5 Things I am Currently Obsessed With:

1. The new series of Dr. Who on the BBC

I can't believe I've just admitted that. In my high school where – for the most part – there was a place for everyone, there was a hard-core group of geeks (think 'trenchcoat mafia' types, except basically harmless and totally brilliant) who were really into things like Monty Python and science fiction. I mean, everyone was kind of into Monty Python (we used to watch Holy Grail at swimming parties all the time), but these were the guys who would organize "Spam Day" at school and walk around the cafeteria offering people spam sandwiches. (I also remember Freshman year they started a secret language that used the words "Spam" and "bibble" a lot. It was funny at the time, too. But I digress).

Anyway, these guys were all in the "Doctor Who Club" (in a school of 4000 kids, there were a gazillion special interest clubs), and so I've associated Doctor Who with the deeply nerdy and socially inept ever since.

Last year the BBC resurrected the Doctor Who series to great success. Michael and I happened upon one of the 2nd season's episodes one Saturday night and were instantly hooked. This is an amazingly funny show with great actors and writers with outstanding imaginations. It helps that the first episode we saw was a historical one...

(Time out for a quick overview: the show's basically about time travelers, a human girl called Rose and a "time lord" called "The Doctor" who fly around in an old phone booth called a Tardis that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. They go all over time and space and generally get into trouble involving various aliens and the destruction of worlds and peoples and having to save the day and all that. But there are also longer story arcs (some from the original series in the Sixties!) and it's just good television.)

...and I'm a total sucker for historical fiction, so I gave it a chance. I've since learned that really good science fiction is just like historical fiction: the ability to faithfully create (or recreate) a truly different world in a way that highlights basic human similarities and makes one empathize with the situation. Aliens, whatever...it's just an awesome show. We bought the entire 1st season (of the new series...) on DVD and the experience of watching it was just intensely pleasurable. I think it's now on somewhere in the US (they're recapping it at TWOP, and they love it, so it can't be all bad...).

2. My new silver Birkenstocks

And basically anything that's summery or that I'm going to wear at High Sierra.

3. Alara's Rich Museli (especially with Helsett Farms live yoghurt and berries)

4. The new Built to Spill album "You in Reverse"

So. Good. No...seriously...so VERY VERY GOOD. Driving beats and punk-ish progressions (and whiny indy singing) that manages to be intensely interesting and beautiful at the same time. Definitely in the same vein as The Slip, Arcade Fire, and My Morning Jacket. More proof that pop or punk or indie doesn't have to be screamy and stupid to be good. Even more proof that the Arctic Monkeys are just a bunch of fucking...well...monkeys.

5. The fact that some lovely soul put the entire winter 1997 tour up on Sendspace in MP3 format and I can pull down some of the funkiest Phish ever while working and get it straight on my iPod.

Check out this Gumbo from Utah, 11/14/97 and tell me white guys don't have soul.