10/6 NO AGE - Losing Feeling EP
10/6 RAVEONETTES - In And Out Of Control
10/6 AIR - Love 2
10/20 FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS - I Told You I Was Freaky
10/20 EDITORS - In This Light And On This Evening
10/27 TEGAN & SARA - Sainthood
11/3 WEEZER - Raditude
11/3 FOO FIGHTERS - Greatest Hits

FUTURE RELEASES

1/12 VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Contra
1/26 CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG - IRM
1/26 SPOON - Transference

NOTE: This list will be updated regularly and I'll highlight the changes in bold. To keep abreast of updates to this post, consider subscribing to this blog's RSS feed.

John and Russ leave tomorrow morning and I will be joining them for the drive. Once we get to Lancaster on Monday, they start boardgaming and I'll be hopping a train to New York City, where I'll staying with my good friends Matt and Kabrina until Saturday.

STUART DAVIS - Something Simple
Thanks to my college buddy Josh, Stuart Davis will probably always be one of my favorite solo artists. Although some of the tracks on this 2008 release have been reworked from Stu's previous independently released albums, it's still a great pleasure to listen to. Why some of these tracks are not radio singles is a "Twisted Mystery" to me.

NADA SURF - Lucky
Another solid effort from Nada Surf should, at this point, come as no surprise. I used to think Weezer were the catchy rock song geniuses but Nada Surf eclipsed them this year when the Weez put out the horrendous Red Album.

REM - Accelerate
Solid from start to finish, this album is filled with tons of catchy rock songs. This is REM's best effort since Monster and it's more accessible, too. When you're looking for a decent straightforward rock song with a decent hook, this is the go-to album.

GOLDFRAPP - Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp went a little softer on this release, compared to the previous effort (which also made one of my year end lists) but that didn't seem to matter as this album is just as great as the beat heavy electronica on the last record. "A&E" is my favorite song of the entire year and just might rank up there among my favorite songs of all time.

CSS - Donkey
CSS's 2008 album seems more musically refined than their self-titled release of two years ago without a loss of snarkiness in the lyrics. I never quite know what they're trying to say but the songs are so great that it doesn't really matter.

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
After hearing "Kids" from this album on the radio numerous times, I finally figured out who it was by and checked out MGMT. Few tracks on the album match up to that song, but that's more a testament to my high regard for the song and not the mark of poor album quality.

FLEET FOXES - Fleet Foxes
I felt stupid for getting into Fleet Foxes months after everyone else started raving about them, but better late than never, right? This album has been the soundtrack to many of my cold and snowy walks to work over the past month and it fits the bill perfectly. I owe thanks to many people for recommending this album to me and I'm glad I finally listened.

SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS - Alpinisms
This one was a late contender because I hadn't even heard of School of Seven Bells until about one month ago. Since then, few days have gone by where I haven't listened to at least one track off Alpinisms, the band's debut. Hints of electronica and lovely female voices are always a big hit with me (see Garbage, Republica, Venus Hum, etc). None of those bands are very similar to School of Seven Bells, which should tell you that this is album is a fresh and original piece of work.

To sample a track from each album, press play on the widget below:

And there you have it, the Top Eight Albums of 2008. As always, comments are welcomed.

And just like that, I suddenly love the music industry again.

I think I'm probably going to go through withdrawal when this whole thing is finally over. I've been reading way to much polling data and statistics lately, mostly from the excellent site fivethirtyeight.com. I've learned a lot and have decided that the time has come for the official manyhighways presidential election prediction. Without further ado...

Barack Obama: 311
John McCain: 227

Chances are good that Obama will actually do much better than this, so I'm making quite a conservative prediction here. I'm predicting that McCain will win the battleground states of FL, MO and SC while Obama will win CO, VA, OH and PA. If McCain doesn't do well in the battleground states, the margin of victory for Obama will obviously be much greater.

One thing I am not willing to make a prediction on is the Minnesota Senate race which is the most contested in the nation, largely because of Independent Dean Barkley. Minnesotans have had no problems electing third party candidates before (see Jesse Ventura) so who knows what will happen on election day. The majority of polls are saying Al Franken has a slight advantage right now but this lead falls within the margin of error in most cases, making the race too close to call.

Finally, and most importantly, be sure to VOTE ON TUESDAY!

Yesterday's excursion has been in the works for a long time (with logistics handled by my sister-in-law, Sara) and though I originally didn't think I'd be able to make it, I'm glad I was. I hadn't been to Valleyfair for over ten years so there were a lot of rides that I had never even seen, much less ridden. Of course all the old rides like the Corkscrew, High Roller (which we always called the "White Roller Coaster" and the one that I was afraid of for many years as a kid because I actually shed blood while riding it) and Excalibur.

Most of the new rides built in the last ten years were great. Wild Thing is just your standard roller coaster but it's pretty good. It doesn't quite compare to Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg (which I have been to in the past ten years), but it's high and fast nonetheless. The other new coaster is an old school wooden one called Renegade which has a twisting drop on the first hill. It's a bit rough and my vision was actually blurred for the entirety of the ride because of the vibrations, but the ride is great and has lots of stomach turning twists and drops. We would've ridden it more often if the line hadn't been so long.

My favorite of the new coasters was Steel Venom, which opened in 2003. It's not a roller coaster in the traditional sense because it simply goes back and forth along a track. Riders are first launched at 55 mph up a 90-degree, twisting track, then fall back down and go up the back side of the ride. This ride was especially good because both times I rode, I was sitting in the front car with feet dangling and nothing to obstruct the forward view. When going up the twisting, forward portion of the ride, it actually feels like the train is going to fly off the track, and the view from the front is nearly all sky. The coaster is similar to Kingda Ka at Great Adventure in New Jersey but is a junior version because it only goes half as fast and one third as high. However, it's still a great ride, especially from the front and especially when riding with my brother, John who was a bit scared that there was nothing in front of us.

The other new-to-me rides which I was impressed by were the Xtreme Swing and Power Tower. Xtreme Swing is just that, a giant swing that goes 60 mph in both directions. We must have ridden this half a dozen times and it never got old. At the peak of the ride rider's literally face the ground and then swing around to face the sky on the other side. It also sounds like its powered by steam and it makes cool swooshing noises. I may have to do some research to find out how it actually works.

Power Tower, next to the swing, also appears to be steam powered and is actually two rides in one. It consists of three columns, two which drop riders from 250 feet, and the other which shoots upwards 250 feet. Shooting up in the air was good, but doing the drop portion of the ride was even better for two reasons. First, I am a bit afraid of heights. Roller coasters don't bother me because there is structure underneath, but when I feel like there is nothing under me I get a bit freaked out. On Power Tower, riders are basically sitting in a chair 250 feet off the ground with no floor. Secondly, once up in the air, the ride pauses for nearly ten seconds (building up steam?) before it drops, with no warning, to the ground. So, as if a long delay up in the air with nothing under my feet wasn't scary enough, the drop to ground intensifies the feeling. I especially liked the ride because it scared me so much, leading to a great thrill and much yelling when riding it, which we did twice.

Overall, the rides at Valleyfair may not be as high or fast as the ones in other theme parks around the country, but it's much less crowded which means shorter lines for the rides and more bang for the buck. This year's trip will most likely become a yearly tradition and I'm already looking forward to going back and screaming my head off some more.

My brother will be heading back to Minnesota with my parents on Monday but I'll follow my godmother and her husband back to Omaha and stay with them for a few days. They recently moved from Oxnard, CA and I haven't been to Nebraska since I was a kid so I'm looking forward to visiting the sights.

Stay tuned for posts and photos from the cornfields of Iowa and Nebraska!

They seem to have some sort of LED strips hanging down from trusses above the stage. Not only do these light up, but they can actually create patterns which the audience (especially those at the back) can see. In the video below you'll see the lyrics to the song "Everything In Its Right Place" scrolling in midair across the stage. Not only that, but there are video displays at the rear of the stage showing the band members. The second video below is shot from further away and you can see the coordinated fireworks which were going off during the song.

When I moved here last year I didn't have much time to find an apartment so I ended up in a less than ideal studio in St. Paul a few blocks from the Cathedral. As I wrote at the time, the location was amazing. The apartment was the opposite. Every window in the place looked out at the identical building next door and I couldn't even see the sky. The charm of living in an old (early 1900s) building wore off quickly and the claw-foot tub turned out to be annoying rather than neat.

Yesterday I moved into a bigger and better apartment. It's in a modern building with brand new carpet, a new kitchen floor, air conditioning and, most importantly, it has a bedroom. No more studios for me, ever. It's in a fairly residential area but is close to the shops and restaurants of Grand Ave. I'll now be commuting to work via my own two feet every single day while my car sits in a garage with a tank of gas that will probably last a month, if not longer. I face the rear of the building and look out at the garages but there are lots of trees behind them which is nice. When I woke up this morning I could see blue sky out the window and could hear birds chirping which made me smile. Beyond the trees is a road so I hear a bit of swishing from cars passing but that doesn't bother me. There are also train tracks next to the road but as everyone knows, I love trains, so I find the thrum of diesel engines to be rather pleasant.

Of course there are a few downsides. I am above the laundry room and can sometimes hear the spin cycle on the washers. And since this is an apartment, I do sometimes hear noises in the hallway or a bit of creaking from the person above me. But I expect I'll quickly get used to these noises, just as I got used to the sirens and street noises when I lived in New York City.

I set up the kitchen yesterday with a little help but there is much more work to do over the next few days. Time to get back to unpacking.

We woke up early on Thursday (July 3rd) and took a Metro North train up to the Hertz rental location in White Plains. Renting in the city is very expensive so we opted to take a train to the northern suburb and begin our journey from there instead. The drive north was largely uneventful. We encountered a few spatters of rain but it cleared up by the time we crossed into Canada. I was a bit concerned about the border crossing because my passport had expired, but I had my driver's license and birth certificate on hand so we made it into Canada after waiting in line for about ten minutes.

Our trip coincided with the conclusion of the International Jazz Festival so the city was a bit more crowded than usual, but it was certainly more pleasant than our last trip in February of 2007. Montreal is beautiful in the summer and we all ended up with an even more favorable impression of the city than we had last time.

Beyond a doubt, the most surprising experience of the trip occurred at La Sala Rossa, a Spanish social club on St. Laurent Boulevard. The club serves as a venue for rock concerts by night and Matt and I had checked their schedule in advance and listened to sound clips of several bands playing on Friday night. The bands were playing at the launch party of a local self-described "smut 'zine" called Lickety Split (this link is Not Safe For Work). We thought we were in for a concert but it ended up being much more. The show included some provocative dancing by a local dance group called the Dead Doll Dancers (another NSFW link) and the bathrooms were "gender neutral" meaning it was common to see members of both genders in the same bathroom. We had no idea that it was that type of concert but it ended up being pretty harmless. Oh, and the bands (The Hot Springs, On Bodies, Call me Poupee and Hollerado) were quite good.

Saturday we visited Pointe-A-Calliere, the Montreal Museum of Archeology and History. The museum building itself evokes the old Customs House which stood on the site, and is actually built over its ruins. They have a tremendous multimedia program which gives an overview of the city's history and then visitors go under the building to view the ruins of Old Montreal. It was a unique way to preserve an archeological site and it made for an interesting way to learn about the history of the city.

On Saturday evening we saw a few acts at the Jazz Festival. Rupa & the April Fishes put on a great show on Saturday night. Rupa is a beautiful singer who speaks three or four languages. The show was electric and both the band and the crowd had a great time. The next act, several crowded blocks away, was Beast. The crowd for them was much larger, but we didn't care for the music at all so we left the festival and had some drinks elsewhere.

Sunday morning we went to St. Joseph's Oratory for morning mass. The church is located on top of Mount Royal. It faces the boring side of the city but the church itself is interesting. It's actually several churches built on top of one another. The church at the top of the whole complex is built in a very modern style and involves lots of concrete. In other words, it's big but stark. We went to the English mass in the lower crypt church instead.

After mass we checked out of our hotel and headed back to New York. The return trip did not go as smoothly as the trip up. At some point before the border, as we were driving down the highway, the engine stopped. The fuel gauge indicated that we had about a quarter tank left but this was obviously not the case. We figured the fuel gauge was faulty and resolved not to trust it for the remainder of the trip. Luckily, we were only about a quarter mile from an exit which happened to have a gas station so I walked to it and brought back some gas.

With the car filled up we got back on the road and resumed our trip, thankful that the car didn't have any serious problems. However, we were foiled again when we joined a long line of cars waiting to cross the border into the United States. The U.S. Customs Officers must have been looking for some bad guys because the wait was ridiculous. We ended up spending nearly SIX HOURS in line. There was no way to pull off the road and there was no food or water to be found. Someone with bottled water walking along the highway could have made a fortune. Of course the four of us found various ways to amuse ourselves in the car and at one point I took a walk along the road out of sheer boredom.

After the interminable wait and a successful border crossing, we stopped for food at McDonald's, picked up some snacks at the wackiest convenience store I've ever seen in my life, and hopped on the interstate, thinking we'd be back in New York by 2:00 AM.

Half an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, the engine stopped and we were on the side of the road again. As it turned out, the fuel gauge had been correct all along and we had a much more serious problem than we thought. Basically, the engine was just stopping as we were driving and none of us had any idea why. Thankfully, after about ten minutes, Matt was able to start the car and we made it to the edge of Plattsburgh, NY. We stopped there and Kristin called Hertz who informed us that a new car would be sent out from Burlington, VT. Burlington is not very far from Plattsburgh. As the crow flies, it's only about 20 miles. However, because the trip involved a ferry boat ride across Lake Champlain on a Sunday night, it took THREE HOURS for the replacement car to be delivered. By this time we were feeling just plain goofy. We looked at the stars, killed mosquitoes, sat in the middle of the road and talked to a few locals (luckily for Matt, one even offered to let us use his bathroom).

At midnight, we had the new car and were back on the interstate. I let my three friends, who had to work in the morning, sleep and I drove the rest of the way back to New York City, arriving as the sun was coming up around 5:30 AM.

And that, my friends, is the story of an awesome weekend in Montreal and the arduous journey home. What did we learn from trip? Never, ever, under any circumstances, should you purchase, rent or even ride in a Chevrolet Malibu.

Download it directly from Eurotrip or subscribe and download via iTunes.

Post a comment and let me know what you think!

The United States/Canada border up in the Boundary Waters is a strange thing. In the area that we canoed, the border ran through the middle of Crooked Lake in most cases. Of course, there were no markings in the middle of the lake to denote the invisible line, even though being on the Canadian side of the lake is technically illegal (an offense which we and others committed countless times). On land, however, the border is marked by little .2 meter tall bronze posts (photo), which look like mini obelisks and have strange markings on them. As it turns out, the bronze markers in the Boundary Waters are just one of a dozen different ways of denoting the border between the two countries.

The lack of border security became a big joke during the course of our trip as I insisted on carefully looking at each canoe we passed to make sure none contained suspicious persons. Luckily, we didn't find any. The Minnesota chapter of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps must be doing its job.