Love/Hate

Love - These Albums of 2009
Alright. I've slacked super hard on posting since the break. My computers been exploding daily, but it's no excuse. The laziness is so bad, that I never got around to posting this list until well after new years. But I did put a bit of effort into getting it all together, so I'm still going to post it. I do also plan to be posting much more regularly starting now, cause I've been finding a ton of new good music, and god knows enough Hates to last a while. So here she is.

First I am going to make a few stipulations. These selections are made based on the entire album being good, not just the single song. Also, the songs chosen are not necessarily the best songs, but personal favourites, or just a different song than what has already been posted in everyone elses lists. Finally, there are a couple bands I am not including that seem to have been on every other top list. Animal Collective don't make it; My Girls is a decent song, but the rest is just not my style. Empire State of Mind is a good song, but the rest of the Jay-Z album came up short. And finally, the Dirty Projectors, who seem to have been near the top of every list, including multiple spots on the Pitchfork lists. They are awful. They will never be on this blog. Now that that is out of the way, heres the list, in alphabetical order.

The Big Pink - Dominos - (A Brief History of Love) 

Bon Iver - Blood Bank - (Blood Bank EP)

Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart - (Fever Ray)

Florence and the Machine - My Boy Builds Coffins - (Lungs)

The Horrors - Who Can Say - (Primary Colours)

Julian Casablancas - Left Right In The Dark - (Phrazes For The Young)

Matt & Kim - Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare - (Grand)

Phoenix - Fences - (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)

The Rural Alberta Advantage - The Deathbridge in Lethbridge - (Hometowns)

The XX - Islands - (The XX)

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric - (It's Blitz!)

Hate - Grocery Bags

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving the planet and what not, but ever since this 5 cent per grocery bag law was implemented around the start of the summer, it has made every trip to the grocery store more of a headache than it already is. First off, you never remember the re-usable bags you're supposed to bring. They sit in the car or the kitchen, always getting into the way, until you finally move them, only to find you have forgotten them when you need them. So right off the bat you know you're screwed. Once the shopping is done and you head to the cash, the cashier sees you coming from a mile away. "Will you be needing bags?" they ask, always in a tone that makes me sound like a common criminal, like I plan to use the bags to go suffocate small forest animals. Sometimes they don't even offer and you have to ask, like they assume you'll just freehand all the groceries to the car. Then comes the question that drives me insane, the basis of this entire hate. "And how many bags will you need?". Well. Let me see. You've been working here for the last ten years, and I don't happen to have a degree in grocery bagology. You see how many items I have, how about you ballpark it? I'm sitting here with $100 worth of frozen pizza and ground beef, how about I'll toss 2 bucks for all your bags, and I'll use those as the bags I show up to the store with the next time? Minds = Blown