5 albums to take to a desert island?

If someone put a gun to your head and said "You're going to a desert island and you can pack 5 full length CDs (no various compilations allowed)" What would you bring?

Here's my list (In no particular order):

1. Radiohead - Kid A

I know, I know...No brainer right? Radiohead is almost mandatory for any kid of my generation to call their favorite band. But the truth is...they are. I can't fight being lumped in with the crowd on this one. When the first chords from "Everything in it's Right Place" come on, I always get a chill down my spine. This album will never get old no matter how many times I listen to it.

2. M.I.A - Arular

I'd consider M.I.A my second celebrity girlfriend. Bjork had been starting to get a bit too strange with the Swan Dress & her full on attack of the reporter at the airport, so I had to call it quits and switch over to Maya... I used to blast Bucky Dun Gun in the photo lab @ school in DC, and I remember all the girls would gang up on me and say "What are we listening to??" They flipped the stereo back to hot 99.5 as soon as I stepped out of the dark room to check out a developed photo. All I got to say to these girls is "Look who's on hot 99.5 now suckers!" (I am not saying that I like XXXO. I'm simply stating that I had her blasting before the mainstream stations did). Arular isn't a cohesive album necessarily. It just happens to be a hit after hit record with no need to skip tracks like most one hit wonder albums I listen to. Additionally there's a hypnotic quality in listening to Maya's childish sounding voice talking about murder, ransom and gun shots. I hope Maya gets her mojo back for the next album she does...

3. Sneaker Pimps- Becoming X

The Sneaker Pimps are wayy too underrated. Every review I've read says that SP came to the trip hop scene long after the path had been paved by Massive Attack & Tricky. Granted, there's chronological truth to this statement, but SP shouldn't have to be compared to the originators of a genre. What the Sneaker Pimps brought to the sound happens to be my all time favorite female vocalist: Kelli Ali.

The combination between Chris Corner's soundscape and Kelli's vocals are killer. 6 Underground is probably my all time favorite song period. Too bad, Chris pulled the carpet from under Kelli's feeet and kicked her out of the band after the first album. Chris's vocals are very good, but nowhere near Kelli's.

4. Blur- 13

Other than the track Coffee & TV, this album flew under most listener's radars. Coming from some suburban Brits, the decision to make an album themed on cowboys is definitely a curveball. This being said, the boys completely pulled it off and made the album into a 13 track masterpiece. Starting off with the gospel love ballad Tender and then switching right into the staticy rock song Bugman the listener gets pulled every which way and is never sure of what to expect in terms of musical genre and sheer velocity. Definitely a trippy album to your hands on.

5. NIN- The Fragile

If you didn't already know this, my Honda Fit runs on NIN. I have every single Halo album and the entire collection takes up a solid 10% of my iPhone's music space. I have yet to miss death-gripping my car wheel and rocking out to this 2 disk masterpiece on any one of my many road trips.

You see, locking yourself up in a house in New Orleans for five years to write an album can lead to a number of things (insanity, madness, confusion, anger, fear...). In this case, Trent's destination happens to be all of the above!

This album bleeds emotional distress, but with such a solid vocalist and steadily grinding industrial instruments, you can't help but feel that you can relate to where Trent's coming from. If I had to chose the best track to rep the album, I'd go with

Into The Void

To make things more awe-inspiring, the entire NIN ensemble consists of....well...just Trent Reznor. He's a one man band in the studio, and when on tour he brings instrumentalists along with the criteria that he is able to physically push them around (this was something he said in an interview during the Downward Spiral tour).

I developed a late stage Trent Reznor man crush at the end of high school, and I still find myself trolling youtube many a late night to track down unreleased NIN footage and the like. I sure hope Trent puts together something half-way decent with his new band and wife-team Mariqueen How To Destroy Angels...

The Haymaker t-shirt is now a trademark definition?

• I was just stumbling around on the internet and ran into an entire definition about the Haymaker t-shirt:

The Bear Punch Shirt (tm). broadly speaking, it’s a type of t-shirt displaying subject matter that for some reason or another attracts men like a bug zapper on a louisiana swamp. it’s typically showcases a graphic that is somewhat polarizing in that there are people that “get it” and “don’t get it,” which makes it easy to weed out uninteresting, unfunny, and unlikely candidates. it’s a t-shirt that makes friends, turns heads, and ellicits an upward facing thumb from strangers. it’s your new go-to, going-out, outfit. it should be a staple of any female’s wardrobe - regarded with the same reverence as the little black dress. in fact, i will venture to say that it could be the most important article of clothing you ever own. why search endlessly for the perfect, monotone frock and bear the blisters of a pair of slingback pumps when all you really need is a man punching a bear to pique the interest of the opposite sex?

It’s important to establish some ground rules to purchasing The Bear Punch Shirt (tm). if you go too far down the path of irony, you could risk being taken seriously. the wrong subject matter could put you in danger of attracting boys with eyeliner or men with grey matter that rivals the size of their belt buckle. it takes a few tries to get it right, but once you do, you too can be high fived by whole foods’ employees, receive flirtacious custom latte-art and approached by painfully shy cashiers of independent bookstores.

SUGGESTIONS FOR BUYING YOUR VERY OWN BEAR PUNCH SHIRT

• it should not contain rainbows, unless they are being vomitted by a wild animal.
• anything with a beard or elaborate mustache will receive high marks.
• bands should generally be avoided.
• metallica and guns and roses are exceptionally poor choices.
• choose bears over polar bears. wolves over coyotes. technics over atari.

• there should not be any danger of running into another woman wearing your same Bear Punch Shirt (tm) on the street, let alone in a bar.
• it should not boast a city.
• it needs to be a plain, no bullshit tee.
• it should be a t-shirt that your target wishes he owned.
• upon first wear, if you don’t receive three comments, you’ve failed to purchase an adequateBear Punch Shirt (tm).

if the pressure of finding a Bear Punch Shirt (tm) of your own is simply overwhelming, i suggest just buying The Bear Punch Shirt (tm) that’s linked above. just don’t let me see you walking down my street with it on.

Hot Air Bubbles- A or B?

Having a tough time deciding how to print this new design and would love some input!

AB