• lala.com

Possibly the best thing since MTV. You can access all of your existing music collection online and buy new "web" music for 10 cents/song or about $1/album. I have stopped downloading mp3's entirely. I can access lala via iphone and no longer need an ipod. Awesome!

• Monsters of Folk
• Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band

It seems not to be very hip to love Conor Oberst these days. People make fun of me regularly. I can't help it! I think the dude is absolutely brilliant. Take that Pitchfork. I discovered Bright Eyes late in life and have spent the last year or so absolutely immersing myself in his entire catalog. I have not felt this way about an artist since.... R.E M.? The Doors? I don't think I have ever loved an artist's body of work in this way.

His voice gives me chills. I deeply appreciate the raw emotional intensity, honesty, and unabashed search for meaning in his early stuff (Fevers and Mirrors, Songs), and love to see how he has evolved into a mature songwriter with a more resonant voice and developed structure (Cassadega, Conor Oberst). I am pretty sure I'm Wide Awake it's Morning is the best album ever made.

His words evoke so much of who I remember being at 14, 15, 16, that part of you that is replaced with maturity but with it you can lose the sense of wonder and the searching..... listening has gotten me back in touch with it... I am just so grateful for the gift of his words and melodies and the thoughts and emotions that they inspire.

The two albums released in 2009 were both group efforts but both were fantastic- Monsters of Folk is great. And clued me in to M Ward and MMJ, both fanastic.

• Prepared red cabbage in a jar (with apples)

Just discovered this recently... served warm with applesauce, etc. YUM!!!

• Jailbroken iPhone

The iPhone is truly amazing. But you need to jailbreak it. Here's why:

• To run apps in the background...essential for streaming music
• To organize apps into folders

There are many other neat tricks you can do with jailbreaking, but these are the main reasons for me!

• Bored to Death

Brilliant. Hilarious. Ted Dansen is great! Imaginative, quirky, great music, literary, sophisticated. Love it!

• Twilight

Yes I am a Twi-hard. Only a complete cynic could resist falling for this combination of first love and forbidden love- and add Vampires into the mix...whoa. What great summer reading. I love Stephanie Meyer's story- teaches us to pay attention to our dreams!