Back then, I had a definite routine with my hour of computer time:

1. Check my email — usually from one of the other three girls who had AOL in 1999. “Hey Alice! It’s so kewl we can e-mail! We are kewler than everyone!!!!! LOL! –KeLlY!”
2. Check if any of the three girls were online to chat.
3. Type in AOL keyword “Nick” for Nickelodeon and see if anyone had posted anything interesting on The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo chat room.
4. Make sure my AOL Hometown profile referenced inside jokes with hotties to make the other three girls jealous.
5. Watch the hamster dance for the remainder of the hour.

My routine was the same until 7th grade, when I began the new ritual of having 40 AIM conversations at once. — Contributing Writer Alice Stanley

Alice’s Dial-Up Impression

I remember my first website, which I built in the fourth or fifth grade using Microsoft FrontPage. For reasons I can’t remember, it was called Isle Net, and it was supposed to be the fake homepage of a tropical nation who had declared war on its neighboring rivals, Island Net. The background was bright yellow, all of the text was set in Impact, and it was almost made up entirely of military-themed clip art in tables.

My dad spent a long time on the phone with Mindspring tech support (an ISP that would later merge with Earthlink) while we tried to figure out how to upload Isle Net to our family’s five megabytes of webspace. By the time we had gotten everything up, I had become so enchanted by the idea of making websites that I had decided that I wanted a real domain name. Back then, domains cost $50, and I’ll never understand why my dad spent that money and still let me pick cowfarm.com. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

Kevin’s Dial-Up Impression

In middle school, three friends and I decided to see who could build the best website. Armed with an Angelfire account and barely enough understanding to insert a couple of <blink> tags, I spent my days after school coding, perfecting, and learning how to incorporate frames into my modest HTML perch.

I named my site Timo’s Pad and created a title graphic to display at the top of the page. I had just learned how to install new fonts on my computer, so I decided to show off and display the site’s name in a Harry Potter-themed typeface called Parseltongue. It was badass.

The only actual content I remember including was a giant photoshopped jpeg of Natalie Portman’s head on the body of Slave Leia. I was so embarrassed of my parent’s reaction should they find the image that I buried it deep within the site’s intricate menu system, probably under an innocuous heading like “Stuff” or “Star Wars Things.”

There was never a winner declared in the competition, and I eventually deleted Timo’s Pad to ensure my parents would never discover the scandalous Star Wars bikini pic. But I lost the photo along with the website, so from time to time, for years afterward, I would scour the fan-art section of TheForce.net forums, hoping. — Contributing Writer Tim Lehman

Tim’s Dial-Up Impression

I got my first email address when I was eleven or twelve. I actually still use it on occasion to sign up for things when I don’t want spam in my Gmail account. Since it’s still active I don’t want to reveal it in its entirety, but let’s just say it included a number and “hotmail.com.”

Facebook wasn’t on my radar until 2005, but I was social networking long before then. I didn’t use the internet for anything in junior high except chatting on AOL and MSN instant messengers. That was the place to be for new boyfriend-girlfriend developments and gossip of any type. I think the only other site I frequented was the Disney Channel because I didn’t know where else to find free games. The flash games took the whole afternoon to load properly and they were all awful. — Writer Caitlin Boersma

Caitlin’s Dial-Up Impression

I owned a Super Nintendo, a Playstation, and maybe even a Nintendo 64 before I found my first foothold on the internet, but it was my early days on the web that solidified my love of videogames. I learned how to (not) resurrect Aeris on the Gamefaqs message boards, I looked up Smash Brothers secrets on IGN64.com (remember those days? Before the site devolved into bile?), and I scoured any site I could think of for someone who had found redeeming qualities in Yoshi’s Story. (To no avail; I still consider it the most disappointing sequel of all time. Yes, worse than Episode I.)

But because my browsing time was limited by my parent’s inexplicable need to use the telephone, downloads were more valuable to me than any single site. Actually, since I too used the languid Mindspring service, what I really wanted was small downloads. And you know what that means: ROMs and MIDIs.

On the legendary ZSNES Emulator (which still brings me waves of nostalgia when I boot it up today), I caught up on all the classic SNES titles I missed: Super Contra, Super Metroid, Super Castlevania… Chrono Trigger. I turned over the darkest corners of Altavista results pages to find these gems, then returned once more to the breach for low-quality, low-bitrate renditions of the music I had just fallen in love with in those games. Something about mastering F-Zero on horribly awkward keyboard controls and then reliving the glory with just plain horrible “Big Blue Theme” MIDIs was so perfect, a fitting entree into my long and ongoing affairs with retro games and casual piracy. — Editor Nick Martens

Nick’s Dial-Up Impression

Like Kevin, when I first started on the internet, I wanted to create my own webpage (that term sounds so outdated) using Microsoft FrontPage. I created a fairly elaborate site — I think I called it Visions of Grandeur — and I recall the logo being a swirling gust of wind (no, it didn’t mean anything). I put my own stories and poems on there (no, I will not let you read them).

After several months of working on my project, I decided I didn’t actually know how to put it online, so I just saved it on a CD (CDs!!!) and filed it away. Then I discovered porn and haven’t been working on anything since. — Writer Jordan Barber

Jordan’s Dial-Up Impression Instead of a dial-up noise, I think this perfectly sums of the slow, anxiety-inducing tedium that a 56k modem creates.

Like any good private school student with few extracurriculars and fewer volunteer hours, I took an SAT prep class to juice my chances of getting into a decent college. My Kaplan course employed a simple method for boosting its students’ scores: lock the kids in a dreary suburban office building for three hours a week — away from television, videogames, liquor, drugs, sex, and internet porn — and they will have no choice but to take a few practice tests and get used to the logic of the SATs. (Of course, a group of kids still snuck out to the parking garage during the fifteen-minute break to smoke pot.) Any teenager with some measure of self-discipline (ha!) could have achieved the same results at home for free by studying old tests. The teacher of this course and the robotic lessons he was paid to impart were unnecessary and uniformly unhelpful.

With one exception.

Our teacher was a recent grad, with an awkward haircut stuck between youthful and professional, who squirmed in his dress shirt. His lesson plan consisted of parroting Kaplan’s tricks for “beating the test” to us, which seemed designed primarily to mask the fact that most students never learned geometry. But in an unguarded moment he gave us a piece of information that probably raised each kid’s score by 50 points.

It was a vaguely scientific anecdote, the sort that would find itself at home in a Malcolm Gladwell book, on the subject of sleep. He told us that a given night’s sleep does not determine how a person feels the following morning. Rather, he said, getting too little sleep will make you feel tired one day later. This is, of course, complete horseshit. But as Stanley Milgram predicted, I trusted the word of this barely competent authority figure over a short lifetime of personal experience. So I didn’t panic about falling asleep the night before the test, nor did I worry about being at peak mental strength during the test itself. Basically, with one fantastic lie, my Kaplan teacher cancelled out a huge element of creeping doubt in the minds of all his students. And my SAT score ended up being the strongest part of my college applications. — Editor Nick Martens

In college, I had a habit of telling people that Nick was a really, really good skateboarder. Which is funny because Nick, as far as I know, has never rode a skateboard in his life.

I forgot how the joke started, but it picked up steam during the spring semester of our junior year of college. Nick was abroad in Amsterdam, and I was in the United States, spreading fantastical tales of Kickflip McTwists and 360 Flips to Mute (the only two tricks I remembered from the Playstation game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater).

“Yeah, a few years ago Nick flew down to LA for a qualifying competition for the X-Games. He didn’t make it, but he got pretty close.”

Nick doesn’t look like a skateboarder, but at the same time, no one’s ever doubted me — probably because nobody cares about skateboarding.

Still, I’m not sure what the long-term goal was. Maybe I just hoped that one day someone might actually hand him a skateboard and ask him to show off the skills that only existed in the conversations he wasn’t around for. Nick would have to politely decline, and explain that there had been some kind of misunderstanding or that the other Nick Martens was the one who skateboarded.

That never happened, although I’m pretty sure one time I even overheard someone refer to Nick as “that kid who skateboards.” But who knows. I could’ve made that up too. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

When I was eight, I visited the Philippines for the first time with my mom, who was born there. It was 1994, and we were visiting in the middle of summer. Being a spoiled American, all I wanted to do was bask in the air conditioning, read Martin the Warrior, and watch my uncle’s Laserdisc copy of Jurassic Park, both of which had been released the previous year.

After two days of trying new things — banana ketchup, pancakes with pure Karo syrup, Jollibee burgers, and a disastrous encounter with a fruit that looked like a kiwi but was about as sour as a tamarind — I decided that I’d had enough local cuisine, and would from that point on stick to familiar foods. This short list consisted of adobo, sinigang, cans of shoestring potatoes, and not much else.

In order to get me to eat the occasional fruit, my mom played a little gastronomic bait-and-switch. One afternoon, she presented me a bowl full of fruit pieces, which she called “Filipino peaches.” I knew what peaches were, so I ate the entire bowl — and asked for another, which she happily produced. These “peaches” were actually mangoes, and they were much sweeter and juicier than the limp, slightly sour versions I’d tried (and declared unfit for consumption) in the U.S.

Needless to say, I was hooked, and I ate two mangoes a day for the rest of my trip. It was one of the few times in my life that I didn’t mind being lied to at all. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

There’s a woman I’ve encountered several times near my apartment. She looks normal. She walks very quickly and whenever she spots a moving person she’ll beeline toward them with unnatural speed. Though not obviously homeless or crazy — she looks perfectly well clothed although her hair is a little ragged — the way she runs toward people makes me a little uneasy.

The first time she approached me, waving her arms madly as she came close, she started speaking before I could even hear her.

“Hey guys, hey guys! Hey guys! You’ll never believe what happened to me—”

She was looking for a handout. Or was she? The lady launched into a strange, rambling story about how her car was just broken into and all of her law school textbooks were stolen. She needed money so she could buy more textbooks to pass her test.

And then the overplayed, so-worn-out-I-immediately-stop-listening question came up:

“So could you guys spare a buck or two?”

My answer was no.

I thought my acquaintance with this lady was over, but a couple weeks later she returned. She was on the same street, rushing from one person to the next. She still looked fairly normal. She stopped me again, insisting that she was struck by a car while on her bike. She needed a ride for a taxi (this part was unclear) so she could get a ride home. She obviously didn’t remember me from our last encounter, or didn’t care, but I was so taken aback by her creative method that I almost gave her a dollar.

Why jump through so many hoops only to return to what every beggar inevitably asks his listener? I’ve since seen this storytelling mendicant only once. I ran into the nearest coffee shop until I watched her pass by in the window. She spotted a hapless victim across the street, and ducking oncoming traffic, ran toward them. — Writer Jordan Barber

I see my three-year-old niece just a few times a year, so every visit provides only a small window of time to endear her to me. Since she loves animals, I usually start our conversations with questions about whatever animals she’s seen lately. At the beginning of our last visit, I asked how her family’s pet chickens were doing. As I finished asking the question I looked up to see her father giving me the silent “finger across the throat” symbol.

Behind my niece’s high chair, I was told in hushed tones that just a few nights earlier, the chickens became the latest victims of a roaming pack of neighborhood raccoons. I was worried that it was too late; the topic of the slain chickens had been breached and now we would have to give my niece her first lesson on mortality. Worse, this dose of reality might be engraved in her mind alongside an early memory of me.

But she happily babbled that “the chickens are with the raccoons,” which is, if you think about it, nothing but the truth. Her parents had constructed the whitest of lies, and I was more than happy to play the accomplice. In fact, I hope the conceit will continue for as long as her innocence allows. Whenever they get replacement chickens, I will pretend that the two species were off on a worldwide hot balloon trip, or solving mysteries in an old Western mining town, or perhaps just out on a picnic, and finally the chickens got tired and needed to come home for a nap. — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

Photo by The Wolf.

Fresh off four months of studying abroad in Beijing, I was eager to share my host mother’s authentic Northern Chinese cooking style with my parents and girlfriend. I would be making my ayi’s rendition of la mian — hand-pulled noodles — which were served with rehydrated hei mu er (black dried fungus) and huang hua cai (dried daylily) in a salty broth. She made the noodles from scratch — rolled, folded, cut, and pulled over and over. They were soft but offered just enough doughy resistance, and their floury blandness was a perfect counterpoint to the alkaline tang of the sodium-rich broth. The black fungus was surprisingly pleasant in its rubbery quality, and it also complimented the soft, vegetal chewiness of the absorbent daylily leaves. It was ayi’s go-to meal, easy for her to make and always a hit with me.

I was proud of the symbolic value of my menu choice: la mian was the first dish my host mother served me, and now I would be completing the cycle, the noodles symbolizing the lessons I had learned, to be consumed by my loved ones in the first meal I prepared back on home soil. I was also proud that I would be making the meal with authentic ingredients, purchased under the supervision of my host mother and slyly stashed away in my bag alongside a liter of cheap grain alcohol.

On that first nervous night in Beijing, as I sat in the muggy, fluorescent-lit kitchen, I slurped the noodles with much enthusiasm — repeating “hao chi!” (“It tastes great!”). Back in California, the best praise my audience could muster was a polite “I see what you were going for” from my father. My mother glumly picked at the black fungus; she was never a fan of mushrooms to begin with and this dish wasn’t going to covert her. The broth — in Beijing electric, now just lukewarm water with some dissolved five-spice blend — had no hope of rescuing any of the ingredients from glumly existing in their own bland, sequestered realms of taste.

In the years since that failure of a meal, I’ve become a far more capable cook. But if you gave me the same ingredients, my la mian would still be awful. — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

I was in college, and I had yet to learn that “high heat” does not mean “leave the pan over a red-hot electric coil for like five minutes before using.” I was making Mark Bittman’s super simple garlic stir-fry, and by the time I threw my minced garlic into the pan, the oil in there could have passed for lava. The fat hissed and spat into the air, and the bits of garlic browned, blackened, and then — pop! pop! pop! — started exploding like tiny firecrackers filled with scalding oil. I dumped in the meat, but it started to sear instantly, so I rushed to get the vegetables in too. I grabbed my plastic cutting board and shoveled the bell peppers and scallions into the pan. I finally poured in the soy sauce, which scorched and nearly boiled over before finally settling down, leaving the kitchen stinking of dirty sulfur. When I tried to pick up the cutting board, it had melted to the coil I’d just cooked my rice on.

My housemates, and one visiting mother, witnessed the whole chaotic performance, complete with me insisting throughout that I knew what I was doing because Bittman said to use “high heat.” When I finally finished, the stovetop looked like a warzone, and for weeks afterward that coil filled the house with the smell of burning plastic whenever it was on.

But I got the last laugh because that stir-fry was fucking delicious. —Editor Nick Martens

When a group of friends invited me to their potluck-style Seder last month, I wanted to contribute more than bringing my customary wine or beer. I wanted to prepare something. I wanted to cook something.

A day before, my girlfriend Jessie suggested I make homemade applesauce. She had a good recipe, had done it before, and was willing to help me. Perfect.

Jessie is lactose intolerant, but that evening she decided to go for broke and eat cheese. Deciding to push her dairy-eating exercise to the extreme, for dinner I suggested a southwestern-style sausage casserole that called for generous servings of cheese and sour cream.

Soon after eating, we started chopping apples. By the time we had cut out all the cores, Jessie realized that trying to eat cheese had been a really dumb idea. She retired to the sofa, huddled in the fetal position and spent the rest of evening trying to sleep away the agony. The fate of the applesauce now rested squarely on my shoulders.

The recipe was simple — it called for just the apples, allspice, cinnamon, sugar and water. I tossed the ingredients into a pot and let them simmer for 30 minutes. All I had to do was stir occasionally.

I sat down next to Jessie on the couch while the apples were simmering, and promptly feel asleep myself. It’s my own unique form of narcolepsy that allows me to fall asleep at the most inopportune times. I woke up with a start about twenty minutes later and hurried back to the kitchen, but I could already smell smoke. The turbid, chunky concoction had charred wherever it touched the sides of the pot, leaving a layer of ash at the bottom. Even though there were still ten minutes left on the timer, I pulled the pot off the stove and stuck it in the refrigerator, unsure of what else to do.

I didn’t check the applesauce until the next morning, by which time it had turned into a sour, gelatinous paste. On the way to the Seder, I stopped by Trader Joe’s and picked up six bottles of Three Buck Chuck. I’ll cook something next passover. — Contributing Writer Tim Lehman

The summer after my junior year of college, some friends and I decided to meet once a week or so and try to make a meal that would stretch our culinary horizons. We dubbed our tradition “Housewives’ Night,” since of the five of us I was the only guy, and I kind of liked the name.

Against all odds, we had a month of unqualified successes: a whole roasted chicken, chile rellenos, raspberry souffles that rose perfectly. So, we figured, it was time to try something even harder, something that required hours of perfectly executed preparation and that could be ruined by one small misstep along the way. Naturally, it was time to make gnocchi from scratch.

So we peeled and boiled our potatoes, all three pounds of them. We mashed them by hand. We floured them. We extruded them and even made the little indentations on each and every one of them with a fork. We dumped them into the water, and transferred them to an ice bath when they were done cooking. And then, after sampling one, the only one of us who had ever made gnocchi before pronounced them unfit for consumption: they were supposed to be “little edible pillows,” which, according to her, these were not.

We ate them anyway, as much because we didn’t really want to see two hours of work go into the trash can. I still maintain that they weren’t all that bad; they were a bit gummy, which according to the culinary blog Smitten Kitchen means that the potato mash was too watery. But, according to the expert (and co-founder of Housewives’ Night), they had been ruined, and in such matters I suppose I should defer to her judgment. Five years after the fact, the gnocchi business is still a bit of a sore subject with her. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

My stepmother has a unique outlook on food. To put it lightly, she is a health-food nut. In my high school years, I remember looking in our fridge and not being able to identify a single edible item. Instead there were strange vials, unidentifiable lumps in saran-wrap, unpasteurized milk, and other unlabeled objects. To her, anything that had been “processed” was unacceptable (I recall her once noting that tofu “wasn’t that healthy”). As a high school kid, I felt like my life enjoyment was severely depressed because of this gastronomic totalitarianism.

To rebel against my stepmother, I plotted to cook the biggest greaseball of a recipe I could find on the internet. So when she and my father were out for the night at the tennis club, I drove my car to Safeway and bought ingredients for a rich, buttery French chicken dish I found online. I had never seriously cooked before, but I had all the confidence in the world that this would all work out fine.

I don’t even remember what the recipe called for, but by the time I “finished,” I had a soggy, greasy blob of chicken in a pan. On top of that, my parents called me to say they were going to be home early — in about ten minutes. Because my stepmother is the kind of woman who will have a seizure if she spots a Doritos bag in the garbage, I realized I had to get rid of all the evidence of my butter chicken. I tossed out the notion of actually eating what I had cooked and instead decided to throw it all away. I packed all the chicken and other random ingredients I had bought into a bag, ran outside to the garbage, dumped out all the other garbage bags and put mine of the very bottom. I then hurriedly cleaned the greasy pans and vented out all the smelly air in the kitchen.

By the time they got home, it was like nothing had happened, and I was still hungry. — Writer Jordan Barber

I am baffled by this past behavior. First of all, Abercrombie was so expensive. Apparently, at the time I simply didn’t have the mental capability to just shop somewhere cheaper (or not shop at all). Second, the expensive purchases were pretty much all sexually suggestive. I wish I could blame my youthful stupidity, but I totally understood my t-shirts that had “Abercrombie Camping: Forget your Clothes” and “Freshly Squeezed” emblazoned across the chest. I just figured people wouldn’t notice. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking. Whenever I started up with a guy, and he assumed I was anything sluttier than a rather chaste fourteen-year-old, I would be dumbstruck, even though my clothes were practically screaming “I’m easy!” Needless to say, my “50% Single” and “If You Got It Flaunt It Beach Party” tees have not been seen since 2003. — Contributing Writer Alice Stanley

I got my first e-mail account in 1998, just after I started high school. For me, personal email was still a novelty, and something that I didn’t quite understand — which is why, for instance, I thought it would be too risky to put both my first and last names in my address (hence: darrylC@onlinemac.com).

In my naivety, I spent a lot of time forwarding chain emails. This was, you have to remember, before the word “viral” had any metaphorical meaning, before people could propagate memes on YouTube and Facebook and ytmnd.com, before the combination of Google and Snopes.com became the preferred method of debunking internet legends. So I forwarded everything, from lists of blonde jokes (“…shine a flashlight in her ear!”) to surveys about my taste in music (“What’s the most embarrassing record you own?”).

To be honest, although I genuinely did believe that most of those emails were funny or amusing or a decent way to waste a few minutes, I also forwarded them because most warned of dire consequences for my adolescent love life if I didn’t. After all, I had enough trouble around girls as it was — why take any more risks than necessary? — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

Like many twentysomethings, my drivers license still has a photo taken of me in high school.  In this picture, I appear to carry just a tad more weight; my vital statistics on the card confirm that I have indeed shed a couple pounds since then.  To what can we ascribe this change in size and appearance? I’m fairly certain it’s related to my loss of love for Costco.

The sheer amount of food I consumed as a teenager were horrifying. Carbs were my addiction, and Costco, by selling the “Big Gulp” size equivalent of everything, was the enabler. Plastic boats of croissants, muffins, and cookies trembled in my presence. Crates of frozen mini-pizzas and sodas were no match for the metabolism of a fifteen-year old boy. And then there was the time a friend’s mom dropped almost $500 on food supplies for a Costco-furnished Super Bowl party.  I ate so many bratwursts that the Finance Minister of Germany should have written me a personal thank-you card for supporting his country’s economy.

After visiting Costco last weekend, the only food items I left with were spinach, almond butter, and organic brown rice. Not only have my eating habits changed, but my enjoyment of the Costco experience has as well. The novelty of free samples has been replaced by the grim sight of elderly employees robotically hawking salsa, detergent, and kitty litter. Navigating the canyon-like aisles used to be an adventure; now they are treacherous with bargain-seekers bumping jumbo carts. At checkout, a man was asked by an employee: “How are you doing today?” “Broke!” he said, pointing to a cart laden with home supplies. The uneasy tone of their chuckles left me unsettled. While it once beckoned as a bigger-than-life warehouse of limitless consumption, now shopping at Costco just feels like a necessary evil during slim times. — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

My first crush was on a girl named Emily Howard. She was a brunette and awkwardly tall (she had at least few inches on me). Thinking back, I’m not really sure why I liked her. Emily wasn’t pleasant, and any part of personality that deviated from a pale imitation of Daria could best be described as bland and forgettable. I mean, she wasn’t even that cute. Seriously, bro.

But Emily remains my greatest unrequited pursuit. I put it all on the line when I crafted her a mix CD — I know, the Donnie Darko of romantic gestures — which she never complimented me on. Or acknowledged. But can I really fault Em for that? It was an era when Jimmy Eat World, Alien Ant Farm, and Pink Floyd dominated my Winamp (remember Winamp?), and I’m pretty sure that mix CD included at least three songs by Incubus.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally check up on her Facebook profile. (Hey, look at that, she was tagged in a new photo.) And if she were to send me a message that said, “Hey Kevin, just found that mix CD you made me in high school and I adore it,” then I would be beside myself not to move to Boston immediately and see where things went. Right?

As the saying goes, “high school never ends.”

Okay, I think that’s a line from an Incubus song. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

No one understood me in high school except for Sylvia Plath. At least that’s what I think I thought back then. Her brutally dark and personal poetry was the intellectually stimulating, emotional outlet I needed. While everyone else was aimlessly cruising through their normal, unenlightened existence through high school — with the proms, committees, and football — I really knew what was going on in this life. Sylvia Plath told me so.

During our freshman year poetry presentation, I chose Plath’s “The Stones,” a grisly poem describing Plath’s numerous encounters at the hospital and the meek attempts to put her back together: “On Fridays the little children come / To trade their hooks for hands. / Dead men leave eyes for others.” Needless to say, it killed the mood for the rest of class. — Writer Jordan Barber

I don’t think any discussion about embarrassing obsessions from high school is complete without a discussion of Magic: The Gathering, the collectible card game that devoured my weekly allowance and lawn mowing earnings throughout middle school and into freshman and sophomore years. One of the few things more embarrassing than admitting to youthful follies of Magic, though, is admitting to once playing the game with a serious, tournament-level intensity. I’ll cop to that latter part.

The highlight of my Magic career took place when I was fourteen. My dad drove me and two friends to a tournament at The End game center in Charlottesville, Virginia, an hour-long drive that my dad spent listening to Car Talk and questioning the generosity of his gesture. For me, this tournament was a culmination of months of research and fine-tuning, of afternoons spent reading tournament reports and deck analyses. I had settled on playing Rebel-geddon, a white deck that would overwhelm my opponent with creatures and then destroy their mana supply. It was a thing of sleek and destructive beauty, and it needed to be, because both the day’s winner and runner-up would be invited to the Junior World Championships.

I cruised through the early rounds, dispatching a kid half my age who barely understood the mechanics of the game in the process. My friends long-since knocked out of competition, I found myself in the semi-finals, one match away from being invited to Orlando to play against the best under-sixteens in the world. My opponent kicked my ass — his Chimeric Idol was unstoppable, and even my Wrath of God was useless. But I didn’t mind too much. I left with eight free booster packs and enough success to rub in my friends’ faces.

The next year I played a domain joke deck at the Virginia State Championships. When the seven-year-old I had beaten in the junior tournament tore me limb-from-limb in an early round — he was now eight and more clear on the rules — I dropped out, sold my cards to a vendor there in the Holiday Inn ballroom that hosted the tournament, and used a pay phone to call my dad for a ride home. I couldn’t drive yet, but I had already outgrown my desire to play on the Pro Tour. — Contributing Writer Tim Lehman

At some point around Junior year, more as a result of spending too much time on the internet than of seeing the film Waking Life, I became fixated upon the idea of having a lucid dream. Looking back, though the obvious motivation for exercising conscious control over my dreamworld would be to rectify my lack of success with corporeal girls, I recall that I basically just wanted to give myself the powers of a Dragon Ball Z character. This is an embarrassing admission for a number of reasons, particularly since by that age I had long feigned disinterest in Japanese culture, but today I’m mostly ashamed that flying around and shooting lasers out of my hands was the best thing I could imagine doing with omnipotence.

Back then, as now, I could never shut up about something I was obsessed with, so I started to tell all my friends about lucid dreams and how, allegedly, to trigger them. Because I was trying so hard to control this involuntary process, I had no luck. But since my friends likely only half-listened to my blathering, these ideas must have filtered down to their subconscious minds, which, of course, is the only way to make this stuff work. Soon I was hearing reports of their awesome lucid dreams, and I was feeling seriously ripped off.

But then, every so often, I would be presented with a triggering scenario as I slept. (The light switch trick from Waking Life is one example. If you try to turn the lights off while dreaming, nothing will happen, you will realize you’re in a dream, and you can take control over it.) I would walk over to the switch, flip it, notice that nothing changed, pronounce that I was asleep, then become so excited that I was finally lucid dreaming that I would wake up. — Editor Nick Martens

I truly believed in the book report I gave on Timothy Leary’s The Politics of Ecstasy in 11th grade. In the ’60s, thirty-year-olds were taking hallucinogens for the first time and thinking that they had found the key to enlightenment. Doing so before you even have your drivers license makes you ready to jump on board Further with Ken Kesey and change the world’s perception of existence.

If the drug had been a dog, one would say it had bitten me, hard. For three years I immersed myself in Huxley, Leary, Casaneda, Jerry Garcia, and any other dreadlocked burnout to type an essay on their psychedelic experiences. These guys had the answers, and I was determined to follow their teachings. Thankfully, as the old saying goes, I was cured by the hair of the dog that bit me.

If you ever feel like you have dove so deep into the placid waters of hallucinogenic Nirvana that you will never again find the surface, just try taking them at a music festival full of drunk, drugged out hippies. I saw the dark side of every man woman and child that day. There was no enlightenment there. — Writer Locke McKenzie

(We also wanted to reassure readers that just because we have a beautiful new site, that won’t stop the editors from marring it with questionable amateur design.)

To be a pedant is to walk a fine line between condescending smugness and apoplectic rage. Each of these common grammatical errors definitely elicits more of the latter than the former. At least there is a good argument to be had over using which vs. that in a relative clause, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on. And there is hope, however slim, that the confusion between its and it’s can be stamped out by aggressive correction. But for sheer frustration, there is nothing that can top a grammatical rule A) that is fast becoming obsolete and B) that sometimes gets hypercorrected, even by the pros. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

Sean Penn and Elinor Burkett were guilty of being self-absorbed, but egomania is practically a requirement in the film industry, so that wasn’t surprising. And as awkward as the best picture announcement was, Tom Hanks was backed into a corner thanks indirectly to Ben Stiller’s (once again, self-indulgent) riff on Avatar. But what stuck out to me was the blatant attempt to yoke proper horror movies with the Twilight series for the sake of drumming up some extra business, under the guise of giving it the “respect” it deserved. The montage mostly showcased formulaic or cliched moments, too; if it was meant as praise for the genre, it was entirely of the backhanded sort. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

Chicken, I love you, but damn can you be bland, boring, and sad. When you’re at your best, you are the best, but you too often play the role of “inoffensive meaty filler,” so you’re out. And Duck, let’s be honest, you’re just here to fill out the bracket. Okay, I gotta give it to you: your fat drippings, c’est magnifique! But you don’t have the potential to become a true staple like our other candidates. Sorry.

So, beef and pork. Well, when the category is “meat,” it’s tough to argue with “Steak.” If that’s too rich for your blood, the ground variety gives us the venerable, thrifty, versatile burger. And who can deny the allure of slicing into a perfect, medium-rare roast. Beef is great because, at least in my experience, its presence always makes a dish a little bit special.

But as much as we Americans love our beef, pretty much every other cuisine on Earth prefers pork, and I think they just might be on to something. The bottom line, for me, is that pork offers the best price to flavor ratio of any meat. Supermarkets practically give away big, tough hunks of pork shoulder, which time an patience can render into divine carnitas. The tenderloin, a lean, delicate cut can be had for a fraction of the equivalent cut of beef. And the soul of the American breakfast centers on the savory fattiness of sausage and bacon. So don’t call me anything but a patriot for crowning pork the king of meats. — Editor Nick Martens

This was such a rich topic that I decided to forgo my typical procedure of exhaustive research and simply rely on what I instinctively know and recall. Now, let it be said that I did not play every Mega Man game ever, simply because there are more Mega Man games than people in the Ukraine. I have, however, played the all the classic NES and SNES versions, so I’d say this makes me relatively qualified.

And oh, the 8-bit glory of Mega Man music. Let’s start with Bubble Man’s theme song. The benign, airy beginning quickly swells into a mysterious, spacey epic with a tantalizing back-beat that energizes you with every skip-jump performed. But Bubble Man’s theme pales in comparison to the Snake Man song, widely regarded as the bravura Mega Man theme of the NES generation. The tremulous beats with that distorted and otherworldly sound, combined with Snake Man’s truly ground-breaking level design (remember those gyrating snake platforms?) means that Snake Man wins this round.

Some may object to the addition of Spark Mandrill in this competition because he’s from another platform (SNES) and thus has greater technology to work with. But his theme stays true to the Mega Man style and takes it in a completely new direction worth noting. The theme explodes in a refulgent faux-electric guitar sound completely unique to Mega Man, and it simply electrifies (or perhaps sparks?) the play experience and sense of tension and danger. And as much as I admire Quick Man’s ineffably melancholic 8-bit dirge, it doesn’t stand up to Spark Mandrill’s intensity of experience.

Thus, we must conclude that Spark Mandrill’s theme is the best Mega Man song produced. There are many detractors, I’m sure, and I sincerely hope the results of this bracket do not finalize the debate raging around this topic, but rather produce new arguments and insights. I’m welcome to your thoughts on the issue. — Writer Jordan Barber

News bloopers fall into roughly two categories: reporters out of their element, making asses out of themselves, and reporters who just don’t have it together even in the studio. Although the Grape Stomp lady and the Boom Goes the Dynamite guy made Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of internet memes, both are a little too uncomfortable to watch twenty times in a row. And even though the lizard freakout is good, the clear winner in this one is the newscaster, Cynthia Izaguirre of Albuquerque’s KOAT Channel 7, who introduces the Mt. Everest climber and can’t even correct herself properly the first time. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

The opening “Like a Virgin” conversation aside, there are few moments in Reservoir Dogs that stand a chance against Pulp Fiction’s dialogue. On the other side, Kill Bill Vol. 2 may be a culmination of Tarantino’s favorite Western and Japanese revenge tales, but last year’s history-bending Inglourious Basterds isn’t just a tribute — it’s a self-conscious movie-about-movies, and better, if not the ultimate, revenge story.

Which brings Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds to the finals.

The most common complaints about the Tarantino’s films are that they are either “too Tarantino” or “not Tarantino enough,” which is a reviewer’s way of comparing all the director’s movies to Pulp Fiction. But in five or ten years, I think Basterds will be the new standard of “Tarantinoness” (“Tarantinocity?”). It’s a bolder and stranger film than Pulp Fiction, more ambitious without sacrificing Tarantino’s meticulous ear for dialogue.

For a movie so audacious, Basterds is incredibly patient. The narrative may not be linear, but each scene is tightly constructed and carefully paced. And what Pulp Fiction character can even stand beside Christoph Waltz’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Colonel Hans Landa — one of the most original, captivating villains to ever grace the silver screen?

Also, Tarantino considers Inglourious Basterds his best work to date. If there’s one thing the guy is good at other than making movies, it’s talking about himself. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

As far as main dishes go, kung pao chicken is the right mix of popular and complicated. It requires a lot more finesse than any kind of battered meat-based dish or even most stir-fries, because you have to keep the vegetables crisp and the peanuts from getting burnt. Most of all, it can’t be bland. The appetizer bracket is a little more difficult, but in my experience a restaurant that makes a bad egg roll can still produce quality food, whereas one that makes a bad pot sticker is all but doomed. But pot stickers are a brute force method that can only tell you good from bad; kung pao chicken will give you degrees of difference. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

A great meme has the unique quality of becoming both stupider and funnier over time. Even though you know you shouldn’t laugh at something so dumb, you can’t stop yourself. In fact, the absurdity of laughing at the same moronic joke for the hundredth time compounds the almost surreal effect that memes have on the human psyche. The 9000 clip is my favorite meme because it takes this long process and compresses it into a single short video. It starts out dumb, on its way to fucking stupid, and the fact that I can’t watch it without doubling over in laughter makes me question any assumptions I once held about my own intelligence and sanity.

(Note: My enjoyment of the clip has nothing to do with nostalgia for the Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball Z, as I was far too cool to ever watch that sort of show, and I would certainly never program my VCR to tape it off of Toonami so I could watch several episodes in a row every day after school.) — Editor Nick Martens

I discovered my favorite internet meme only a week ago. But as soon the Nintendo 64 Kids video began, I felt something deeply personal resonate from within. See the picture below of yours truly, Christmas 1996, for the reason why:

That’s a feeling no LOLcat or sneezing baby panda video will ever touch. — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

Single serving blogs allow people to showcase their obsessions, whether it’s with local conditions, music minutiae, or high-definition pictures of food. Most are good for a quick laugh before they wear thin, but occasionally you stumble upon something that’s worth a double take—say, a professional entomologist-cum-photographer who can convince even the uninitiated that insects can in fact be beautiful things. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

My favorite meme is without a doubt Yo Dawg. They speak to my inner-math nerd. The image macro is based on a nested function, the formula of which was cleverly identified by Jamie Dubbs of Know Your Meme:

{yo, sup} dawg, I heard you like X, so I put an X in your Y so you can VERB while you VERB

So it’s like the internet meme equivalent of a Metryoshka doll. And thanks to Yo Dawgs, I can now tell the difference between Xzibit and Ice Cube. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

In the world of photo memes, the Lying Down Game is king. In its simplicity, it is absolutely perfect: lie down somewhere you would not normally do so and document it. Unlike its predecessor Playing Dead, which requires enough artistry to create an effective death tableau, the Lying Down Game allows everyone to be a star. I am amazed at how long I can flip through the photo albums. Often, the less artistic they seem, the more entertaining they are. It’s just what a meme should be. — Writer Locke McKenzie

Reflecting on 2009, I am forced to reevaluate this philosophy. Before the end of March I had seen three of my pillars for personal accomplishment crumble: I lost over 70% of my workload, every graduate school I applied to rejected me, and I got dumped. Strangely enough, this was the best year I’ve had in recent memory. In fact, these three “negatives” played a pivotal role in 2009’s success. Without them, I wouldn’t still be in Europe, I wouldn’t be starting my own business, and, at the risk of sounding sappy, I wouldn’t have a woman in my life that makes me happy every day.

I guess this is a pretty roundabout way to say this, but my New Year’s Resolution this year is to remain positive. It sounds simple, but it rarely is…

Looks like I’m off to a rough start. — Writer Locke McKenzie

This year, I’m going to watch one Criterion Collection movie a week.

For those unfamiliar, the Criterion Collection distributes what they believe are the world’s greatest films, everything from the masters of film — Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, and so on — to under-appreciated, out-of-print works from every corner of the earth. And they package everything perfectly: pristine transfers, worthwhile DVD extras, and even brilliant artwork. But what’s most impressive is their taste. Think of Criterion less as a distributor, but a curator.

I’m certainly no expert on cinema, and I honestly don’t love everything Criterion picks. But even when I don’t think the film is great, I’m always left with the feeling that it was worth watching. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to fill my Netflix queue with Jean-Luc Godard movies. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

It’s been seven years since I graduated high school, and I like to think that I’ve matured a bit since then. So I assume that I can now appreciate the books we read in high school English class much better than I could when I was a teenager. Or, in the case of Dickens, Hawthorne, Wharton, and Brontë, appreciate them for the first time. My first New Year’s resolution, then, is to re-read the Anglo-American literary canon as interpreted by my high school English teachers, from Orwell to Steinbeck, Fitzgerald to Lawrence.

My second resolution involves my computer chair. It’s a gently-used Aeron rip-off, which means that it has lumbar support, pelvic stabilization, a weave backing, and all those things designed for kinematic something and anthropometric whatever. The trouble is that I’m not meeting the chair halfway. Whenever I sit down, I resort to one of two positions: the “cooked-shrimp,” in which I lean forward so far that I become a kind of half-circle, or the “slouch,” in which my butt is basically right on the front edge of the chair (which is how we were told to sit in middle school band classes, so it’s a psychological default for me) and my shoulder blades are the only part of me in contact with the back of my chair. Not surprisingly, I end many days of full-time sitting with an aching back and weird crease lines across my torso (gross). So this year: sitting properly, with lumbar supported, arms in an ergonomic position, etc. etc. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

This year I resolve to complete a 10k race.

I’ve had many past New Year’s resolutions where I promised myself I would lose a bazillion pounds and become perfect. Needless to say, those never worked out. I realized that the problem was with my goal, not my inability to achieve it. The focus was always on weight, which made eating, a basic life necessity, a very stressful experience.

With the new goal of running my ass off — as far as I can take it — I’m able to accomplish something small every day, and the task of becoming perfect is made a lot less daunting. — Writer Caitlin Boersma

2010 will be the year I recommit to studying Mandarin Chinese. Specifically, I resolve to take the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, or 汉语水平考试), which is China’s standardized test for non-native speakers of the language.

I began studying Chinese in 2005, and reached my peak abilities in the fall of 2007, when I spent six straight months living and studying in Taichung, Taiwan and Beijing, China. Since my return, I have lacked a consistent regimen for maintaining my skills; I’ve kept things afloat by cobbling together a hodgepodge of study methods, including undergrad classes, independent classes, tutoring, podcasts, and picking up the occasional Chinese newspaper on grocery runs to Uwajimaya.

By making this resolution, I hope to prove the old adage that “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” I certainly do not need the validation of a test score (And really, who does? Do you even remember your SAT score?). Rather, by making this long-term commitment (the next test is in October), I hope to re-immerse myself in the study of a culture, history, and way of thinking that is far more complex and engaging than whatever a single test can encapsulate. — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

Since my favorite band, Pavement, is reuniting this year, I was all set to outline my plan to catch as many of their concerts as possible, which honestly isn’t as much resolution as self-indulgence. But then something landed on my doorstep: a box with an oversized Ziploc bag inside, and inside the bag a copy of McSweeney’s issue 33 — The San Francisco Panorama.

I’m a little embarrassed by how overwhelmed I feel in the face of this immense, astonishing collection of art. The issue is an old-school broadsheet newspaper (think Sunday New York Times, only bigger) packed to the gills with content from some of our greatest living writers, musicians, designers, and cartoonists. I don’t even know where to begin describing it; all I can really do is gesture uselessly at this promo to indicate the scope of the thing. It is a flabbergasting collaboration.

So here’s my resolution: I will wake up some Saturday or Sunday this year, I will find a warm bright place, I will open my Panorama, and I’ll read until night. I will interact with no electronic devices the entire day (with the possible exception of an old iPod). I will close my laptop; shut off my iPhone; the Xbox, DS, and PSP will remain powered down; and I won’t even look at the TV remote. One whole day without looking at a screen. Between work, leisure, and blogging I probably stare at LCDs at least fourteen hours a day, so I’m not sure what might happen to my eyes, but I’m willing to take that risk. An absolutely extraordinary effort went into producing this beautiful homage to newspapers, so it’s only right that it be given a fittingly analog reading environment. — Editor Nick Martens

The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa
Its title be damned, the Very Best’s Warm Heart of Africa is not your average world music bin placeholder. Sure, vocalist Esau Mwamwaya remains true to home by singing almost entirely in Chichewa, the native tongue of his home country, Malawi. But his voice is a jubilant, otherworldly thing, and when paired with the effervescent production of European duo Radioclit, the overall sound is propulsive and ebullient, aiming skyward and landing in some alternate dimension that smiles back down on Earth.

It is a joy to listen to this record and discover the next unexpected sound: cut-up childlike chanting on opener “Yalira,” soaring call-and-response vocals on the chorus of “Mfumu,” the oozing late-night stomp of mid-album standout “Julia,” and hopscotch rhyming by guest star M.I.A. on the “Rain Dance” to name but a few examples. How the Very Best managed to synthesize such stirring music out of so many different styles, and in such a depressing global context is anyone’s guess. What they’ll come up with next, under (hopefully) improving circumstances will be everyone’s gain.

Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
Stephen Wilkinson wins the 2009 award for Understatement of the Year. When asked in an interview how he planned to follow up on his early-year records Vignetting the Compost and Ovals and Emeralds, (the former an LP and latter an EP, released in February and March, respectively), he hinted at an upcoming “debut album on Warp records, hopefully June.” He added, “this one is going to sound different.”

In the opening moments of Ambivalence Avenue, the listener might think they’ve been put on — but only for the first thirteen seconds. On the eponymous lead-off track, Bibio’s trademark gauzy, loopy guitar noodles around familiarly, when it is suddenly greeted by a handclap beat; the blossoming of sounds that follows thereafter is nothing short of an artistic revelation. Wilkinson’s gentle voice deftly hops across tricky cadences and harmonizes with flutes piped in from the airy universe of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch on the title track; he also channels beatmakers like J Dilla, Prefuse 73, and Four Tet on “Fire Ant,” “Sugarette,” and “S’vive”, and pulls off a falsetto funk croon atop swerving bass and guitar on “Jealous of Roses.” Like fellow list-mate Tom Brosseau (who in 2009 also expanded on his signature one-man sound), Bibio has taken a bold step outside of his comfort zone, to entirely convincing and exciting effect.

1. The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa
2. Bibio – Ambivalence Avenue
3. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
4. Miike Snow – Miike Snow
5. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
6. Tom Brosseau – Posthumous Success
7. jj – n° 2
8. Built to Spill – There Is No Enemy
9. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
10. The xx – XX

Tim

Atlas Sound – Logos
The collaboration between Bradford Cox and Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox on the song “Walkabout” has been the subject of much of the discussion about Logos, Cox’s second release as Atlas Sound. It’s not hard to see why — “Walkabout” is sunny, upbeat, and plucky. (For my money, it’s also among the best work Lennox has ever done, either with Animal Collective or as Panda Bear.) But as much that song is wonderful in a light and breezy way, it’s the album’s other collaboration that draws me in.

Cox recorded “Quick Canal” with singer Laetitia Sadier, whose ethereal voice makes it so I didn’t mind being unable to decipher her lyrics, even after months of listening. (I’ve since read the lyrics — I almost preferred just listening to the sound of her voice floating above the organ and guitar feedback than to the words she sings.) I don’t think I’ve heard a lovelier or more entrancing song all year.

St. Vincent – Actor
I never listened to Marry Me, Annie Clark’s first album as St. Vincent, but all it took for Actor to hook me was the introduction of a distorted guitar riff two-thirds of the way through album-opener “The Strangers.” The tension between that guitar line and the quiet melody Clark sings over in the song’s first minutes is both an apt descriptor of the record as a whole and one of the many sources of the album’s success.

Clark said that she listened to Disney soundtracks while writing Actor and it shows — her songs are peppered with whimsical string arrangements and warbling woodwinds. Instead of succumbing to these saccharine influences, however, Clark subverts them. Her bordering-on-sludgy guitar playing does much of the work, as do her melancholy and nightmarish lyrics. From the existential dread of “The Strangers” (“Paint the black hole blacker”), to the stealthily lugubrious “Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood” (“All of my old friends aren’t so friendly / All of my old haunts are now haunting me”), it’s the dissonance between Clark’s monsters and her schmaltz that drives Actor.

1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
3. Atlas Sound – Logos
4. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
5. St. Vincent – Actor
6. Art Brut – Art Brut vs. Satan
7. Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
8. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
9. The Antlers – Hospice
10. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

Jordan

Gossip – Music for Men
Music for Men loves a brooding teenager: the all-or-nothing declaratives, the emotional neediness, the helplessness, despair, and eventual strength found in love. The album seems to be interested mainly in post-breakup emotions. Whether it’s reminding us that it’s “the last time I love and let love” or the declaring that “love is a four letter word that should never be heard.”

Critics like to connect Beth Ditto to some sort of gospel-punk mix when she belts out songs of freedom like “For Keeps.” The track “Men in Love” is nothing less than rallying cry for same-sex love. The first single, “Heavy Cross,” exhorts the freedom of individuality and personal power. Compared to their last album’s single (“Standing in the Way of Control”), “Heavy Cross” is more polished, leaving some of Gossip’s punk roughness behind in exchange for vocal and pop clarity.

Some were unsatisfied with this change (there is also backlash that Music for Men was mastered too loud), but the album ultimately uses Beth Ditto’s voice in the way it should be used. One foot in pop and the other in punk, carried by Beth Ditto’s vocal talent, Music for Men veers from electrifyingly soulful tracks like “Love Long Distance” to fast shoutfests like “8th Wonder.” Brooding on the emotional chaos of love brings a lot of ups and downs, but Music for Men feels relatively unified.

Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
Psychic Chasms is a dreamy, retro-infused synth trip intended to channel the feelings of the sex-and-drug-infused cultural movements of the ’60s and ’70s. The single track “Deadbeat Summer,” with its simple message (“it’s just a deadbeat summer”) and breathy vocals bring thoughts of youthful love and celebratory slacker-dom.

The sounds of Psychic Chasms, though, are distinctly new, which makes this album all the more impressive. Songs like “Laughing Gas,” which begins with a playful miasma of laughing and synth sounds, quickly transforms into a steady beat, vague vocals, and electro pop tunes pulsing behind the intervening laughter. The lyrics are simple, but they’re not really the point: the song “Should Have Taken Acid with You” repeats the title line over and over; occasional interjections arise, like the vocalist dreaming of “[taking] our clothes off in the swimming pool.”
Like every other ’70s homage, Psychic Chasms moves beyond the physical pleasures of drugs and into transcendent celebration. The title track, possibly the most wordy and complex, declares that “distant looks from your face take me to another place in time where we were more refined.” The mental pleasures of psychedelic intoxication, which is the basic story arc of this short album, could not be better stated.

1. Gossip – Music for Men
2. Psychic Chasms – Neon Indian
3. Florence and the Machine – Lungs
4. Dragonette – Fixin’ to Thrill
5. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another
6. Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster
7. Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
8. The XX – XX
9. Mirah – (a)spera
10. YACHT – See Mystery Lights

Nick

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
After blowing minds with 2007’s chaotic Street Horrrsing, an electronic noise album that felt, by turns, apocalyptic, tribal, and migraine-inducing, Fuck Buttons made the brilliant decision to restrain themselves on this year’s Tarot Sport. Rather then spinning further off into experimental delirium, they boiled away the hairy parts of their debut, extracted its moments of genius, and expanded those moments into a beautiful album.

Most of Tarot Sport explores the groundwork laid by Horrrsing’s opening track, “Sweet Love for Planet Earth,” a song that bathes its listeners under waves of seductive distortion. But if you could get seduced by “Planet Earth,” Tarot Sport can put you into a trance. Though mild and melodic compared to their earlier work, the new album still retains the feverish, menacing quality of real dreams, and it evokes this feeling as strongly as any music since Loveless. The whole album is utterly absorbing, but “The Libson Maru” stands out for developing complex, delicate emotions — something like melancholy mixed with wonder. And that’s what makes Tarot Sport this year’s finest; I never expected to hear such a perfect electronic elegy.

No Age – Losing Feeling EP
A four-song EP may seem like a lightweight next to this year’s heavy hitters, but the songs on Losing Feeling represent more than just songs. Every second of this record drips with potential, evidence of blooming greatness in the minds of the LA-based lo-fi duo. Last year’s Nouns was an excellent record, but all four tracks on Losing Feeling surpass it. On the EP, No Age expand upon their raw sound by insisting that each song hit more than one note.

The title track opens with a woozy, wandering guitar, but soon an insistent drum pounds through the stupor. The contrasting aesthetics demonstrate a new maturity — Nouns owed its greatness to simple teenage angst, but Losing Feeling explores grown-up emotions with similar aptitude. This developments keeps me coming back to this record; whenever I listen to it I can’t shake the sense that No Age are on the verge of creating the next Sound of Silver.

1. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
2. No Age – Losing Feeling EP
3. Fever Ray – Fever Ray
4. Yacht – See Mystery Lights
5. Sonic Youth – The Eternal
6. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
7. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
8. Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Youth
9. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
10. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast

Kevin

Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

God Help the Girl – God Help the Girl
It’s been almost four years since the last Belle and Sebastian album, but frontman Stuart Murdoch’s musical film side-project thing, God Help the Girl, is a twee pop triumph. (There’s a phrase I never thought I’d write.)

God Help the Girl elevates a familiar idea and sound. The sugar-sweet melodies and idiosyncratic characters that inhabit the songs on God Help the Girl are distinctly Murdoch, but paired with the confident mezzo-soprano of Catherine Ireton and the lush instrumental arrangements reminiscent of The Life Pursuit, the songwriting soars in ways that we’ve never heard on a Belle and Sebastian album. The title track shares a lyrical kinship with Tigermilk, but its orchestral flourishes and gorgeous harmonies set an entirely different tone, while the instrumentation of “Musicians Please Take Heed” could be lifted from an Ennio Morricone score.

And much credit should be given to Ireton’s range. It’s not just the notes she can hit, but the versatility of her vocal character. She can imitate Murdoch’s tender candor on tracks like “If You Could Speak” or really belt it on the swing-stepping “I’ll Have to Dance with Cassie.”

God Help the Girl isn’t quite musical theater — it’s far more cinematic. The movie itself isn’t due out until next year, but unlike the film project from another one of my favorite indie pop singers, I’m actually excited to see this one.

1. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
2. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
3. Japandroids – Post-Nothing
4. God Help the Girl – God Help the Girl
5. Handsome Furs – Face Control
6. Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
7. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
8. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
9. The xx – XX
10. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Things went bad almost immediately. I got vinaigrette on my tie and tried to scrub it out right at the table, with water from my water glass and my napkin. Eventually my date, exasperated, told me that I wasn’t allowed to make any more sudden movements lest I get more of my meal on myself.

The rest of the dinner passed without incident. But as we pulled up to the Community Center, my stomach started churning. Normally I’d take any excuse that I could get to miss awkward high school dancing, except this year I’d been elected to the Homecoming Court. So I danced (as little as possible), I went on stage, and I took plenty of deep breaths to try and calm my gut. I was on the verge of passing out when I realized that people were cheering and someone was placing a crown on my head. I was Homecoming King.

That meant I had to dance with the Queen, get pictures taken, the whole nine yards. I managed to keep it together, and when all the Court stuff was done I thought that my nausea might have passed. So I decided to stay for one more song before sneaking off. The DJ played Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Jump On It.” Which I did.

Suffice to say, my nausea came roaring back, and I ended up regretting that meal for the next two hours in the Community Center bathroom. — Assistant Editor Darryl Campbell

When I bought a Zenith laptop in the mid-’90s, I was using my heart, not my head. There was something about the spastic Z in the Zenith logo that suggested a particularly American approach to electronics. Its sharp lightning-bolt corners conveyed a mid 20th-century view of “the future” that will have snazzy Z-named products and electricity. The logo inspired memories of my family’s old television, a woodgrain behemoth that looked like a fortress on stilts. When this CRT monstrosity went fuzzy, only a swift kick to particular spot on the living room floor brought it back to attention. Those old tube-intestined beasts smelled like burnt hair and had real magic in them. But by the ’90s, Zenith had hit its nadir.

A crank on the side of a Zenith laptop would have been an improvement — at least it would have given you something to do with your hands while you stared at the blank screen and listened to the grinding wheels within. Black, boxy and nearly useless, the Zenith laptop was the last gasp of the American electronics giants — the future would contain no Magnavox, no Sylvania, no Philco, no RCA. The logo, though, is still pretty nifty. — Contributing Writer Jonathan Gourlay

Initially, I was going to write about my most traumatizing haircut ever. But as I sat waiting for literally over 40 minutes while my relatively-new-though-unresponsive laptop choked on Recent Updates, I felt my blood pressure rise and my mind cloud over with irrational belligerence. Yup, reevaluating.

Last year, I agonized over my much-needed new computer purchase – whether to go Mac or stay PC. Since my Toshiba had done me right all through college, I just decided to remain loyal to PCs. After much debate, a few visits to Best Buy and the Apple Store, and more inner turmoil than a person is supposed to experience over electronics, I committed to the PC — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

I ended up with an HP TouchSmart tx2, and it’s the most busted-ass contraption imaginable.

To be fair, it does what I want 73.158475638756396 percent of the time. Whenever I talk myself down from a blinding fury, I try to remember that rarely do we acknowledge when things work as they should — “Aw man, Word just loaded the FASTEST!” or “Wow, that was the most awesome not-freeze just now!”

But that other 26.someoddpercent is enough for me to frequently curse the day I took the little guy out of the box. I’m supposed to exercise the virtue of patience when dealing with annoying people, delayed flights, and yoga moves. Not new computers. — Contributing Writer Whitney Medved

No one forgets their first love — red-hot passion, sleepless nights, the whole insanity bit. My first love was a five-way tie: Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh, and Sporty. Lord, was I obsessed with the Spice Girls. At age ten, my funds were by no means extensive, but even kids have some income. Holiday checks. Random chore income. Extra lunch money. Like any good sugar daddy knows, love is expensive, and all my capital went directly to Spice merchandise. T-shirts. Dolls. CDs. Jewelry. Chupa Chups lollipops. It is the last that plays the villain in today’s tale.

Chupa Chups created a special brand of strawberry sucker with a Spice Girl’s face imprinted on it. The snack sold for 50 cents and came with a sticker stuck to the inside packaging, 24 different stickers in all, each depicting a member of Spice in various poses. I became fixated on collecting the whole set. Naturally, it wasn’t as easy as buying 24 suckers. Like trading cards, there was no way to tell which sticker you would get. I got duplicates up the wazoo, so I would guess the total I spent on my collection was somewhere in the $60 range (basically my whole savings). Here’s the kicker: I didn’t even like the candy. I would throw it out and keep the package. When I did finally get the very last Posh Spice sticker, I was ridiculously happy… for maybe five minutes before realizing what a stupid expensive hobby I had taken on. First love, first big regret, but the memory lives on. It has to; I have never been able to part with the collection. — Contributing Writer Alice Stanley

Last spring, I bought a Playstation 3, which would be the first console I’d owned since early high school. I was more or less raised by videogames, but didn’t play much after my sophomore year of high school or in college. Faced with a lot of free time in my post-collegiate life, I thought, Why not start playing videogames again?

Just to be clear, there’s nothing I regret about the Playstation itself. The experience is arguably not as robust as what the Xbox 360 can offer, but I’ve had the chance to play through Metal Gear Solid 4 and LittleBigPlanet, which are available exclusively to the PS3. And it’s worked pretty well as a media center, as I’ve streamed movies from my computer to the TV in my living room.

The thing I regret about buying a Playstation 3 is that it made me realize that I don’t really like videogames anymore. As a kid, I would wake up early on Saturday mornings to get a few extra hours of game time in; now, I find myself impatient and trying to get through levels on any game as quickly as possible. Side quests? Yeah right.

Videogames are longer and more detailed in every way possible, but I still haven’t found a title that’s affected or surprised me as much as the occasional free indie game. I might be the only person who’d rather replay Gravity Bone than shoot my way through Resident Evil 5, and while I do really love Beatles Rock Band, I think the thing I like most is that it encourages everyone in the room — playing or not — to drink. A lot.

Maybe I should’ve gotten a Wii. — Editor Kevin Nguyen

When I was in first grade, my elementary school held a fall festival that included a costume competition. My mom and grandmother spent what I imagine were countless hours behind the sewing machine, painstakingly recreating Disney’s vision of Aladdin of Agrabah. Complete with a plastic lamp and cardboard fez, the costume was nearly flawless.

But when it was time to go to the festival, I became self-conscious and decided to wear a gray turtleneck beneath Aladdin’s vest. It looked ridiculous. I wore sneakers instead of going barefoot and further destroyed the illusion. Walking in a circle with the other contestants to show off my costume for the judges’ panel, I knew my squeamishness was going to cost me an award. I was right: a fifth grader dressed as the Cat in the Hat won. That I might not have won even if I had gone bare-chested never crossed my mind.

My apathy for Halloween in particular and costumes in general can likely be traced back to that afternoon. Probably my deep-seated neuroses and self-loathing, too. And isn’t that what Halloween is really about ― scarring children? — Contributing Writer Tim Lehman

On Halloween my goal was always to be as scary and disgusting as possible. Without chest hair or the slightest inkling of peach-fuzz, this was a way for us to claim our masculinity. We rubbed dirt in our faces and blacked out teeth to be pirates. We bought puss-covered masks with an eyeball hanging out. These were all good, masculine costumes. They were sure to scare the pants off the girl we liked, which was tantamount to bedding her (before we knew what bedding was).

Patron saints did not fit this paradigm. That did not stop my mother from forcing my sisters and I all dress as our patron saints (I was Saint William of Vercelli) for Halloween when I was eight-years-old. She swooned and chuckled at the unabashed cuteness of our Halloween costumes. My friends, in turn, laughed out loud and chased me around with their swords.

My mother still maintains that I was adorable. So are princesses. — Writer Locke McKenzie

My mother has always been a hippie at heart. Not a “Smelly Pothead” hippie, but more of the “Do-It-Yourself and Frugality is My Religion” variety. As a result, I never had a store-bought costume for Halloween. Instead we always crafted a costume out of a large box full of dress-up clothes and my sister’s old dance recital outfits. Many years I was a witch or vampire because we had a bitchin’ cape, but I also went through a phase where I dressed up like something fairly commonplace and added a mask or googly eyes to become a monster. In this photo, I’m simply wearing the tutu and ballerina shoes I wore to dance class, but donned my brother’s scary mask (almost certainly a result of his influence) to become a three-year-old “Ballerina Monster.” — Writer Caitlin Boersma

Recalling any single noteworthy Halloween costume is impossible for me, because apparently my childhood was a schizophrenic whirlwind in which I freely swapped outfits and identities like so many Weird Al cassettes in an Aiwa boombox. Need proof? Take this email from my mother, summarizing my dress-up antics:

[You dressed up as a] tiger; some outfit where you had on a white skirt of B’s draped like a cape and a black scarf around your head (?!); just diapers and a shirt on your head; B’s dance tutu and headband; cowboy with gun and sword (fully armed!); giraffe spotted face; robin hood; plastic knight guy; plastic knight guy horned hat with summer solstice shirt and two rubber gloves – one orange and one yellow: menacing look; bird with big yellow plastic beak and huge silver and yellow wings with thigh-high socks; pink dance outfit of Becca’s with long pink fringe and arm warmers; head shot with mean plastic fangs; karate guy; vampire (not a great photo); Robinhood 2 with plastic sword; magician (?) or circus ringmaster with mustache; totally outfitted (kneepads, wristguards, helmet, rollerblader; Dodgers outfit with mitt; Lakers outfit with basketball; red powerranger guy with pumpkins; vampire 2 with fangs, bloody mouth and black cape – hair slicked back (about age 8?); ½ green face and ½ wounded face with wild hair (with pumpkin)……..remember how I had such a hard time buying that gross stuff for you?; peacenik (with pumpkin). That gets us up to about age 9.

It’s a wonder I paused for the camera at all. Yet many photos like the one below still exist. I present to you: “bird with big yellow plastic beak and huge silver and yellow wings with thigh-high socks.” — Contributing Writer Daniel Adler

To be honest, I was never all too creative when dressing up for Halloween. I was always in dance classes, and my parents had to buy lame costumes for my spring recitals. Frequently, I would just reuse those the next fall. Campy and flashy — they worked well. This lovely little number I wore in fourth grade during a tap routine to the Casper the Friendly Ghost theme song. It worked perfectly in my mind. But, then kids would ask what I was, and I wouldn’t have a clue. “I’m a Casper girl!” Then, I would add DUH to really seal the deal that my costume was legit. — Contributing Writer Alice Stanley

I always wanted a Nerf gun, but my mom never allowed them in the house. She believed they were dangerous, too dangerous for a nine-year-old such as myself.

“But Mom, they just shoot foam darts with rubber tips. Come ooonnnnnn.”

But she didn’t yield to my nagging.

So I came up with a plan: dress as Boba Fett from Star Wars and demand that a Nerf gun was an essential piece to the costume. Naturally, my father bought me the Nerf gun that resembled the weapon Fett had on his forearm in Return of the Jedi. I then coaxed my parents into buying what I’m sure was a very expensive replica helmet to complete my outfit. Success!

A week after Halloween, my mom confiscated the gun after I shot my brother in the eye. — Editor Kevin Nguyen