Ringing endorsements!

In an extraordinary egotistical, self-important turn, I've decided that I'm going to use the next few lines to tell you about 5 things that I'm really enjoying right now. And then I'm going to tell you about one thing that I'm not really enjoying right now.

This is the sort of thing that would be cool if the comments in this blog were turned on: you guys could spend hours telling me how extraordinarily egotistical and self-important I am. And I would be able to relate. Anyway, if you have a serious gripe, please drop a line to mshaer@boston.com, and I'll make an informal comments section in a subsequent post. Keep it clean.

Listening constantly to: "Trompe-l'oeil," the great full-length debut from French-Canadian rock quartet Malajube. If you can stomach music in a foreign language (cough, cough), "Trompe" is a tour de force mash-up of sunny pop, grinding punk-tinged anthems, and hook-laden... well, OK. You get the point. Hoping these guys'll make it to Boston soon. There weren't many albums released this year as smart as "Trompe-l'oeil".

Conspiracy theory that I recently pulled out of thin air: Chan Marshall (above) was denied a Grammy nomination 'cause she's a little crazy. Maybe not so conspiratorial: apparently, the same thing has been happening to Robert Downey Jr. and the Oscars for years. Blogs are great for unsubstantiated rumors!

The new Shins album is really good. Get excited.

Also listening constantly to: the "Stranger Than Fiction" soundtrack. Britt Daniel (above), from Spoon, orchestrated the whole thing; if you close your eyes really hard, you can pretend it's the follow-up to "Gimme Fiction".

Watching over and over again: The new Bob Dylan video, which was first aired on Slate.

I don't think that the Annuals -- the new internet buzz-band of, like, the minute -- are any good. Oh man! Oh yeah! I went there.