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By Katie Kish, December 23, 2008 4:18 am

The Best and the Worst of 2008

It’s that time!

CDs

5. Sarah McLachlan – Closer: The Best Of … I’ve always loved S.M. I used to joke with Sam that I have a “Sarah Sense” because I’d always seem to find her music on the radio. She has probably been the most consistently admired and loved singers since I was like 10.
4. Josh Martinez – World Famous Sex Buffet …I love a little hiphop
3. Mr. Scruff – Ninja Tuna
2. Bright Eyes – Cassadaga
1. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals …I read an article recently about “girl talk killing music” because he uses clips of essentially illegal bits to make his music…but gets around it because they’re all online samples and stuff. …His mixes are amazing.

That category is always the hardest, other bands who released beauties: Tokyo Police Club, cat power, tv on the radio, the walkmen, mates of state, british sea power, …and others. sigh.

Movies

5. The Dark Knight – I’m still having a hard time deciding if I like this movie because it was so entertaining and so like…comic book looking, or if its because Heath Ledger died so there was a huge hype around his acting. I’ll say this – he did a great job. But some people were saying he should be given an award for it…even though he’s dead. I don’t really think that’s necessary. Anyway, I think the movie was really good. It was dark, but it was also a lot like the Batman with poison Ivy in it – it had that cool comic book feel to it.
4. The Strangers – this movie was weird.  …I love Liv Tyler and it scared me to death.
3. Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – i think CON are really cute stories. Despite the obvious religious undertones to them, I really really like them.
2. Sex and the City – much anticipated and not disappointed …although I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in a theater as I did when I saw this movie. It may have been the fact that we were drinking wine in the front row, so we were a little tipsy, or it just could have been that it was so tragic to see the girls is such sad situations. Sigh.
1. Wall-E – not only was it mine and John’s first date movie…it has a great message about the environment and mocks our consumerism. Which I always like It was by far the best movie John and I could have seen on a first date. Robot love? Seriously, it doesn’t get any better.

Books

5. In Search of Time by Dan Falk
4. The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
3. A Madman Dreams Of Turing Machines by Janna Levin
2. Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg
1. Factory Girls by Leslie T Chang

Gadgets:

5. Nokia N95 8 gb – My new phone! 8 GB worth of space, Wifi, 5 mp camera with carl zeiss optics, radio, mobile e-mail, vision tv/radio, a gorgeous screen with DVD like video capabilities, 35mm headphone jack, 8 gb internal memory, gps with preloaded maps… and best of all, it doesn’t have a full keyboard. I was so sick of the full keyboard, bulky shape and “smart phone” look of my blackberry. The Nokia looks like a normal phone, but totally does more. Its great.
4. HTC Diamond – my brothers phone… it’s sleeker and more easily customizable thank the iPhone. The only reason I didn’t get this over my phone is that it is a touch screen. They seem to be all the craze right now, but I just don’t like them.
3. Flip MinoHD – a tiny HD camcorder for only like $200… mostly because it only has 4gb worth of space…
2. The nikon D90 – *drools* an HD camera. …
1. Optoma Pico PK-101 – the MP3 player projector… I really need to get me one of these. Its the size of a regular iPod, plugs in and plays your movies on the wall. …awesome.

Games
I dont really do a whole lot of game playing…

5. Wii boxing…i played it once
4. Rock Band …I pretty much rock at everything except the drums. But…i’ll get to those in 2009
3. I started playing WoW a couple days ago, i’ve played twice
2.Sims!…one of the expansion packs came out this year, i dont remember which one. But thanks to john i have ALL the expansion packs and have WAY too many options. Its awesome.
1. Spore…. cooool

Hits of the financial crisis:

5. AIG’s credit fiasco
4. No more Fords and Chevys – the Detroit big three went belly up! the earth is happy, but hummer drivers are not.
3. Citibanks 75 000 job cuts
2. Greenspan – people are living in tents!
1. Iceland …is broke, needing to take billions of dollars from the IMF, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Finland.

Sciencey Stories:

5. The Invisibility Cloak
4. Bigfoot is a rubber suit with dead animals inside of it
3. a squid with elbows
2. something tugging at the universe
1. The Large Hadron Collider

Absolutely Hilarious

5. The McCain green screen challenge – McCain did an interview in front of a green background, prompting Colbert to challenge his audience to come up with the best scenes to put McCain into
4. Letterman to McCain “You don’t show up for me, America doesn’t show up for you!”…after McCain stood up Letterman, and was shown at another interview instead, it was the core of Lettermans jokes for weeks.
3. The writers strike… so many late night talk show hosts were SO strapped for content. …hahahaha suckers.
2. is america ready for a woman president? – Samantha Bee as Carrie Bradshaw
1. Tina as Palin…and she didn’t change any words.

Personal Worsts:

5. Working in retail – even though I was the boss, i hated it. i hated bending over backwards for jerk ass customers and seeing people spend 800 dollars on clothes. I hated fitting plus women for bras in the summer when they smelled funny and I hated answering to my overly bitchy and micromanaging district manager. She treated me like a moron. I hated that job.
4. I miss a lot of people including Shaneka, Mark, Caitlin, Torrie, Ashley, Dan, Patrick, Karl and family
3. My currently housing situation – my roommates are annoying, they turn the heat up to over 30 (literally!) and leave messes in the kitchen all the time. My door doesn’t really lock and I’m an hour out of the city. I can’t walk around with no pants on and I have to pay to wash my clothes.
2. The York U strike…dont even get me started
1. My grandma died and it was the sadest of all sad.

Personal Bests:

5. Working at acculink where I met Christine and Stacey – two of the best women I’ve ever met in my life. Plus it made me value the 4/10hr shifts a week thing, and loved being on midnights.
4. Moving to Toronto in June. Although I had to shack up with Allen for quite sometime, I love living here and will be sad if I ever have to move out of the city.
3. Getting a job at CFI… my job is to advance science and secularism in society. How cool is that?
2. I’ve lost 20 lbs in the past 2 months! woo!! i love weight watchers…except now the skin on my belly feels really weird, like loose. its kinda gross.
1. June 24th – John and I had our first kiss and were a “couple” by the next day. awe, <3

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By Katie Kish, July 8, 2008 8:05 am

So apparently I’m a huge douche bag and bought tickets for the WEMF when it’s the same weekend as the CFI – Transnational Student Leadership Conference. *sobs* …So I have to pick one.

Originally it was a no brainer! I mean, this is the LAST WEMF… How could I miss it? I love electronic music, I have plans to go with AMAZING people and the festival always delivers 800xs more fun than promised. So my first inclination was to say “ta ta!” so the atheists and jump onto the music snob train.

However, after further consideration about what would actually be more beneficial to my life in general… and the fact that I’ve volunteered myself for more responsibility than I should have at the conference… and that I forced Kate to go so that I wouldn’t be alone… and that I wouldn’t mind spending the weekend with the intern… I decided I should probably go to the conference. *huge sob*

Sooo if you wanted to go to the WEMF, but didn’t get tickets in time, I have 2 totally up for grabs. Best offer gets them, really. Although I’d prefer to sell them at the original price… not any higher, … I know they’re going for like $300 some places, and I’m not ready to do that to people who just want to enjoy some music and connect with their inner… … …whatever, you know.. drop acid.

Lemme know if you’re interested! AND if you do go – you must give me a 100% fully loaded run down about how amazing it was. Because seriously, I’m really sad I’ll miss this.

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By Katie Kish, March 23, 2008 11:02 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zveXDhEfPao[/youtube]

I can’t even formulate into words how amazing this boy is. Fo’ shizzle.

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By Katie Kish, February 27, 2008 10:25 pm

Yeah…I’d totally marry him.

… I did it.

I bought my first thing off of iTunes. In one sense I hate that I just bought something off iTunes, on the other hand I’m glad I supported this artists. (But how much of the money ACTUALLY goes to the artist? I don’t know. Thats why I like buying CDs at concerts, you see the money go into the hands of the artists. Like when I saw Matthew Barber, I went up to buy the CD, and when I realized it was HIM that I was handing the money to it felt good that he was getting the money.)

Anyway, what did I buy? Greydon Square. Seriously. I love politically charged rappers, it’s just so hot. And he goes on about carbon dating in one of his songs, and a bunch of science junk. UGH. Awesome. And I’m going to see him in June. DOUBLE UGH. The only bad thing about him is that he’s a member of the Rational Response Squad. I love atheists and everything, and I love people who devote their life to reason – but… their site is so shoddy. And they’re all so unprofessional. And they’re some of the most inflammatory people I’ve ever spoken to. They draw in the immature angsty teenager group so their blogs and forum are just too annoying to read.

But Greydon is super talented, and I’m really excited to see him at The Amazing Meeting 6 in June. (And my sweetness in starlight) Eek! That’s going to be one good weekend. With any luck I’ll meet Teller too. I don’t care so much about Penn, but I really want to hug Teller because he’s SO cute. And if I do meet Penn, I’d like to remind him of the time that he was a witch on Sabrina… just so he rehumbles himself.

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By Katie Kish, February 2, 2008 2:05 am

Green sweater!

I’m making the stupid face because I haven’t actually showered today, and my face shows it… but the sweater is pretty! My mom picked it out, really. She said it looks pretty on me, so it must. Right?… Right?

Job!

I wrote before that I had started a new job mapping and such. Well, I lasted about 2 days at that store. On the Tuesday night of my training my mom and I were hanging out watching a movie and the phone rang – I cursed it because I hate it when movies are interrupted – and it turned out to be a person who I was waiting to hear from.

I am now the manager at a pretty big clothing retailer in Canada. (I’m not going to say the exact one, I’m starting to learn the value of “less information is better” when it comes to blogs…) So I’m pretty excited about that. I start on Sunday. Woo!

Book!

I’ve become a pretty big lover of the library… Books for free! Who’da thunk it? But there was one I couldn’t find at any of the libraries in the Guelph system – Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. So I bought it today, and I’m really excited to read it. The woman is amazing, she’s been through civil war, had personal experiences with female mutilation, forced marriages… it’s crazy. I’m excited to read about her story, and will definitely do a post about it when I finish it. …I feel like it’ll be just as good as A Long Way Gone, which to date is still by far my favorite read.

I read God Grew Tired of Us and Love Is  A Mixed Tape last week. LIAMK was really quite bad, but I’m starting to like cultural reference books less and less. GGTofUS wasn’t bad. The movie was better, which is something I generally don’t say. I’ll tell you this much though, when I found out the guy could barely speak a word of english I certainly felt bad for calling him a horrible writer to my mom.

Favorite drink!

Double vodka and cranberry. … I can’t get enough. …But I get the cranberry on the side, because they always over do it. I’m like “just like, a squirt” and they fill the rest of the glass. D’oh

Favorite blog!

I have nooo idea how I came across this blog, but… I’m in heart. Not only does he recommend music! (you all know it’s the way to my heart) but he’s a fantastic and entertaining writer. Rawr… Hopping Into Puddles (aka Michael), I love you.

Music!

It’s not really new – I just strayed for a while. I just went through a big hip-hop phase, lots of Sweatshop Union, K’Naan and CunninLynguists … constantly. But just the other day I was putting on unlabeled random CDs that I’ve made and found one that consisted entirely of Iron and Wine and Sufjan Stevens. So I’m back on my quiet music kick… The Six Parts Seven and Jose Gonzalez… Mmm. (Aww remember when I worked at the radio station and could upload new music ALL the time… I miss the radio station… a lot.)

Six Parts Seven: Stolen Moments
Pinback: Concrete Seconds
Iron and Wine: Love and Some Verses

Delicious, isn’t it?