Albums That Changed My Life: Dropkick Murphys "Sing Loud, Sing Proud"

1. I defy anyone to name an album with a better opening song. The chant of "Let's Go, Murphys" can be heard at every DKMs show and covering BC's fight song let them fly the Boston flag with that rare combination of class and toughness - Boston ain't no joke. And they put so much of their own spin on the classic lyrics that most people (most people I know) don't even know it's not an original.

2. This album has no bad songs on it. The closest is "Good Rats" which is kind of lame but still funny enough to let it slide. The ballads "Forever," "The Torch," and "Wild Rover" (which features Shane MacGowan of The Pogues) are a bold move on a punk album, but the Murphys lay them down like nobody else could. "Spicy McHaggis Jig" proves they're not above having a good time while they rock. And literally every other song on this album makes me want to punch holes in the wall - especially "The Gauntlet"

3. Dual vocals from Al Barr and Ken Casey will melt your face. Both great singers, Casey also tears it up on the bass. They trade off enough to keep it interesting and bring in the whole band for gang-vocal choruses. It's a unity album, it's pseudo-Oi!, it's Celtic, it rocks.

4. They're not egomaniacs, they're still the boys from the neighborhood - "Which Side Are You On" takes a heavily pro-union stance which they repeat in later albums ("Worker's Song" and "Warrior's Code" to name a few tracks). They stick to what they know - their Irish roots. "Rocky Road to Dublin" and "Legend of Finn Mac" prove that, and "Spicy McHaggis Jig" makes no bones about it.

5. It propelled them to a new level. "SL,SP" put them on the national map, got them a spot on the Warped Tour to support their follow-up "Blackout" and "The Gauntlet" is probably the best song on Epitaph's "Punk-O-Rama Vol. 6" compilation. "SL,SP" was the first album to feature Murphys' signature bagpipes and mandolin, in addition the standard punk rock drums-bass-and-two-guitars setup.

6. It sounds like rock and roll. Blistering guitar solos and driving backbeats give it that almost-live feel that's pretty tough to come by. And it was produced by the band themselves. Ken Casey took over production after Lars Fredickson, producer of "Do or Die" and "The Gang's All Here," left them to their own devices. Bottom Line: it sounds as great as possible.

7. Seriously, you need seven reasons to love the hell out of this album? Fine: the coat of arms on the album cover is now probably the most bad-ass belt buckle you can buy. Lucky 13 makes them and if you buy me one, I'll write an article about whatever you want.

Web-Based Finance Management Tools - Mint and Buxfer

I signed up for Mint.com today to track all of my finances in one place. Now, you might ask yourself: why should I bother? All of my accounts let me track my balances online already.

For me, the answer was simple; because it turns out that Bank of America has the WORST online account support ever. I can never remember my 52-character login name and they refuse to send it to me via email, so it's actually easier for me to track my Bank of America debit card balance through Mint than through the BoA site. (Aside: I'll give BoA credit for their iPhone application. The app is fairly useful and includes a locating feature that interfaces with the iPhone's GPS to direct you to the nearest ATM or branch - it's been handy for me a few times)

If you're not familiar, Mint.com is a website for managing your personal finances. It's sort of like an online version of Quicken - if Quicken was a lot more automated and intuitive. Mint is awesome because it lets you login to your online account management systems through their site, and automatically syncs your balances onto your Mint dashboard. It lets you manage your credit, checking, saving, and investment accounts, as well as your automobile or home payments. It also lets you set up a budget to manage your finances on a very detailed level, including tagging expenses and setting up monthly recurring sub-accounts.

Mint.com is free to join, and they've got an iPhone application that's free as well. It recently got bought by Intuit, the company behind Quicken, QuickBooks, TurboTax, etc. All of the information you input into Mint is protected with bank-level security encryption. It doesn't let you move any money around, either - so even if your account was compromised, you wouldn't be liable to lose any money. Essentially, you can track all of your financial accounts at once, so the chances of fraud going unnoticed in any of them drops significantly. Mint is especially handy with the iPhone app and mobile alerts, so you can keep an eye on everything on the go. It took me about 15 minutes after registration to get my accounts sync'ed, download the iPhone app, and make my monthly budget.

With my Mint setup, I'm putting aside $600 per month. What to do with that? This month's stash is going toward tattoos, I can tell you that much.

I give Mint the First-Ever AYP Gorilla of Approval.

On a related note: I am in no way affiliated with the Gorilla Biscuits, nor do I purport to be.

Another pretty useful site is Buxfer.com, a site for tracking expenses between groups of people. I started using Buxfer with my old roommates in Boston (yo, Patrick and Jorge!) and it's been a boon to me ever since. To use Buxfer, you join the site and add transactions for your personal budget. Like Mint, you can set recurring transactions, automatically sync with your other online accounts, and tag entries. You can set reminders, like "thrift store re-stock day" or "pay the effing power bill this week." The only way it doesn't compare to Mint is visually - Mint's UI is very streamlined and sexy. Buxfer gets the job done very well, but it's not as fancy or automated. Chalk it up to personal preference.

You can also setup or join a group that shares expenses, which is wherein the real power of the site lies. You can split a transactions between any number of group members, or by dollar amounts. It's very useful for small groups - baseball teams, housing co-ops, school clubs, and so on.

For example: you and the rest of your band decide to record an album. But your bassist doesn't have the cash for his share of the recording time right now and your drummer already fronted the money for the CD cases. Instead of haggling over who owes how much and trying to keep track of who's paid who, you can put it all on Buxfer. You can split the recording costs between everyone, discount your drummer his buy-in for the cases, and your bassist can tell everyone when he'll have the money.

Buxfer is free to join but offers premium membership packages that allow you unlimited budgets, accounts, etc. They also have a free iPhone application that lets you view and edit transactions on the move. They've got a Mac Dashboard app, too.

So basically, if you're aloof when it comes to personal finance like I am, these websites will take some of the hassle out of organizing your money. Plus, (free) iPhone applications make it easy to keep one eye on your money and the other on the lookout for new guitars at the pawn shop.

Currently listening to: The Aggrolites "S/T"