Kiva and Happy New Year!

As a brief departure from my usual babble about television, rockstars, and bands, I have decided to write about an organization I heard about this morning (on television!) called Kiva. Kiva is a not-for-profit organization that arranges micro-loans for small businesses in developing countries. The way it works is that you go to their web site (www.kiva.org) and look at profiles of people in the developing world who are looking for small business loans. You can choose a person/business and donate as little as $25.00 toward their total loan (the total loan amount is usually about $1000). Later on they will post journal entries describing what is going on with their business, and eventually you are supposed to get paid back. I find it interesting in that it seems "hands on" and it is also a little voyeuristic. There is a New York Times article about Kiva here: New York Times Article about KIVA

Anyways, Happy New Year everyone. See you in 2007!

Best Songs of the Year & Merry Christmas!!!

NME has listed their "Top 50 songs of 2006". You can find the list at this link: Stereogum Post of NME Top 50 songs and here's the top ten:

10 Yeah Yeah Yeahs – "Cheated Hearts"
09 The View – "Wasted Little DJ's"
08 The Horrors – "Sheena Is A Parasite"
07 Amy Whinehouse – "Rehab"
06 CSS – "Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above"
05 Gnarls Barkley – "Crazy"
04 Muse – "Supermassive Black Hole"
03 The Gossip – "Standing In The Way Of Control"
02 Peter Bjorn and John ft. Victoria Bergsmen – "Young Folks"
01 Hot Chip – "Over and Over"

I have to admit that I have never heard of Hot Chip, nor do I think it would be possible for me to like a band called Hot Chip. I did try to download a bunch of the songs on the list to see if I could find some new bands to like.

Rolling Stone published a top 100 list which is also pretty good but includes way too much cheesey stuff - Chamillionaire is in the top 10.

They also have an interview with Sufjan Stevens (Sufjan Stevens article in Rolling Stone) who has released a 5 EP Christmas album recently. I love Sufjan Stevens. I think Illinois was one of my favourite albums of 2006...even though it was released in 2005.

On that note, Merry Christmas everyone!

P.S. Has everyone by now seen the SNL/Justin Timberlake "Dick in a Box" sketch?

You can find the uncensored version here for now: Justin Timberlake on SNL
Too funny!

Augusten Burroughs - Dry

I just bought the memoir "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs and I am loving it. This is the follow up to Running With Scissors, which I have mentioned before. The story begins with Augusten as a 24 year old Advertising guy with a serious alcohol problem:

"When I was thirteen, my crazy mother gave me away to her lunatic psychiatrist, who adopted me. I then lived a life of squalor, pedophiles, no school and free pills. When I finally escaped, I presented myself to advertising agencies as a self-educated, slightly eccentric youth, filled with passion, bursting with ideas. I left out the fact that I didn't know how to spell or that I had been giving blow jobs since I was thirteen."

(You can read an excerpt on amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Dry-A-Memoir-Augusten-Burroughs/dp/0312423799 )

I was laughing out loud on the streetcar this morning reading this and really recommend it.

Hey, I think that this is my first non-television related post in ages!

Party of Five

As much as I would like this not to be a post in my blog, I have to comment on my current tv obsession: my new Party of Five dvds. While I'm willing to admit that Beverly Hills 90210-Season 1 was a little tedious, I have to say that I am...obsessed?....with this tv series.

In other tv/dvd news, I thought my next obsession would be Northern Exposure, but I just discovered that they are replaying that series on omni tv at about 1am. Perfect for insomniac me. Maybe I will try 24 instead? The Sopranos? Lost?

Since the high point of my social life for the past week has involved me going to Ikea on Friday night, I don't have much else to report.

Britney Spears - Ouch!

A lot has been said about Britney Spears in the tabloids lately... Apparently she has been on a bender with Paris Hilton, sleeping in cars, smoking, clubbing, flashing her naughty bits to the paparazzi, etc. etc. Now I'm the last person to moralize about bad behaviour, but someone should really help her out with her wardrobe, or at least get her to put on a bra and a clean wife-beater. Scary.
In not at all related news, I heard Neko Case on Definitely Not the Opera on Saturday and was pretty impressed.