As bands who sound indie but record for major labels are fond of saying, “Indie is more about a state of mind and sound than it is about corporate affiliations.” (Ed. note: I just made that up, but it feels true. Truthiness!)

Wind-Up Records is an independent record label, but they have Creed on their roster, while Interpol’s third album came out on huge major label Capitol Records (home of, among others, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Beastie Boys, Radiohead, etc).

But “indie” isn’t just about bands and small businesses and crafters. There are lots of things that share a similar ethos and vibe that have nothing to do with spazz-core and knitting things with owls on them. Here’s a list!

10. Baseball teams: Despite their history of losing, no one is ever going to think of the Chicago Cubs as “indie”—they bring in way too much money and have way too many fans. Think Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, and Tampa Bay Rays. If you skew indie and have to root for a team in New York, it needs to be the Mets. Though you’re better off forgetting about baseball entirely and becoming an Islanders, Bills or Sabres fan.

9. Major fast-food chains: Any jerk can toss a greasy cheeseburger into a bag and pass it through a window, but I think that Panera Bread Co. is where it’s at, especially if you are a vegan or vegetarian in the suburbs.

8. Cars: MINI, even though it’s owned by BMW now, is about as indie as it gets. Small, great fuel economy, appealing to anglo and europhiles, and easily convertible to bio-diesel. When they finally roll out an all-electric one, it’s gonna be huge.

7. Pets: Adopted, non-pedigreed animals. Dogs will suffice, but this is all about indie, so the cats win it. Duh. Adorable, fluffy, and act like they don’t care if you like them or not, and much more prone to flip out at you for no reason.

6. Scientists: Nikola Tesla. Dude developed a way to draw power from the Earth itself and transfer it wirelessly to power electronic devices for free the low, low cost of an antenna. J. Pierpont Morgan fired him b/c there was no money in it! Capitalist!

5. Politicians: Ohio’s 10th District Congressional representative Dennis Kucinich. Vegan, very green and left-leaning, pasty, and with a slight, scrawny stature, and the uncanny ability to land wife after wife further up the attractiveness scale than he is. Sounds like a hipster to me! We’ll overlook his frivolous lawsuit against the cafeteria for mistakenly allowing an olive pit to slip it’s way into his veggie wrap. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin gets a nod, but is disqualified due to no longer being in office.

4. Comic Book Characters: Oliver Queen, The Green Arrow. Ollie is a trust-fund hipster, dedicated to environmental protection and inner city revitalization when he’s not busy shooting arrows at bad guys. He also sports questionable facial hair and patrolled the streets of Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s…BEFORE grunge broke.

3. Fruits: Pomegranate! Strange-looking, willfully difficult to get through, delicious with a hint of sharp tartness, and only available every once in a while. Often overshadowed by its seasonal contemporaries the apple and the pumpkin. Kind of like Wrens albums.

2. Soft drink: Flavored, unsweetened seltzer or club soda. Supporting Big Corn is so mainstream.

1. Monsters: Werewolves. Solitary, shaggy & unkempt, prone to moodiness, especially around objects of affection. If you have a LiveJournal, you’d probably make an excellent werewolf! (Ed. note: I did, once upon a time. Have a LiveJournal. I was never a werewolf.)

For your consideration:

Sorry, Oscar. You have a new name, and it’s Mario. Because of how Mario just won ALL OF YOU.

(Via Geekologie.com)

After several days of not cracking 30°F (with no snow to show for it), I can safely say I’m over winter. Here are some things I’m looking forward to in the next few months:

10.Wearing t-shirts as my primary upper-body article of clothing: This sort of ties in with number three, but gets it’s own slot because it’s integral to me being able to pimp my wares to you fine people when I’m out getting drunk.

9. Longer Days: I hate Daylight Savings. Just because time is a human construct does not mean we can just tug it back and forth willy-nilly.

8. Groundhog Day: The movie, not the holiday. I will admit to a very slight desire to trek up to Pennsylvania and see Punxsutawney Phil peek out of his little hollow, but it’s purely out of love for the 1993 Bill Murray masterpiece that a) introduced us all to Ned Ryerson, and b) inadvertently named one of the best bands to ever come out of Washington, DC.

7. Foster kittens: OK, I’m not really looking forward to this; in a perfect world, people would be responsible about fixing their pets and feline procreation would result in a manageable amount of kittens that could all be adopted into safe, loving homes, and the need for fostering them wouldn’t exist. But since it does, I do feel lucky that I get to help out. Because of the cute!

6. New music: November through January is a pretty fallow period for the music industry; the really good stuff doesn’t start rolling out until February. I might do a list next week of my most-anticipated releases due out in 2011!

5. New vegetables: Specifically, fresh stuff from my garden. Sadly, this won’t actually be ready-to-eat until, oh, June at the earliest, but at this point I’m actually dying to get out into the back courtyard and sweep out the dead leaves and plant new stuff.

4. New fruit: Don’t get me wrong, I love citrus, but I’m really looking forward to berries.

3. Not spending a full five minutes outfitting myself with layer upon layer of clothing before leaving the house.

2. Walking to the gym: The only thing one of countless things better than going to the gym regularly is being able to stroll along the Patapsco River on the way there.

1. Baseball: Let’s be real; I would happily watch meaningful baseball 365 days a year. Hell, I even tuned into the World Baseball Classic in 2009 because I was so desperate for the MLB regular season to start. At this point it’s only a couple weeks until pitchers and catchers report to spring training facilities in Florida and Arizona, and I’m giddy at the prospect of watching meaningless* exhibition games. Though it makes me crack up every time my wife calls the winter months the “hot oven” instead of “hot stove” season. Much like when she asked if the American League played against the Justice League.

* I hear my wife in my head right now: “ALL baseball games are meaningless. And slow. And boring. I hate you; you’re a terrible husband for making me watch this.”

Ex-Boyfriend is kind of a collaborative label, I want to draw silly stuff like dinosaurs double fisting 40s, my girlfriend tries to get me to draw things other people like.  As a result I’ve started a one for me, one for you approach to my designs. I do one illustration that few people are likely to find as amusing as I do, and one that everyone else is likely to appreciate more. My most recent take on this aesthetic is this guy:

It’s what I believe would happen if the cover art from Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism had a love child with the cover art from the Wye Oak Album. I know you probably don’t really see it, but that’s okay, I wasn’t trying to actually copy the cover art, just the aesthetic.