Run with Eric [Search results for Technology] 

So, farewell then, the 2000s. It's been a good decade, if you ignore all the shit stuff.

Before #1 - this.

I won't go into all the albums that nearly made this list, but a couple of absentees have grabbed my attention. So please let's charge our glasses to Absent Friends. No, not the album at #7; the albums that didn't make it. Apologies to:

- Re-releases etc. I know fully enhanced mixes of older recordings are being put out like fires in a flame factory, but I refuse to count them as new albums. Except, of course, the Love reworkings of Beatles tracks, but that's not in there just because I don't love it. Kudos to the people who made it, though. KUDOS.

- Classical music. I won't pretend to know who's new on the scene, but I do really like Katherine Jenkins' Living A Dream. You can all throw things at me now.

- Hip-hop/rap/grime/etc. Oh, I don't fucking know, OK? Honourable mentions (I know these artists are very different; I'm just lumping them all together): Boy In Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal; The Red Light District by Ludacris; Original Pirate Material by The Streets.

- Messiah J & The Expert. See above; an artist in and around the above genres that I very nearly included. I'm a big fan of their album Now This I Have To Hear, and not just for its album cover, but they were squeezed out when I, uh, released I'd picked 31 albums instead of 30. Damn you, Cat Power! Lingering in the back of my mind and not on my spreadsheet...

- The year 2002. Looking through my selection, there's a lot from the start of the decade (11 of the 30 were released in 2000 or 2001), yet nothing at all from 2002. I feel a good year is being a bit hard done by, so off the top of my head, in no particular order, here are ten very good albums released in that year: Original Pirate Material by The Streets; Sea Change by Beck; American IV by Johnny Cash; Melody AM by Röyksopp; Souljacker by Eels; Come With Us by The Chemical Brothers; Life On Other Planets by Supergrass; Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips; Come Away With Me by Norah Jones; and Highly Evolved by The Vines. 2002, I salute you.

If I could have written the list again, yes, I would have done it to bring music and joy to people's ears, no, I wouldn't have done it because it took more time out of my life than I expected, and no, I wouldn't have included Lemon Jelly either.

And so for number 1 - the Album of the Decade. Call me predictable; I call it perfect.

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Rings Around The World - Super Furry Animals [2001]

Perfect. Completely perfect. It's annoying, actually, because I know I can't write a review to do it justice.

I know I'm not the most creative, but I can't think of a way in which this album could be improved. Even the opening and weakest track Alternate Route To Vulcan Street has grown on me that much. It's a slice of serenity interspersed with explosions. Only the Furries could make that work.

Ostensibly an album about technology and progress, Rings Around The World - a mesmerising and damn cool concept in its own right - muses about a Revelations-style armageddon, brought on by humanity's desperate desire to move quickly, no matter in what direction.

But it has time to diverge into religious fundamentalism (the brilliant epic Run! Christian, Run!: "Bang on the hour of 12, to a forest clearing we'll delve, with guns to our heads for we know that Heaven awaits us"), rising house prices (the sublime Juxtaposed With U, originally intended as a duet between Brian Harvey and Bobby Brown) and, brilliantly, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair (Presidential Suite: "Honestly, do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?"). It's a diverse album, to say the least.

Not least in its sound. After the unsubtle and goshdarnit fun Britrock of their first two LPs, experimentation with Guerrilla and Welsh-language jazz in Mwng, Rings sees the Furries delve into their more natural home of laid-back orchestral pop for the first time.

In doing this, many bands could have slipped into a musical coma, but SFA are wiser to it, largely because they get bored quite easily. So, Sidewalk Serfer Girl is a juddering slammer of a song, juxtaposing (sorry) gentle folkish guitar with thumping guitar chords on its way to a strangely heartwarming chorus - heartwarming in its tenderness; strange in that it comes in a song about comas, famine and bungee jumping.

The title track is simple, no-nonsense stuff, but then it's also the song that first got me into SFA and as such, a personal favourite. In fact, it's one of my favourite songs ever. Sounding the whole way through like a warm-up into a bigger song, it also hits its stride from the off and finds a refrain to stay in your head until you die. Nice video, too.

Fan favourite and live masterpiece Receptacle For The Respectable is almost as fantastic, skipping between genres like they're on a hopscotch pattern. From pop to swing to metal, it sweeps you up and away before throwing you nosedeep into one of the best miniature techno instrumentals you'll hear, [A] Touch Sensitive (another great song title).

Oh, I could go on. The brilliance of folk ballad-turned-industrial rave No Sympathy. The video to It's Not The End Of The World?. The beautiful build-up of Shoot Doris Day, which transformed in my mind from average to extraordinary in a couple of listens (it's a microcosm of the whole album in that it's a grower; if you don't like it straight off, you'll love it later). Even Paul McCartney turning up on Receptacle For The Respectable chewing celery down the phone in an homage to the Beach Boys (well, why not?)

But I won't. I sense the job's not done, but that's because I'm writing about an album that must be listened to. So listen to it. Now. Lush in sound, intelligent in words, fun in spirit and imbued with a fragile happiness, it's probably the best thing made this decade.

Spotify link.

Thanks for reading, if you did. If you didn't... well, you're not reading this.

Come back tomorrow, next year as I begin my daily countdown of the 365 Best Songs Ever Written.

The Sophtware Slump - Grandaddy [2000]

I, like at least three other people, was actually very sad when Grandaddy announced their split a few years ago. They've made some damn good records in their time - 2003's Sumday is well worth a listen or four - but no better than this, their defining opus, The Sophtware Slump.

The album is often called an American OK Computer, which really doesn't do it justice. Yes, the two are similar in handling the concept of technology: as the self-explanatory Broken Household Appliance National Forest demonstrates, The Sophtware Slump sees Grandaddy at the height of their 'Won't somebody think of the machines?' distress. But it's so much more than an imitation of a much more successful band; in fact, comparing it to OK Computer possibly does it something of a disservice. Besides, in sound it has more in common with Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

Bookending The Sophtware Slump are two earth-shatteringly beautiful songs, albeit beautiful in very different ways. He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot, opening track, nine-minute single and the true triumph in Grandaddy's career, is a truly wonderful epic split into three parts. After a stuttering intro, the long-awaited chord on 1:19 is somehow one of the most heartwarming sounds put to record. Then "I believe they want you to give in" and the melancholy layered vocal refrains carrying you through to the end. It's wondrous.

At the other end of the scale and tracklisting, So You'll Aim Toward The Sky sweeps you up into the clouds with a soaring string arrangement and plink-plonk piano, before landing you back in the real world with a bump as the album finishes with the whisper, "Good luck." Shame that luck never held out for Grandaddy.

Other standouts include simple rocker Hewlett's Daughter, even simpler rocker Chartsengrafs, the more complex and mesmerising Miner At The Dial-A-View and Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground), a low-key number with a superb tune and playful lyrics:

You said I'd wake up dead drunk alone in the park
I called you a liar
But how right you were
I try to sing it funny like Beck but it's bringing me down
Lower than ground
Beautiful ground

The whole of The Sophtware Slump conjures one of the most unexpectedly potent images imaginable: a desolate world of broken machines, backward men and rotting countryside. It's one hell of an sight.

So is this album placed this high on the list because of posthumous nostalgia, just as everyone raved that much more about Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker? I'd like to think not. The Sophtware Slump is an alternative classic of the turning millennium, that should be listened to in decades to come. It is sad Grandaddy are gone, but they did leave us with this: an utterly beautiful record - no more, no less.

Spotify link.

Things have been pretty crazy around Casa Flores for the last month with my family visiting from California and what, at times, seemed like endless stream of parties to cook and prepare for. So after nearly six weeks focused on celebrating with friends and family, it's time to look toward the future on how to make the new year even better than the last.

2010 was a huge year of change for me and my family. In August, we moved from the beaches of sunny San Diego to the mountains of West Virginia in order for my wife to pursue a lifelong goal of hers, which was to work at The Greenbrier. The stars aligned for her, as she is now playing a key role in the rebirth of the resort... truly exciting times. We swapped roles as she took over the responsibility of primary breadwinner as I quit my job at a telecommunications company and effectively ended my career in technology sales to take over as the primary caregiver for our two young daughters. This has a been a incredible blessing. My relationship with my kids has improved dramatically. Not that it was bad before, but we are much closer now than when I was working full-time.

The other blessing that has come out of the last few months is that the downtime has allowed me to do some thinking about how I want to focus my energies going forward.

Primary 2011 goal - To leverage my experience and passion for endurance sports and fitness by providing coaching and training services, primarily focused on beginner/novice athletes who are looking to use endurance sports as a way to open the door to a fit and healthy lifestyle. The state of West Virginia suffers from some the highest obesity rates in the country, despite the ample outdoor activities that are available here. My aim is to help stem the tide of this epidemic one individual at a time by becoming an evangelist and an educator. The first step is to educate myself more fully and I am currently in the process of obtaining my NASM Certified Personal Training Certification and later this year will pursue my USAT Triathlon Level 1 Certification. Much, much more on this to come as this plan comes to fruition. Stay tuned.

Of course, I have some personal fitness goals as well, some big picture and some more fun little challenges.

• Become a runner again. After six months off, it's healed and time to get back to it. And get back to 80 min half-marathon shape by the end of the summer.
• Row a 6:40 2K on my Concept2 indoor rower. My original time frame was by December 1. A back injury last month derailed my efforts somewhat, but I am back (pun intended) and will be posting my progress here regularly as I try to achieve this goal by February 1.
• Row 2,000,000 lifetime meters by April 31. (at 1,048,829m as of Jan 4)
• Sub 4:30 Half Ironman Triathlon. Goal race - PPD Beach to Battleship Triathlon
• Complete both TRX 40/40 challenges (upper body = low row/atomic pushups, lower body = hip press, suspended lunges)

The front page of The Daily Telegraph today has a story that leads: £224 EXTRA ON POWER BILLS FOR CUSTOMERS WHO DON'T PAY ONLINE. Shocking? Hardly. Clutching at straws? Almost certainly. But in clutching at these straws, the national press has instead grasped the wrong end of the stick - again.

Let's forget for a minute how minor a story this actually is to make the front page - apart from anything else, it's PR from price comparison site uSwitch - because it does perfectly fit the average Telegraph reader's suspicious view towards technology (and besides, the accompanying downpage story is GIRLS ARE BORN WITH FEAR OF SPIDERS, SAY SCIENTISTS).

No, let's instead look at the fact that it's a load of bollocks.

The claim is that customers who pay their energy bills in the traditional methods - cash, cheque, blood, children - have to part with more money than those who pay online. This is certainly true. But the story attacks energy providers for roasting that old chestnut 'the digital divide', claiming in its opening sentence:

Nearly 14 million households are being penalised for not setting up an online account to pay their energy bills.

Their bills have been cut. Yes, cut. But online bills have been cut by more, to reward customers for choosing to save paper (because that's obviously the reason they set up an online account). I'm no green freak but I know that cutting down on paper use is A Very Good Thing, and online bills should be encouraged for that very reason.

This is not a tax on people who don't use the internet, as the naysayers (nay)say. To use the same analogy, it's a tax rebate for those who do use it.

Audrey Gallagher, energy expert at Government-funded watchdog Consumer Focus, said, "All too often it's vulnerable customers, such as older people, who lose out", but once again, they're not. 'Older, vulnerable' people are not paying anything more than they used to; they're simply not saving as much as 'younger, invulnerable' online customers.

What kind of dog-in-a-manger society is this, that we can't allow other people to save money if we're not saving it as well? Why don't we firebomb building societies with a better interest rate than our own while we're at it?