an elaborate design, now in the ease of reading like a magazine.

Oh, and no Flash is no problem for me. For me, 90% of the things you see in Flash on a website can now be done with Javascript and HTML5. I want the open standards supported, and if the iPad gives the web standards more of a nudge forward, that is fantastic!

My Apps Just Work on it?

As much as I hate the whole App Store approval stuff, I will give Apple credit on keeping a tight lock on how apps get developed. By using the tools Apple provides, almost all apps will work on the iPad without any changes. The biggest reason for this is the common set of UI elements that developers have in creating their app. Now, when the apps get doubled in size on the iPad, all of the UI elements that Apple provides will increase in an elegant way. This isn't to say that you would design an app for the iPad to look like a doubled in size iPhone app, but the fact that day one apps will work, that is impressive and throws a bit of a bone to App Store developers. And for the end user, the apps you have will work with no extra cost.

I realize that I am labeled as a Mac fanboy, so you might just throw all of this away as Mac hope. Sure I want to see the iPad succeed, but I also think this is going to honestly be a gamechanger with how some folks interact with technology. The ease of use with, that size screen and a decent weight means people will be able to do things more efficiently and with a pleasant experience. Will it be perfect? No, but I think it will be well worth the $500 entry price.

• Exercise more - Other than snow shoveling last year, I didn't get much done.  Not sure how it will work out with a kid coming soon, but it is still a good goal. - Failed, no excuses here just didn't do it. The only "exercise" I did regularly was walking across campus twice a day.
• Be a parent - Not just being a Dad, but baring extra responsibility to help Rebekah stay sane and have quality time with Will. - Success, Will was born March 16th and we have stayed relatively sane.
• See 3 movies in the theater - Success (Watchmen, The Invention of Lying and Avatar)
• Finish one novel a month (First I have to find a novel each month, but we shall see) - Failed, I did read about 8 but not one per month
• Keep up my blog at a reasonable pace - Leaving out the end of the year lists, I had almost 100 posts through the year.  I would like to keep up about that pace.  Something that should help is: Failed, just not the time I used to have for writing
• Album of the Week - Replacing the Pick of the Week will be an Album of the Week.  Current or from the past, I will pick an album each week to recommend. Failed, I gave up about halfway though the year due to the annoyance of getting album covers for each post.
• Write more about music - If the Top 10 Lists showed anything, my traffic goes up when I write about music, so I will work on writing more about music. Success, what I did write, it was mostly about music.

For 2010, I have had some difficulty in thinking of resolutions. The first reason is that I have learned over the last 9 months that you cannot anticipate what your kid is going to do next. I hate to think of a resolution that seems reasonable now, but in a month is totally unreasonable do to a change in Will's routine or behaviors. That being said, here is what I have:

• Better manage my personal budget - I am not terrible at it, but it is a place I can improve
• Decide on a technology for my web site - I am close, I think
• Create my new web site - I have to decide what content I want, how I want to present it and then actually implement it.
• Write 4 posts on my site each month - Some weeks are tougher than others for posts, so monthly might be more attainable
• Engage a new music genre - After getting crap about my top 25 list of the decade being too similar, I figured it was a good excuse to investigate a new genre to keep expanding my music tastes. I had some success with jazz last year, so I am open to suggestions.
• Beat the Metroid Prime trilogy - This one is pretty iffy I think, but if it is the only game I play I might be able to do it.
• Most Important: Be the best husband and dad I can be - Nothing specific here, just want to feel like I did the best I could for the year.

The other reason I haven't done anything is because I want to have it be really really really easy to post to. Lots of times during the day, I want to take a link and post it with a sentence comment, or toss an image up there because our son is just too darn cute. The problem is the barrier to entry. I have to copy the link, make up a title, add some tags, edit an excerpt so all 3 people who go to my site directly get a witty comment and then post it. This is not a difficult process, just time consuming. This gets even more frustrating because I see how easy it is on Facebook to post something, and I want that. Just not in Facebook because then my stuff is trapped behind the 21st century "Great Blue Wall".

This led me to look at Tumblr. Looks pretty close to what I want, but the problem is that not many folks I know use Tumblr. That makes many of the features on there useless to me, and therefore makes me less interested in it. What I really want is a self hosted Tumblr with Disqus support (and have Disqus be able to get comments from Facebook as well). All that just so I MIGHT blog more often.

All of the things above are just about my blog. I have other ideas for my site as well, all taking much more time and effort. The big theory I have is treating my web site as a place that I can organize my digital content. To contrast, Rebekah is fantastically organized in real life. Without her, I am pretty sure the house would be falling apart around me. I can be organized too, but I have to do it in a rigid manner that allows flexibility in how I view my data. Yeah, I know it is impossible to have both of those, but bare with me.

Let's say I have some comics. These comics have all sorts of data with them, things like writers, characters, publish dates, series, etc. They also have things like story arcs which span series, have read orders and their own plots. Today, if I want to read a story arc, I first have to find all of the titles, see if I have them all, then grab them and start reading. I think it would be fantastic if I could go to my site, grab a story arc and it tells me where I need to look to find all of the books for it. I don't have that today, and the frustrating thing is there are data sources out there for much of this, but getting it all put together is time consuming AND I don't have a framework to stick this data in without writing it myself. Oh, I also want there to be some consistency between my blog design and these comics.

So that is the deal, I am too ambitious with my site to get started at any sort of revision. So it suffers, and I tweet and star things in Google Reader until it becomes easier. I really think the next big thing on the web is making data that exists all over usable. The problem is I can see it coming, but I want it now. And while I wait, this site sits, bright blue and waiting.

1. My Girls - Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
2. 1901 - Phoenix (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear (Veckatimest)
4. Little Secrets - Passion Pit (Manners)
5. From Africa To Malaga - JJ (JJ N° 2)
6. French Navy - Camera Obscura (My Maudlin Career)
7. Pusuit of Happiness (Feat. MGMT And Ratatat) - KiD CuDi (Man On The Moon: The End Of Day)
8. VCR - The xx (xx)
9. The Walls Are Coming Down - Fanfarlo (Reservoir)
10. Wavin' Flag - k'naan (Troubadour)

Honorable Mention

• Help I'm Alive - Metric (Fantasies)
• Can You Discover? - Discovery (LP)
• Animal - Miike Snow (Miike Snow)
• The Reeling - Passion Pit (Manners)
• I Want You To Know - Dinosaur Jr (Farm)
• My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille - Beirut (March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland)

I know this is a little early, but I know there is a best of the 2000's list to work on as well, and history has shown me that good albums do not come out in Novembers and Decembers. This year was a pretty fantastic for music, so the choices were much tougher than last year. So here is the quick and dirty list for 2009.

1. Merriweather Post Pavillian - Animal Collective
   A fantastic album through and through, they make repetition creative and My Girls is amazing
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
   I beg you to find a more fun, creative and solid album
3. JJ N° 2 - JJ
   This one came out of left field but I cannot stop listening to the smooth vocals and island beats
4. Manners - Passion Pit
   Just one step behind Phoenix in fun, creative and solidness
5. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
   Two Weeks is a great song and the rest is weird enough to keep you interested but not too weird to turn away
6. xx - The XX
   You want moody music, this is moody music. It also happens to be great and touching at the same time
7. Immolate Yourself - Telefon Tel Aviv
   Really good electronic work here, this year's Cut Copy
8. Reservoir - Fanfarlo
   A really good indie album out of England that I can listen to the whole way through with no problem
9. Song of Songs - Stile Antico
   Early classical pick from Amazon has me amazed every time I listen to it
10. Farm - Dinosaur Jr.
    Fantastic grunge album 15 years after it's time.

Honorable Mention (in Alphabetical Order)

• There is No Enemy- Built to Spill
• My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura
• This is for the White... - Choir of Young Believers
• LP - Discovery
• Here We Go Magic - Here We Go Magic
• Fantasies - Metric
• 5: Five Years of Hyperdub - Various Artists