scottyboy

Think I had him in my team for a bit; why'd I take him out?

The points band is 30-49 years, no?; the difference between him being 30 and 69 is only 2 points, if you want to be conservative....

http://variety.com/2017/music/news/allan-holdsworth-dead-dies-progressive-fusion-guitar-1202031666/

Ayad al-Jumaili (Daesh no. 2) is dead (air strike); albeit with some outlets using the caveat "reportedly". Slight problem in that his age is not known :S From pics I'd hazard (bloody huge beards) mid-30s to mid-40s. Edit: checked the rules and saw 30-49 is a whole points band, so I think that's a safe call unless we have to have exact DoBs...

Dunno about the other stuff, but that sounds precisely like sleep paralysis.

I was a fence-sitter and did not vote in the first referendum; I would vote yes in another (assuming it goes ahead and there is no Brexit u-turn). Given what I wrote in parenthesis, doubt I need to elaborate why.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kim-jong-un-assassination-female-agents-poisoned-needles-north-korea-killed-dead-death-malaysia-a7579336.html Amazing. This guy would've probably been the current leader of North Korea, but for getting caught visiting Tokyo Disneyland (anything more stereotypically capitalist?) with a fake/passport name. And now his (half, although I hadn't previously known that) brother has apparently had him assassinated in a foreign country.

Regretting not picking Yahya Jammeh (the Gambian president, needs no introduction ofc). He's refused to step down after losing elections so the Senegalese army invaded this morning, exciting times.

My list is actually really lazy (a good few transfer targets didn't make it into the new year). Turns out there are more than enough daesh members to fill a whole squad, but even I got bored of going through Wiki articles on New Years Eve, so I stuck Hun Sen, Duterte, Najib and Blatter (back) in there for shits and giggles. Some people picked Sir David - have you no shame?!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/world/asia/vietnam-vo-quy-dead.html?_r=1 What do you mean you've never heard of the "Father of Polish environmentalism"?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38565246 48 teams in the (not sure which) world cup.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38573643

Late entries, eh? I think the eponymous album by Tom's Story edges out Cartoon Theory for me.

Unless you like Indian cinema? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38527232

Cheeky: those aren't from 2016! Still, listening to Drinking Songs now... Shall we?

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38492516 John Berger

I propose: 10 days duration. Some people said 1 week was too short; 2 was too long. So, 10 days? Or 1 week is cool for me. 1-3 albums (or EPs). 3 are nominated, but on the understanding that people review 1, or 2, or 3, dependant on their time/tastes/inclination. So each round someone picks 3 of his/her top 10, and preferably a variety of styles from not so famous bands, and off we go. Who's with me?

Bump. (Why has my post above vanished? Is that just me?) Some kind of Best-of-2016 themed (and possibly just one-off) revival?

Friends in Theory - Friends in Theory This list is in no order, but I put this one at the top as I think it's something am-mus posters might like. It's an indie-rock EP, sometimes twangy, lush, or techy-tinged (I stumbled it on a math rock channel, but, only slightly). It's female-fronted, I think a break-up album and sounds kind of like an adult Taylor Swift (although turns out it's Swedish). Elephant Gym - Work Another EP. Nice jams which alternate between indie rock and funky jazz. Mix of instrumentals and female vocals. Intervals - The Shape of Colour This was Dec 2015*, but since everyone is/was putting these together in December... Even if you can't stomach an album of INSTRUMENTAL SHRED, but like fist-pumping power metal/rawk, you should do yourself a favour and give these two tracks a bash: Plini (featured on the above track) - Handmade Cities Posted about this guy in the favourite musos thread, and this is his first full length. I prefer his EPs tbh, but that's a very high bar and this is still great. Animals as Leaders - The Madness of Many A bigger name instrumental band I've never managed to get into before but... This one is not as arresting as the Intervals and Plini records; it's more rambling and noodly (or wanky, if you prefer). On The other hand, still loads of nice sounds and it really builds steam in the latter half. Radwimps - Your Name. [and] Human Bloom [i.e. 2 albums[ The first of these is an OST for some anime, so it's a grab bag of piano OST stuff, jazz and their more signature indie rock. The latter is more their signature sound (although bear with the ill-advised opening English strains, which sound like non-vintage Feeder, or something, and the faux-rap number) Here's a highlight which is on both albums: Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep of Reason It's a Meshuggah album, which probably tells you all you need to now about how it sounds and whether you like it. Hiromi Uehara - Spark Posted about her in the best musos thread too, and this is her 2016 offering. Like planting your face in a massive jazz cake. If you are not entertained by jazz, the highlight of the album (for me) is a very pretty OST/classical piece: Cartoon Theory - Planet Geisha A deliberately wacky/genre-bending thing ("ambidjent") which maybe doesn't come off 100% of the time, but some very nice moments. (and Plini is on this too). * Speaking of 2015, I'm sure everyone will recall I only had a top 2. So I'd like to add For Giants- You are the Universe (also my top personal discovery of 2016) to my 2015 list. Which rounds it out to a top 3 (everyone will doubtless be relieved), and totally all guitar, all the time (which everyone will thus be stoked to go back and listen to...).

(copy-pasted from Google Docs; the formatting is all messed up and the website won't let me fix it). I finished 48. Like I posted earlier, I think at least 34 of them were in the latter 6 months, and I thought I'd hit 50; but I also took it upon myself to read the Wealth of fucking Nations. Anyway, I'm calling it a moral victory. I obviously went on A Very Short Introduction binge (they're very addictive; and the one on the History of Life is one of the best books I've read this year), but I don't think they're really all that short compared to your Gatsbys, Catcher in the Ryes, etc. And between the Wealth of Nations and that book on food security, I think there are probably a dozen decent sized novels. The one marked x2 at the top of fiction I read twice, in English and Polish respectively. Non-fiction 1. Peter Boomgaard (ed.) A World of Water (SE Asian history essays) 2. Charles Darwin The Voyage of the Beagle 3. Carlo Rovelli Seven Brief Lessons on Physics 4. Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil 5. Niall Ferguson Empire [British] 6. Zhao Ziyang Prisoner of the State 7. David B. Norman Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction 8. Philip W. Sutton Nature, Environment and Society 9. Michael J. Benton The History of Life: A Very Short Introduction 10. Rachel Carson Silent Spring 11. Harry Sidebottom Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction 12. Mungo Park Travels in the Interior of Africa 13. John Parker, Richard Rathbone African History: A Very Short Introduction 14. Michel Foucault The Birth of Biopolitics 15. Ian Shaw Ancient Egypt: : A Very Short Introduction 16. Nico Stehr, Hans von Storch Climate and Society 17. Philip Ball Elements: A Very Short Introduction 18. Michel Foucault On the Government of the Living 19. William Easterly The Elusive Quest for Growth 20. Jeffrey Sachs The Age of Sustainable Development 21. Gary Gutting Foucault: A Very Short Introduction 22. Mike Jeffries, Derek Mills Freshwater Ecology 23. Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics 24. Shunji Matsuoka (ed) Effective Environmental Management in Developing Countries 25. Charles Darwin The Origin of Species 26. D. John Shaw World Food Security: A History Since 1945 27. Rab Houston Scotland: A Very Short Introduction 28. Joseph Stiglitz Globalization and its Discontents 29. Diana Rosemary Sharpe New Horizons in Asian Management Harukiyo Hasegawa (eds.) 30. Eric Hobsbawm Industry and Empire 31. Michel Foucault Security, Territory, Population 32. J. C. Polkinghorne Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction 33. Frank Close Particle Physics: A Very Short Introduction 34. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations 35. Vũ Trọng Phụng Lục Xì: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi 36 Dan Senor; Saul Singer Start-Up Nation [Israel] 37. Kunio Yanagita The Legends of Tono Fiction 1/2. Nguyễn Ngọc Thuận Open the Window, Eyes Open (x2) 3. Wei Hui Shanghai Baby 4. Rudyard Kipling Just So Stories 5. Trần Đăng Khoa Garden and Sky 6. Nguyễn Huy Thiệp The General Retires 7. Chuck Palahniuk Damned 8. Guy de Maupassant The Best Short Stories 9. Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 10 Jonas Jonasson The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden 11. F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

https://www.sporcle.com/games/SporcleEXP/in-memoriam-2016

...and Carrie Fisher's mum1? (and Singing in the Rain actress) http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/28/report-carrie-fisher-s-mom-hospitalized.html?via=desktop&source=copyurl

Death of another Star before the end of the year. Better take Carrie Fisher off those 2017 teams.

When I saw George Michael I thought "score!". But no. I had him in the team in 2014, Why'd I take him off?! >_<

Hiromi (Uehara; but most of her stuff is just under "Hiromi", I think). Not sure about evil, but frequently frenetic.