Caught in a bad romance

I don't even want to classify Lady Gaga as a guilty pleasure. I do not, nor should I, feel guilt for enjoying her music. She is really intelligent when it comes to music and music theory and each one of her singles is more brilliant than the next. I will absolutely admit to being a blind hater at first. As with anything in the entertainment business - when something is hot - it is easy to become skeptical and sometimes it extends to strongly disliking something without having a clue about it.

Luckily, I did myself a favor and gave Gaga a chance and was an instant convert. I don't know The Fame Monster well enough to include it on my top 10 of 2009 but it has been enjoyable enough to land in the honorable mentions.

Without further ado - here is my top 10 albums of 2009

1.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
2.) Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything To Nothing
3.) Regina Spektor - Far
4.) Karen O And The Kids - Where The Wild Things Are OST
5.) Little Brazil - Son
6.) Thrice - Beggars
7.) The Takeover UK - Running With The Wasters
8.) Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen
9.) The Used - Artwork
10.) The Decemberists - Hazards Of Love

Honorable Mentions:
The Almost - Monster Monster; 30 Seconds To Mars - This Is War; Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix; Coconut Records - Davy

Albums I Need to Hear:
Wale - Attention Deficit; Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon;

*My top 10 was compiled by sorting out all of the albums I have gotten that were released in 2009. I then narrowed it down to ones I had listened to, and from there - ones I could recall enough to know they made an impression. This gave me a list of 27 albums. From there I picked the ones that I enjoyed the most, found my self listening to the most, or was generally impressed by more than others. This is not a 'best of 09' as much as a 'favorites of 09'.

Picture today is of an altered nerf gun. I made/altered this nerf gun back in my early high school career as part of the 'nerf club'. This club lasted about 3 meetings, but it was enough to get 2 well altered nerf guns out of it. The club was headed by and attended by some people who I would later become really close with as we ended up on our schools frisbee team, but that is for another time. I found the guns while in my attic tonight, and in finding them still fully functional - they will be coming back to NY with me.