The unaware carolers sang with joy in their hearts as the ferocious feline devoured their town.

The Christmas edition of the iPod Shuffle.

The Paper Chase - Now You're Gonna Get It: This is a very fun band. Play music with a chaotic desperation, they always come across a bit more raw than a guitar-driven indie-ish band typically does. Unfortunately, while maintaining all the qualities that makes me really like The Paper Chase, this song has a guitar riff in the middle that sounds just like Jack Skellington singing "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas, so I always end up laughing by time the track is over.

Robyn Hitchcock - Agony of Pleasure (Demo): From the Eye album I mentioned a few weeks ago; the "demo" is one of those unnecessary tracks (on an otherwise great album) that I obtained before I finally learned not to get duped by buying the "remastered editions" of such releases.

Carter USM - A Perfect Day to Drop the Bomb: Another bouncy song from Carter; could it be the iPod has a new best friend?

Kid Silver - Hey Tresspasser: Not sure the point of the extra "s" in the title, but this is from the quite-possibly-perfect-pop album, Dead City Sunbeams. It kinda makes me sad to see its printing has been discontinued and that it can be purchased for sixty-some cents on the Amazon marketplace, but all the more reason to encourage everyone to go buy it.

Dalek - Forever Close My Eyes: Another mesmerizing trip-hop track with crazy piano and guitars throughout.

Twink - Three Little Piggies: Probably just want to forget this song was in the random eight.

Quasi - Seven Years Gone: I forget who I saw Quasi open for a number of years ago, but shortly thereafter I bought a number of releases that never really quite lived up to the show that I enjoyed. Then Hot S*it was released and I was finally had the album I was looking for. This is a great collection; I have a tendency to think they sound like a cross between The Beatles and The Flaming Lips, although I'm not sure I ever received any buy-in from others on that opinion (but then, I suppose, that is what opinions are).

Material Issue - Carousel: I suppose this is an appropriate way to close out a rather pop-oriented random eight.

We spent our last night in NYC having a nice dinner and walking the streets as a light snow fell on us. We didn't know exactly what we were getting ourselves into by blindly picking an apartment for a place to spend three nights, but it really worked out wonderfully. Having a small apartment to return to that evening was almost like we truly lived in the city, if only for a short time.

The next morning, having a few hours before our train departure, found us back in the park. It was much colder this day, and with a small dusting of snow on the ground, it was very pretty yet obvious that we had been very fortunate regarding the weather we encountered. I'm not sure we would have been up to walking 50+ blocks our first evening in the city had the wind and cold been as frigid as it was at the end of our visit.

There were probably a thousand things we didn't have a chance to do while in town, but we really enjoyed what we were able to accomplish. Hopefully there will be a whole new set of pictures from a trip in the near future.

We left the museum and wandered in Central Park again, this time slowly, taking in as much as we could as the afternoon hours passed. According to our travel book, Central Park has nearly 58 miles of paths that can be followed. We weren't quite adventurous enough to try and follow them all, but even if we had been, it probably would have taken us a month to get through it all since I would have kept stopping and taking pictures of every great view.

On the way back to our apartment, we decided to stop in the Whitney Museum of American Art which was boasting a Alexander Calder exhibit.

There are a number of Calder pieces at the galleries in DC, but having the opportunity to look at so many of his wire sculptures was really exciting for me. I never quite appreciated his ability to capture motion in a simple sculpture until I was able to study them up close.

Plus, the gallery had a significant collection of Calder's Circus, a playful dynamic display that, again, had an amazing ability to truly replicate the actions and excitement of the big top.

Pictures of the Calder exhibit are from the Whitney website.

After resting a while from our long day at the museum, we took a cab ride through Times Square to Kinokuniya, a Japanese book store that Nicole had wanted previously heard about. Spanning three floors, the collection of books, magazines, DVDs, and Anime kept us entertained until closing time. There was also a fun band playing in the cafe upstairs to a full house audience. The experience was a very nice city-life compliment to the visitor-centric locations we had attended to date.

The next day once again found us wandering through Central Park as we headed towards the American Museum of Natural History.

I've been reading a bit on paleontology lately, so starting our tour on the fourth floor which was dedicated to fossils and bones of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures kept me grinning from ear to ear for some time. Not unlike the Met, the expansiveness of the exhibit was nearly overwhelming; most exhibits in the world would likely be happy to have ten percent of what the Museum had.

The gem and mineral collection was also vast, containing collections of multiple formations, varieties, and displays.

Here was a small collection of artwork created from different gemstones.

Neither Nicole nor I had any idea there were so many different types of opals.

I'm not a real big "year in review" type of person, but we did do some pretty nifty things during the past 12 months. One of which was driving to Columbus, Ohio to see Tom Waits, quite likely my favorite musician of all time.

I mean, face it, how many people would I really drive to Ohio to see? Twice, in fact, as it was a couple years prior when we drove to Akron to see him play as well. The good news is that the Akron show was simply fantastic...and the better news is that the Columbus show made the Akron experience seem like eating a big pile or horse poo with hair mixed in with it.

Thinking about it, that sorta sums up Akron in general...but that's a different story.

Shortly after the Columbus show (or, for that matter, all the shows on the tour), there were hundreds of raves about the experience and many "what Tom means to me" type of gushings all over the net. Maybe the interesting thing about the cult-like following that Waits seems to get for his shows is simply the genuine appreciation everybody seems to have for his talent and engagement as a performer.

I don't have any personal enlightenment episode to share; I think my friend Josh summed it up quite nicely on a voice mail he left for me when he said, "holy smokes what a show." The set list was just a blast, starting with a rocking version of Lucinda morphed with Ain't Goin' Down to the Well, ripping right into Down in the Hole (at which point he could have ended the show and I still would have been happy as fudge), and closing with Time as if we were all in a fairy tale. But it was probably during Innocent When You Dream, when he engaged the entire auditorium in a singalong, that I realized I was probably at one of the best shows I would ever attend.

Huh, perhaps that is a personal enlightenment episode.

With any 400 mile trip to see a 2.5 hour show, there were a lot of fun ancillary stories as well. We were so blinded by rain at one point in the city of Columbus that we simply parked the car right in front of what turned out to be a great Italian restaurant, we went to The Book Loft which was a neat, and quite large, bookstore we had visited years ago, and we spent a good deal of the trip saying, "okay, really, this is the last time we are ever going to Ohio."

But the real gem under the investment of time and miles was the show. I'm glad we were fortunate enough to attend.

Alec Empire - XXV3: I'll give most releases by the ex-Atari Teenage Riot front man an opportunity, and this song from the Futurist album is a loud, forceful track similar to the ATR days.

Underwater Culprit and the House of Assassins - Dead Bird: Here we go; Jason the Underwater Culprit hosts a weekly radio show on wrct.org on Thursday from 11:00 - 3:00. This is where I ultimately started hearing songs from his band. These are wild mixes of roots-sounding rock and noise that are very well produced and exceptionally fun to listen to. Explore them more on their myspace page.

The Ponys - Discoteca: The Celebration Castle CD that contains this song has a rough Buzzcocks type feel. A small wave of British (or British-sounding, which occurs sometimes) older punk bands are kinda fun in the music land today.

Neil Young - Why Does Thou Hide Thyself, Clouds: Not your typical Neil Young title, but this is from the Dead Man soundtrack in which Young played haunting guitar sounds behind a dismal, tense story. This is a fairly ambient soundtrack to listen to on its own and flows very well with the film.

Mission of Burma - Progress: I've rattled praise about MoB over the past few weeks and won't stop here. Sometimes I think this is the band that really deserved a lot of the indie praise and success that bands like R.E.M. found, but then MoB's quality of music has withstood the test of time much better than their peers, so perhaps things worked out well for everyone.

Chainsaw Kittens - Justine Find Heaven: Likewise, I've rattled praise about the Chainsaw Kittens a lot over the months of doing this random music listing. The Pop Heiress album was early in the evolution of the band, still mixing a uniqueness with strong-pop power chord-driven music.

Grant Hart - All of My Senses: Relatively fresh from the Husker Du breakup, this record has some great songs with some very peculiar arrangements. All of My Senses sounds like a 50's roller-rink song, enhanced by a track on the release called "Roller-Rink" which sounds just how you might expect it to.

Carter USM - Mid Day Crisis: I dumped all my Carter CDs on the iPod a couple weeks ago, having not given them a proper listen for a few years. They are so British, which you can just take that as positively as you can imagine when it comes to music. I always thought Carter was just Robyn Hitchcock on speed, which probably wouldn't be a bad thing either.

There are many better words to describe the Met than Big, but Big is the one that stood out above all others after we could barely stand on our feet after spending all day walking the beautiful galleries.

I don't think I could say I liked any one collection over another, but I was mesmerized by the Chinese landscape paintings by Wang Hui, which complimented our visit to the Sackler Museum in DC a few months ago.

In fact, the entire Asian art section was quite fascinating.

I truly hope I'm alone in thinking this Buddha statue looked a little too much like George Bush.

Even selections from the Arts of Africa, something I never thought much of, were magnificent to look at.

Although we were lucky to see as much as we did, including the European Paintings that had, amongst other items, many Rembrandt portraits (including his self portrait), a large selection of musical instruments from various eras and nationalities (including watching a technician tuning a harpsichord), and a wide selection of arms and armor (with Henry VIII's suit of armor), I have a feeling we missed loads of neat stuff in the one day we spent in the halls. I truly hope to go back to do it all again very soon.

A few years ago, Scott Smith's The Ruins was recommended to me as one of the best new horror books available. Having grown up as a massive fan of Clive Barker and well read of Stephen King's better works, as well as having evolved into reading Richard Matheson's short stories and novels, I was intrigued by the recommendation.

The Ruins certainly did not disappoint. Although it had the beginnings of a teen slasher flick somehow based in print, it quickly evolved into an extremely tense, thoughtful, and at times gruesome story that captured my complete attention and still, years later, provides imagery that haunts my memory.

Shortly thereafter, I picked up Smith's A Simple Plan which, without the horror-story gore, provided much of the same positive qualities. Being more of a drama (with perhaps a bit of mystery weaved in), it provided a desperate trip down a path of bad decisions and compiling problems.

For both tales, the ending was just stunning; no matter how good many authors in telling a gripping story, many just don't know how to let go of their creation. I'm not talking bringing full closure, exactly (although Smith does pretty much shut the door on all loose ends), but he provides a method for ensuring the situation closes believably and dramatically.

The film adaptation for The Ruins, which Smith authored, debuted on cable last week, so I gave it a watch. As mediocre as the comment will sound, it was about as good as I thought it would be. The internal deliberations that drove the book were mostly lost as were a fair number of the main tension points of the story. The grisly scenes were displayed in full force, making the film miserable at times without the character setup necessary to care about who bad things were happening to. Of course, it is hard to abridge a novel so extensively to fit in an 80 minute movie, and the film contents just didn't go far enough to make me either believe the protagonist or appreciate the situation for the ultimate victims.

The film adaptation for A Simple Plan, also by Smith, was just altered too drastically to be taken seriously, seemingly catering to Billy Bob Thornton as the star versus the intelligent original plot.

The Egyptian Art wing in the Met was our first visit. To put our mindset in perspective, a couple years ago we visited the Tutankhamun exhibit in Philadelphia which was an incredible display of relics from Egypt and the Tutankhamun tomb.

And to put it bluntly, the Met squashed that exhibit like a grape.

That sounds more cruel against the Tut exhibit than it should, but the real message is just how expansive the Met's exhibit was. Room after room of ancient artifacts completely overwhelmed us from large statues to walls of artwork. There were cases of trinkets and scarabs that looked as commonplace as Cracker Jack toys. There was a room of multiple sarcophagus lined up as if it were a morgue.

Perhaps most impressive was the Temple of Dendur, exhibited in the beautiful Sackler Wing of the museum overlooking Central Park. Here was a haven for visitors to explore the remarkable exhibit or to simply relax in the peaceful confines.

Inside the temple was another interesting find - graffiti. But not contemporary graffiti; markings over a century old. Funny to think that J Livingston scratched his name into this piece of art close to two hundred years ago...perhaps the predecessor to today's Bart Simpson.

Even the decayed pieces were stunning to look at, showing not only the precision of the sculpture, but the effects of time.

For the past few months, the Game Show Network has been rerunning the series of Jeopardy! episodes in which Ken Jennings won his remarkable 74 games in a row. Since we weren't at the point of watching Jeopardy! with any regularity during Ken's reign, we decided to make an effort to watch all 75 episodes from the first fortunate win to the last remarkable loss and all the dominating runs in between. Sans one episode where the cable froze up, we saw the entire run, and while we had some expectations of what the series would be like, a few items did jump out at me that I didn't expect:

• Man, was Ken competitive: I suppose it makes sense that being so successful would require a certain drive that many people don't have (beyond the remarkable recall knowledge, of course), but it was very obvious how determined he would get when a game was close and he needed to pull away. It was also interesting to see how grumpy he would be if he missed a daily double; it wasn't an obvious tantrum, but he was clearly more grumpy than the average player.
• Holy recall, Batman: His ability to chain link facts and data to decipher the correct answer was very cool to watch, for lack of a better phrase. I'm not sure I've ever observed somebody on the show simply ring in and figure out the answer so effectively as he could...of course, I never observed somebody win 74 episodes either, so there is probably a correlation there.
• Somebody's gonna get a punch in the nose: I think I only saw one person who I thought was genuinely angry at losing to Ken. I forget his name now, but while some folks would make slightly snide remarks that were obviously in frustration yet masked in good humor, one guy sighed a breath of anger after continuously being unable to bet Ken to the buzzer that could have turned Ken to ash had he been close enough.
• What a geek: Okay, this wasn't a surprise exactly, but I think Ken was even geekier than I thought he would be.
• Yikes, I actually watched the Game Show Network: yet another thing I never thought I'd be able to say.

If you are at all interested, I can't speak highly enough about his book Brainiac. It is a well researched, insightful look at Trivia in our country while conveniently referencing the Jeopardy! run in the process.

The Afghan Whigs - What Jail is Like: Probably the most popular Whigs song, this was the radio release from the Gentleman album that defined the band as an indie star with 90's miserable outlook on life. From start to end, Gentleman is a continuous pounding of emotional songs that still holds up very well a decade later.

Beequeen - Black Eyed Dog: A quiet, moody, near ambient track from a band I frankly know very little about.

Howard Hello - Even More of the Same: Howard Hello's music is near playful; lots of upbeat rhythms in songs with peculiar measures and vocals that serve more as instruments than a desire to convey words to the listener. Although this is from a different EP, it is hard to pass on a band that titles an album, "Don't Drink His Blood." Good advice.

Slint - Ron: Once again, the iPod goes to the Tweez album to bring back the noise to the morning shuffle.

Hella - City Folk: Continuing the punky noise theme combined with inconsistent measures in beat, Hella brings the excitement (or chaos, perhaps) this morning.

Clint Mansell - Death is the Road to Awe: From The Fountain soundtrack, you can always count on Mansell to bring out the emotion of any film in his compositions. Working again with director Darren Aronofsky, the tracks from this collection are simply stunning.

Genesis - A Winter's Tale: Once again, a song from the band before they were either a progressive bunch of geeks or a pop star conglomerate of morons. There is something so silly about their first album that it is impossible for me to remove from the iPod.

Stereolab - John Cage Bubblegum: Taken from a Peel Session, sometimes this band could just rock live.

We started the next day marching around Central Park on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a cold morning, not necessarily uncomfortably so, but enough that I was amazed at how many folks were out jogging. I could only think of how the cold air would be tearing my lungs to shreds if I were attempting to race in the below freezing temperatures. Good for the locals; I was very impressed.

The views from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir towards the elaborate apartments on the west side held our attention for a good long time.

The first thing that struck us about the Met was its size, engulfing a broad portion of the east side of Central Park off of 5th avenue. Being in DC, we are familiar with the massive buildings of the Smithsonian and other DC museums and the large collections they boast. It didn't take long to realize the National Gallery of Art, one of the more elaborate collections downtown, was a mere dwarf in comparison to the exterior of the Met.

Even before we walked inside, we knew we had a big day ahead of us.

After walking 50 blocks down Madison Ave. as mentioned in the previous post, we found ourselves at Rockefeller Center to view the famous tree and skating rink. The crowd was large but not overwhelming, and we were able to comfortably bask in the glow of the lights, music, and majestic buildings.

Most of the nearby buildings were festively adorned.

Fidelity had an interesting display, apparently reassigning the person recently responsible for managing my 401k to be a permanent fixture behind their model train.

Our lone fame-sighting was a brush with John Malkovich who walked out of the NBC building right in front of us to enter his vehicle. He wasn't decorated in Christmas lights, however, so there wasn't much reason to take a picture of him.

Nicole was born in NYC, but hasn't been back to visit since her college days. My visits were always very focused with little time for exploration. Consequently, once we arrived and settled into our apartment, any definite plans were disregarded to fulfill the simple desire to walk around and drink in the atmosphere.

Starting from the apartment on 98th and Madison, we started walking south, glaring up at every architectural wonder and into every shop window that was glamorously decorated for the holiday season. The design of each display was remarkable; from clothing to jewelry to specialty shops, the style behind each presentation was a step above anything I had ever seen before.

Naturally, my camera was drawn to polar bears frolicking in the window.

This closeup of a hanging ornament display barely captures the elaborate Christmas decorations many of the windows boasted.

We spent a few days in New York City. I'll document some of the trip highlights over the next few entries.

After arriving and lunching in Penn Station, we wandered around the area awaiting the time we could check into the apartment we had rented for a few nights. As an impromptu decision, we rode up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building to spy the city on a hazy, cold afternoon. We apparently picked a good time to visit, waltzing past empty velvet rope-rows and probably a score of gift shops right to the elevators that took us to the 86th floor observation deck.

Having only visited NYC in the past on day trips, I have to admit I had a bit of anxiety as to what all I would experience while there for three evenings. Oddly, starting the journey on top of the Empire State had a way of framing the city for me. While it is expansive and quite impressive to gaze upon, I found that looking down on it from such a height put the city in a manageable perspective. I pinpointed the street our apartment was on...sixty blocks north of where I was looking down from; but still, I had the right road in my head. I blocked out the general areas we were planning on visiting. All of a sudden, it seemed kinda small.

Perhaps this is why our cats like sitting up high on items in the house.

The pigeons were a trip, walking right up to us and even landing on some goofy kids who teased the birds with food a little too much. Fresh off reading Courtney Humphries' Superdove, I was intrigued as to the actions these birds would take around me. As they stared into the camera as if they were posing for a picture, I was not disappointed.

iPod shuffle:

The dB's - Bad Reputation: An ancient track from Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple's groundbreaking alternative band; a precursor to a whole generation of REM'ish type music.

Black Dice - Seabird: Mostly ambient noise, Black Dice are consistently subtle and droning.

Mission of Burma - Outlaw: Speaking of groundbreaking, this is from the Signals, Calls and Marches album which is one of my favorite releases ever.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Michael Brook - Lament: Brooks compositions with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's vocals are really a compelling match. I recently found a remix album of this release with tracks from folks like Asian Dub Foundation and Talvin Singh.

Slint - Rhoda: Maintaining the shuffle-theme of old indie rock, this track is a guitar and distortion-heavy release from the Tweez album, a treasured release from the flannel world.

Slint - Darlene: I guess the iPod likes Slint...and Tweez...and making me look old by not picking any new tracks.

Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake, Act 2 No. 15 Allegro giusto: I dumped a bunch of classical music on the iPod a few weeks ago as I was starting to find I needed some calming background music during my busy days. For its familiarity, Swan Lake isn't exactly calming background noise as I would have hoped, especially this bouncy track.

The Crystal Method - Roll it Up: The iPod kicks and screams into the 21st century, albeit barely, with the Tweekend release. Crystal Method is very give and take with me, but Tweekend is a pretty good CD from beginning to end.