Yep, another year of calling them albums. Maybe there’s a new word and I don’t spend enough time on Twitter to know what it is.

My list has a decidedly alt folk thread running through it, which is fine, I love that music, but I think it’s time for the next big thing in loud indie rock, a la Wolfmother.

By the way, if you want to buy any of these in good old CD form or MP3 download, I’d be delighted if you’d use my Amazon.com affiliate link. Anyway, here they are:

1. Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
3. Black Keys – El Camino
4. Cut Copy – Zonoscope
5. Decemberists – The King is Dead
6. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo
7. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
8. Florence + The Machine – Ceremonials
9. Wilco – The Whole Love

Things from Earlier That I Played a Lot in 2011

New Pornographers – Together
City and Colour – Bring Me Your Love
Frightened Rabbit – Midnight Organ Fight
Black Keys – Brothers

It’s the end of 2010, so it’s time to publish my Favorite Albums of 2009. Yes, of 2009. I can’t make my picks before the year even ends, as so many others do. Heck, I can’t even seem to decide until many months have passed. I need time for the music to settle into my bones, for that initial infatuation to wear off (where are you now, Titus Andronicus?), for the true cream to rise to the top.

That time has finally come. So, without making you wait another minute, here’s my list of 2009′s best albums. (If you’re going to buy one of these – CD, vinyl, or MP3s – why not use my Amazon affiliate link and show me how much you appreciate me, 4% at a time?)

Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
Califone – All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
Silversun Pickups – Swoon
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Here We Go Magic – Here We Go Magic
Visqueen – Message To Garcia
Wolfmother – Cosmic Egg
Built to Spill – There Is No Enemy
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
Dinosaur Jr – Farm

By the way, it feels a little weird to still call them albums. I mean, it was weird enough when they were CDs. For the past couple of years, most of my purchases have been a stream of downloads from iTunes or eMusic. But it’s hard enough picking my favorite albums for the year (even a year later); I’m not going to add the task of coming up with a new name for albums. Maybe you can share your ideas in the comments.

I just sped through a A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, a short book that’s part autobiography, part essays, but mostly just Vonnegut’s irreverent and enlightened musings from near the end of his long and productive life. Here’s one of my favorite bits:

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

I immediately started quoting that to my kids, who are both in high school and thus entrenched in academic rigor. Luckily, they also both make ample time for arts, especially music, but also writing and painting and making short films and drawing animatic flip books. I know some parents who’ve tried to dissuade their kids from pursuing their artistic passions, reasoning that engineers or accountants make more money than musicians. Of course, some do. But many achieve this financial success at no small cost to their happiness. And the older I get, the more urgently I realize that being happy and creating beautiful things is the most important thing.

Here’s the rest of that paragraph from Vonnegut:

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

This year’s Perseid meteor shower – the finest of all meteor showers – peaks in the pre-dawn hours tomorrow and Friday morning. If you’ve never seen the Perseid shower, or you’ve only noticed one or two meteorites incidentally from within the city, you really owe it to yourself to get out away from the city lights and catch it. And with the moon giving us ideal conditions, 2010 will be an exceptional year for this celestial show. In Phoenix, the tiny waxing crescent (new) moon sets tonight, Wednesday, August 11, at 8:15 p.m., promising dark skies that are ideal for meteor watching.

The best way to enjoy tonight’s show is to get out of the city. I live in northeast Phoenix, so I like to head east on Dynamite Road toward the Verde River. Ideal viewing requires you to get 100 miles or more away from the city. Sometime after the moon sets, and the later the better, grab a blanket, a pillow, and some water, and head to your dark sky area. Lay out your blanket and pillow and lie down with your feet pointing northeast. Look that direction toward the constellation Perseus, which is the apparent origin of the meteors. Meteors are best viewed with the naked eye, no binoculars or telescopes required.

The Perseid shower is considered the best because it peaks at 50 to 80 meteors per hour. In a really great year, like the one back in 1991, when I happened to catch the shower during an outdoor concert on the lawn in Tempe (roughly where the Madcap Theatre stands today), the meteors are almost continuous. I remember my grandparents telling me when I was very young about them driving across the barren and unpopulated Four Corners region back in the 50s and having to pull the car off the road when the sky just appeared to be exploding with falling stars. They were as much terrified as they were awestricken.

By the way, meteors are the bright streaks you’ll see flashing across the sky, what we commonly call shooting stars. Before they hit our atmosphere and heat to several thousand degrees, they’re called meteoroids. If they make it through the atmosphere without burning up and crash through your roof or into your cornfield, they’re called meteorites. But no worries: A huge percentage of meteors are about the size of a grain of sand, and they burn up completely streaking through our atmosphere.

Saturday, June 5, 2010, is National Trails Day, a celebration of our country’s bounty of wilderness and urban trails. There will be trail-related events happening across the country, including hikes, bike rides, runs, trail maintenance projects, bird watching, and much more.

Tonto Natural Bridge north of Payson, Arizona

For Arizona residents, my suggestion is that you take the day to get out and hike one of our endangered State Parks. More than two-thirds of our State Parks were scheduled to be permanently closed before this weekend due to budget cuts, but many of them received a death-row reprieve within the past few weeks, temporarily saved by contributions from local communities and private donors. National Trails Day is the perfect occasion for you to do the best thing you can do for the parks: Visit them! Check out the Arizona State Parks website’s list of the parks with hiking trails, grab your family and another family, and head out to see Arizona’s natural beauty and support the parks.

A while back I saw my friend Jody Olson tweeting about poor cell phone etiquette. It’s a peeve of mine, too, so I invited Jody to write a guest post for this Make the World Better blog. Here it is, with a big “hallelujah” from me. You can comment here, and you can find Jody online at on the Chapter Two blog or the Chapter Two website.

How do you know when you’re guilty of misusing your cell phone in public? When the circus clown calls you out.

A friend was attending the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. During the show she pulled out her Blackberry to check in for her flight the next morning. “I wanted to get an ‘A’ boarding pass,” she later told me. But the clown, standing next to her in the beam of a giant spotlight, caught her in the act.

“Hey, lady!” he barked, “I don’t come to your work and ignore you!”

My friend’s entire section erupted in laughter and stared at my friend, her sister, her niece and nephew as they sat in the spotlight, shrinking into their seats. “We were so embarrassed,” her sister said of herself and her kids.

Interestingly, I’m not sure my friend felt embarrassed at all. Some people have no compunction about taking calls, texting, checking email, or surfing the Web…any time, in any place.

Are you an offender? When you’re having coffee with a friend, do you steal furtive glances at your Blackberry, which you cradle in your palm beneath the table? Or worse: When your phone rings, do you spring up from the table, leaving your companion in mid-sentence, holding up a finger to signal “shush,” then walk off to take the call? The clear implied message to your companion is that you’ve just found the opportunity to speak to someone more interesting than they.

Here’s an idea: If you anticipate an important incoming call, email, or text, let the other party know beforehand. “Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m expecting a call. If I have to step away, I hope you understand.”

Try to take care of your important business prior to a visit or afterward. If silencing your phone isn’t an option, don’t be a clown about it. Be tactful, polite, and considerate. Give people the courtesy of your undivided attention.

Do you like to hike the trails through Arizona’s unbelievable scenic diversity? Ever spent time cooling in the waters beneath Tonto Natural Bridge on a warm summer day? Are you interested in the fascinating history of our state? Then you better clear your weekends and plan to get out and enjoy some of Arizona’s remaining state parks before they close.

Due to severe budget cuts by the state legislature, 13 of Arizona’s state parks will close in early 2010, leaving only 9 state parks open. Four state parks closed last year after even larger budget cuts. Did you do the math? Almost two thirds of Arizona’s state parks will be closed by early June 2010. (UPDATED 6/2/10 – See the update at the end of this post re extended dates for closure.)

The parks will be closed in phases. The schedule follows; click the links to read mor about the parks and plan your visits, and please leave me comments about your favorites and your memories.

Parks Closing on February 22, 2010

• Homolovi Ruins State Park (Winslow)
• Lyman Lake State Park (St. Johns)
• Riordan Mansion State Historic Park (Flagstaff)

Parks Closing on March 29, 2010

• Fort Verde State Historic Park (Camp Verde)
• Roper Lake State Park (Safford)
• Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park
• Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park – One of the most visual and interactive of Arizona’s historical parks. Make sure you climb its watch towers and lock yourself in one of the adobe cells before its too late.
• Tubac Presidio State Historic Park (south of Tucson)

Parks Closing on June 3, 2010

• Tonto Natural Bridge State Park (north of Payson) – I haven’t been here for many years, but I’ll definitely head up to experience its wonder with my wife and kids in late spring. It’s one of Arizona’s most magical places.
• Alamo Lake State Park (Wenden)
• Lost Dutchman State Park (Apache Junction) – Holy cow. It’s almost unfathomable what we’re losing here if we lose access to Lost Dutchman. This is the gateway to popular Superstition Mountain hikes such as Siphon Draw and the Flatiron. Check out the moonlight hike on February 26 or one of the other guided hikes before this park closes.
• Picacho Peak State Park – Hike the trails in this park in the spring when the land is blanketed with wildflowers. The 2-mile hike to the peak is arduous but rewards you with incredible views.
• Red Rock State Park (Sedona) – This scenic nature preserve is set along the banks of Oak Creek below Sedona. This is a great park for a stroll with younger kids; it’s shady, scenic, and cool. I had the pleasure to help with writing the interpretive displays in the environmental center back in the mid-90s.

UPDATED 6/2/10

Tomorrow was the date for many of the second round of closures, but according to a press release on the Arizona State Parks website, most of the parks have been temporarily spared from closure by extraordinary efforts from local communities and private donors. Check out the State Parks site for information and park schedules, and get out to hike these parks while you still can!

I feel as though I may be the luckiest man alive. So, while I should be engaging in my Thanksgiving traditions of gorging on black olives and deviled eggs, watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and chasing the kids around the house with a spatula shouting “Happy Spanks-Giving!”, I’m instead going to make a hasty but heartfelt list of the things for which I’m most grateful this season. And this has truly been a year that has heaped blessings upon me.

My Family – As a young man, I professed that I didn’t want kids. I’m the oldest of five natural siblings – two sisters and two brothers – plus three stepsisters, a half sister, and a stepbrother from two different stepparents. Growing up under divorced parents amid the cacophony of all those rugrats, I concluded that the lone wolf way was the better path for me.

My two beautiful boys (a few years younger) demonstrate the second best thing to do with Thanksgiving olives.

That all seems absurd to me, now that I have a beautiful and intelligent woman as my life partner – she’s my wife, but it really is more than that – and two of the most amazing children I could ever have wished for. I love you, Cathrine, Ridley, and Ian.

My Siblings – And I love all of those siblings, from whatever combination of parents they sprang, now that they’re not messing up my paint by numbers kits or embarrassing me in front of girls. (Not as often, anyway.) As adults, they’ve turned into bright, interesting, complex people. They are entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, a Harley chick, an equestrian, a globetrotter, a mechanic, outdoorsy ones, indoorsy ones. They’re all so funny I’d rather drink beers and swap stories with them than just about any other thing I can think of.

My Parents – My mom’s been gone a long time, but there’s no more fitting time to remember her than Thanksgiving, a holiday she dearly loved. From her I learned to believe in myself, to love unconditionally, to forgive. From my dad, I learned to go my own way, to reject unworthy authority, to pick up a shovel and do some work, to treat everyone with respect and dignity. They’re lessons with which I still struggle, with mixed results, to apply every day. Also, this paragraph wouldn’t be complete without a thank you to my dear departed uncle, my mother’s brother, who served in many ways as a surrogate father after my parents divorced and we moved away. Don engendered my love of the outdoors with fishing and camping trips and my love of cooking with his incredible lasagnas and tacos and turkeys. He’s deeply missed by all of the family whom he bonded together for so many years.

My Job – This one is due for a post of its own, so I’ll only briefly say that it’s been incredibly gratifying to launch out on my own this year, in the turmoil of a perilous economy, and be able to thrive while working from home, spending more time with my family and my outdoor activities and books and movies and the other things I love. I’m truly grateful for that good fortune.

My Mentor – I have a network of friends I refer to as my “Dumb Question Network,” whom I trust to answer my dumb questions openly, generously, and with a minimum of snickering. Standing at the center of this group is Jason Baer, who for close to a decade has offered me advice, answers, support, and motivation. He doesn’t need another fan singing his praises online – he has a global network of admirers – but he deserves all the gratitude and praise he receives. I’m grateful to have him as a friend.

My Friends – There’s a lot of overlap here with my “Dumb Question Network,” which is both by design and by extremely good luck: I happen to be friends with some of the smartest people in my business. I can’t possibly name them all, but I’m thankful for the friendship of Alan Perkel, Chris Johnson, Todd Peden, Mike Corak, Maggie Young, Doug Cholewa, Greg Chapman, Robert Morris, Michael Glover, and so many more that I’m regretting even starting this list for fear of leaving off some indispensable someone. Please forgive me any oversight.

The Outdoors – Nothing restores my spirit more than getting outside, whether it’s a hike in Cave Creek, snowboarding in the White Mountains, a singletrack bike ride with friends in the mountain preserve, or a backpacking trip in the Colorado Rockies. I’m grateful to be a child of the Southwest, to have access to so much incredible wilderness, and to have had the opportunity early in life to experience time spent outdoors as an essential component of my life.

My Country – I’ve not felt a stronger wave of optimism than that which welled up within me last November when we elected Barack Obama our president. This country faces many challenges, it will take years or decades to solve some of them, and no one man holds the key. But the fact that my countrymen chose hope and optimism and elected an educated and thoughtful leadership, renewed in me the idea that we could make the world better – together. For all its mistakes, problems, and ugliness, this still is the greatest country in the world, and I’m thankful to be a citizen.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and friends. Now I need to go grab a spatula and deliver some Spanks-Giving.

In honor of my starring my 500th tweet on Favrd.com, I present my rundown of the 10 funniest tweeps in the land.

1. fireland – Joshua Green Allen is the funniest guy I know (of). Other tweeps received more of my first 500 “favrds,” but Josh’s funny ratio is off the charts. The guy only tweets every few days, but every tweet is gold. It’s not for everybody, but I like my humor dark, twisted, and laugh-until-I-cry funny.
2. awryone – 34 of my first 500 “favrd” tweets went to Josh Donoghue. His wife and his daughter are frequent topics/targets (and are apparently either very good sports or they’re clueless about Twitter), and his humor runs to the junior high locker room variety. Another of my favorite genres.
3. tj – Pithy observations on everyday life, with a tasty sprinkling of innuendo. Wouldn’t want to go a day without it.
4. smartasshat – Absurdist comedy and one of my favorite avatars on Twitter, now with a Twitter background to match.
5. farkerpeaceboy – Mining the comic gold in everyday relationships, with some politics and pop culture thrown in for good measure.
6. nostrich – His two bits that are consistently wickedly funny: “Awkward with/around women” and “Stalking the cute barista.”
7. tony_d – Average guy humor that’s always good for a laugh (not that there’s anything average about Tony, it’s just solid blue collar humor).
8. shoesonwrong – The top tweep chick on my list. Here’s a fine sample of Annie’s stuff: “I don’t mean to discriminate, but if you are one of the Easter Island heads, you have to sit in the back row of the theater. Back row.”
9. ccsteff – Now the ladies are showing up in droves. Stephanie is smart, funny, makes superb comedy out of plainspoken relationship observations. If she weren’t a right-coaster, we’d be drinking buddies.
10. superfantastic – Want to know what’s funny about being a teacher? Here you go. Plus, she shares my fondness for the terminating comma. Gotta love that.

Bonus – Hottest Tweeps

Here are the hottest tweeps to scorch the earth. And by hottest, I mean they’re women and they’re funny. What’s hotter than that? I’ve already included the fetching/hilarious shoesonwrong, ccsteff, and superfantastic in my overall top tweeps. These others didn’t score as many favrds, but in many cases only because I haven’t been following them for as long.

1. aedison
2. effingboring
3. emilybrianna
4. ainsleyofattack
5. sunnybucket
6. clapifyoulikeme
7. crispycracka
8. hotheadred
9. marissaneave

I pulled into The Home Depot parking lot the other morning, apparently right after the morning rush, and nearly every available space and half of the aisles were obstructed with lumber carts and flat-bed carts. I carefully – and skillfully – slid my pickup in between two carts and nosed up against a third one. Then I got out, grabbed a cart, and pushed it inside with me as I entered the store. It’s a simple thing to do, probably burns a few extra calories, and makes the world a better place. Give it a try the next time you pull into the parking lot of a grocery store or megamart.

Of course, it goes without saying (except here on my blog) that when you leave the store with your purchases and after you unload them into your car, you should take the extra 30 seconds to push the cart to the cart storage area, and don’t just leave it in an open parking space. That good deed you performed going into the store doesn’t relieve you from your cart stewardship when you exit.

(Photo by Kevin Dean: betaart.com)