So 2004 certainly smacked us around on the way out the door, with a punch to the gut of a presidential election, then a kick to the axis with the South Asian / East African nightmare. The after-effects of those two far-different disasters will be felt for years...

But this is a brand new one (the WB would call it 'fresh'), so we move on, the hopeful making resolutions. Nothing really changes when the calendar does, just perception, maybe we get some extra motivation. Things come into focus, other things fade for awhile. I'm using it to get myself more organized, to tackle little projects too-long ignored, to dig into details while looking at the larger picture of my life. Taking stock. I feel like this could be a year of both small accomplishments and major changes for me. We'll see what I have to say here in another 360-ish days.

Neil Gaiman eloquently expressed his New Year's wishes for all back in 2001, and he shares them again this year:

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't to forget make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

I'm still working on my year-end lists... but it's not like there's a lack of other ones for you to read, right? The so-called 'blog explosion' of 2004 has insured that. I've read so many like-minded ones that my own are feeling all the more redundant... but in the end I pull them together for myself, to read years down the road. So I'll get 'em done.

In the meantime, there's all this stuff...


So sad to hear this morning that the "father of the graphic novel", Will Eisner, has passed away. In his late eighties and still working. Read the full story at Newsarama. What more can you say about a man that had the comics industry awards named after him while he was still alive? Read Neil Gaiman's words on the man here. A true legend has left us.


Boston-based band The Information are set to release their first full-lengther "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making" later this month, and they've got a couple songs up on their website for preview action. If you signed up for their mailing list last month, you got a link to a third one, "I Lose Control", but even if you missed out, a link to it should be up with their site's imminent relaunch. Keep an eye out.


Rumor has it that the new Wedding Present disc, "Take Fountain", has leaked to certain file-sharing networks (wow, it's so good). Regardless, I'll be outside the record store on February 14th, the morning that sucker's released... and if I had my way, it'd be declared a holiday. Well, one we get off from work, at least.

I appreciate the irony of a pile of Gedge-penned songs appearing in stores on Valentine's Day. Very few can capture relationship-related disappointment better than that man.

Speaking of the Weddoes, the BBC has posted video of their performance at last month's Keep It Peel tribute to dearly departed DJ John Peel, at which they played "Dare", "The Queen of Outer Space", and "What Have I Said Now?". You can also check out video from Damon Albarn & Graham Coxon while you're there. Aces. Hopefully more (PJ Harvey, Belle & Sebastian) will follow.


TV and Tech-heads are all abuzz with the news yesterday that, after a year of waiting, TiVoToGo has at last been released. It allows us TiVo users to archive recorded shows onto our comupters. Or, rather, it will allow us to do that once our TiVo gets updated with the new software. But who knows when that will be?

Just before I heard the news, I was trying to figure out how the hell I was gonna record and save the entire Red Sox World Series Winter that started last night on NESN. Every game from the 1975 World Series against the Reds (I was only 6 years old, so I'm so psyched to see it all), every game from the 1986 Mets series (not sure I want to relive that one), and then all 11 games from last year's defeat of the Yankees and the Cards. No way I can fit all those onto my TiVo, so on Sunday I was thinking "...if only TiVoToGo was ready." 12 hours later and whaddya know? Woulda been nice if they'd waited until their subscriber's machines were auto-updated before announcing it, though, or even until the record-to-DVD function was ready.

So I signed up for the "priority upgrade" on one of our machines. Curious to see if that actually works.


One of my long-overdue little projects is actually already finished. This past weekend I spent a bunch of time revamping and updating my live & rare cd trade list. It'd been a couple years (!) since I'd added everything I've accumulated, and I even went so far as to identify a whole bunch of missing tracklists. Took longer than I'd hoped, and it feels pretty damn good to have it outta the way.


While I was pulling those tracklists together, this came in very handy. Dates and tracklistings for just about every Peel Session since 1992. I hesitate to look through the whole thing... then it'll just give me more things I need to track down.


Field Mice resissues, you say? Sign me up for one of each, please. I've got probably half the songs that're compiled on those three discs, but it's just not enough. And while we're on the subject of Mr. Wratten, I'm loving the due-next-week Trembling Blue Stars disc.


Comic book aficionados take note: Hovy's got a new blog, and it's called Trade Whore. If you don't know what he means by "Trade" (hint: he doesn't mean 'swap'), then you may not be interested. But ya never know.


A mild shock for those who know me (and who understand how little I know about the NFL): My fantasy football team, the Boston Blitzers, actually won my league's Superbowl this past Sunday. I crushed the NYC-based City Slickers for the championship, and took special satisfaction in beating the Texas Hillbillies earlier on.

I certainly didn't expect this, especially after losing the first four games of the year... I'm actually in the thing just so I don't feel left out when my extended family talks about it (my sister, my dad, Amie, my brother-in-law, and his family are all in it, too). The fact that my team won it all just baffles me. And shows that it might all be kinda random.

And how did Amie's Allston City Rockers do? Well, she won $25 for... the lowest point total of the season. And she actually won the first four games of the year. Like I said... I'm not sure there's a whole lotta actual skill involved. I'm just kinda glad the winnings are coming to our house.


I'll end this post with some major congratulations to good friends...


Little Holly arrived on this earth one week ago last night, straight into the open arms of Matt & Mary, her proud parents. Friends (and stalk-ish strangers) can check out her progress over at the Daddypad. Amie and I got to meet the little peanut on New Year's Eve, and she's even cuter in person than she is in pics...


I sure hope she digs those Elizabeth Mitchell albums. Or that they at least put her to sleep.


In other notable congratulatory news... we were lucky enough to attend the wedding of our pals Tom & Katie on New Year's Day. Such a great time, a perfect way to start off the year, among their smiling friends & family. Even without the make-your-own-sundae bar (so good!), it still woulda rocked.



There've never been two people more meant to be together. Congrats, you two.


You may have noticed I set myself up on Flickr. All the cool photo-taking kids are doing it, right? I'll probably be putting most of my digital pics up there, although I wish the free accounts allowed more sets... $60 a year is kinda pricey. I still gotta decide if I'm going to update my own neglected photo pages. Another project added to the list.

(hey, if you tried to email me at all this morning, try again... my regular non-gmail email, and this site, were brought down by an MCI outage. s'all better now.)