Saw this photo on Jack’s blog and it made me laugh.

First off, I want to say that this was one of the best years for music since the 90s.  Granted, almost all the music I purchased this year is either a band that was around in the early 90s or has members from that era.  Still, an awesome year for music.BEST ALBUMS OF 2009

	1. Dinosaur Jr – Farm. It’s no mystery that I love Dinosaur Jr more than any other band out there. It’s also no secret that they could put out a mediocre album (by their standards) and it will still be my favorite album of the year. But imagine this year when they released Farm and it’s one of their finest albums ever. Farm is so far beyond (no pun intended) anything else that came out this year. I’d even say it’s leagues above anything that has come out this decade. Okay, I’ll go even further, Farm is the best album released since You’re Living All Over Me in 1987. There you go. Totally epic. Best band ever.
	2. Pissed Jeans – King Of Jeans. This album totally benefits from Dinosaur Jr putting out such a good album. Dinosaur Jr pretty much satisfies my cravings for indie rock, metal, pop, garage, noise, etc except Dinosaur Jr doesn’t do trashy gutter punk. And oh boy did Pissed Jeans fill that void this year and then some. I absolutely love this album and the simple lyrics. It reminds me of early 90s grunge/punk masters like Jesus Lizard, Nirvana, Tad. Love it.
	3. Boston Spaceships – Planets Are Blasted. They put out two albums this year. That’s common for Robert Pollard, but it still amazes me. This one edges out Zero to 99, but really, both albums are awesome. Boston Spaceships really know how to deliver the hooks. They do awesome lo fi indie rock to perfection. This is another album that reminds me of how music was made in the early 90s. The song Keep Me Down was runner up for me to skate to in Off The Couch if for some reason I was banned from using Dinosaur Jr.
	4. The Thermals – Now We Can See. This is the first Thermals album I’m not completely in love with. There are three songs I could totally do without; When I Died, We Were Sick and Liquid In, Liquid Out. Those songs lack the energy I want in the Thermals. Not only are those songs weak, but When I Died and We Were Sick start the album off. With that being said though, the rest still makes me happy in the way that only the Thermals can do. I think the songs When We Were Alive and I Called Out Your Name are up to par with any great Thermals songs.
	5. Polvo – In Prism. Good ol’ weird indie rock. I’d probably like it more if it wasn’t a double LP with only two songs on each side so you have to flip the record over so much. I mean did you really have to do that Merge? You have to play it at 45rpm too. Why not just put 4 songs on each side and play it at 33?

Honorable mentions: Sonic Youth – The Eternal (If there show would have been good I’d like it more), Boston Spaceships – Zero to 99 (Two albums in one year awesome)Decent, but disappointing:Obits – I Blame You.  Just not heavy or interesting enough.Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band – Outer South.  I’m glad you’re having fun Conor, but we just want to hear you.Please stop existing as a band: BUILT TO SPILL.  Seriously, call it quits while I still have some respect for you.  Your shows are horrible and uninspired and the new music is beyond boring.Songs of the Year:Best Dinosaur Jr song – I Don’t Wanna Go There.  4 minutes of meat and potatoes Dinosaur Jr.  5 minutes of solo.  EPIC.Best non-Dinosaur Jr hype me up song: Pissed Jeans – False Jesii Part II.  Runner up The Thermals – When We Were Alive.Best pop song: Boston Spaceships – Let It Rest For A Little WhileBest Video: Dinosaur Jr – Over It.Concerts Of The Year:1. Dinosaur Jr – Aggie Theater in Fort Collins, CO.  Totally epic setlist played perfect.2. Jesus Lizard – Capitol Hill Block Party Seattle, WA.  The Mighty Jesus Lizard delivered!3. Dinosaur Jr – Boulder Theater, Boulder, CO. Something a bit lacking about this show, but still loud and awesome.4. The Thermals – Marquis Theater, Denver, CO.  Such a fun time.5. Conor Oberst – Waiting Room, Omaha, NE. Christmas show party. Awesome. Some of the old Bright Eyes songs were so good.Worst concert of the Year: Sonic Youth at the Ogden.   Play a hit you elitist assholes.Looking forward to in 2010: Haven’t heard of much yet other than a new Thermals album.  Hope to see more Dinosaur Jr obviously and hopefully Pissed Jeans tour.

After a “game night” at some friends and a few drinks I had to keep the streak alive and wanted to skate.  It was pretty warm so I was pushing for Red Curbs, but ended up being lazy and did a solo Rampy session.  Turned out the drinks were hitting more then I thought and skating was not so easy.  For some reason I had it in my head to try switch front rocks.  After a few runs of the basics I settled on a line of axle stall, front axle stall, rock fakie, tail stall, rock fakie, switch front rock attempt.  I fell a lot sliding out.  It was kinda fun.  I ended up getting a few bad ones.  Oh well, it’s a fun new one.

Met John and Nate at the Circuit City garage.  John and I started things off by slamming our car doors really loud because it makes a cool echo.  Then we noticed we woke up some bums in the corner.  Doh.  We took Ledgey out of the car and skated anyways.  We were in the warm up stages when they came over to watch us.  They weren’t bummed (ha).  Instead they were hyped on us and kept cheering for us and putting cans and bottles in our path for us to ollie over.  I was hyped they weren’t jerks, but it definitely took away from the session.John was skating for the first time in awhile after hurting his ankle on Thanksgiving Day.  That didn’t stop him from getting on some quick front 50s, no comply 270 back tail, learning boardslides on the ledge (he’s one of those dudes that can only boardslide 20 stair rails) etc.  Nate was Nate and did like 10 tricks right away.  Nosegrinds, smith grinds, 5-0s, etc.  Piece of cake for him.  I finally got a front smith on Ledgy.  I got a few more basics before hucking some new tricks.  Switch front 180 to 5-0 and halfcab back crooks.  I got kinda close to both, but slammed really hard on a sw 180 5-0. Kinda drained me and with the bums there and Liz wanting me back early that kinda ended it for me.Of course a game of SKATE had to go down first.   Nate was out in four tricks.  Kickflip, fakie flip, fakie front shove and fakie back shove.  He double or nothing’d the fakie flip.  So funny.  Nate can do nollie tres and nollie back big heels everytime and he was out on four total basic tricks.  Ha.  John and I went on for awhile and I ended up winning.  I got letters on fakie bigspins both ways and a treflip.  I’m not sure what all John got letters on, but I know the last two were fakie varial flip and heelflip.  Ha.

Another cold and snowy night, another fun Rampy session.  Jake and Nate came over after the kids went to sleep and we skated for close to a couple hours.  Jake had a pretty sick 10 trick + first run to kick things off.  He went on to do lots of sick tricks like nosepick, front feebs, front feeb fakie, front tail revert, back 5-0 fakie, front smith fakie, tons more, and learned back boneless.  He finished the session trying to get nosepick stale grab, but never quite put it down.  Nate was on it again.  Some crazy manuevers out of no where, fakie front smith 270 in, back feeble back board, front 5-0 rock fakie, and maybe even some basics in there somewhere.  His new trick was front boards trying to be like Jason.  He also had front board 270 in.  Sick.  I skated well, came close to getting back hurricane’s, but never rode away.  Got most of my harder/newer tricks.  Front 50 yank in, front nose bash to fakie, front nosebash to front rock, front d 180 (first try), fakie pivot fakie.  Fun times.

After a really fun day of skating we headed over to Brian’s for “game night”.  First stop was the liquor store where I picked up a few forties and Brian got some Bartles and James.Brian needed some fruity candy to offset the harsh alcohol taste of wine coolers.The Wii was the big hit for Christmas this year.  You just can’t help but smile playing this stuff.  Maria kicked my ass in boxing.Then it was time for poker and Brian explained to Rebecca how to easily take my money.Although after another five hours it was Brian and Maria winning once again.  Somebody please send some Rogaine Lazer’s way.

Had to bring some boards to SOL and it seemed like a few people were down to make a trek to Longmont to skate.  Jason, Jake and I picked up Brian and met up with Fuzz at a fun school in Longmont.  Things were going well and everyone seemed to be having fun.  The ledge there was in good shape and it was great to see Brian trying tricks on it.  He got some front 50s all good.  Jake had some front 50s and front tails.  Jason was getting back 50s, front 50s, front noseslides, back noseslides.  I got some back crooks, back noseslide, front 50s, front 50 180.  We were trying various lines where you ollie over the brick sections and stuff.  It was fun.  Fuzz showed up late, but started killing it immediately.  A while later Bernie and crew showed up.  We were all hyped, but at the same time it seemed like the old guy crew kinda mellowed out once the young kids came in and started landing lots of tricks.  Jason ended up taking some photos with my camera.Front 5-0 to no speed landing.  It also kinda looks like a switch front crooks.  Maybe that’s how they do it in Thrasher.This must not be a make considering I never landed it.Jake prior to a front tail.After a bit I accepted a challenge from Jake for the first to get two 360 flips.  Winner gets a tall can.  Awesome.  Jake is new to this trick and I totally admire his drive to get it consistent.  Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let him win though.  Ha, it took me a long time to get to two, but we had fun.  After that I threw in a nollie treflip and a bad fakie treflip to round out my treflip training for the day.  I went back to skating the ledge and banks.  I got a run where I kickflipped a puddle, front 50’d the ledge, rode up a bank, ollied onto the brick and rode down it into a manual across the sidewalk.  Super fun.  That wore me out eventually and I just skated the ledge.  I couldn’t back 50 it so save my life.  I landed a couple, but they were horrible slow and disgusting.  I managed a front 50 back 180 which felt great and ended my session by dropping into the narrower brick wall in the back and doing a front noseslide whirly bird.  Awesome session.  I stopped and took a couple photos of Bernie almost getting a crazy trick.I think he would have landed this had I not told him he should get someone to film it.  My bad.My shoes are looking beat, but they still feel great.

Skated flatground in front of the house for about 5 minutes to see how I felt and to my surprise I wasn’t super sore from the day before.  Then Ollie said he wanted to come out with me so we headed to Red Curbs.  But right before we got there I remembered the little table top thing a little past Red Curbs.  We went there and Ollie seemed to dig and we ended up being there for almost a couple hours.  We started just doing mannys across the top and dorking around.  Ollie is totally getting how to manual and didn’t scrape most of the time.  So sick.  I tried to ollie most of the table top but failed.Then we spotted another loading dock thing nearby and rolled over to check it out and to our delight was a new section of banked curbs with manny pads in between and flyout potential all over the place.  Ollie did the best ollie (seriously though I wish I would have thought this whole Ollie ollie thing through a little better before naming him that ..) I’ve ever seen him do.  He snapped the tail hard on a flyout and probably got close to a foot up.  Sick.  He also did little backside ollies on the banks, half cabbed in and out of the bank  and even came close to flyout back 180s.  I set out a box nearby and did a decent run for me.  Halfcab flip, ollie the box, ollie into the banked curb, front 180 nose manny.  Cool.  I ended up ollieing the box several times.  Also kickflipped into a mellow part of the banked curb, ollied into the loading dock (so fun), slammed on a rock, did a few treflips, had a blast.  Ollie was totally ripping for him.  He also manualled two section of the downhill loading dock and bomb dropped off it.  Smiling the whole time.We left and drove around and found another dry spot nearby.  It’s kind of a two stair loading dock thing.  It had good asphalt around it.  Ollie ollied (again, Ollie ollie) the two stair like it was nothing first try.  I tried to ollie over the two stair rail, but failed.  Partly due to snow in the landing.  I ended up going for a run of ollie up the loading dock, ollie the two stair, quick ollie over the curb, ollie over some snow.  Got it.  I was happy to be landing the ollie up the loading dock better.  Ever since John called me out and told me to land on all fours I’ve been working on it.  Anyways.  Ollie and I cruised around a bit more and found some fun snow gaps.  I ended up getting a longer line along the same lines (ha).  Ollie small snow gap, 3 flip on flat, ollie up the dock, ollie the two, ollie the curb, ollie some snow.  Hyped on that.  And hyped that I landed every single 360 flip I tried today.  Granted, some were landed horrible, but 5-0 is my record by far.  I also got a fun manny into a downhill pad where I had to carve around some picnic tables in the run out.  Seriously having a blast at this point.Before leaving Ollie found a tennis ball and we would cruise the downhill parking lot tossing it back and forth.  It was so fun.  Ollie was having a blast.  I even through in a first try kickflip over some snow up a curb while we were doing this.  Awesome way to start out the new year.

Last day of 2009.  Got off work early and it was somewhat nice out, but snowy at most spots.  I stopped off at the spot where Brian ollied the big bush and ended up staying for a couple hours.  I had my mp3 player going on shuffle and that worked for awhile.I dorked around for awhile getting warmed up.  I wanted to do the smaller gap near the bush ollie, but there was snow in the landing.  I posed the big one a couple times, but never came close to committing.  I found a snow gap off a sidewalk that I ended up using to try and start a line.  The gap was about 5 feet long off a crack ridden sidewalk with a short setup.  It didn’t take me as long to commit to it as I thought it would and it ended up being really fun.  I would ollie it, ollie up a curb, front 180 off a curb, f/s halfcab flip and then manual this weird metal grated manny pad.  I never got all of them.  I got to the manny though.  Another run I was trying was kickflip up a curb, back 180 off over a tiny snow gap, halfcab flip then manny.  I got those 4.  They were bad though.  It took me forever to do the back 180 because I totally suck at that trick.  Before leaving I told myself to do 20 flat ground tricks.  It didn’t matter what.  I started with pop shove, did tricks like b/s flip, 360 flip, fakie 360 flip, fakie bigflip and ended it with no comply bigspin.  Fun session.  Skated really hard.  Goodbye 2009!