I have been so busy that I didn't have a chance to post last week, so this is sort of a 'best of 2 weeks' post. I acquired a lot of new music in the last 2 weeks. Some of it is good, but most of it i'll probably get rid of quickly. Here are just a few of the better albums. As I listen to more of the new stuff I'll post more of my favorites. I'll post about my trip later. Not everyone cares to read about Singapore.

Music - Top 5 new albums that I've recently acquired:

Great Lakes Myth Society - Compass Rose Bouquet. The Great Lakes Myth Society is a band from Ann Arbor, Michigan who I guess I'd classify as Rock/Folk. Here is a link to their myspace page so you can check out their stuff.

Cat Power-Jukebox. Admittedly, this is my first real listen to Cat Power's music generally. So far, I really like what I hear, and it makes me want to check out her earlier stuff. You Tube videos. My Space page. Official record company site.

Headlights - Some Racing, Some Stopping. This is some pretty typical "indie" stuff. Fun to listen to, but I'll need to hear it a few more times before I can get into any particular songs.

Onra - Chinoiseries. I think the title for this "odd instrumental hip-hop" album is pretty perfect. This album samples a lot of Vietnamese pop recordings and instrumentals, and is by far my favorite album of the year. There is an interesting write-up here. my space page. This guy, fwho in the past worked with French producer Quetzal (and on this album?!), are "A hip-hop tribute to soul music. [The Album has] soulful instrumentals that sound like hip-hop remixes to soul songs from late 60's to late 70's."

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend. My space page. BuzzSugar introduced me to this group. I really like their unique sound. Sort of college rock/indie/ska?! I dunno. I just know I like their sound. here's a video on youtube. According to their official site:
The name of this band is Vampire Weekend. We are specialists in the following styles: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", "Upper West Side Soweto", "Campus", and "Oxford Comma Riddim."

I am listening to Adele right now and I am really loving it, so i'll mention a 6th album this week.
Adele - 19. Her debut album is out now. She is a soul/pop/jazz singer from England. Some are calling her the new Amy Winehouse. Gawd, I hope not. My space page.

New Stuff January

Lots of great stuff this past month, since we just moved into our new place from having things in storage for a year and being in New Zealand. Both of our parents bought us the majority of these things, but some household necessities we got ourselves.

iBobot Roomba 530 - $100 off at Canadian Tire. We've been wanting one for years and said we'd pick one up when it was on a good sale. Why did everything have to be on sale in January? Looks like we got a lot of new stuff, huh?

Antique Yellow Bench - So, the $100(with 30% off) we saved on the Roomba , we spent on this bench . We are using this 130 year old antique chinese bench as a coffee table, but we also move it to the dining table and sit on it sometimes. I think it can be used for so many things though and in so many rooms so it'll always have a place in our home.

Samsung 26" LCD tv - my dad bought us this wonderful tv when I went to Calgary this Christmas. It was on a really great sale. This is the first tv we have ever really had in the 7 years of living together. We had a tv in Auckland last year but sold it and it was less than $50 so i don't think it counts. it really quite sucked. I love this tv. i can't believe it is finally ours! I have been going to Future Shop and Best Buy for years, it seems - looking at this guy. I think the size is perfect for our space and our lifestyle. We used to play wii on my old imac (20") but that didn't work so well and the picture quality wasn't great. This is really amazing, though.

Airport Extreme Base Station - This is the white box-thing on the shelf in the picture. It has made our wireless environment run so much more smoothly! I love this thing.

Lacie 500GB external harddrive - the nice, chrome, porsche-designed one that matches our 200gb one we got a few years ago. (not in picture, but can be seen here).I really wanted a 1TB one, but this guy stacks on top of our older one and was half price.

Yamaha Digital Sound Projector YSP800 - It was mostly greg that wanted this - but don't send it back! I love this stereo - 23 speakers in one! You can read about it's amazingness here. Again, this was half price. I was a bit thrown aback with the price initially, but it certainly isn't something I see us replacing for a really long time. We listen to music all the time when we are home and have it hooked up to my old powerbook G4 laptop and one of the external harddrives for listening to music and of course use it with the vcr/dvd player, tv and wii. We have more electronics now than we have ever had. It is all so strange to me. I'd like to get a shelf for the wall above the tv so that we can move this guy there and put the record player at a more reachable height so we'd use it more often.

Basketweave Cream/Off-white 65 piece dish set for 12 people - After looking around at so many housewares places for a long time (years) trying to find the perfect set for us that would also not be too expensive, we found this set at much less than half price (originally $200) in the mall nearby. so many of our old dishes have broken and IKEA no longer makes that set - plus we only had a set with 8 of each thing to begin with, so we were down to not that many dishes. With 12 of each dish and extras, like a large salad bowl and serving platter, plus sugar bowl, I think we found the perfect dish set!

Wusthof 7 inch Santoku Knife - Another one of those things we've been looking at for a long time and got on a good sale. Here is the info on it. It doesn't totally match the Wusthof Culinar knives we have, but it is a high-quality knife that works well with our black and silver kitchen look for appliances.

Also bought this month: some used wii games: Metroid Prime 3, Fire emblem Radiant Dawn (one of my favorite wii games so far! a fantastic RPG with focus on tactical battles), Rayman Raving Rabbids (i don't like it much because i suck at it) and 2 new games: Super Mario Galaxy and Zack and Wiki - both are incredibly fun, especially Zack and Wiki! then there is all the fun stuff from China Town you can see in the pictures and a bunch of other things that i am not going to mention since they are most definitely necessities (like greg's bed and frame, dresser and desk). oh, and the cast-iron square pan which i use almost everyday and love so much.