I like this picture for three reasons:

1. Nathan has hair again
2. Princess Fluffybutt looks totally into it
3. My old building is in the background

More of Nathan’s animal photography.

Sorry for those that have been checking in look for IRCMT posts. The holidays have been too crazy for me to get all of this stuff together, so we’ll start for real on Monday!

Hope everyone has a good new year. See you on the other side.

Hi! I promised a recap post from last year since we never gave it a really proper one, so here it is. I also strung all the tracks together so you can stream the hour long mix. I was listening to this at work today and was reminded how amazing it all was, especially the last track which a lot of people may have missed since it wasn’t originally posted in sequence with the rest of the tracks! I think it’s awesome, and I’m not just saying that because it’s by my wife.

I’ve got a couple of songs now; I hope you’re working on more! I’m hoping to start posting on Monday, so enjoy this for now and check back soon.

1. Ready for the Floor (Hot Chip) – lippy
   
2. Starlings / The Wolves (Elbow / Bon Iver) – The Life and Times of You
3. I Kissed a Girl (Katy Perry) – The Greatest American Sport
4. White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes) – Hermano y Hermana
5. Me, the coyotes, and the prairie (Mt. Carl) – Old Shoes
6. Now or Never (High School Musical 3) – The Klakamus Fred Meyer C+C Music Distribution Center, Featuring Harvey Whittington
7. Polly (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss) – Muck and Charty
8. Take Me To Your Leader (Clambake Clamdust) – The Bellingham Covers Collective (Matt Fu of 1985, Peter Woiwood of Go Slowpoke and Ian Imhof)
9. Dynamite (Clamdust) – The Bellingham Covers Collective (Matt Fu, Peter Woiwood, Anna Arvan of I Love You Avalanche)
10. Oppressions Each (Brightblack Morning Light) – Extraordinary Rendition
11. Sentimental Heart (She & Him) – Jenna Frye
12. Weekender (My Little Brother) – Fokker-Planck
13. Autoclave (The Mountain Goats) – Molly Painter
14. Lump Sum (Bon Iver) – N. Timothy Salazar
15. California Girls (The Magnetic Fields) – Josh Kaffer (T-GAS), Ryan terMeulen, Jordan o Jordan
16. No One (Alicia Keys) – Alison Smith

It’s been a great week in NYC so far, and we still have the rest weekend! We’ve mostly been eating, and we’ll continue to do so until our flight out on Sunday. I had an awesome time doing a lecture over at Pratt, and have some slides to show for it over on Slideshare. We have a lot more food to eat, and I still have songs to record and notes to get up. This will come in time.

If you read one of these links, I’d choose Dean Allen’s thing. A lot of context may be required, but the man is still to be respected for these decisions. Or, you may not care, in which case I would look at that burger list, just to shake your head in disagreement.

• More on Favrd’s Shuttering
   + I talked about this in my talk on Wednesday. I think that's it's a rather decent thing that Allen took everything down; it reinforces the fact that he wanted to stop contributing to people's own inability to stop take stock of their own lives by re-affirming their value on a star-by-star basis. Leave your livestock at home.
• New York Times ‘Article Skimmer’ Prototype Still Up
   + Is it just me or do the typekit fonts look really bad? I think it might be Windows-rendering related.
• Some Notes On RED
   + "Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle."
• A Visit to the Pratt University Steam Plant | The Steampunk Workshop
   + I used to work across the hall from this place.
• We heard you like Boxee so we put your Boxee in a Box: Boxee Box confirmed
   + as far as headlines on internet memes, this is a pretty hilarious headline. see http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/xzibit-yo-dawg for context.
• Crunchpad Manufacturer Renames Product JooJoo, Promises Launch This Friday at $499
   + $500 bucks? So, it's in direct competition with the Litl. I'm guessing Apple will release a tablet within the year, and it will retail for about $200 more than all these netbook/tablet machines and it'll take over the market within a year of its release.
• Twitter: The Grease Trap Of The Human Meat Computer
   + "If you love something, set it free. With one of those tracker anklets. With a bomb on it."
• Top 5: Leslie Kelly's Favorite Burgers in Seattle
   + there's a lot wrong with this list, but i think it also may suffer from a dearth of really, really great options for burgers in Seattle. the stuff that is good isn't as good as some of the good stuff i've had elsewhere. it's a fact you just gotta deal with. or you go to portland. or you keep searching!

Hey the end of another week! This is craziness, right? I started working on a song today and it’s really far from ready, but yes, it’s been started! Was listening to some more The Thermals today, man that album is good.

In any case, I’m out of commission, mostly, music-wise until probably around the middle of the month because I’m heading out to the East Coast tomorrow night for work and a lecture (that I’m giving!), and some fun, too. I’m working on a recap post from last year, just to tide us over until the music starts rolling in.

Until then, here are a few links from the week. Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Chewbacquina Jordan

• Said the Gramaphone's 75 Favorite Songs of 2009
   + IRCMT fodder.
• Super High Speed Trains Might Be A Part Of Your Future Holiday Travel Plans - Future metro - io9
   + check out the video of this train. 331mph. crazy fast.