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i'm thankful there is a great new song and will soon be a new album by the xx. i'm thankful that the new song takes the things i like about their music and the things i like about jamie xx's music and blends them together. i'm thankful that i didn't like their last album nearly as much as their first one, but i'm thankful that this live performance of one of the songs from it, "angels," makes me want to listen again and reevaluate. i'm thankful to evaluate and reevaluate things. i'm thankful for the five albums i listened to the most in 2016, which i think are, in order of how much i listened to them: 1) anti 2) blonde 3) wildflower 4) telefone 5) lemonade.

i'm thankful for mulled wine. i'm thankful for cinnamon frosted flakes. i'm thankful for the frozen dumplings and buns i steamed for dinner the other night and will steam again for dinner tonight. i'm thankful we got rid of our steamer basket in our last move but that a colander inside a pot works just as well. i'm thankful for sandwiches. i'm thankful for d and i's extended discussion of someone's twitter poll i can't locate now, which asked if you could only have one starch for the rest of your life, which would it be (i'm thankful that the choices were all the important carbs: potatoes, pasta, bread, and rice). i'm thankful that originally we were torn between pasta and bread but that after reading the amazing spread on dumplings from new york a few weeks ago which melded dumplings with pasta we are in the pasta camp i think, or at least i am. i'm thankful that i don't have to actually choose in real life and i'm thankful for sandwiches.

i'm thankful to have spent some time playing videogames over my holiday break. i'm thankful for sonic & sega all-stars racing transformed, which at this point i honestly think is better than mario kart, which is probably my all-time-favorite video game (all incarnations post-n64 but double dash is my sentimental fave). i'm thankful for the challenge, the dynamism of the tracks, the sense of speed and play, and the aerial sections, which remind me of an old game i loved called plane crazy. i'm thankful to have bought my dad the game inside for christmas and am thankful that at his urging i bought it for myself last night and i'm thankful it is as good as he and everyone else says it is. i'm thankful for the physicality of the animation, the feeling of my character making a difficult jump or hauling himself up a rope or crashing into a body of water. i'm thankful to wonder what will happen next.

i'm thankful for the awkwardness of pro gamers. i'm thankful to agree with minori (and am thankful to have one more day of vacation). i'm thankful that rita ora apparently "lost thousands on investment into festival urinating device" and that i got to read a headline saying so. i'm thankful for mariah carey leaving a weed dispensary in a ballgown, beaming. i'm thankful for typos. i'm thankful for jane hu's desire to be a corgi. i'm thankful my goat printer ran out of ink. i'm thankful for studio ghibli.