i had the best weekend! holly and michael came up from the bi-state area, and it was just wall-to-wall fun. from walking among the beauty of the gates to dirty dancing at the bulgarian bar, from delicious greens at tsampa to the cream of tomato soup and toasted brie baguette at salt bar, from the cuteness of all dogs everywhere to the hotness of my new fluorescent pink sean puffy coat, it was all very, very merry, mostly due to the awesomeness of my friends. definitely the weekend to beat in '05.

ooh! and i plunked down for that starbucks comp. no coffee, just the cd. here are my favorite tracks so far (it was hard deciding, so you should buy it):

::: Joseph Arthur, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" ::: love those strings.

::: Old 97's, "She's Got Everything" ::: is it wrong that i don't know the original, by the kinks?

i was surprised at how much i loved the gates. i thought they were beautiful, especially when the sun was shining through them and they looked like they were glowing. i love the crazy christos or whoever they are for being weird enough to basically pay a tribute to the color orange. i love the fact that they say things like, "this island will be surrounded by pink," and then they do exactly that. i don't know why, but the gates just made me insanely happy. i only wish that i had been able to see more of them, and spend more time in them. two weeks is not enough gates! never enough gates! the other interesting thing about the gates is that they lead to the creation of even more (and arguably better) art: witness these cool shots from jake, and more from rion, and if that's not enough, hit flickr. i also love the crackers. fyi: i got a sample of the fabric and will be constructing a special one-of-a-kind gates ipod cozy, so watch out for that.

brendan benson and jack white made an album together. brendan compared it to "nevermind," which is weird of him. but he's still hot and brilliant, so i'll overlook it.

a plea: while i was on vacation, tickets for the go! team went on sale and sold out. it's not my fault! help me out, someone. if a pita reader does not get me a ticket (or tickets) to see the go! team (at mercury lounge, natch, cause i'm that bratty that i'm not interested in trekking to southpaw), god is going to shut this blog down. and you don't want that.

and now for last week's links:

the case of the golden penis. precious. and NSFW (duh).

ugh, hunter thompson shot himself while his wife was on the phone and his 6-year-old grandson was in the house.

finally, i am proud to announce that my own Personal Web Designer has apparently been cheating on me. scott went and designed a site for hip literary mag the believer. it's pretty.

::: Silkworm, "Let's Kill Saturday Night" :::

::: Waco Brothers, "Baba O'Reilly" :::

tom wolfe and ralph steadman on hunter s. thompson.

that's it for pictures, though i'm sure my web-enabled vacation buddies leanne, amy, and eileen will have some up in due course. as holly acknowledged the other day, the punta cana trip could be spun either positively or negatively. on the plus side you've got the fantastic weather, the beach, the blue-green water, the unlimited daytime drinks. on the negatory side, you have thatched-roof bars that smell like rotten beer and/or poo, greasy horrible buffet food, bananas daiquiris varying wildly in quality. and i was a little uncomfortable being a person who doesn't ever set foot outside the resort and actually see the country they're visiting. it's not really the kind of traveler i want to be. but this was holly's birthday jam, so we sucked it up, sucked 'em down, and made fun of the abundance of trashy euros.

the routine was something like: omelets at 9, beach by 10, first cerveza shortly thereafter, lunch, pool, more drinky drinky, nappy nappy, shower, dinner, watch the resort's raunchy show, crash. one night was holly's birthday dinner (wherein a waiter wrongfully assumed i didn't know the difference between mariscos and maricon; nice try, you rude mofo), and one night we made it to the unbearably cheesy late-night discoteca (an establishment i would never tolerate in new york, and didn't really in the d.r. either). i discovered that i am not immune to seasickness, and that most people don't want to go extreme buggying due to the likelihood of getting muddy (lame). we didn't leave the resort at all, well except for that unexpected early-morning trip to the dominican hospital when one of our group slipped into a diabetic coma. we got to see some countryside from the ambulance...awesome!! (everything was resolved fairly quickly and no one had to die, which was good too.) anyway despite my desire to detail the unpleasant aspects of the trip (did i mention puking over the side of a speedboat? how about the bared bosoms of old ladies?), i had a great time. really. i even got some color (and some weird rashlike dry skin on my arms). fun!

and now we're back to reality, almost back to regularity (there i go again). let's blog some shit.

sleater-kinney's upcoming record leaked to the internets about three months before its official release, and they ain't too happy about it. i wonder why they took that statement off their website; it seemed quite well-reasoned and respectable. i especially like the part where they point out that there are plenty of other entertainments to tide you over between now and may 24. they're right. i downloaded that decemberists record and still haven't gotten around to listening to it. you might as well respect the artists' wishes and buy the album when it comes out if you're a fan. you can read the whole statements from sleater-kinney, the prefuse 73 guy, and the decemberists guy regarding their leaked albums on this discussion thread.

no one can argue with streaming, though. streamy stream stream the new crooked fingers and m. ward albums. [via catbirdseat; meow!]

longtime blogger jason kottke has quit his paying job and soliciting contributions from his readers so he can "blog full-time." i'm sure i'm not the only one who thinks kottke is krazy.

purseuing: a blog about bags! [via the aforementioned krazy kottke]

my first caribbean vacation...let's just say it sorta sucks to be back in the cold, slushy city. here's the first set of pics. more tomorrow, maybe with some stories.

a few days ago i fell in love with brendan benson. it's been a while since i stumbled across a true repeat-1 track, one that i simply had to listen to over and over again on the ipod. he's got a new album coming out in a bit -- you can grab some tracks from scenestars. he plays bowery ballroom april 15, and amy and i will be there. in the meantime, listen to these little slices of pop perfection, from his last album, "lapalco":

::: Brendan Benson, "Tiny Spark" :::

::: Brendan Benson, "You're Quiet" ::: (this is the repeat-1. it makes me want to be brendan's girlfriend.)

i am fairly bummed that fez is closing and i'm going to miss what i guess will be rhett miller's last solo shows there (unless he adds some march dates -- fingers crossed). the days of me as love-crazy superfan are gone, but it was always good times hanging out eating hummus, watching rhett swing his hair and get sweaty and cutely show us his children's notebooks. he's signed with a new record label as a solo artist, and is working on a new solo album, so he'll probably play new stuff, which dear god let's hope is better than "the instigator." there's also an old 97s live dvd which may or may not be necessary, and it sure looks like this starbucks valentine's day comp with neko case, calexico, old 97s, rufus, m. ward, and jim white doing cover love songs could be pretty sweet. *deep breath*

i failed to read this entire article about computer-abetted A.D.D. because i got distracted and bored. i had better things to do like pasting it to my stickies for later blogging, grabbing some actual work out of my nonvirtual inbox, checking my email, loading up another website, applying lip gloss, composing multiple emails, etc. i guess the lip gloss wasn't my computer's fault, but uh, you could say i can relate. frankly i don't think you even need to read the article, if you're anything like me.

man chops off own balls after his OWN TEAM wins a soccer match.

hey, since when is "prostie" a word? tabloid hed writers make me ill. don't even get me started on using the dollar sign in place of an S.

okay, that's it! have fun, suckers! remember: don't die!

::: Rogue Wave, "Kicking the Heart Out" :::

::: Rogue Wave, "Endless Shovel" :::

::: Rogue Wave, "Every Moment" :::

i can't believe i am about to comment on this silly blog thing...so ultragrrl posted this "expose" about how a few months ago, a bunch of bloggers saw the same movie for free and wrote about it. gawker picked it up and called it "linkola." my worthless two cents: it is not news that writers get shit for free, nor is it news that writers of all kinds fall prey to a certain pack mentality (see also arcade fire). it doesn't seem like a big deal to me, the fact that these kids got to see a movie for free. but i do remember being a little embarrassed for my blogging friends when all those raving reports came out. it was as if they had never seen a movie before.

i'm not sure exactly what sarah's point was, but i think she may have been feeling a little icky as a result of this post story about tastemakers, which includes some really retarded (and offensive) quotes from new york's so-called cool kids. the whole article is pretty disgusting. when you're putty in the palm of some dumbass publicist, sorry kids, but you're not cool. perhaps she was pondering the slippery slope? for the record, of course, all of the bloggers i know are a hundred times cooler than the idiots quoted in that article. anyway, there are some fairly interesting points in the comments section of ultra's post. here is my favorite, one of only a few level-headed ones, which sums up my feelings on the matter neatly:

I don't know which is worse: The fact that they'd *require* coverage in trade for such a little thing as a ticket to a movie and a few drinks, or the fact that bloggers come so cheap. Does a label REQUIRE you to write about something because they mailed you a CD at minimal cost to them? No. Come on, bloggers, don't be such suckers.

But I think this is old school versus new school. Back in the day, writers/press/what have you wanted credibility and to be independent in every way from The Man, no matter how big or small The Man might be. Not so anymore. C'est la vie.

i paid full price for million dollar baby, and it was worth all 1,050 pennies. it was amazing. i could have done without the incessant voiceover, but other than that, the movie totally knocked me out (sorry). not as good as "mystic river," but still pretty damn great. if you enjoy extreme sadness, this movie is for you.

thanks to ipoditude for this funny writeup of my cozies, although it should be noted that, ahem, we prefer the word "vintage," and most of the cozies these days are made of new jeans. FREE jeans, as a matter of fact. as a second matter of fact, i have new ipod cozies for sale at the shop. moving on...

29 thoughts aboutthe apparent sexiness of conor oberst. bonus points for derogatory comments about joanna newsom's voice. i like this guy's style. check out #27. [via she's bitter, a great blog that posts about fashion (yay!), music, and other fun things]

cool photo essay: changing the face of power: women in the u.s. senate. [via kathryn]

woman accused of killing husband with sherry enema. file under WTF. i mean seriously, who drinks sherry? oooh, via tmftml, more info.

here's a pretty fascinating article about a blind painter and whether one can "see" without sight.

there is a supermarket cooming [sic] soon to clinton street. yay!

four days till punta cana!! there has been quite the discussion about beach coverups in my group (or at least among holly and eileen and i). fashion epiphany for the day, experienced while sorting skirts in the neverending effort to corral my wardrobe into a tiny corner of my shoebox-shaped room: white terrycloth miniskirts do not qualify as a coverup. if one needs a ruffy miniskirt to walk from one's hotel room to the beach, one can wear a ruffly miniskirt made of denim. if one actually needs to cover up at the beach, one should wear a LONG skirt. but i'm just hoping it doesn't come to that.

i've really been loving the waiter rant blog, written by a head waiter (i think) at a fancy restaurant. you would not believe what some people tip. but the guy is a top-notch storyteller.

"hostage" u.s. soldier is probably an action figure.

mcdonad's wants you to fuck its sandwiches. [via catchdubs]

krucoff has joined the evil gawker empire: gridskipper is a travel blog. so far we've got tips on cheap eats in nyc and the best cafeteria food in san francisco, but my favorite post has to be the first one, featuring a hilarious photo of kruckie after a good meal.

i love that the post reports on an accident in some punk's pants four fucking years ago as if it's news. so best.

everywhere i go -- home, work, restaurants -- it's freezing. 10 days till punta cana.

but the hold steady cannot compete with bob pollard, who now has approximately 82 projects in the works, and i am barely even exaggerating. the comedy album, "relaxation of the asshole," sold out in two days, by the way. but still to come this year is a soundtrack to a soft-core porn movie by "a major director." he's re-issuing everything ever issued, this time on red vinyl and with eighteen extra tracks each. another box set. side projects galore. and the news, from the official website, mind you, is that "there are rumored to be a handful of live performances in the fall." which is most definitely yay!

anybody for some jean claude canned ham? [thanks kurt]