Top Ten Reasons I am too busy to do my Top Ten:

• 10. Too busy ignoring bill collectors.
• 9. Too busy searching for stuff around the office to sell on eBay just because Aaron touched it.
• 8. Too busy looking over Rachael's shoulder.
• 7. Too busy searching for the next great lunch spot.
• 6. Too busy watching my own clips on the hydra head youtube channel.
• 5. Too busy chasing Robot around the office.
• 4. Too busy tip-toeing around James' upcoming mental breakdown.
• 3. Too busy tickling Jeff.
• 2. Too busy buying laserdiscs on eBay (if you have any you don't want, hit me up at laserdiscs@hydrahead.com).
• 1. I have a girlfriend now.

• -obama's presidential victory
• -the journey that began jan 13 2007
• -the continued reign of supremacy of HHR inc
• -the rehabilitation of mark thompson
• -new man friends + the northwest + pho
• -the 4th nephew
• -chel's list
• -snoqualimie, salish lodge, rain walk
• -pancake, orange, robot
• -sexual intercourse
• -the healing of broken bones
• -hollis + jung + bendis + moore + delano
• -live + studio action with holc, isis, mamiffer
• -crossing the threshold of transformation
• -ripped tights
• -being the boss and always being right
• -yucas, in n out, pasqual's, leela, gingergrass, top pot, etc
• -the cleansing fire of new years eve

Top Ten 08

• 10. Bowtie
• 9. Signal Knob Failure
• 8. Sarah making my room smell like baby powder
• 7. Lykke Li "youth novels"
• 6. "Bitch, you smell like Circuit City"
• 5. Darrell Green
• 4. Islands (the restaurant, not the band)
• 3. Mission of Burma @ the echo or Harvey Milk @ Downtown loft
• 2. Don Juan Neon
• 1. Serious Business

Top Ten Reasons I am too stressed out to do my Top Ten:

• 10. I am about to get kicked off a torrent for not contributing.
• 9. Paul Cooley still lives at my house.
• 8. My brother's friends keep IM-ing me.
• 7. I sit across from Rachael.
• 6. I need to find the Netflix disc I lost cause I have already exhausted all the streaming content.
• 5. My girlfriend has a fondness for Stella / My girlfriend's friend's band is playing a club that serves $8 Stellas.
• 4. Very few places have Coke Zero on tap.
• 3. James doesn't have any other friends.
• 2. Scheming up ways to get Pops BB to give me money for cutting my hair
• 1. After graduating college, the only thing I can think to do is sign up for more classes.

The top (or last rather) 10 things I googled image searched while at work in 2008

• -"cats htlr"
  
• -"life aquatic"
  
• -"15 passenger van or 10"
  
• -"Thomas Han"
  
• -"Captain Jean-Luc Picard"
  
• -"Can you buy oreo cream?"
  
• -"b wing"
  
• -"VX9100"
  
• -"the best stick figures"
  
• -"pheonix chicken"
  

Top 10 things I have been accused of saying or doing in the 4 months of being at Hydra Head.

• 11. Making out with Mark's dog, and possibly Aaron's
• 10. Eating all of the snacks.
• 9. Having the mind of a Child.
• 8. Masturbating using James hand lotion.
• 7. Not replacing the toilet paper roll.
• 6. Being gay for Armando.
• 5. Sneaking Aarons x-mas cookies.
• 4. Wasting shrinkwarp.
• 3. Ruining the Melvins Boxed sets.
• 2. Inhaling all the office Dust-Off
• 1. Watching my own you-tube clips.

• - life long tragedy - runaways (lp)
• - amenra - mass IIII (lp) + live
• - the carrier - no love can save me (7-inch)
• - suicide note - empty rooms (lp)
• - carpathian - isolation (lp)
• - nick cave & the bad seeds - dig lazarus dig (lp)
• - in bruges (film)
• - nhl 09 (xbox360)
• - let the right one in (film) + let me in (novel)
• - all things hydrahead. especially mamiffer, pelican/taas & torche

• - Getting to catch two stops of the HHR Champions of Sound Tour (But I'm really saying this because I got to meet Justin Foley)
• - Hanging out with the guys from Hayaino Daisuki and Gridlink in some shitty parking lot and talking about Star Wars and video games while we waited for them to play 2 hours later
• - Having more car parts than furniture in my living room for a significant portion of the year
• - The sound my 94 Mazda RX-7 makes when I actually have the chance to drive it
• - Fallout 3 causing me to lose my grip on reality and make me wonder why people weren’t shooting at me when I came out of real DC Metro stations
• - The description "Someone had the bright idea to rip Metallica’s Ride the Lightning record at 33 rpm instead of the proper 45 rpm speed. The resulting rip is super sludgy, heavy as hell, and it sounds like Satan is singing. I can’t get over how evil For Whom the Bell Tolls sounds" that someone wrote and I found after Steve Brodsky recommended it
• - Days off from work, weekends, holidays, and any other time I don’t need to get up in the morning (Bottom Ten Forever: Alarm clocks)
• - Getting a DS and finding a couple years worth of good games to play
• - Detroit Metal City, the animu
• - Some CDs weren't actually HHR releases: Across Tundras – Western Sky Ride, Gojira – The Way of All Flesh, Meshuggah – obZen, Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1, Origin – Antithesis, Earth – The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

Top ten top ten lists i did not write:

• 10. albums i did not pay for
• 9. Hydratube clips
• 8. Hydra head bands i have never listened to
• 7. groups i have joined on rachael's unattended facebook
• 6. things jeff has hit with balls
• 5. that's what she said jokes
• 4. jokes armando finds funny
• 3. sentences Wes did not finish
• 2. types of snacks James' mom mailed him
• 1. places for lunch where I would never pay for myself, but gladly let Mark do so

and it's still january! yeah!

Top Ten Reasons to Use the BCC Option When Sending Mass E-mails to Hydrahead Folks:

• 1. The guy from Clouds is kind of a sarcastic asshole.
• 2. Larry is still mad at Ricky for hitting the drums too hard.
• 3. The singer of Cave In has Interchangeable Vowel Syndrome.
• 4. Drummers tend to use their full names in their e-mail addresses.
• 5. Steve Brooks is still nursing a shiner and won't answer e-mails.
• 6. The Austerity Program guy will do a video blog about it.
• 7. The dude from Jesu has the longest UK based e-mail address ever.
• 8. The bass player of Cave In doesn't want to answer anymore questions about hiatus' and misinterpreted sarcasm.
• 9. Too many people already have a crush on the violinist of Kayo Dot. Spreading her e-mail around won't help keep the wierdos at bay.
• 10. The bass player of Clouds is kind of a sarcastic asshole...who is also prone to repeating himself and spends way too much time dicking around when he should be working.
• 11. The bass player of Torche will hit you up for a sponsorship.

This one goes to 11....

Ben Verellen's Top Ten 2008

• 1. the brave patrons and supporters of Verellen Amplifiers
• 2. Maxwell's Equations
• 3. Loveland 'The Beautiful Truth'
• 4. Dungen
• 5. Bruno Fuzz Wau Wau
• 6. Torche 'Meanderthal'
• 7. 'Club Wago'
• 8. Victoria Clipper
• 9. Earth 'The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull'
• 10. Jimi Hendrix 'Axis Bold as Love' (minus the guitar solos... that's right)

EUGENE S. ROBINSON's 2008 TOP 10 LAUNDRY LIST OF LOSS, MISERY & MATCHLESS FAILURE

• 10] Bitter and deeply felt recrimination
• 9] Cursing an unjust God and the capriciousness of fortune
• 8] Guns, guns, guns
• 7] Oxbow and Joe Chiccarelli losing a Grammy to Amy Winehouse. Bitch.
• 6] My book FIGHT: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Ass Kicking But Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking getting banned in the U.K. and the audiobook of the same being the worse selling CD on Hydrahead. Yes. Even worse than The Austerity Program.
• 5] My overriding desire to destroy everything I touch...through neglect, disinterest, and inattention. The last 8 years in America, and its contagion, are to blame for this.
• 4] The fear, envy, and anger inspired by my penis.
• 3] Side projects with EL DIABLO, MANTRA OVER THE MELTLESS MOON, DEAD ELEPHANT, PHILIPPE PETIT, BARRY ADAMSON, BLEVIN FROM BLECHTDOM, STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS and my friends in Slovenia
• 2] my 1965 Chevy Chevelle finally coming off line...no thanks at all to Greg Davis, the November criminal
• 1] In 2009 OXBOW will have been alive for TWENTY FUCKING YEARS. And that just about says it fucking all.

• 1.Radiohead "In Rainbows"
• 2.Portishead "Third"
• 3.Leviathan "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life"
• 4.Harvey Milk "Life...the Best Game in Town"
• 5.Young Widows "Old Wounds"
• 6.These Arms Are Snakes "Tail Swallower and Dove"
• 7.Suicide Note "Empty Rooms"
• 8.Jakob "Solace"
• 9.Cursed "III"
• 10. Unearthly Trance "Electrocution"

Top 10. 2008

• 1. Cloverfield
• 2. Anthem "Black Empire"
• 3. Aimpoint T-1 Micro + Larue Mount
• 4. Galneryus "Reincarnation"
• 5. "Descent into Chaos" by Ahmed Rashid
• 6. Detroit Metal City (anime series)
• 7. "Terror and Consent : Wars for the 21st Century" by Philip Bobbit
• 8. "The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower" by Robert Baer
• 9. Metal Gear Solid 4
• 10. Dark Angel European Reissues (Darkness Descends, Leave Scars, What Time Does Not Heal)

• 1. Young Widows "Old Wounds" (Temporary Residence Limited)
• 2. Kevin Drumm "Imperial Distortion" (Hospital Productions)
• 3. Birchville Cat Motel "Gunpowder Temple of Heaven" (Pica Disc)
• 4. Torche "Meanderthal" (Hydrahead) and live
• 5. Steven Brodsky live
• 6. Sarah Palin / Joe Biden debate
• 7. Fucked Up "The Chemistry of Common Life" (Matador)
• 8. Leviathan "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life" (Moribund Records)
• 9. My ever-increasing obsession with Guided By Voices
• 10. Fennesz "Black Sea" (Touch)

Eleven favorite records from 2008 (in no order)

• -Young Widows - Old Wounds
• -Nonagon - No Sun
• -Yo Majesty - Futuristically Speaking
• -The Fun Years - Baby, It’s Cold Inside
• -Helm's Alee - Night Terror
• -Pyramids - Pyramids
• -Russian Circles - Station
• -The Bug - London Zoo
• -Aidan Baker and Tim Hecker - Fantasma Parastasie
• -Coh – Strings

My ten favorite non-music things from 2008 (in no order)

• -Barack Obama

  

  "And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

  The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

  But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked."

• -Blago!

  

  "Unless I get something real good [in exchange], shit, I'll just send myself, you know what I'm saying,"

• -Wall-E

  

  Time for lunch... in a cup!

• -Alan Greenspan

  

  "I made a mistake in presuming that the self interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity in the firms."

• -Isis/Jakob Tour

  

  And this will be a fond memory - a rowdy band of happy young men (and one woman) representing 7 different countries, singing, shouting and laughing through the dark streets of Nancy.

• -Katie Couric

  

  Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
  Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to - I don't know, you know - reporters.
  Couric: Mocked?
  Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.
  Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.
  Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.

• -FiveThirtyEight.com

  

  John Ziegler: You're a piece of work! You are never going to have the guts to post a representative transcript on your website! I thought you actually ran a legitimate website!
  Nate Silver: Thank you, have a good day.
  John Ziegler: Go fuck yourself.

• -Rudy Giuliani

  

  "He worked as a community organizer. What? He worked -- I said -- I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume."

• -Smithfield Union Election

  

  We fought so long to get this, and it finally happened.

• My number one favorite thing: Thad Calabrese accepts a teaching position at Baruch College

  

Tom Neely's Top 10 albums he bought in 2008:

(note- a few of these were not released in 2008, but these are the albums i bought and listened to the most in 2008)

• 10. Ludicra - Fex Ubris, Lex Orbis
• 9. Mamiffer - Hirror Enniffer
• 8. Mission of Burma - VS. (vinyl re-release)
• 7. The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
• 6. Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill
• 5. Winterfylleth - The Ghost of Herritage
• 4. Jesu - Why Are we Not Perfect
• 3. Bloodbath - The Fathomless Misery
• 2. Low - The Great Destroyer
• 1. Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters Double Vinyl LP

Honorable mention goes to the most horrendous and bafflingly billiant album of 2008:
Guns 'n' Roses - Chinese Democracy

Top 10 Comics and Graphic Novels of 2008:

• 10. Silver Surfer - In Thy Name - Drawn by Tan Eng Huat, published by Marvel
• 9. Ghost Rider # 24 - (continuing) - Drawn by Tan Eng Huat, published by Marvel
• 8. Creepy Archives Volume 1 & 2 by various artists, published by Dark Horse
• 7. Wormdye by Eamon Espey, published by Secret Acres
• 6. Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw, published by Fantagraphics
• 5. Freddie and Me by Mike Dawson, published by Bloomsbury
• 4. Sammy the Mouse by Zack Sally, published by Fantagraphics
• 3. Danny Dutch by David King, published by Sparkplug Comic Books
• 2. Capacity by Theo Ellsworth, published by Secret Acres
• 1. Ink Weed by Chris Wright, published by Sparkplug Comic Books

Honorable mention goes to You're Disease Spread Quick, The Melvins Comic Book by Tom Neely, published by Robotic Boot... because I did it.