COOLFER dissects the Rolling Stone critics "best of" lists.

SALON: If you can sit through a commercial, their article on post-payola radio and the demise of the independent promoters is interesting. But the rise of satellite radio may decrease the influence of FM radio anyway.

BETTER HUMANS suggest that autism may be a plus for some jobs.

PETA is miffed at Jimmy Carter.

WONKETTE collects pics of our headbangin' President.

TSUNAMI AID: Down under, they're reporting that delivering tsunami aid is stymieing the U.N. Nevertheless, the U.S.-led group will dissolve today, in favor of the U.N. Go figure.

GUIDED BY VOICES EULOGY includes reviews, interviews, trivia and the Top 100 GBV Songs Of All Time.

KANGAROO captured in snowstorm outside Madison, Wisconsin.

SLATE looks at the way female weight is viewed in the U.S. and in other parts of the world.

MARIO WALLENDA -- nearly 43 years after the accident that killed two members of the Flying Wallendas and left him paralyzed from the waist down -- is is getting back on the high-wire.

ALBUM-O-MATIC: Are you bored already of those Albums Of The Year? Use the Album-O-Matic to find your personalized pick for the Album Of 2004.

THE PRO-AM REVOLUTION: Bloggers, open source software contributors, homebrew remix artists and others pursuing amateur activities to professional standards are an increasingly important part of our society and economy.

JIM LINDGREN claims that a well-publicized sex and money study is misleading.

MAGNETIC FIELDS shape planetary nebulae. This may also explain why the Mutara Nebula disrupted starship sensor systems.

JOE LEVY has an insightful review of the expanded reissue of Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (hat tip to Fluxblog, which also has a download).

GAWKER found a lovely picture of Chris Noth (Sex and the City; Law and Order).

SASHA FRERE-JONES studies the new math of mashups, now that some copyright issues have been resolved.

JENNIFER GARNER is sick and still going with Ben Affleck, but I repeat myself.

BAD HEADLINE, but a good story on blogs.

LINGERIE BOWL is returning, but minus the football game. So why would anyone watch?

ESPN CALLS EVEL KNIEVEL A PIMP, but a federal appeals court rules that it's lighthearted teen slang, not libel.

ASHLEE SIMPSON AT THE ORANGE BOWL: She was bad? Who'da thunk it? PLUS:Stereogum has the Donnas' take on Ashlee's prior lip-syncing, which still applies.

VARIETY looks at Hollywood blogging by people in the business, and by the business, I mean the industry.

FORBES previews music in 2005.

AL-JAZEERA seems to have been cozy with one of Saddam's sons. And someone apparently videotaped it.

THE IOWA UNDERGROUND ARCHIVES are discovered by Craig O'Neill and Ken King. Guess who isn't included... yet...

THE MAMMY NUNS, however, have a web page of their own.

KEN KING'S BROTHER, ERIC, had a near-brush with 15 minutes due to his Star Trek obsession.

FINAL GUIDED BY VOICES SHOW: Metromix has the review, Jiggling Whisker has a photo gallery.

WILCO, THE FLAMING LIPS AND SLEATER-KINNEY played Madison Square Garden New Year's Eve. What did you miss? "Living After Midnight," "Don't Fear the Reaper," "Love Will Keep Us Together" and Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air."

ONE OF MY FEW NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS is to feature more music blogs. The first of these is Soul Sides, featuring pretty much what you would expect, with cool downloads to boot.

CNN: Bragging about the network's coverage of the tsunami, CNN/US President Jonathan Klein says that with producers and correspondents already stationed around the globe, CNN was "able to flood the zone immediately." Not the best choice of words from someone in the communications biz, really.

WILL EISNER, a legend in the world of comic books, best known for The Spirit, dead at 87. Chromewaves collects a few tributes. UPDATE: Lileks adds his tribute.

IRAN SEEKING NANOTECH, according to Howard Lowy.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES should drop their new disc next month.

HACK A DAY has instrucions for how to record on your iPod.

BUSINESS WEEK predicts that 2005 will be a year in which just about every traditional media company gives up market share to some next-generation rival.

WHO'S YOUR DADDY: In a brief moment of sanity, most people avoided the Fox reality show. Personally, I'm waiting for "Celebrity Who's Your Daddy," which I imagine to feature NBA players and rock musicians.

ESSENCE MAGAZINE is taking on the slut images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos. Better late than never.

YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT? Enough to nearly hit a Burger King employee with your truck? Why? Mickey D's has the better spuds anyway...

WHAT 100 SCIENTISTS BELIEVE, but cannot prove. And here's the full list.

WASHINGTON STATE GOVERNOR'S RACE: Gregoire certified as winner, based on late-discovered ballots in King County; Rossi may contest. I knew I had seen this movie before...

JANE GALT has a fun fact of the day.

TERROR SUSPECT ABU HAMZA AL-MASRI failed to appear before a British court on Tuesday, complaining his toe nails were too long and he could not walk.

WXPN, a public radio station affiliated with U Penn, has a Top 50 of 2004 that's not bad.

WHEN IT PAYS TO BE DUMB: This piece by Carl Zimmer does not address the entertainment industry. Not directly, anyway.

U.S. MARINE saved by tampon in Iraq.

IRAQI CHILD tips the troops to a large wepaons cache in Mosul.

THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE: This piece is critical of applying it to genetically modified food. But what about global warming? Or tyrants seeking WMDs?

HE LOOKS LIKE is a blog that reminds me of a scene from Wonder Boys

FERRETS: Forced to watch The Matrix.

ON THE PITCHFORK: Lots of traffic! More than Ron Jeremy, even.

HELP TSUNAMI VICTIMS and get your buzz o­n.

LAURA BUSH: Rawkin' out, dude.

TERI HATCHER: Saving herself for me; very sweet.

KIRSTEN DUNST: Wardrobe Malfunction. NSFW, obviously.

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: NPR's Best of 2004 lists.

MOVIE MISTAKES lists the Biggest of 2004.  The shocker is Shrek 2; an animated movie with continuity flaws?

TO KNOW ME is to know why.

THE NAVY has scads of photos of tsunami relief operations, like this and this.  And from those links, Craig could find a lot of cool photos of airplanes.

NASA has scads of cool photos from the Saturn probe.

ROGER DALTREY honored by the Queen.

MEDIA ROUNDUP: Blogs are taking o­n mainstream media, with videoblogs streaming tsunami footage  worldwide.  Newspapers face the impact of blogs.  Magazine readership has not increased in 15 years.

iFILM is starting a viral video channel.

STEREOGUM notes that Britney wants to direct.

THE NEW YORK POST has media predictions for 2005.

GOSSIP: Page Six and Jeannette Walls dish their winners and losers for 2004.

GOOGLE: If you missed the profile o­n "60 Minutes," you can read the transcript.  My favorite part was about the hiring process:
"Google uses aptitude tests, which it has even placed in technical magazines, hoping some really big brains would tackle the hardest problems. Score well o­n the test, and you might get a job interview. And then another and another. o­ne recent hire had 14 interviews before getting the job - and that was in the public relations department."

GUIDED BY VOICES: Mayor Daley formally declared Dec. 30 "Guided By Voices Day" in Chicago. My take is in the Reviews section in the left sidebar. The Chicago Sun-Times had a preview, as did Metromix, an offshoot of the Chicago Tribune.

THE VANDALS HIT BAGHDAD: Not looters, but the classic punk band, which served anarchy burgers as a tonic for the troops. Bass player Joe Escalante said, "Everyone's nice. Everyone has a better attitude than we thought they'd have when we first got here. Everyone's a lot smarter than most people think the military is."

SPIN reviews YoLaTengo's eighth night of Hanukkah show.

THE dBS have a website, complete with merch and multimedia. Check the mesaage boards to find a member named "Peter H."

WE CAN REBUILD HIM: We have the technology.

I AM LEARN likes bluegrass, but not U2, not so much. I'll bet I Am Learn knows a song... would you like him to sing it?

LOCAL BANDS MAKING GOOD: Seattle Weekly lists their Top 20 local releases. So does the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, including:

Willie Walker & the Butanes, "Right Where I Belong" (One on One) -- A singer for Memphis' Goldwax label in the days of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke, Walker resurrected his recording career with the help of the Twin Cities' answer to the MGs and a British label owner who seeks out classic soul artists. Butanes frontman Curtis Obeda provided the joy-and-pain songs, and Walker sang them like he's still living them. (98 points); and

Olympic Hopefuls, "The Fuses Refuse to Burn" (2024) -- Local indie-rock stalwarts Darren Jackson (Kid Dakota) and Erik Appelwick (Vicious Vicious) put on matching track suits and similar pop sensibilities for this supposed side-project, whose Cars-like catchiness and ironic flavor quickly made it one of the most successful bands of the year. (72 points)

THE MONITOR lists 2004's overlooked pop.

STEP INTO LIQUID: Some nutball surfed the tsunami.

THE QUAD CITIES TIMES lists its Top 20 Albums. So does Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot. Music blogger Largehearted Boy's list goes to eleven.

BUBBLEGUM MACHINE serves up the downloads weekly under the following Manifesto:

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

I liked the pairing of Jellyfish and Nick Lowe, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, and Rick Nelson and the Rev. Louis Overstreet.

REP. BOB MATSUI (D-CA) is dead of a rare disease at 63. With Social Security reform on the table, his knowledge will be missed.

NORM GERAS is seeking your Top 10 greatest rock and pop songs for his poll. The deadline is January 16th.

STEREOGUM lists tracks that influenced Dylan, with a link to streaming audio.

TSUNAMI RELIEF: British International Development Secretary Claire Short is upset that the U.S. is delivering tsunami relief outside the U.N. structure. Jan Egeland, the U.N. official who called Western countries "stingy" a while back, is busy taking credit for what USAID is doing in places like Aceh. U.S. military efforts to provide relief are massive and welcomed in Aceh, providing the military logistics that Mr. Egeland called "as valuable as cash or gold."

PODCASTING: Downloadable audio streams may be the Next Big Thing. The basics are discussed here. The impact it could have, and the role former MTV VJ Adam Curry in promoting it can be found here.

THE SHADOW INTERNET: Wired looks at the pirate networks.

THE SEATTLE TIMES had a cute piece on collecting vinyl.

IT'S NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN' EVE: Thanks to everyone for stopping by! In particular, thanks to Sylvia Hauser, for sharing her engagement with us and boosting the site's traffic considerably. No thanks to the Sanity Worm, which apparently tried to attack the site last week. Thanks to our site admin Lance, for keeping us secure (and for adding the new weather module to the right). However, the attacks probably inflated our traffic stats for this month. If the traffic drops next month, I may have to bug Sylvia to move up her wedding.

CHAMPAGNE: a guide to the real stuff and other sparkling wines.

BLOGGER RODNEY BALKO rounds up the good news of 2004.

HANK "SUGARFOOT" GARLAND, who played guitar on the Everly Borthers' "Bye Bye Love," Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and "I Fall To Pieces," Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" and "Only The Lonely," and Elvis Presley's "Little Sister" and "It's Now or Never," and many, many more, dies at 74.

FILMOCULOUS lists his Blogs of the Year. If you've ever wondered where I find this endless stream of trivia, the sites he lists this year are a pretty good answer.

TSUNAMI: The internet and cellphones aid the seach for the missing.

STINGY AMERICANS: Daniel Drezner -- an expert on the subject --returns from a sabbatical to provide a balanced look, with a little for each side of the argument.

RIDE THE SNAKE: Or at least follow it to safety in a tsunami.

THE DOORS take on a slumlord at a familiar locale.

DONALD TRUMP launches a line of hair care products. No, really. Anyone who can sell that should be his next Apprentice.

CLONED CATS: finding a market in Hollywood.

SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS lose weight on a diet of candy, after the prior crew ate too much.

SHARON OSBOURNE wants to manage Liza Minelli. I thought it was Liza who was just hospitalized for the head injury.

JANE GALT asks: "Who knows what the word for a group of ferrets is?"

YOU CALL IT VIDEOGAMING, I call it pre-med.

EINSTEIN: We all know he was important; The Economist explains why, in language people other than Jon Pratt can understand.

JOHNNY DEPP tops the Internet Movie Database's STARMeter celebrity ranking for 2004. Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Angelina Jolie round out the top five.

NYDN DAILY DISH: Vanessa Williams delusional; Patti Hansen speaks ill of the late Linda McCartney; Debbie Gibson upset with Lohan, Spears, Simpson, etc.

MOVE ON: About a half dozen supporters of John Kerry are holding vigil in front of his house, still hoping for a Kerry presidency.