Michael Barron was the person who introduced me to the everlasting warmth of Nintendo’s love. Pretty soon I was bugging my parents for one of those little grey-on-grey boxes of limitless joy for my very own. They were pretty dead-set against getting me one for Christmas. They returned from a party and told me that Santa Claus had been there and had let them know that he didn’t make Nintendos in his workshop.

Christmas morning 1990 might be one of my best memories. I got the Michael Keaton Batman movie action figure, and the associated vehicles as well as an NES. My reaction upon unwrapping this gift was somewhere between that video of the kid screaming “Nintedo Sixty-FOUUUUUUR” on Christmas and the Livefastdie song, “Got Nitedo.”  A few years back I asked my mom why she had bought one for me after it seemed like they were trying to let me down easy with that story about seeing Santa Claus at that party. She told me I was so miserable at school that it seemed like I needed something to look forward to when I got home. I don’t know where I would have ended up without videogames.

I don’t think that video games used to be better. With a few exceptions the games for the NES were punishing and cruel to the players. Repeat and memorize a few button sequences until you get it right. Then the game’s over.  What the fuck was wrong with Battletoads? Two really fun little levels and then a third that you could never get past unless you had some sort of Rainman disability. Fucking hoverbike level. Who thought that was a good idea?

Here are ten NES games I own that are noteworthy, not necessarily the best or worst of anything.  Best of lists are for losers who want to believe that such a list can actually mean something. That is except for when I do them.

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10) Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (1990)

Capcom’s NES games always seemed to have superior graphics to most of the other games.  I especially liked the way their Disney related games looked and sounded.  I have a huge Disney obsession and I revere Walt Disney as America’s greatest artist. Wandering through a rundown Disneyland i my most common recurring dream and this game is pretty good translation of my nightmares.

You wander around Disneyland and enter levels that are based on rides at Disneyland and answer Disney trivia. The levels are frustrating and boring like most old video games but the atmosphere of this game is really scary to me. A lot of video games are like dreams to me and my dreams are a lot like video games. The same person who composed the score for this game went on to score Kingdom Hearts. That’s neat.

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9) Caveman Games (1990)

This stands out for me as one of the weirdest games released for the NES. Originally released as Caveman Ug-lympics for the computer, you control one of six cavemen who have names like Thag, Crudla (the female)  and Vincent (the nerdy one). You can do any one of several tendon destroying Olympics inspired games in which you try to start a fire before your opponent,jump over a dinosaur, run away from a saber toothed tiger or some other garbage like that.

You basically just button mash until you lose.  Some of these games were pretty impossible.  I don’t think I ever managed to jump over that fucking dinosaur but one time I managed to get into his mouth.

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8) Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (1991)

My dad bought me this game when it seemed like I might have testicular torsion as a kid and they had to do some sort of X-ray on my balls.

This sure was a fun game.  This was one of the  less torturous games to come out for the NES and definitely a jazzy time to play with friends. Also I have told this to some people already but I’d like it if people started calling me “Jazzy.”

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7) Bill and Ted’s Excellent Videogame Adventure (1991)

I rented this when I was a little kid and liked it a lot although at no point did I have any idea what was happening or what I was supposed to do. You control Ted as you wander around and look for something but what it is is hard to say.

I like the controls, the graphics and the music but at no point in my life have I ever been able to figure out how to progress even a little through this game. You can ride a canoe and a horse and  make all your enemies dance with a boom-box while you explore and talk to characters but nothing seems to happen. Does anyone know anything about this game?

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6) Remote Control (1990)

I think this is the first game based on an MTV show. How many of those are there?  There’s a Jackass game, I know that much. Remote Control was MTV’s first show not about music videos. Adam Sandler, Colin Quinn and some other comedians acted as hosts.

It was a fun n’ goofy game show about TV trivia and they made this pretty good game about it. I try to get people to play this with me but they usually refuse.  I think it holds up pretty well. It only gets difficult when it asks you trivia about MTV during 1990.

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Books. What a joke. Little rectangles of information.  As usual, it’s been days since I’ve left the house and Diksmell Fartdik is once more demanding that I write something for the Mushkunt Blog. I’ve forgotten what daylight and women look like. I haven’t spoken in days and I forget how to make my throat and mouth work together to form words. I’m like that movie starring Meg Ryan where she speaks wolf talk. I am an urban feral child-adult. Here are some of my books that are going to interest others.

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10) Disney Adventures featuring Macaulay Culkin

When I was little I owned all the issues of Nintendo Power and Disney Adventures. I would keep them organized and read them over and over. I loved magazines so much.  It seemed like I was going to work for them when I was little. I made zines and then I started Trashed Magazine and by that time the magazine industry was already dead.

So what’s left? Wasting my love of topical writing on this fucking website. Playboy was once a home for chaste titties but they also sent Shel Silverstein to Spain so he could do comics about it and paid Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder a lot of money to produce the beautifully painted Little Annie Fanny comics. Who’s going to finance beautiful things now? Everything’s gotta be made cheaper and faster now.  I was supposed to be in magazines. Now what do I have? I have nothing. Rudyard Kipling believed that if Hell exists, that we are living in it.

Long story short, Macaulay happily discusses all the good times he was having with Michael Jackson at the time.

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9) Rat Catching by Crispin Hellion Glover

I interviewed Crispin Glover when What Is It? came out and he gave me copies of his books. That interview was scheduled to be in a magazine that got canceled but at least I got to meet him and he gave me these books.

I feel guilty about every interview I ever did that didn’t get used for one thing or another.

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8) Sex in the Outdoors by Robert Ros, M.D. and Buck Titon, M.S.

Boy, that rabbit’s really getting an eyeful. Did there have to be a guide for having sex in the outdoors?  Isn’t that what all living things have been doing since the dawn of time? The advice is all like “Don’t rub your dick on poison ivy.” And if you see a big bunny watching you sex then just close your eyes and hope he goes away because you are probably about to die.

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7) Understanding Human Behavior

If you ever get close to a human and huuuuuuuummaaaaaaaaannnn behavvvvvvioorrrrrrr. I’ll never understand the appeal of Bjork. I found this book in the trash.

That’s some crazy ownership tag in the front of the book. Don’t think about death too much, Wilcox.

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6) Masters of Metal by Lee Martyn

This book is ridiculous. I like that they have chubby Ozzy on the cover. He was moving in a Chris Farley direction at this point.

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I bet you didn’t know that Steve Martin was heavy metal. Now you do.

I bet you didn’t know that ZZ Top were metal either. Neither did they. Only Lee Martyn did.

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When the history of film is written by Leonard Maltin’s clones, few actors of the 20th century will rival Nicolas Cage. Fuck it, I said it. But he’s also a pretty weird dude. That’s often the cost of being a genius. He was born into Hollywood royalty (his birth name is Nicolas Kim Coppola), he was a comic nerd coming up, and he once outbid Leonardo DiCaprio on a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull (top that, Twerps!). He allegedly kidnapped Kathleen Turner’s dog, then he sued her over it, which is hilarious.

Cage has stated that he used to be really selective about which roles he takes on, but now he’s trying to do more family-friendly movies that his kids can go to. I’m sure it has nothing to do with his $6.2 million dollar debt. For every memorable performance he delivers, there are six or seven shitty ones. He’s worked with some true legends: Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, John Woo, David Lynch, and most recently, Werner Herzog. In fact, Cage’s performance really does depend on the director he’s working with. If he ever collabs with Shane Black, that’s it. My life can end. And judging from the trailers, his role in the upcoming Kick Ass looks like another one for the books.

But until that day, here’s a run-down of my favorite Cage performances.

10. Red Rock West (1993)

In this neo-noir tale of mistaken identity from John Dahl (Rounders), Cage plays Mike Williams, a down-on-his-luck vet who finds himself in the right place at the wrong time. Like most noir “heroes,” Mike finds all the odds stacked against him and takes a beating along the way. It’s pretty Noir Textbook: get money, fuck a girl, don’t trust the girl, stay alive as best you can. As an old vet trying to do what’s right in a corrupt world, Cage nails it. Also, Dennis Hopper plays a masochistic Texan hitman, so this movie is worth watching on so many levels.

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9. Birdy (1984)

Yeah, that’s Cage and Matthew Modine in pigeon suits. Cage plays best friend to Modine in this soulful post-Vietnam film from Londoner Alan Parker (Midnight Express, The Wall). Modine plays Birdy, a avian-enthusiast who comes back from Nam basically thinking he’s a bird. Cage visits his friend in the asylum and does his best to snap him out of it. I couldn’t find the link, but allegedly Cage had his front teeth knocked out of whack by his dentist in order to talk differently for the role. Method as fuck.

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8. Face Off (1997)

“Suck my tongue.” I’ll never forget that Cage line from Woo’s “gun fu” epic Face Off. Cage plays terrorist Castor Troy to Travolta’s FBI agent and the result is two hours of pure fucking entertainment. Cage rarely gets to play a pure villain; he usually wears a gray hat. So Face Off stands out amongst the Cage Canon for that reason alone.

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7. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Scorsese directs – Cage never sleeps. I remember watching this one for the first time and never being able to take my eyes off Cage as he ventured further and further into insanity. I’m not sure if he went method for this one, but it seemed like he didn’t sleep for  solid week.

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6. Wild at Heart (1990)

As Sailor Ripley and his girl Pace, Cage and Laura Dern portray the only kind of couple I’ve known in my life know = fucked. David Lynch infused his adaptation with Elvis and Wizard of Oz bits, and Cage gets to play the romantic dreamer he was born to. This goes down in my top three Lynch films as well.

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I ran out of free time so now I only blog about things that don’t involve me leaving my house. I wrote about favorite my records yesterday and I wrote about my Star Wars shit last week. Now I’m going writing about my favorite T-shirts.

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10) Megadeth “I Kill… For Thrills” Hooded T-Shirt

This is one of the most amazing metal tees I’ve ever seen. Not only does it feature Vic Rattlehead as a scuba-diver on the front with the slogan “I Kill… For Thrills”, there’s a photograph of him on the back with an audacious claim as to the technical superiority of the band.

Dave Mustaine’s a humorless asshole and that’s why I like him. I like the band because they’re like a meaner Metallica with only one member that anyone knows by name. Best of all is that this shirt has a hood. How many hooded t-shirts have you seen in your life? This is probably the only one. I want to design a hooded T-shirt.

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9) Cambodian Tin Tin shirt

The Vidiot went to Cambodia for a month and he brought me back this amazing T-shirt. Tintin is a much bigger deal in Europe and Asia than he ever was in America and bootleg Tintin merchandise abounds in both continents.

Here is a close-up pf the chest hit. “Danger! Mines!” Some weird characters, Cambodia. Hmmm, I wonder how successful that Spielberg Tin Tin movie’s going to be?

That’s Tin Tin and Captain Haddock on the back of he shirt. They’re in the forests of Cambodia finding piles of human skulls and looking horrified, a warning sign about landmines is nearby. I love Tin Tin and wish this comic adventure through Cambodia actually existed.

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8) Handmade Devo T-shirt

I got this for five dollars off of eBay. It was made by some guy when he was still a teenager back in the eighties. He used the heat press equipment at his dad’s sporting goods store and cut and applied all of the decals himself. Originally the Devo face on the front had a forked tongue but I wore it once and the tongue came off so I will never make the mistake of actually wearing this tee ever again!

The sleeves were cut into a jagged zig zag and he also did something really cool with the collar that involved splitting it down the seem and applying stars to the inner part. This is one of my favorite and most awesome eBay finds ever. I still can’t believe that the tongue fell off.

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7) Sample For Unproduced Мишка Sweater

I know this isn’t a T-shirt but I love it nonetheless and I drew the illustrations for it. It breaks my heart that this is the only one of these sweaters in existence. This is based on the first drawing I ever did for Мишка and Mikhail & Brian assembled the elements into this awesome sweater.

The drawing was overly complicated and even after being simplified some on the computer it still got way distorted from my original illustration. But you know what? I like this distorted version on the sweater better. The reason that this never came out was because My Pal The Crook is a cheapskate. Please write letters and comments until this sweater gets made. Until then I am the owner of the only one that exists.

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6) Michael Barron’s Mom’s Sweatshirt

Michael Barron was my best friend when I was a little kid. He was the only kid who was skinnier, paler and nerdier than I was. When I was in high school I stole this out of his mother’s car and wore it around school a lot. We didn’t speak too much after high school but I did leave bizarre comments on his livejournal until he finally banned me.

After that I left bizarre comments on his girlfriend’s livejournal. Then I sent him an email telling him I was gay and that I considered him my true love and wanted him to come spend the weekend with me. He responded by telling me that he was certain I was lying but that everyone had always suspected I was gay. That was a few years ago. I still have this sweatshirt anyway.

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Mikhail’s been screaming at me to write more for the Bloglin but I haven’t really left the house in the past ten days so I have to look around my apartment for content. Last time I wrote about my favorite Star Wars things. This time I’m talking about the favorite records in my collection. These aren’t my favorite albums of all time but they are records that are special, uncommon or funny. I’m calling this column, “Crap I Own: A Few of My Favorite Things.” And well here they are.

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10) V/A – My Pussy Belongs To Daddy

It’s important that all girls know who their pussy belongs to. Some might think that it belongs to them but nope, it belongs to daddy. This glassy eyed bovine cat enthusiast on the cover knows it, do you? Look at the cover girl’s walleyed stare. She looks like she’s on muscle relaxers or lightly mentally retarded. This is the photo they got of her where her eyes were open and she wasn’t drooling or trying to eat the cat. It’s funny to think that both the cat and girl on this album cover are dead now.

This is a novelty record of double entendre songs. Check out these titles. I especially like the song about Tony’s hot nuts.

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9) Georges Montalba – Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion

This record was released several times under different titles and with varying cover art. Georges Montalba was a common pseudonym used by organists, but on Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion it’s being used by Anton Szandor LaVey, the late and dearly missed leader of the Church of Satan. You can even read an article full of factual errors about this at the Village Voice website.

The music is frantic and then serene. Haunting and haunted at the same time. It mostly features the pipe organ with some skeleton dance xylophones and large and ancient sounding timpani drums. Crashes of noise give way to music that starts out melodic before growing and growing until it is pure tribal rhythm. You listen to this record and think, “God, the path of the virtuous is dull. I want to live in Anton Lavey’s world of false identies, orgies and pranks.” Evil was never so appealing or beautiful as it is on this record. If you saw Crispin Glover’s movie “What Is It?” you heard Lavey’s music over the closing credits. This isn’t a novelty record and this isn’t a John Wayne Gacey painting. This is one of the great uncelebrated albums.

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8) The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request

This is my favorite Rolling Stones album by far. Most of their stuff from before the eighties is either life changing or entertaining but this…This…This is something else altogether. That title and cover alone are amazing. This is an original pressing with the lenticular cover art that looks three dimensional, Mick and Kieth and their pals dressed as wizards in a kingdom on another planet. Musically this is the most experimental and weirdest that the Stones ever got and a lot of people really hate this thing. This album and Frank Zappa seem to divide rock nerds a lot. I like both. She’s a Rainbow is beautiful. In Another Land is a weird one that I DJ more than any other Stones song.

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7) Village People – Renaissace

This is another one of those records that every record store clerk owns or has owned at some point. It’s the Village People’s punk album. That’s why they are looking so New Wave on the cover. The entire album sucks except for the final song, “Food Fight” which is a triumph of pop joy. It starts with someone yelling “Food Figghhhhhhhhhht!!!” and then a poppy riff about starting a food fight happens. According to Wikipedia a lot of folks consider this to be the worst album cover of all time.

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6) Livefastdie - Got Nitedo 7″

I treasure all of my Livefastdie records but this one was especially neat since they hand cut and colored these little pieces of paper to look like NES cartridge sleeves and then slipped them in with the cover art. These guys were heralds of what was to come and they never made a bad song. “Got Nitedo” is a song about how Camero’s friend came into school on Monday with his arm in a sling because he’d spent the entire weekend playing Kid Icarus nonstop and gave himself tendinitis.

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In the process of compiling our various contributions to the Bloglin’s Best 100 albums of 2009, I think we all scoped our fair share of already published lists. Many proved expected and ultimately forgettable, and a handful left me truly impressed, but none so much as music blog aggregator Hype Machine’s 2009 Music Blog Zeitgeist. Not only was it the most populist of lists that dicumented a wide spectrum of music opinion from the greater blogosphere, but it was also hands down the best designed year end list.

For those of you who’ve yet to dive into the immersive waters of Hype Machine, I think founder Anthony Volodkin best summarized his own creation in 2007 in an interview with Wired Magazine when he stated:

For me, the most memorable discovery experiences are the result of some kind of late night browsing session when you click on a bunch of links and you’re not sure how you got there … (and then it’s) “Whoa, what is this!?” And that’s the moment that Hype Machine wants to replicate, over and over.

Volodkin, a Russian immigrant, was only 21 years old at the time of that interview, making him just a teenager in 2005 when he launched what has grown into a 1.7 million unique views a month destination for a music-hungry, digitally savvy public. Hype Machine works by live indexing the posts of selected music bloggers across genre and geographic boundaries. Posts are cached from their original sources with tracks available for streamed listening via song players, a practice that both legally protects Hype Machine and protects the bandwidth of the indexed bloggers. Volodkin and his team are able to profit via affiliate deals with online music retailers like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic.

Volodkin’s formula has proven both simple and successful. Browse or search the database, streaming songs of your choosing and click the associated links to purchase full albums or read more from the bloggers who loved the same tracks that caught your ears. At a first glance it might seem easy to write off Hype Machine as a repository for buzz bands, but underneath the popular names of the day you will find a layer upon layer of your own favorite artists mixed amongst the brand new (but not yet known), the obscure and the forgotten but now remembered.

Hype Machine approached their 2009 Music Blog Zeitgeist with the same automation with personality approach that defines the larger site. In the categories of Top Songs, Top Artists and Top Albums of the year, creativity merged with statistics in a gloriously presented cornucopia of visuals and user interface. The Top Songs category pinpointed what were the 39 most popular tracks on the site across 2009, judged by a month-to-month analysis of overall song plays and favoriting (loved) clicks by registered users. The Top Song listing was accompanied by a special edition of Hype Machine Radio that featured all the listed songs in an easily digestible mix.

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I’m sure it’s no secret just how much we here at Мишка & The Bloglin L-O-V-E Horror cinema. Nothing gets some of us as excited each year than the promise some new horror trailer brings. Thankfully we at the Bloglin have a gorehound with no compare in The Notorious P.I.G. He not only get the chance to see many of these early on but is more than willing to report back which one’s are worth the time to watch.

I’ll warn you that there is some crossover between this list and our general Top 20 films of 2009 by Oh Mars. But if anything that should just be viewed as an example at just how good some of these films truly were, Horror or not! So with no further ado, The Bloglin’s Best of 2009: Top 10 Horror Films!
- My Pal the Crook

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2009 was viewed by a fair amount of horror fans to be a “Meh” year for horror movies with a lack of clear cut definitive horror films that really raised the bar for the genre. I was originally of this opinion until I started putting this year’s list together. Upon re-examination I have to admit, while 2009 lacked quantity, it made up for in quality. I found there to be a solid offering of well constructed, often pleasantly surprising, horror movies.

Honorable Mentions: Final Destination 3D, Thirst, & Friday the 13th

*Reviews May Contain Some Spoilers*

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10) Orphan [Warner Bros.] // Director: Jaume Collett-Serra

Acclaimed commercial director Jaume Collett-Serra returns to the horror genre with an interesting take on an evil child. The high point in this film is definitely Isabelle Fuhrman’s performance as Esther the recently adopted child of the Coleman’s played by Vera Farmiga (hot) and Peter Saarsgard. Seeing the trailers early on I felt underwhelmed so it came as a nice surprise to see how well the movie played out. Intelligent story, great acting, and an interesting twist at the end.

As a side note: horror fans will have certain categories of a film they look to fulfill like kills, boobs, suspense, scares, soundtrack, etc. I have a category of my own and that is children’s drawing’s in horror movies. I dunno, I just like them and look out for them and when I see one I judge it on sort of a pass/fail basis. For example psychic kids almost always fail cause they’re basically tracers. Esther however gets a flying pass based on sheer quantity and scale alone. Her technique is a bit “Naive Art” but the content is there.

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9) H2: Halloween [Dimension] // Director: Rob Zombie

I’m a fan of Rob Zombie’s films most notably The Devil’s Rejects and while H2 is definitely no The Devil’s Reject’s I still found it to be worth putting on the list. I wasn’t a fan of pretty much all of the things die hard Halloween fans hated about this movie. I didn’t like the weird plot involving Deborah Myers, I thought the fact that you could see his face and the Nomadic aspect of his existence served to demystify him a little too much. I wasn’t a fan of the fact that the movie is just not a cohesive piece and was pretty much slapped together at the last minute and I certainly wish that Phil Parmet had stayed on to shoot the film over Brandon Trost.

If one where looking at this as a shining example of cinema (or a shining example of the Halloween series) I could see how you may be disappointed. However, this one gets the ass end of this list based solely on kills alone. There where many and they where flinch worthy and unforgiving, not to mention totally unmotivated. Rob Zombie really knows how to capture a sense of despair and brutality unmatched by most in the horror movie genre. Too bad the rest of the film itself deteriorated after the first 20 minutes, I thought as a story it got off to a pretty good start.

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8) The Last House on the Left [Rogue] // Director: Dennis lliadis

Wes Craven continues to produce great remakes of his classic films with his latest, The Last House on the Left. A well shot revenge picture directed by first time horror movie director Dennis lliadis. The violence was definitely over the top at times border-lining on humorous (especially the end), save for a lengthy and uncomfortable rape scene. The parents played by Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn did a great job portraying two people pushed to avenge their daughter’s rape and attempted murder while Sara Paxton does a great job of playing a daughter who gets raped and murdered. (Almost) A simple and well executed tale of revenge.

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7) Zombieland [Sony] // Director: Ruben Fleischer

It seems these days that if you’re a commercial/music video director looking to break into features the quickest route is through horror films. (Francis Lawrence, Marcus Nispel, Dave Meyers, Jaume Collett Serra, etc) Up until now it’s usually been met with disastrous results, however Ruben Fleischer (M.I.A.’s “Galang”, Dizzy Rascal’s “Fix Up Look Sharp”) seems to have hit his stride right out of the gate with Zombieland.

Fleischer’s made a humorous Zombie film with great gore, good effects, heart and possibly the best cameo in years coming in the form of Bill Murray. A fun, consistent, movie that starts with a great opening credit sequence and comes full circle wrapping up with a nice sense of closure.

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6) Trick R Treat [Warner Bros.] // Director: Michael Dougherty

The first horror movies I saw as a kid were both Creepshows, Tales From the Dark Side, Tales from the Crypt (TV) etc. I loved these connected horror stories with a humorous moral or lesson to be learned at the end and as such have a special place in my heart for Trick R Treat. It’s certainly not ground breaking in any way and doesn’t raise the bar but it’s a fun film that ties together well.

Certainly well executed enough that it deserved a theatrical release, Trick R Treat was actually originally slated to come out in 2007 but got shelved until a DVD finally made it’s way out this year. I mean, why not capitalize on both Halloween (the holiday) and Anna Paquin’s True Blood fame?

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This was a very strange year for video games. Tons of sequels, lots of money made, lots of money lost. The indie video game culture continues to grow thanks to the ever popular digital distribution channels such as steam, PSN network, XBOX live, and Wiiware. And the mass delaying of Christmas games till the new year out of fear of competing with Modern Warefare 2…speaking of which…

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10) Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) [Infinity Ward]

So Modern Warefare 2 was kind of a big deal.  It was actually the biggest launch of anything ever.  No film, book, TV show, DVD, game….anything….has made as much money when it launched as MW2.  And it is a fun game, a very fun game at times, especially if you are playing with a friend.  That said it is basically the video game equivalent of a bunch of episodes of 24.  It cost a shit ton of money to make but adds exactly nothing to FPS games or video games as a whole.  Which is fine, they have their place, and that place is number 10.

Original Bloglin review

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9) New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii) [Nintendo]

The most fun I have had with the Wii all year.  Basically classic Mario game play but with more multiplayer options.  One issue I had with it is that it is actually really fucking hard, like way harder then I remember Mario being.  That’s not really a problem but you might want rent it first if you think it will just be a relaxing affair.

Not originally reviewed on the Bloglin

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8) Demon’s Souls (PS3) [Atlus]

Demon’s Souls is a relentless fucking game.  Much has been written about its difficulty level already, it is a very challenging game.  But it is a fair game, a game that you must play well in order to advance.  It is also one of the most original RPGs in recent memory.  It is also continuing to be updated with new content so if you are into reply value then this is your game.  Demon’s Souls came out of nowhere and only through proving itself a worthy game has it become a small hit.  If you own a PS3 definitely check this game out.

Original Bloglin review

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7) Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) [Capcom]

So how about this for a smart idea.  Lets take the classic Street Fighter 2 class of characters, give them some really inspired and great looking new graphics and depth, and just make a really kickass fighting game.  DONE.  Street Fighter IV is so simple that it makes you think “Why didn’t they think of that before?”  It uses 2.5 dimensions but its not lame like Street Fighter EX.  It plays as simple or as complex as you want it to play.  And then of course there is the online multiplayer, and it just works.

Not originally reviewed on the Bloglin

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6) Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360, PC) [Electronic Arts]

Lots of folk like zombies nowadays so it is kind of surprise that it took this long to make THE zombie game.  Left 4 Dead was a start in the right direction but it felt kind of empty, souless…and not always very fun.  Left 4 Dead 2 improves on its predecessor in many ways.  All in all it just feels like this is the best zombie-killing simulation we will ever get….until Left 4 Dead 3 comes out.

Original Bloglin review

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The thing about remixes is that they’re, like, infinite. Nearly every producer does them and—as we currently stand in this party jam/DJ-worship culture—nearly every producer, band, songwriter, DJ, whoever solicits them. Labels like Kitsune and Kompakt issue seemingly endless comps and mixtapes filled with the things. If your album was moderately electro, heavily promoted or even remotely anticipated, you’ve got a single EP (or two, or three) with several edits. It’s just the way shit works.

And, really, it works out just fine, especially for total techno nerds like me. Not only do we get to hear new versions of already great songs (or great versions of sub-par songs, e.g. the T. Rauschmiere remix of David Gahan’s “Bottle Living”), we get tidy little intros to producers who otherwise might have fallen below our radars.

But it does make compiling a definitive list a tad tricky; there will always be something missing. A million producers, a million edits, one year and 10 spots does not easy work make. These are the remixes that stood out the most for me, the edits with something just a bit stronger, more inventive or purely catchy than the others I’ve stockpiled throughout the year. One more week, and this list could’ve changed entirely— remix hoarding is anything but a static hobby.

For most of these tracks we’ve embedded Lala players. You’ll need to have a Lala account to get the songs to play. However Lala accounts are totally free to sign up for and you really should just have one by now!

Honorable Mentions: Empire Of The Sun – “We Are The People (The Shapeshifters Vocal Remix)”, Uffie – “Pop The Glock (Ellen Allien Bang The Glock 2009 RMX)”, Bear In Heaven – “Wholehearted Mess (Pink Skull Remix)”, Kid Cudi – “Day ‘n’ Night (Danny Scrilla Dubstep Remix)”, Depeche Mode – “Wrong (Thin White Duke Remix)”

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10) Tycho – “Coastal Brake (Lusine Remix)” Coastal Brake [Ghostly International]

Seattle’s Lusine is among my favorite producers to take off in 2009, and this remix exemplifies why: ambient, atmospheric and almost cozy-warm, “Coastal Brake” sprawls out like a Pacific Northwest thunderstorm, all gorgeous and intimidating. Here’s hoping 2010 is the year of Lusine.

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9) Modeselektor – “Suckerpin (Feadz Remix)” Happy Birthday Remixed #3 [Bpitch Control]

A fresh take on a years-old track (my fave from 2007’s Happy Birthday), Feadz amps up the industrial and acid-house references bubbling beneath “Suckerpin” and effectively creates something that feels a little familiar but still entirely reimagined.

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8) Jogger – “Nice Tights (Nosaj Thing Remix)” Friends of Friends Remixed [FoF]

If you have yet to check out Nosaj Thing, get on it; you’re seriously missing out. The LA producer exploded into the forefront this year, and his breathless, chilly version of “Nice Tights” is just another in a string of captivating and slightly off-kilter creep-hop tracks. Listen now.

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7) Andi Teichmann – “Tape (ADA Remix)” Adaptations Mixtape #1 [Kompakt]

The most standout remixes are those that totally reimagine a song, and this ADA edit is like a whole new world. Teichmann’s original lo-fi/freak-folk/weirdo-electro track is great enough by itself, but pit it against ADA’s smooth, disco-ish production and you’ve got something worthy of Erlend Oye’s Unrest. Which brings me to…

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6) Whitest Boy Alive – “1517 (Morgan Geist Remix)” 1517 EP [Bubbles]

The Erlend Oye/Morgan Geist pairing has never gone wrong (see: the Unrest classic “Ghost Trains”), and “1517″ is predictably perfect. More expansive and developed than Geist’s productions for Oye’s solo work, this remix takes a hot minute to get started—but once it does, you’ll beg it not to stop.

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Our good buddy Damian (frontman for the greatest Hardcore band making music today, Fucked Up) sent in his list of his 10 favorite albums of 2009! There’s some crossover with our own top 100 albums of the year, along with a few things we missed and will have to check out.

So with out further ado here’s a photo of Damian smooching J. Mascis and his top 10 for 2009!
- My Pal the Crook

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10) Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (2009) [Jagjaguwar]

Ok, this is not going to change the world or anything but it is still a great record!

Original Bloglin review

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9) Mission of Burma – The Sound, The Speed, The Light (2009) [Matador]

I really didn’t want to have three Matador records on my list because it implies that all I listen to is the free stuff Matador sends me. While that is kinda true I would put this record on my list even if it came out on Jade Tree (j/k). I mean the fact that they open the record with a song called “1,2,3, Party” is reason right enough, but it is actually an amazing song the references “Hey Little Girl” and the rest of the record is equally awesome.

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8) Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy [Matador]

This is the one to watch. How many bands can you name that you honestly think you’re still going to care about what they are doing six albums in? Most bands have a two or three album period of doing something interesting and then they either start sucking or just get stuck doing the same things over and over again, Kurt Vile is one of the ones that will probably be doing cool stuff on every album.

Original Bloglin Review

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7) Zola Jesus - The Spoils (2009) [Sacred Bones]

Years from now when we all laugh at the by-gone trend that was lo-fi (again) there will be a few bands that managed to transcend the trend and, by god, Zola Jesus is one of them. This record is killer. She can sing like nobodies business and has a cool goth vibe.

Original Bloglin review

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6) Earles and Jensen – Farr the Record [Matador]

I don’t think I am giving away any insider information by telling you that the first Earles and Jensen record is one of the worst selling records for Matador in recent memory, but not because it is bad or anything; people just have no taste. The highest rated comedy on TV is Two and a Half Men, not 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm or It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. So I suppose that means the majority of people think that Charlie Sheen is one of the funniest people alive. The same thing could be said about comedy records: the first Flight of the Concords record won a Grammy while the first Earles and Jensen record is totally forgotten.

This time around Matador made the new Earles and Jensen record super limited. They’ve realized that the masses are wrong, so why not just cater to the few and the proud with good taste in comedy?

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