2011 was a lot of fun and I consumed a lot. Food, drinks, music, movies and media in general. Thanks to social things like Spotify, Goodreads, Foursquare and Google here is what I enjoyed the most this past year.
News
I read 58,776 articles via Reeder, twice the amount that I did the year before. I can’t recommend the app Reeder enough for reading RSS feeds, it is available for Mac, iPad and iPhone and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything without it. Probably 90%+ of those 58,000 articles are just skimming headlines but Reeder’s interface makes consuming a fire hose of news easy.
I read WSJ on my iPad weekdays on the morning subway ride, The Economist rounds out the week when I usually take the magazine with me on the way to a bar Friday or Saturday night. Saturday and Sunday mornings are spent with coffee, the NY Times and my couch. The best new blogs I’ve gotten in to this past year have been The Verge, which has replaced Engadget and Gizmodo for all my tech news and WSJ Metropolis for hyper-local New York news.
Music
This has been one of the best years for music in recent memory. Pearl Jam had their 20-year anniversary which included re-releases of their first 3 albums and a festival-concert near where I grew up in Wisconsin. Spotify and the launch of iTunes Match + iCloud even pushed music forward ahead from a consumption stand point. A lot of albums that made my top 10 list were to be expected – M83, Jetpacks, Pearl Jam. But St. Vincent and The Black Keys were my favorite new bands (well, new to me at least). My top 10 albums for 2011 (click to listen in Spotify):
- M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
- St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
- Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs
- The Black Keys – El Camino – not available on Spotify
- We Were Promised Jetpacks – In the Pit of the Stomach
- The Naked and Famous – Passive Me, Aggressive You
- Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!
- Pearl Jam – Vitalogy Re-release
- Radiohead – King of Limbs
- Pearl Jam – Live on Ten Legs
Books
This was the year I finally got around to a few books I’ve been meaning to read for several years. I finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer which was one of the most inspiring books I’ve read in a while. My friend, Wipert, gave me a copy of The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant which was also life changing. I’m probably much more unbearable to be around now that I know which philosophical beliefs I adhere to (Plato and Aristotle) but it made me appreciate philosophy in a whole new way. Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present was dense but taught me a lot I didn’t know and should be required teaching in public schools at some point. While they don’t qualify as books, I spent a good amount of my reading time going back to read some of the all-time classic comic series such as Batman Knightfall and the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga.
Food
There is a lot of great food in New York but I can keep it short. The Meatball Shop is the greatest place that has ever served food. Period. I had a whole long list of other places I was going to through but it really doesn’t matter when you can go to the Lower East Side and get 4 naked balls and spicy sauce for $7.
Movies / TV
I didn’t see nearly as many movies as I wanted to in 2011 but I did very well on the TV front. This year consisted of me watching and loving the TV shows:
- The Walking Dead
- Breaking Bad
- Party Down
- The Pacific
- Sports Night
- The Kennedy’s
- Californication
- Battlestar Galactica
And for older movies:
- Carlos
- Marathon Man
- Exit Through the Gift Shop
2012 should be even a better year. There’s a whole list of food I want to eat, movies I want to see and books to read. Looking forward to having lots to do with great people. My first adventure will be Japan and Singapore in about a month. Can’t wait.
This past week I made a pretty good dent in the epic novel by Ayn Rand “Atlas Shrugged”. I really started getting in to it on Friday when I was flying back from San Francisco. Right before we landed the women sitting next to me puts her business card in my book and on the backside of it was written “who is John Galt?”. It was the coolest most random moment I’ve had in awhile. We got to talking a little bit and turns out she is in product management as well at a company based in San Mateo. It’s been awhile since I’ve been in to reading but I’m on a good run now with Cat’s Cradle and now this. Unfortunately I still have another 700 pages to go in the book but it’s clipping along at a pretty good pace already and the story is fascinating. If I didn’t have case studies for school to read all the time I’d have it wrapped up in a few weeks. I’m hoping I can get it done at least before Europe so I can start something new for that trip. Highly recommend Atlas Shrugged though if you’ve got some time to get through it.