Pickle the Kitten commands you to have a safe and happy New Year's Eve!

So shall it be done.

Looking into the FUTURE ... FUture ... future...

Photo by NASA

2012 is going to be alright.And not just because the world will keep on spinning with us all (mostly) safely upon her. It's going to be alright because things are looking up in general.

Personally I had a really good 2011. There were a few bumps and few moments of extreme stress but it all lead to good places and results for me personally. But I'm aware many, many people had a lousy 2011 and I was just one of the luckier ones. Our world is going through a rough moment in time. But it has the ability to be a moment of transformation for our civilization as a whole. the dark times in general are not behind us, and I predict a few more waves of great cultural turbulence, but I can't help but feel optimistic about our future as a whole. Humanity's been through some rough times and in the end we always (eventually) end up in a better place.

So here's to you, and you, and you, and me, and you and you and you all coming together to do what we can to improve things and make 2012 a year that more people look back on as a positive moment in their own timeline.

Because I know it can be done.

This is the music I liked the most in 2011.

My list of of 20+ albums and 75 songs released in 2011 that continue to give me pleasure on a consistent basis is finally up. Peruse. Fill any gaps in your collection I have identified with these albums. Then tell me what turned you on aurally in 2011.

Continuing the trend.

While Betty the Beagle hates having her picture taken, Pickle the Kitten seems to really enjoy it. I'm going to attribute it to her ego and her thorough belief that she is the most awesome cat on the planet.

Yes, I do believe I will have some pie.

This photo pretty much made my month.

My only regret is that Pickle the Kitten doesn't have pie in front of her as well.

Not gonna lie, this made me happy.

Some parts of me remain ever the fanboy. However what I said wasn't driven by my enjoyment of much of Kevin Smith's past work. Outside the great ear for dialogue--and admittedly the tendency to overindulge character's soliloquies a bit--there is little to identify this as a Kevin Smith film. It's a horror movie. And it's a horror movie that depends on looking into the deepest and most twisted reaches of people's souls instead of simply relying on gallons of blood and severed limbs. I really did enjoy it.

Happy holidays!

It's no "Nutmeg" but it is a holiday jam.

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I am still my father's son.

I have my dad's strengths and I have his weaknesses. Luckily GalPal is there to help bolster my strengths and help me fight those weaknesses. I am so lucky to have a partner like that.

Who helps bring out the best in you?

Get live!

Taken from the balcony at Metro. Obviously Grohl saw me hanging over trying to catch the shot, huh?

Today some of the music writers for Chicagoist remembered their top live music moments of 2011. What were yours?

Movies to see before Christmas.

A Christmas Story
Bowie / Crosby Holiday Special
Stephen Colbert's The Greatest Gift of All!
Love Actually
Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas

Almost done!

Talkin' 'bout the year in music.

I was on local Chicago radio station Vocalo 89.5 last Friday to chat about the tear in music with host of The Music Vox Jesse Menendez and fellow panelists Brent Discrencsenzo of Time Out Chicago and Andrew Morgan of The Billions Corporation. We covered a bunch of topics and gave shout-outs to some of our favorite releases from the past year.We also discovered one of the panelists was secretly a member of the one percent! If you missed it the first time around, the segment is now available for download. Give a listen and pipe in with your own thoughts in the comments!

DOWNLOAD: The Music Vox 2011 Year In Review

Regressing?

Perhaps you have notcied I seem distracted lately. In fact it's not so much distraction as it's intense focus on the 9-to-5. But yea, the holidays they approacheth and the deadlines they are met-eth.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and I don't think it's a train so I may actually have time to write something of, erm, substance here in the near future. But to give you some idea of my mental state lately I've had this incredible itch to either start re-reading a bunch of Edgar Rich Burroughs or the shorter Heinlein book while pumping in a steady diet of Bowie, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and The Who into my cranial cavity via earbuds. For an intellectual (HAH!) such as myself I'm going to view this as reacclimation / recalibration and not a step backward. Land ho! Nay! Instead this is a huge step forward towards unlocking the Pandora's Box at the base of my neck to flood my cerebrospinal fluid with inspiartion that will eventually unhinge that mass floating within and reveal new ideas and driections of thinking.

Something like that.

Uh oh.

GalPal and I made with the hot feet to the opening day of Christkindlmarket to make sure we got our little souvenir boot mugs filled with warm wine, but they were nothing compared to what I encountered (and consumed) earlier...

We did your holiday shopping for you.

Behold, the Chicagoist 2011 Gift Guide!

You're welcome.

One day...

...I'll find a few seconds to write for myself. More than a few lines here. More than a few tweets there. More than a response to a status message. More than a brief couple paragraphs about a new song or a show that you should see.

I'm hungering to do more. But tonight is not when it's gonna happen. Maybe tomorrow?

We'll see. Keeping my daily commitment to writing SOMETHING for myself, no matter what, has gone s long way to keeping me sane, though.

What's your secret?

Hey, what's that?!

Pickle the Kitten seems pretty happy I'm finally home!

Happy birthday to GalPal!

My most favorite-est of people turns another year old today!

Photo by Lizz Kannenberg

Twitter refresh!

Overall I dig it, though I wish the Twitter stream was still to the left. I know they moved it so your eye hits whatever it is their promoting but it's still annoying. I really like this feature though!

Bon Iver? More like Yawn Iver.
— tankboy (@tankboy) December8, 2011

Took 'em long enough to finally roll out embeddable Tweets, huh?

What happens in Vegas...

GalPal and I were in Las Vegas on vacation last week and stayed at The Cosmopolitan for free through a voucher I got after playing kickball at Lollapalooza a few years ago. We will definitely be staying there again. It's custom built for us and while it's a bit pricey it doesn't seem to attract the same herds that lumber about The Bellagio or The Mirage so it's a couple extra bucks well spent.

It was my second time to Vegas and GalPal used to have friends who lived there so she's vacationed there a number of times and neither of us were huge fans of the town, but we approached this trip with the mindset that it was first and foremost a vacation with no additional expectations. It was wonderful. We paid an unbelievable amount of money to see Cirque du Soleil's LOVE but walked away having so thoroughly enjoyed it's numerous WTF?! moments that it was totally worth it. We sat at blackjack tables in the middle of the afternoon while helpful dealers and pit bosses taught GalPal just how to actually play blackjack. We didn't walk out with our pockets stuffed with cash but we did win enough during the time we were in town to pay for a nice meal. I ate a $13 steak and a $16 hamburger. The hamburger was way better.

We did a buffet that was subpar and we ate at a swanky joint that actually looked more like a retirement home that also had food that was, amazingly, worse than the subpar buffet. We saw a hardcore band that I enjoyed but GalPal hated. We took a limo because we couldn't catch a cab.

We drank under a chandelier. We watched two hookers vie for one old dude's attention and tried not to laugh out loud when one of them bought a grilled cheese sandwich with fries and then tried to eat it in an alluring manner. She failed in that but did emerge victorious in snagging the man and his money and escorting him back to his room. I ordered two-for-one drinks based on a Foursquare check-in only to discover that the offer had expired, but the bar started serving two-for-one drinks at midnight just a few minutes later to everyone as the night's special. I did not realize it was the night's special and ended up with two beers and a tumbler full of bourbon.

Best of all, GalPal and I had time to reconnect. In Chicago we both lead incredibly full but extremely busy lives, so we don't always have time to just focus on the two of us. This trip gave us that time. It was grey and windy and rainy the whole time we were in Vegas but I flew back to Chicago with sunshine in my heart. It was a good vacation.

Roadrunner, roadrunner.

So I'm running a million miles an hour and juggling a dozen things and it's thrilling but breathtaking and by breathtaking I mean in the sense that it's hard to catch your breath but also wondrous because who knew you could be so engaged and plugged in and in touch with so many things at once and that's the point that you realize you are really good at what you do and that there aren't many people out there that can focus on so many different things all at the same time but then you realize one reason you have this ability (aside from it being a natural inclination which you can accept but you're also old enough to realize there's way more to it than your own personal abilities) is because you have some pretty awesome support groups and systems in place both personally and professionally and for once you feel like a real, live, grown up adult and it's a good feeling.

So, thanks.

I have lots to say!

I really do. Just not today. Tomorrow! I promise! Until then ... show me your paws!

Yeah, I went there. GaGa might be GoneGone and kinda predictable now but I still like SOME of what she does. And it fight the photo so well!

Late night questions.

WHAT IF you were a monster named Marbles and you were going crackers OR you were a monster named Crackers and you were losing your marbles?!

Deep thoughts, people.

LOVE.

If you're in Vegas, this show is ridiculously expensive but so worth it.

Vegas, day two.

So far, so awesome.