P.F.’s Top 40 Songs of 2013

By PF Wilson

Sorry it’s a little late. And I won’t bore you with a lot of editorial comment, but it was another good year for tunes. It was a 3 team race for the top, won out by Scotland’s very fine CHVRCHES. Enjoy!

Oh, and if you go to this episode of the podcast, you can hear FanGirl and I count down our respective Top 5s.

1. “The Mother We Share” - CHVRCHES

2. “The City” – The 1975

3. “Fred Astaire” – San Cisco

4.  “Magnetic Eyes” – Matrix and Futurebound

5. “Harlem” – New Politics

6. “Diane Young” – Vampire Weekend

7. “This is What it Feels Like” – Armand Van Buren

8. “Night Cafe” – OMD

9. “Counting Stars” - OneRepublic

10. “Spark” -  Afrojack

11. “Somewhere Only We Know” – Lily Allen

12. “Top of the World” – Imagine Dragons

13. “Right Action” –Franz Ferdinand

14. “Metroland” - OMD

15. “Stay Out” – Nina Nesbitt

16. “The Beach” – San Cisco

17. “Chocolate” – The 1975

18. “Midnight Run” – Andy Hawk & The Train Wreck Endings

19.  “I Always Knew” – The Vaccines

20. “Safe and Sound” – Capital Cities

21. “Skip to the Good Bit” – Rizzle Kicks

22. “Live and Die” – Avett Brothers

23. “Why Am I The One?” F.U.N.

24. “Shiver” – Walk the Moon

25.  “House of Gold” – Twenty-one Pilots

26.  “Sad Night, Where is Morning” – The Ocean Blue

27.  “Love is a Bourgeois Construct” – Pet Shop Boys

28. “24 Hours” –Sky Ferriera

29. “Unbelievers” – Vampire Weekend

30. “When Can I See You Again?” – Owl City

31.  “The Pit” – Silversun Pickups

32. “Recovery” – Frank Turner

33. “Lightning Bolt” – Jake Bugg

34. “Strawberry Smile” – Andy Hawk & The Train Wreck Ending

35. “Dear Darlin’” –Olly Murs

36. “Somewhere to Hide” – Shiny Toy Guns

37. “Anna Sun” – Walk The Moon

38. “Still Into You” - Paramore

39.  “Helen of Troy” - OMD

40. “Shooting Star” – Owl City

Daily Currant Writer Found Dead after Writing Sochi Engineer Found Dead Story

By PF Wilson

The story spread like wildfire across the Internet this past weekend, after news broke Saturday morning that the engineer responsible for the glitch during the Winter Olympic opening ceremony in Sochi had been found dead.

After one of five snowflakes failed to turn into the final Olympic ring, the Russian hosts were red-faced, as it were. Then Saturday morning, the Daily Currant ran the piece about the engineer. For almost a day the Internet and social media in particular, were abuzz with the bazaar tale of how he met a gruesome end after apparently embarrassing his homeland. However, it all turned out to be hoax, perpetrated by the Daily Currant; a hoax that went viral.

Many Internet experts, social media gurus, and garden-variety know-it-alls snickered about how the public was once again hood-winked  by a hoax news story. Few were surprised though, as people across the web constantly fall for made up news stories from The Onion, Daily Currant, Ross Rants, and Fox News.

Russian officials were not amused by the hoax though, and insist that the real engineer is alive and well and working on a special project in Barnaul, Siberia. However, the writer who penned the fake news story was found dead Sunday night. As word spread out across the Internet of the writer’s demise, local law enforcement said no one had contacted them for details, and they were pretty sure that no such incident had actually taken place. Still many speculated about the writer’s possible death.

A spokesman for Russia’s satirical newspaper The Radish said it demonstrates the danger of poking fun at the wrong things. “But the Russian people took no offense at the story about the engineer. We have great sense of humor. We laugh at the same things you do. You laugh at President Obama,” he said and then paused before adding: “We laugh at President Obama.” He then vehemently insisted that the Russians were not involved in the writer’s death. Two Russian nationals were questioned a few blocks from the Daily Currant’s headquarters, but were released after telling the FBI that they knew nothing about a fake news story, or satirical news website, and were merely looking for “moose and squirrel.”

Pattie Wilson also reported on this story.