>> I'm back from Knoxville, where I had a lovely time with my siblings. Pictures will dribble out through Flickr over the next few days. Tomorrow at 10:30 AM I go in for the job interview that -- cue melodramatic strings -- just might change my life forever (Details will follow afterwards). Of course, it feels like I'm getting a fever, so God help me if I'm violently ill for the interview...

Following up on my U2 post from earlier: I tried for tickets to the Madison Square Garden show this morning and didn't get them -- the weird thing is, no second show seems to be on the horizon, as the band play Philadelphia the very next day. Presumably they'll play the hell out of NYC on the tour's third leg in the fall, if it goes ahead. As for the presale fiasco, here's some fascinating insider info on what may've gone wrong between Ticketmaster and the band's management. Happily, Ticketmaster seems to have gone out of its way to get some of the affected fans the tickets they wanted, but that seems to be winding down -- so if you still don't have tickets, then it looks like you're not getting them.

>> (Ed. note -- this is long, and it's on a subject many of my readers don't care about, so I've put most of it behind the "More" link. Enjoy your weekend.)

I think I've just about had it with U2.

As anybody who's read this site for any length of time knows, they're my favorite band. (Just look at the URL.) I've been obsessed with them since the eighth grade, I work on a major fansite, I collect the singles and rarities, the whole nine yards. I've seen them in concert five times and I was looking forward to more.

But with the release of this album -- an album I enjoyed quite a bit; it tied for #1 in my year-end tally, in fact -- something in my relationship to them has changed. It started, ever so slightly, with the Apple tie-in promotion.

As a band, U2 had always claimed they would never accept corporate sponsorship. They never have licensed their songs for car commercials or anything of that ilk. The partnership with Apple seemed like a fairly good idea at first -- the idea of the Complete U2 digital box set was fantastic -- but as time wore on the whole deal started to look shabbier and shabbier. First, there was the $50 premium on the price of the U2 iPod. Then the box set wound up containing less than a CD's worth of material that hardcore fans don't already have -- and it would cost them $150 to get it. (You could argue that the set was intended for casual fans who are in the market for convenience, but half the material wouldn't be right for them, and the price tag was still too steep for an impulse buy.) Then the "Vertigo" ad got more and more ubiquitous -- and irritating. And finally, when the free show they played in Brooklyn (a very nice gesture for the fans) was shown on MTV, it was in the context of a brutally edited half-hour show that served little purpose but to throw up ads for the downloadable performance on iTunes (which, it bears noting, only included four of the show's ten songs) at the beginning and end of each segment, and at commercial breaks. It was a nakedly money-grubbing tactic that lacked a lot of the dignity the band have shown in the past.

While all of this was going on, the band were making plans to relaunch U2.com, their official site, which had been notoriously buggy and lacking in good design. They made the questionable decision to begin charging fans for access to the full site, as a replacement for the band's old paid fanclub, Propaganda. Asking $40 for the privilege ($20 for previous members of Propaganda), they promised complete lyrics, complete video clips, audio, and other exclusive content -- and most crucially to many fans, they promised priority ticket pre-sales for the upcoming tour.

Now, a paid fanclub is a perfectly reasonable idea. But two things about the way U2 created theirs were incredibly, incredibly shitty. The first was that as U2.com was prepping for its relaunch, Universal Music (the band's record company) sent cease-and-desist letters to all of the major U2 fansites who hosted copies of the band's lyrics, including the phenomenally comprehensive U2Wanderer, one of the most informative fansites for any band on the 'Net, and the impressive @U2, who've been on the web since 1995. All of the sites were forced to take down all of their transcriptions (the lyrics they hosted were almost never the officially-published versions; rather, they were transcribed from the actually-sung audio). They were told that they could apply with Universal for a license to display the content, which most of the sites quickly did. They haven't heard anything since.

The second shitty thing that U2.com did was to fail, miserably, at every service they said they would provide, all the while happily continuing to take fans' money.

Right from the start, it was clear that the administrators of the site were clueless and unprepared to manage the service they were providing. On the first day that paid memberships became available, the site crashed, double-charging many fans (they haven't gotten refunds yet) and seizing up before many ever had the opportunity to purchase a membership.

Then the day of the presale came around. It was decided, quite brilliantly, that all but five of the dates would be put up for presale simultaneously. As one fan put it, that much simultaneous traffic would be called a denial-of-service attack under any other circumstance. Predictably, as soon as the first European dates went on sale (dates were phased in by time zone, each one going on sale at 10AM local time), U2.com and Ticketmaster's sites both crashed. Brilliantly, Ticketmaster and U2.com had agreed on a scheme in which each paid-up fan was assigned a unique access code to punch in on the presale page; unfortunately, the moment a code was entered, it was flagged in Ticketmaster's system as used, whether or not a ticket sale was ever completed. And as the servers screamed in pain, almost no sales were completed. (Ticketmaster eventually began resetting the fan club's codes, eight to twelve hours later.)

It was around this time of the day that U2.com closed its message boards for "maintenance."

The American dates began to go on sale. The Ticketmaster servers held up a bit better in the States at first, but fans quickly realized that the general-admission, standing-room-only seats on the floor of the arena -- the tickets that most fans would want, being both the cheapest and potentially the best in the house -- had been laughably under-allocated, with a miniscule number being available at the time of the presale. Of course, if you wanted to pay $160 for a seated ticket placed behind the stage, you were welcome to do that. And by the time the West Coast sales rolled around, Ticketmaster was crashing again.

This was the kind of service that the band's longtime fans paid money for. U2 fans paid to get an unimpressive website that did not boast half the promised content (compared to U2wanderer's archives, the paid site's lyrics section is laughably incomplete) and provided functionally no advantage in terms of ticketing. Where did that money go? It certainly wasn't spent on a strong infrastructural backbone.

Anybody with a brain and a pulse can understand that U2 are, first and foremost, a corporation. It is their goal to make a lot of money being musical artists. But in the past, the fans have been comfortable with the ethical balance the band has struck; they've provided quality entertainment in a reasonable manner and have rarely made too many demands of their audience -- Bono has taken in recent years to thanking the U2 audience from every stage he stands on for giving the band "a great life" -- and we have. There's not a single member of that band who's hurting for cash at this point.

But they've crossed the line, and they didn't have to. It would have been easy for them to provide all the services they promised while still turning a profit! A paid fanclub is a perfectly good idea -- Pearl Jam do it, for example, and they've done a great job of getting fans into their venues. But today we were told that fans are not permitted to buy tickets for more than one show on the tour! Almost all of the hardcore fans I know saw more than one show on the Elevation tour -- I saw three, for example, but many others saw a dozen or more. Now we're told that even if we were willing to pay the remarkably high ticket price ($49.50 for a general-admission ticket -- still a good deal -- but $90 and $160 for nosebleeds and lower-level tickets, respectively), Ticketmaster bars us from purchasing tickets to more than one show. That's fucking ludicrous.

Like I said, it's perfectly easy to envision a fanclub that serves both the band and the audience. You could even go ahead and charge the $40 if you wanted to. (Pearl Jam only charge $12, but hey, it's your band, U2.) But for that kind of money, spent on an intangible good, you'd better provide the following service:

• Provide every single music video in high-quality streaming video. Note that I said "high-quality" -- that means RealPlayer is verboten. Quicktime is absolutely required, but Windows Media would be an acceptable second option. And when I say every video, I meant it.
  
  
• Publish the band's official lyrics -- every single one you can get your hands on. Do not try to muscle other interpretations off of the Internet. Giving away lyrics for free does not represent a lost revenue opportunity, which I'm sure is the exact phrase bandied around in the offices of Universal Music and Principle Management when discussing the new website. Giving your fans the lyrics to your songs creates a bond between artist and audience; it implies openness and a willingness to let the listener into the music, two values U2 used to value very highly. It also creates a feeling of goodwill that will undoubtedly be rewarded with economic patronage. And let's face it, the official site was never going to bend over backwards to transcribe the single repeated phrase in the white-label-only remix of one of the band's decade-old b-sides. The fans are eager to do that for you; they're eager to help you make that connection to your (paying) audience. Let them.
  
  
• Sell the tickets to the fans early. And remember: You are the biggest rock band in the goddamn world. You can set the terms with any promoter in the business -- and that includes ClearChannel, with whom you are currently partnered. Radiohead, a band with similar live-drawing capabilities, sold out an entire American tour and didn't have to stop at a single ClearChannel-controlled venue. (They played MSG in NYC just to shut the New York fans up.) Never forget: You can always take your ball and go home. You are fucking U2. Ticketmaster only wants to allocate 10% of the venue to a presale? Fuck that. Make them break their own rule -- they will. (If that's simply impossible, then cancel the presale and forget the whole idea of a paid website, because that amount of service is simply not worth it. This, I think, was the key decision that wasn't made properly.)
  
  So: demand at least 66% of the general-admission floor for the fanclub. (I know I keep saying their name, but Pearl Jam got away with demanding the whole thing.) Reserve at least a third of the other two sections for them as well. We'll even accept that the ticket prices are going to be high, because we understand that this kind of negotiation with promoters does not come cheap, and we understand the need to illustrate that your brand commands top-dollar. (Remember, the fans want the band to look good too -- we like hearing that U2's tour is the highest-grossing of the year.) Just make sure that a lot of us, the people who have supported you for decades, can put our asses in the seats and fork over those top dollars.
  
  We also understand that you've got to limit the ability of scalpers to acquire tickets -- in fact, we heartily welcome your efforts to do so. But you've also got to respect the fans who want to see you more than once. A perfectly reasonable limitation to place on a U2.com access code would be that no single account can buy more than 2 tickets each for a maximum of three shows. That number cannot be rejigged to represent six tickets to one show, or four tickets to one show and two to another, etc. -- it's one pair per show, and if you're only going to one, that's all you can get with your code. And feel free to link the code to a credit-card number, putting a reasonable limit on those who would pass unused codes on to their friends. (Will people still allow their cards to be charged and then have their friends pay them back? Yep. Were they doing that anyway before the internet? Yep. Should you worry about it? Nope. If you really wanted to address it, then just require that a photo ID come with the ticket at venue entry.)
  
  
• And finally, make sure that you can actually guarantee the services you've said that you will provide. I know the Internet feels a bit like the Wild Wild West sometimes, and when presales have gone belly-up due to technical snafus in the past, well, at least the whole thing was free and the fans didn't lose any money on it. (You, the band, might have lost a bit of an investment, and that sucks, but that's the risk.) But this is different. You took money for this product, and you have got to deliver it. Paying money for a presale that collapses is like paying for a CD where tracks three and eight have been mastered backwards. It cannot ever be allowed to happen. Take a chunk of that hefty $40 membership fee and buy a goddamn huge server rack with unbelievable redundancy and bandwidth capabilities. You're selling tickets to venues that hold 80,000 people and you already know that demand will exceed supply (otherwise you wouldn't have booked into that venue) -- so you'd better be more than prepared to meet the strain that demand is going to put on your servers. Don't put all of the dates on sale at once; stagger them over a week or two, putting up maybe three or five per day. And for God's sake, think your coding method through -- it seems brutally obvious to me that the access key to presale tickets should never be marked as used before a sale is actually completed. But maybe I'm on crazy pills.

I'm an idealist, I'll gladly admit it. But U2 are too. At your most cynical, you can say that U2 sell the image of being idealists. But for fuck's sake, they sell the image of not being goddamned cynical too. It's very possible to make a lot of money by pleasing your fans. It's not quite as easy as it is to make a lot of money by screwing your fans over, but I guarantee it's a more sustainable business model.

(By now you're probably wondering -- did I pay for U2.com membership? Did I fuck. As soon as they put them up for sale, I decided not to vote with my wallet for an enterprise that was crowding fansites off the 'net. And judging by U2.com's past track record, I also felt every last one of these technical snafus was coming on the horizon.)

As it stands, tickets to U2's New York show are going on sale on Monday morning. Like I said, I've seen U2 five times before and in a perfect world I'd love to see them five times more. But I'm coming into the airport on Monday morning and I may or may not get to my computer in time for the 10AM onsale. If I do, I'll probably try to get tickets. But if I can't get them, then at this point, frankly, I don't think I'll be crushed. For once in my life, I'm starting to believe that these guys don't deserve my money. And that hurts me, but a lot of fans are starting to feel that way, and pretty soon that might start hurting the band too. I'm not stupid; I know that for as long as this band's been active, people have found one reason or another to complain about similar commercial concerns, and it hasn't harmed their success one whit. But most people with a pulse and any sense of morality and common sense can see that what's happened in the last few months is way out of whack with the band's own rhetoric, and I just hope that they see some consequences for it.

(One final note: I know that the band are in a difficult position right now, having been forced by some truly regrettable circumstances to reschedule the opening leg of this tour, and as a result the entire enterprise has probably gone slightly out of their control. I'm inclined to think that it would be best for them to not tour at all under these circumstances -- as impatient as the fans seem now, perversely, we really could wait -- but I am willing to cut them some slack as a result. Unfortunately this whole thing has just been so very, very unpleasant that I can't not speak about it in harsh terms, despite the mitigating events.)

Other similar rants:

• U2log coverage
• U2page: An Open Letter To U2

>> Just FYI, I'll be out of town this weekend, visiting my brother and his family in Tennessee with my sister. I leave late Friday night and come back very early Monday morning (blah), so no blog posts in that period. And if you were planning on getting in touch with me, well, that's where I'll be. Though the scheduling's a bit rough, I'm really looking forward to seeing them -- I haven't seen my brother's house since I helped him move into it in May 2003. (And no, despite this entry's title, I'm not originally from Tennessee. It's just a Dolly Parton song and the only line about TN that popped into my head.)

When I get back next week, I have a job interview with one of my dream employers (on Tuesday morning). Wish me luck!

>> OK, so I've still got a sizable balance on my iTunes gift card that I haven't spent. So you're going to spend it for me. I will buy, no questions asked, the first five songs to be suggested in my comments. Suggest me something that I probably haven't heard, or that you think I haven't paid enough attention to. And only one per person, please. I'll buy 'em and let you know what I think. Sound fun? Fire away. (Obviously it needs to be something available in the North American iTunes store -- check on it first. If you're in another country, use the iTunes linkmaker to check if it's available in the US.)

Feel free to keep suggesting stuff even after five songs have been put down, by the way. If you can make a good case, maybe I'll buy more (I've got more than $5 left on the card, after all).

>> U2 have announced the details of the first leg of the Vertigo tour. Tickets start going on sale in the next couple of days -- click the link for the full info. They're playing New York on May 21st (and most likely the 22nd and/or 23rd too) at MSG, and the tickets for that show go on sale next Monday (Jan. 31st). Yes, there's a general admission floor again (here's the scoop); tickets for that are $49.50. They're coming back for more North American dates (probably a lot more, since rumors indicate that they had to shuffle an entire month of American dates in March off of the schedule at the last minute) in the fall.

>> I have stayed up until four in the morning, even though I have lots to do tomorrow. Chiefly, it was in order to finish Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, which was a wonderful book. But I also did it because I'm stupid. Sigh. Now I'm in one of those modes where I feel like I'll never be tired enough to sleep again. Distressing.

Thank you to everybody who's been giving me feedback on the site. Judging by the ideas and plans I have so far, it's clear that I won't be able to please everyone, but hopefully I won't fuck things up too badly.

>> So I've been assembling inspirations, ideas, and widgets for a possible reconstruction of this site. Not necessarily a redesign -- the basic visual design would probably remain fairly similar, since most of my attempts to come up with a new one end in tears -- but rather a re-engineering of the code and functionality of the place.

A question I wanted to ask you about, though: the inline linkslog, a la Kottke's Remaindered Links, Plasticbag's links of the day, etc. -- the differently-styled bullet-sized linky posts which intermingle with longer-form stuff. Do you, as my audience, like this and find it attractive / readable? It's something I'm very interested at the moment, since my linklogging kind of languishes in the site's backwater at the moment and I'm tired of sidebar linkslog implementations, which I've done before and have never been happy with. What do you think? Would you be open to having me do that here? Let me know in the comments.

Now's a good time to mention any other complaints, comments, or requests about the way the site works -- anything you really hate that you'd like to see fixed or eliminated? Anything you really love that has to stick around? Anything you like from other sites that you'd like me to steal and install? I'd honestly love to hear it, since I'm still in the idea-gathering phase at the mo'. And no, you won't bruise my fragile ego, since I'm always convinced that everything I code's a peesacrap anyway.

>> Since I consider it my solemn duty to keep my readers up to date on all news regarding giant, or indeed, even moderately-sized squid (because squid are fucking awesome), here's a Metafilter thread full of important news, including an epidemic of squid washing ashore in Southern California. Weird.

>> As seen on Prolific, here's the music-related meme circulating at the moment:

1. What’s the total size of music files on your computer?

45.95 GB, with an additional 1.75 GB worth filed away in a seperate folder because I haven't listened to them / copied them into my iTunes directory yet.

2. What is the last CD you bought?

Last night I bought Girls Aloud's What Will The Neighbours Say?, but it was a birthday present for somebody else, so that doesn't count. I'd say The Arcade Fire's Funeral, but that was actually bought for me, so it doesn't count either. The last CD that I personally exchanged money for in order to own it myself (who knew it'd be so technical?) was Depeche Mode's Remixes 81-04 three-disc set.

3. What is the last song you listened to before you read this post?

The Streets, "Fit But You Know It." That was actually several hours ago; time to fire up iTunes!

4. Name four songs that you listen to a lot or that mean a lot to you.

Passengers - "Your Blue Room"
The Replacements - "Bastards Of Young"
Underworld - "Dirty Epic"
Pet Shop Boys - "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today"

5. Which three people are you passing the baton on to and why?

I'll steal Prol's idea and pass it on to the first three people who pipe up in the comments and say they've done it, with a link back to their post. Why? Because bloggers are generally interesting folks. (I also welcome non-bloggers to use the comments to post their responses.)

>> I'm dogsitting this weekend for a friend of a friend in Park Slope, so I dunno how prolific / reachable I'll be. I will, however, take pictures of the dog, who's possibly the single greatest dog I've met in a couple of years. Her name is Miranda, and she is awww-worthy.

>> This is exactly what I'm talking about re: Tori Amos.

>> M.I.A., Knitting Factory, Sat. Feb. 5th, 10:30 PM. I got my tickets. Get yours now, it's going to sell out. Gleep! I'm so very excited. Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for the heads-up.

>> The news about New Order's Waiting For The Sirens Call just keeps getting better -- Scissor Sisters' Ana Matronic does guest vocals on the track "Jetstream Lover," which will apparently be the third single. I'm really, really looking forward to this.

>> Wow, Apple's bringing some serious excitement into my life today. Not only did they announce the unbearably cool Mac mini, the intriguing iLife '05 and iWork, and the somewhat head-scratching iPod shuffle, but they've also posted the officially-released M.I.A. catalogue to iTunes, including the hilariously wonderful video for "Galang." Sasha Frere-Jones' M.I.A. piece in the New Yorker a while back talked about her place as part of "world music" in that cultural-hodgepodge, anything-goes-on-Canal-Street sense, and when you watch this video it's all too easy to see it as being played on a dusty TV set above a table of knockoff designer handbags. Some might find it off-putting, but I fucking love it. And I strongly advise you to purchase "Galang", "Sunshowers", and "Fire, Fire" immediately -- I did. (Those are all iTunes links. Would my international readers do me a favor and tell me in the comments what happens when you click those, since they're made for the USA storefront?)

The only disappointment of the day? Tori Amos' new single, "Sleeps With Butterflies," was also added to iTunes, and while I've only listened to it once, it's about as exciting as a sink full of lukewarm dishwater. I kind of want to break into her studio and smash every acoustic guitar I see, and replace them with theremins or bouzoukis or vintage synthesizers or something, ANYTHING that will lead to her recording a song that does not sound exactly like everything else she's recorded in the last six years. This song is just one three-and-a-half minute Tori Amos pastiche and again, while I've only listened to it once, I'm not feeling terribly compelled to listen to it again. Good thing I'm using up the balance on an iTunes gift card or I'd feel seriously robbed.

>> Oh, I feel a tear welling up and I'm getting all sentimental. It's the first political post to this blog of 2005! Really, it's just a big pull-quote from somebody else, but everyone should see these words of wisdom from Talking Points Memo about President Bush's phoney Social Security "crisis":

The Social Security Trustees estimate that over the next 75 years the program faces a budget shortfall of $3.7 trillion.

As we've noted previously and will again, the Trustees use a very pessimistic estimate of future economic growth to arrive at that figure. But, for the moment, let's stipulate to that amount.

$3.7 trillion is a lot of money.

But how much will the president's Medicare drug benefit plan cost over the next 75 years?

$8.1 trillion, say the Trustees of that program.

And over the next 75 years how much will the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts cost if made permanent, as the president wants?

$11.6 trillion.

So you add that up and you get $3.7 trillion we need to cover Social Security's shortfall and $19.7 trillion we need just to cover the costs of the two major domestic policy initiatives of the president's first term.

And yet Social Security, says the president, is in crisis and destined to chew through the rest of the federal budget.

Social Security has problems, but they're not immediate, they will not destroy our government, and they can easily be fixed with tiny, modest changes over a period of years. A giant handout to Wall Street that does nothing to ensure the average American's fiscal security -- which, in fact, makes retirement a much riskier proposition -- is a mind-bogglingly bad idea for a way to keep Social Security solvent.

I wish we could hurry up and inaugurate him, so I could officially start counting the days until he's out of office.

>> OH MY GOD, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BUY ME A ROBORAPTOR. (Via Gizmodo)

>> Well, now I'm in trouble. I'm doing a favor for my sister by hanging out in her apartment while she's at work, since she's got furniture being delivered and she couldn't be there. I have to stick around from 11-3. However, because I am an idiot, I forgot to bring my lovely, enjoyable, 900-page book so that I could pass the time. And now I've visited all the websites I want to read and we're not even through the first of four hours. Grimace.

I did, however, wisely employ some time to write a letter to the MTA in protest of the proposed ban on photography in the subway -- today is the final day of the official comment period. You should really do the same.

>> More streaming singles goodness for you -- Doves, "Black And White Town" (hi-quality Windows Media), from their new album Some Cities which is coming out here in March. I can't wait. I like them a lot, I do indeed. Via Stereogum.

And here's some excellent news from Doves' principal idols/influences -- New Order's new album is coming soon! It's called Waiting For The Siren's Call, it comes out in the UK March 28th (presumably March 29th in the US), and the first single, "Krafty," goes to radio this month. Mmmm.

>> Wish I'd seen this sooner -- via Sapheneia comes confirmation that PJ Harvey is not in fact quitting live music, as reported here several weeks ago. She was referring to playing the last show of the tour with her band, then added a melodramatic comedy "Ever!" to get a laugh. Stupid NME.

>> Every year, I make a huge deal out of cataloguing, collating, and agonizing over a Best Of Year music list, and every year I pledge that I'm going to do a massive blog post on the subject, which always winds up underwhelming. At the crucial final moment, I look down on my works and think "Man, what a pointless waste of time this is." I gaze in awe on Stuart's wonderfully organized and thought-out year-end music survey, and I gave a thought to stealing his format full-on, but instead, I'm just going to post, most likely without commentary, the list that I sent to a netfriend today who's doing a survey of everyone he knows' opinions on 2004. The results of that survey will be anonymous, so here's a chance to put my stamp of personality on. It also includes my 15 favorite movies of the year as a bonus.

MY FAVORITES OF 2004: ALBUMS

01. Scissor Sisters - SCISSOR SISTERS (Tie)
01. U2 - HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC BOMB (Tie)
02. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - ABATTOIR BLUES / THE LYRE OF ORPHEUS
03. Twilight Singers - SHE LOVES YOU
04. Morrissey - YOU ARE THE QUARRY
05. Franz Ferdinand - FRANZ FERDINAND
06. Loretta Lynn - VAN LEAR ROSE
07. The Magnetic Fields - i
08. R.E.M. - AROUND THE SUN
09. The Killers - HOT FUSS
10. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - SHAKE THE SHEETS
11. Felix Da Housecat - DEVIN DAZZLE AND THE NEON FEVER
12. PJ Harvey - UH HUH HER
13. The Streets - A GRAND DON'T COME FOR FREE
14. Kylie Minogue - BODY LANGUAGE
15. The Arcade Fire - FUNERAL
16. The Futureheads - THE FUTUREHEADS
17. Annie - ANNIEMAL
18. Gwen Stefani - LOVE.ANGEL.MUSIC.BABY.
19. Elvis Costello - THE DELIVERY MAN
20. TV On The Radio - DESPERATE YOUTH, BLOODTHIRSTY BABES

MY FAVORITES OF 2004: MOVIES

01. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
02. Shaun Of The Dead
03. The Incredibles
04. I Heart Huckabees
05. Sideways
06. Mean Girls
07. Kill Bill, Vol. 2
08. Spider-Man 2
09. Ocean's Twelve
10. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
11. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
12. The Dreamers
13. The Bourne Supremacy
14. Kinsey
15. Fahrenheit 9/11

And you know what, I actually am going to steal one of Stuart's great ideas (which I'd actually wanted to do last year, but I didn't, and now he's upstaged me). Here's an unordered clump of back-catalogue albums that I spent the most time listening to this year, or which had the greatest effect on me; I may've bought them in 2004, rediscovered them in 2004, or played them once, but they really mattered to me for one reason or another this year.

--The Afghan Whigs - BLACK LOVE
--The Clash - THE CLASH (US Edition)
--The Cure - STARING AT THE SEA: THE SINGLES
--Morrissey - THE BEST OF MORRISSEY
--Pet Shop Boys - PLEASE
--The Replacements - TIM
--The Smiths - THE QUEEN IS DEAD
--XTC - FOSSIL FUEL: THE SINGLES 1977-1992

>> This just in: I really, really miss Coke. (I had one on Sunday with my McDonald's -- ahem -- but that's it so far since the resolution took effect.) Anybody know when the cravings stop? I was really hoping my teeth would just magically turn pearly-white the moment I stopped drinking it, but, uh, that hasn't happened.

Feel free to cross-reference this with Wired's article today on rapid heroin detox.

>> Unbelievably, the first time I knew that it even existed came today when I checked to see what was new on iTunes. But now I'm in trouble. You see, I hate Jennifer Lopez. She seems like a real waste of money and humanity to me, even if she's had her sudden down-to-Earth "transformation" (no, for real this time guys, I swear my publicist didn't just tell me that people thought I was a frigid evil ice queen), and even when she has released two good pop songs before (namely, "Waiting For Tonight" and "Let's Get Loud"). I just don't like her. But I think I absolutely love her new single, "Get Right" (listen to a full-length Quicktime clip). There's plenty to hate about it (the "sign on the dotted line" bit echoes her numerous failed marriages a bit too closely, and the little girl chanting at the end -- execrable!), but the little volume-modulation thing in the chorus alone is enough to make me overlook those flaws. And who knows, maybe those "flaws" will end up charming. Sigh. I really didn't want to have to put up with her again, but I guess this buys her another "Get out of embarassing media incident free" card from me...

Maybe it's just the single artwork that I really love (see it on iTunes); it's wonderfully 80s and has a kind of Rhythm Nation vibe. Though the designer should be shot for getting that far with it and then not realizing that, if you flip "Jennifer Lopez" 180 degrees, it looks like an exclamation point. ALWAYS CASH IN ON EXCLAMATION POINTS!

>> Will Eisner is dead. One of the first true geniuses of American comics. Created more stylistic and storytelling devices than I think anybody has the time to catalogue. He was still working -- and making really damn good comics -- right up until his death. This is a huge freakin' loss...

>> 
Watched tonight: David Bowie's A Reality Tour DVD. It's remarkable because it documents an excellent David Bowie concert of thirty (!) songs, and it's also remarkable because it's so goddamn cheap. I bought this DVD -- in a pretty nice digipak, with lovely graphic design and an eight-page booklet included -- for $10 at Target, a price that I've seen it for at a bunch of stores. The list price is still only $14.99! You get thirty great songs for that! And while I can't say it's the single best-filmed concert DVD I've ever seen (the editor seems a bit fond of slo-mo and freeze-frame, for one thing), it's a very watchable one, and the music is absolutely great. I just can't quite figure out how they can afford to sell it so cheap (or, conversely, how everybody else can get away with selling theirs for so much). It's not like the production of the show was barebones (a huge band, lots of lights, TV screens, etc.), and while it looks like it's all shot on digital, they also used a significant number of cameras. Maybe they're just very shrewd businessmen, or perhaps Bowie's perfectly content with a razor-thin profit margin -- he is, after all, so rich that it's truly difficult to contemplate it at this point.

I could keep complaining about a bunch of little things -- the digital stock makes the color balance kind of weird, for one thing, and a few of the directing/editing decisions really obscure the performances and make it hard to tell what it was like to actually be in the audience seeing the show (which is just about always what I want out of a concert DVD; a conceptual art piece to accompany your music has its place, but at least give us the choice). But honestly, the entire disc is worth it for the performance of "Under Pressure" alone, featuring Bowie's insanely talented bassist Gail Ann Dorsey (if I ever had a band, I'd gladly build it around her) taking over Freddie Mercury's part and killing it. (Her duet, "Absolute Beginners," with Bowie at the show I went to in 2002 was a high point then, too). And did I mention there are twenty-nine other songs?!? The only one I missed was "Pablo Picasso" (he plays an equal number of tracks from both Heathen and Reality, five each, which I found interesting considering that the former is over two years old and he'd already toured it once. I'm not complaining, because I really like both of those albums, but I could've dropped one Heathen track in favor of "Pablo"). If you're a Bowie fan and you haven't picked this up yet, then you really ought to.

>> Sitting next to me on my desk is the last Coca-Cola that I'm allowed to drink in my house for the month of January. I've decided that I drink entirely too much Coke, and that in addition to being rotten for my health and teeth, it's a drain on my finances as well (twelve-packs aren't cheap in NYC, and I go through at least one a week). So I've pledged not to keep Coca-Cola in my apartment for the entire month of January and to see where that gets me. I'll allow myself to drink it at restaurants with meals, and maybe, maybe I'll permit myself the occasional deli-bought bottle when I'm on the go. When you drink as much Coke as I do, quitting cold turkey is a fool's errand (caffeine is addictive, after all). But greatly cutting my intake should be good for me; we'll see.

Other new year's resolutions include:

• Push-ups and sit-ups every day, no excuses;
• Clean the apartment thoroughly at least once every two weeks;
• Eat more fiber;
• Complain less;
• Begin writing something of consequence;
• GET A FUCKING JOB.

(Yes, I don't talk about it much here, but I'm still looking for work in NYC. Come next week I'll probably start applying for retail jobs, but if you know of anything better, then please, give me a holler.)

I'm relying on you folks to keep me honest about these; the late-January to mid-February period would be a very good time to annoyingly remind me of them in the comments, since I'm sure to fall off the wagon on at least one of them by that time...

Anyway, I think I'll go to Target now and buy some cleaning supplies, and possibly some barbells for my poor scrawny arms. It's an insanely lovely New Year's Day outside, I've got a delicious bagel from the local place in my tummy, and I'm feeling much better than I have for the last couple of weeks. It's time to put my gradual plans for dominating the year 2005 into effect.

>> Happy new year, everybody. My neighborhood sounds like Afghanistan right now.

If I'm being honest, then 2004 was the worst year of my life. If 2005 can suck any harder, I'll be very surprised. And then I'll run away to the desert and become a hermit. So here's hoping, eh?

Hope you're having a good time, wherever you may be.