Tag: yearinreview

My top music of 2024

Last.fm has been diligently cataloging my music listening habits for nearly 20 (!!) years. Now that we've said goodbye to 2024, it's time to look back at what I've been digging into. Compared to previous years, there are some interesting surprises. And stuff that is just absolutely the same as always.

  1. Dispatch
  2. Social Distortion
  3. Hot Water Music
  4. The Interrupters
  5. Red Hot Chili Peppers
  6. Angie Mattson
  7. Aesop Rock
  8. Guts
  9. Natural Incense
  10. The Juliana Theory

Dispatch and Hot Water Music have always consistently been in my top 3, (except for last year, where neither even made my top 10, weird). It's no surprise that both of them rank up there as my favorite bands. I saw HWM earlier this year when they made their way back to the Bay Area.

Thanks to some iPhone photo memories, I was reminded of Angie Mattson early in the year -- this is an artist who loved about 20 years ago and then literally dropped off the face of the Earth. Her music is no longer available on Spotify or Apple Music. I found a few videos that are still up on YouTube (who knows for how long), but other than the albums in my local library that Last.fm has logged, she apparently doesn't exist anymore.

Social Distortion was coming back to town and I was so excited to see them. And then a few days before the show, I tore my ACL in a paintballing incident with friends (go figure, it was my first time ever playing paintball), and I could barely walk.

Fun times all around, really. Here's hoping 2025 is even better -- even though this year starts off with the letters W(ednesday) T(hursday) F(riday).

Previous years in music:

My 2023 Reading List

I didn't do a great job of reviewing every book I read this year, but still read a good number of books this year. My Goodreads goal was 24 books and I hit 30.

This is down from 40 in 2022, 56 in 2021, and 60(!) in 2020. Kind of an interesting correlation between the pandemic years and what has happened as we've come out of various lockdowns (e.g., more activity outside is less time reading inside).

Anyway, this year's list of books is below. My favorites were The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Tracers in the Dark. My least favorite was easily Blindsight.

My top music of 2023

Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music (taken by me)

It's time for the yearly (semi-yearly?) update of my favorite bands according to Last.FM. It is kind of all over the place this year!

  1. Chuck Ragan
  2. The Glitch Mob
  3. Creedence Clearwater Revival
  4. Vansire
  5. The Lawrence Arms
  6. AFI
  7. The Interrupters
  8. Deer Tick
  9. Two Gallants
  10. The Rolling Stones

My top music of 2022

It's that time of year again! Thanks to Last.fm, we can compile all the songs and artists that I've listened to over the last year. The results? (Same as it ever was, really.)

  1. Hot Water Music
  2. Dispatch
  3. Dramarama
  4. AFI
  5. Led Zeppelin
  6. The Rolling Stones
  7. The Who
  8. Bob Dylan
  9. Dire Straits
  10. They Might Be Giants

My top music of 2021

Spotify has wrapped (which is fun and cool) and I had some initial opinions on it, via Twitter:

My Spotify Wrapped 2021 is just going to be kids songs all the way down, isn't it?

Fortunately, it wasn't! With regards to looking back at musical tastes, I've always been partial about Last.FM and it's also a fun thing to look back on when I remember to grab the data in time -- especially since Spotify Wrapped is fully baked around the beginning of December. (Though, that's probably because a lot of people's profiles will be overrun with Christmas music.)

My top artists for 2021 are:

  1. Bad Religion
  2. Bob Dylan
  3. Dispatch
  4. Fat Freddy's Drop
  5. The Sounds
  6. Hot Water Music
  7. Joe Strummer
  8. Polyphia
  9. Bing Crosby
  10. The Beatles

Bad Religion tops the list due to reading their biography earlier this year and just really going back through their catalog remembering some of their songs.

It's kind of interesting comparing it to my musical tastes from 10 years ago. Hot Water Music and Bob Dylan were there. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My top music of 2020

Oh, joy. What did I listen to this year in order to get through a global pandemic, lockdowns, an election and all that fun stuff? According to Last.fm

  1. Dispatch
  2. Hot Water Music
  3. The Glitch Mob
  4. Anti-Flag
  5. Johnny Cash
  6. Tropidelic
  7. Rodrigo y Gabriela
  8. Slightly Stoopid
  9. Guts
  10. The Rolling Stones

My top music of the decade: 2010s

It's hard to believe that I've been sending music data to Last.fm for nearly 15 years! Because of this, we can start doing some crazy things... like compiling a list of all top artists I listened to over this entire decade.

From 2010 to 2019, the list is:

  1. Bob Dylan
  2. Hot Water Music
  3. Johnny Cash
  4. State Radio
  5. Dispatch
  6. Daft Punk
  7. Chuck Ragan
  8. The Glitch Mob
  9. Bad Religion
  10. Frank Turner
  11. Aesop Rock
  12. DJ Shadow
  13. Manu Chao
  14. ait-J
  15. Widespread Panic

My top music of 2013

bob_dylan

Bob Dylan

Thanks to things like Rdio and Sonos, I listened to a ridiculous amount of music in 2013. Here are my top bands from the last year. See also 2012 and 2011.

  1. Bob Dylan (509 plays)
  2. Pretty Lights (488 plays)
  3. Daft Punk (382 plays)
  4. Dispatch (377 plays)
  5. Calexico (372 plays)
  6. Frank Turner (366 plays)
  7. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (365 plays)
  8. Alt-J (323 plays)
  9. Wild Belle (318 plays)
  10. The Sounds (268 plays)

Data via Last.FM

2011 Photographic Year in Review

Grape leaves

What?! Another year in the history books? I say this every year, but time sure does fly. Especially when you're having fun. This year seemed like one of the busiest yet! Let's take a look back at my photographic year in review for 2011.

See previously, my photographic year in reviews for 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Quick notes: I probably stuffed way too many events and photos in this post. Sorry! Secondly, it's interesting to see how many square formatted photographs (courtesy of Instagram) that I have. It's my primary way of sharing photos these days.

January 2011

I started off the year trying to take a photo per day. Here, I walked town Divisadero in our old neighborhood and shot some random photos of the store front one night. This experiment lasted about 2 days.

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Street cars are one of the reasons I love San Francisco.

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Speaking of rides in street cars, I kept taking pictures of them / inside them and shot this iPhone panorama.

Street Car Panorama

In early January, Christmas trees are victims in San Francisco.

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Kerry took me to the Tonga Room in San Francisco for my birthday. It's a San Francisco classic. Pool in the middle of the restaurant with a boat and a band.

Tonga Room SF Tonga Room SF 2

Our friend Christian celebrated his birthday by scheduling a Mexican party bus to take us around town! Drinks, music, and late night pinatas in the park!

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Walking to and from work each day, I'm bound to stumble upon many of San Francisco's eccentrics. And then document them with my phone's camera (this is a trend I've noticed more and more -- I'm using my serious cameras less and less!)

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I also picked up this rad bearded beanie (because, you know, I can't really grow a beard).

Bearded beanie

To end the month, the group of our friends took off on a chartered wine tour of Sonoma through Terrific Tours.

Wine 1 Wine 2 Wine 3

February 2011

The first weekend of February was Super Bowl weekend! So, we mounted up in our vehicles to head to Lake Tahoe for a winter weekend at a friend's cabin.

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This means there was also some serious Settlers of Catan games going on.

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Also, the Starvin Marvin's BBQ Team decided to help out and provide some tasty treats.

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Thanks to a query from Burrito Justice, I went to the SF Library to dig up a research paper on prehistoric humans found while excavating BART in the 1960's.

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Mike Daisey came to town and gave an incredible performance on The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Here's the setup of the stage prior to the show.

Agony of Steve Jobs

Winters in California aren't too bad…

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A friend of ours had an 80's themed birthday. Dynamic Dave and Missouri Mike made an appearance.

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Kinetic Kerry and Dynamic Dave, 80's style.

Kerry and dave

Our cats continued to make me realize how easy they have it. Here, Tegan is thinking about all her worries.

Easy tegan

And a tweet of mine randomly appeared on Twitter's home page. Sweet!

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March 2011

It's been awhile since we've been wine tasting, so back to Sonoma we went!

Wine march 1 Wine march 2

Proving time and time again that we have the laziest animals in the universe.

Lazy cats

March also means the South by Southwest festival is happening. Off to Austin, Texas!

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Rachel and Kerry pose with the mascot from HootSuite.

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And then pose while riding some cheesy rides…

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Austin gets pretty crazy during SXSW.

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The Texas State Capital Building is pretty neat at night.

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The primary reason we were in Austin was for our annual gdgt live in Austin event.

Gdgt live in austin

While in Texas, Kerry and I apparently found one of Austin's classic "love photo" spots.

With love from austin

We extended our stay a few days and had a chance to check out the world famous Salt Lick BBQ outside of Austin.

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Don't forget about all the awesome music! Here, Liam Finn sings some tunes.

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After a week in Austin, we flew back home to our fair city.

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With BBQ season approaching, I hung out with the Starvin Marvin's BBQ Team while they practiced cooking some brisket.

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I can't stop taking pictures of the sky!

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April 2011

Baseball season begins!

Att park

Our friends Scott and Marcie ended up getting engaged! So we hung out at a wine bar to surprise them (courtesy of Scott setting this up).

Wine bar engagement party

For our friend Jeff's birthday, we went out to the East Bay and had a BBQ in the park.

Jeffs birthday park

Koa was there to keep us company.

Koa park

In late April, I ventured out to Kennedy Space Center for one of the coolest experiences in my life -- to checkout Space Shuttle Endeavour's last flight for a NASA Tweetup! It was the experience of a lifetime.

Kennedy space center

Here is the new Orion module on display at the KSC Visitor's Center.

Orion module

An full scale mockup of the Shuttle on display at KSC:

Ksc visitor shuttle

Credentials!

Nasa credentials

The VAB! Words cannot describe how crazy huge it is. This is where they put together vehicles that take humans to SPACE. And at one point, the MOON!

VAB

I'm posing in front of the world famous count down clock.

Countdown clock

We also got to go inside the VAB!

Inside vab

Sadly, due to a late thunderstorm and some technical issues that cropped up, the launch was scrubbed and I had to return home. This was the closest I ever got to seeing a Shuttle launch.

Endeavour

May 2011

May was a fairly inactive month for me. Went for a run down to the beach.

Beach

There was also a lot of standing around, as Off the Grid SF started up a weekly event at our office building for lunch!

Bw shoes

June 2011

Masquerade party at our friend's house.

Masks

Kerry and I moved to Oakland! One of the immediate and obvious differences between San Francisco and Oakland was the blue sky. That's right! No fog in the summer, baby!

Oakland skies

We immediately started checking out some of the neighborhood eateries. Our first stop? Homeroom! Specialty Mac n' Cheese!

Homeroom food

And here is some cute art on the wall at Homeroom:

Homeroom wall

I flew to New York City for a gdgt live event. I went a few days early to visit my sister, who had just moved back to New York City from Los Angeles.

Brooklyn summers:

Brooklyn summers

Checking out the High Line.

High line

It was pretty fun hanging out with my sister in NYC. I hadn't seen her in awhile!

Siblings

July 2011

In July, we went out to Yosemite National Park for a wedding for our friends, Meghan and Andy. It was a blast!

Yosemite 1 Yosemite chapel Yosemite Falls

Of course, I had to go for the standard post card shot of the valley.

Yosemite valley

Our friend Marcie took an awesome photo of Kerry and I while there.

Dave and kerry

I also borrowed a new camera, the Fuji X100. I had to test it out, so I used my standard benchmarking tool: the nearest feline.

Tosh

In mid-July, we went back to Austin, Texas for another wedding. This time for Jess and Adam.

Austin 6th Austin river

We end the month with some more baseball -- this time, the Oakland A's: a minor league team pretending to be a major league team.

Oakland as

August 2011

August! This time, we venture to Seattle for a gdgt live event. Before all the festivities, we stopped by the Sci Fi museum to see the Battlestar Galactica exhibit!

Bsg 1

Space Needle!

Space needle

In mid-August, we ventured northward to the Russian River for a good old-fashioned canoe trip!

Canoes Russian river Kerry dave canoe

Seemingly millions of people flocked to the Mission to taste food from a few dozen food trucks. Street Food Fest was amazing. Amazingly crowded!

Street food fest

My parents and grandparents came up to visit and stayed in Napa. So we went on adventure and rode the Napa Valley Wine Train!

Napa train Train view Napa

September 2011

We spend Labor Day weekend on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Lake tahoe chambers Tahoe chambers Tahoe cabin

The other reason we were in Tahoe? Rib Fest!

Dave ribfest Reno ribfest Reno ribfest2

We managed to sneak in some hiking as well.

Forest Mountains Tahoe above

Off the Grid held an event in the East Bay at Golden Gate Fields. So, we went out and saw our first horse races. It was pretty fun!

Horse races

Mid-September, I went off to Chicago for another gdgt live event. It's such a pretty city!

Chicago 1 Chicago 2

More Oakland A's games! (Admittedly, baseball is always fun to see, no matter who is playing.)

More baseball

Random stuffed animals left around our neighborhood…

Teddy bear

Our friends Katherine and Tony got married!

Kkr tc

October 2011

Sadly, Steve Jobs passed away early in October. I swung by the local Apple Store to check out the memorial that fans and mourners were building.

Apple store memorial

Views from the office building: crazy people.

Crazy people

October means Fleet Week! Scott and I went out on a boat and watched the Blue Angels practice. We had pretty epic front row seats.

Blue angels 1 Blue angels 2

We ventured north to Sonoma for another wine tasting trip with friends.

Vineyards Making wine

For work, the team stopped by the SF MOMA to check out the Dieter Rams exhibit. It was pretty inspiring.

Dieter rams

Besides Fleet Week, October also means pumpkin patches!

Pumpkins

Dramatic mornings on public transit.

Macarthur bart

This is how we hack street signs in Oakland.

Oakland street signs

For our friend's Halloween party, Kerry and I dressed up as friendly TSA agents.

Tsa agents

November 2011

More wine!

More wine

And more Dave and Kerry pics after drinking wine!

Dave kerry wine tasting

December 2011

Santacon!

Santacon

We took a train ride down to Southern California on the Coast Starlight. That was a blast!

Coast starlight

The views were pretty epic, too!

Coast starlight views

2010 - The Year in Review (Photos)

Ecstasy in the Park

Is it that time of the year already? 2010 has absolutely flown by! One of my favorite ways to reflect on the past year is to look back on it through the photos I've taken. See previously, my photographic year in reviews for 2009, 2008, and 2007.

One thing I find particularly striking is that I've used my iPhone and Canon S90 more and more, and my DSLR significantly less. It kind of bums me out. Something I'd like to refocus on in 2011 is getting back into using my DSLR!

Anyway, let the review begin!

January 2010

We started the year off by seeing a friend's brother make a guest appearance during a Beats Antique show at the Independent in San Francisco. (If you haven't heard them, do check it out. Some great tunes and a good show featuring some interesting interpretive dance!)

Beats Antique at The Independent

Beats Antique at The Independent

We also got to dog-sit for our friends Scott and Marcie. Can you say cutest dog ever?

Dog-sitting for the weekend!

Of course, our cats would have something to say about that. Jealous, much?

Seriously, I love dogs.

More music, please! State Radio (one of my favorites) at the Fillmore.

State Radio at the Fillmore

Also, San Francisco can have some seriously great weather, even in January! Hello, colors!

Painted ladies have nothing on these.

The cats were always demanding attention. This was fun to wake up to.

Cats rearranging furniture

February 2010

Overall, a pretty mellow month! I did finally get a chance to go out and use my DSLR. A new sculpture was put up at Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley.

Ecstasy in the Park

It's only February, and I already feel live I've been taking an overwhelming amount of cat photos.

Tegan

Shot some things for my friends hosting BarBot 2010. (You can also see a video I shot of this thing in action.)

BarBot 2010

March 2010

I got a new bike! Hello, beautiful!

My new bike!

Traveled to Austin for SXSW and gdgt live in Austin. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take many pictures. But I did snap a photo of this bacon bloody mary. Umm, yes!

Bacon Bloody Mary

Returned to the Left Coast to spot this crazy art car in the neighborhood.

Crazy car on Page / Masonic

Doggie Diner Heads at the Laughing Squid going away party.

Doggie Diner Heads

Bonfires on Ocean Beach!

Bonfire at Ocean Beach

April 2010

Waited in line early in the morning for the iPad launch. An AP photographer snapped this photo as I picked up an iPad for the first time ever.

Might as well put the iPad to use -- banana bread baking!

Baking Banana Bread

Baking Banana Bread

Explored the SF Underground Farmers' Market. Pretty damn crazy!

SF Underground Farmers Market

Random trip to Southern California, where I stopped by Galco's Soda Pop Shop. Crazy amounts of soda! Check out my post on Laughing Squid.

Galco's Soda Pop Shop

Stopped by my parents' place and got to see Axl. It would be the last time I'd ever see him.

Axl

Axl

May 2010

My old-roommate Julie celebrated her engagement with her new fiance, Ryan. A mighty fine looking couple!

Julie and Ryan's Engagement Party

And because of this, Kerry and I got to play dress up!

Julie and Ryan's Engagement Party

Also, Bacon Camp! Went to support my friends on the Starvin Marvins BBQ team!

BaconCamp SF 2010

And here are the tasty, tasty MOINK balls they made.

BaconCamp SF 2010

Another gdgt event! This time, we visited Chicago -- where I decided to use my phone to take crappy pictures with crappy toy camera apps.

Chicago

gdgt live in Chicago was fun though!

gdgt live in Chicago

gdgt live in Chicago

June 2010

June rolls around -- it's WWDC time in San Francisco, and that means a new iPhone is coming out!

gdgt live at WWDC 2010

So, of course I was there for the Stevenote on behalf of gdgt. Hey, Steve!

gdgt-apple-steve.jpg gdgt-apple-steve-2.jpg

Later that month, I hung out with the Starvin Marvins team again as they went to a BBQ competition.

BBQ

BBQ

Huh, it seems like I haven't taken cat photos in awhile. Time to fix that.

Cats yawning

Cats yawning

New iPhone 4 finally arrived. I hear it has a pretty good camera. Time to test it out.

Cupid's Arrow

Also, the World Cup was going on! So, obviously we had friends over and it was time to cheer on the Red, White, and Blue. (Of course, Sanjin shows up in a Croatia jersey, but I guess it's the thought that counts.)

Watching the World Cup

Speaking of Sanjin, he got married!

Meet-the-Bicanics-1.jpg

July 2010

Needed to get away from the oppressive fog in the city, so we ventured up to Point Reyes, for a day of oyster shucking.

Tomales Bay Oyster Company

We also got ourselves a new office! No more working out of our apartments. Pretty nice. A photo from the early days.

gdgt HQ

A long hallway...

August 2010

Camping trip season! I discovered a creepily familiar Paul Bunyan.

Paul Bunyan Statue

Sitting around a campfire...

Camping

Canoeing!

Canoeing on the Russian River

More canoeing!

Canoeing on the Russian River

And back to the city and dealing with our transit system.

Waiting for a train

I love the F line.

Taking a streetcar to work.

And another Apple event soon approaches...

Like clockwork

September 2010

Another Apple keynote. iPods, Apple TV's, oh my!

apple-one-more.jpg

We went out to Sacramento to surprise and cheer on our friends in Starvin Marvins at another BBQ competition.

Mike and Rachel

Team Starvin Marvins BBQ

They won second place for their chicken!

2nd place in Chicken!

gdgt live in Boston! This time, I'm flying out early, so I can check some things out.

Next stop, Boston! #gdgtboston

MIT

MIT

Near MIT - Kendell Square

Near Kendell Square

Who met the Tron Guy? This guy!

Tron Guy and I

October 2010

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival arrives in town. I can't think of a better way to spend a foggy day in the park.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

It's October. Do you know what that means? Hear that sound? "It's the sound of freedom." This time, I rented a gigantic, 400mm lens for the Blue Angels' show.

Fleet Week 2010 - Blue Angels in San Francisco

Fleet Week 2010 - Blue Angels in San Francisco

Fleet Week 2010 - Blue Angels

There were also some pretty crazy clouds in San Francisco.

Altocumulus clouds in San Francisco

Also, a street food bonanza was happening at Off the Grid.

Off the Grid

Working across the street from Blue Bottle Coffee was proving to be dangerous.

Blue Bottle - No effects needed.

Kerry took me on a surprise visit to the Napa Valley Wine Train.

View from the tasting room

Not too shabby!

photo

photo

This thing called a World Series happened in San Francisco. Since I'm a Dodgers' fan, I have no idea what that is.

There's a World Series inside!!

San Francisco Giants vs. Texas Rangers - Game 1

San Francisco kept looking mighty fine, as always.

The sky in San Francisco was particularly beautiful this morning.

November 2010

Party in the streets, as the Giants would go on to win the World Series.

Celebrating the San Francisco Giants' World Series win

An election happened...

The question is, why not?

City Hall was bathed in orange for the Giants win.

San Francisco Giants World Series Celebrations

A World Series parade...

San Francisco Giants World Series Celebrations

Aubrey Huff wears his "rally thong."

San Francisco Giants World Series Celebrations

It was homecoming (for gdgt). gdgt live in San Francisco preparation resulted in tons of boxes in our office.

gdgt live in SF prep

I don't care what people think, I still love dogs.

Cute monsters

Quick stop in Southern California for a wedding in Laguna Beach.

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Returned to San Francisco to find this nearby. Someone had a rough night.

I'm not sure what to make of this! Bad break up?

I also began my transition from a hipster into a yuppy.

Modern day newspaper.

December 2010

What can we say about December? It's rained a lot.

Welcome to San Francisco!

My dentist apparently has a crush on me.

Good grief. Another card from my dentist. Should I be concerned?!?

Prepping for some awesome things in the 2011. It results in late nights at the office.

Last one in the office...

(And the month isn't even over, yet!)