2004 December

Best Albums From Best Albums Lists All Over

I love the end of the year. Especially on the internet, when bloggers and magazines alike put out their Best of Year lists; ranging from music, movies, TV shows, and more. I like to take this opportunity to discover artists I somehow missed all year, and relish the new-found talents. So here’s my Best Of 2004 Albums Gleaned From Other Best Of Album 2004 Lists; albums I’ve just recently discovered and clapped my hand giddily as I enjoyed them thoroughly.

Here they are in no particular order:

• The Black Keys - Rubber Factor: Sweet, sweet blues by two mid-20’s white guys. I mean, just … wow! If there’s one album to start off 2005, by all means, grab this one.
• The Arcade Fires - Funeral: Indie rock? Sure, I used to think it was just emo on crack, but now I know better. Their sound reminds me of David Bowie before he became a mega-star; all raw talent without the fuzzy materials hanging around. Just superb.
• The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike: I didn’t think a band could top Andrew W.K.’s frenetic energy, but The Go! Team surely tries. Their brand of music is infectious and fun.
• Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South: Lynyrd Skynyrd-inspired modern southern rock with a slight punk edge. Oh man, it’s great. It’s so good to see southern rock kicking with my generation.
• The Zutons - Who Killed … The Zutons?: Imagine a new-wave band frozen in the 80’s, and showing up in 2004. That’s the Zutons, where they bring in their unique flavor of 80’s new wave, combined it with funk, and does it all with a rockabilly attitude.

Beatles Mashup 40 Song Mix

I love creative music; examples would be the Beatallica guys. They combined Beatles song and gave it a Metallica flair. Now someone from Sweden has taken 40 Beatles song and put them together in one song that is a mashup of pure brilliance. It’s very impressive, and worth a listen.

Mozilla Firefox Gifts For Christmas

Yesterday I got a Firefox mug, poster, and plushie toy purchased from the Mozilla Store. I’m a big fan of the Mozilla Firefox browser, as you may know. Here’s the thing, I don’t know if it’s a Secret Santa gift from someone at the 3DGPU forums (we do a secret santa thing to exchange gifts), or one of my many ex-girlfriends buying me gifts again to woo me back. I’m finding out if someone at the 3DGPU forums sent it, and if so, I can breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not being stalked again.

Snow? What’s That?

Odd, it never snows down here in Florida, but it snows on my webpage? Does that mean I actually have to buy a parka and shovel now?

I Had S & E, But Someone Stole My X

If you ever want to spend 5 minutes, and feel pretty goofy and dumb at the same time, then steal someone’s letters.

Something To Chew On

Here’s something to chew on, regarding web standards, and why web designers worth their salt should learn it, use it, and love it.

Good Blimey is a simple website, it really doesn’t get much traffic at all. On average, around 200 hits a day. Yet it has a Google PageRank of 6 out of 10.

3DGPU is a more complex website, and I coded it in standards compliance with heavy use of CSS. On average, it gets 160,000 hits a day. 3DGPU has a PageRank of 5 out of 10.

NVNews, which is a site similar to 3DGPU, uses the old school method of coding, tables, HTML 4, not very standards compliant. Rudimentary use of CSS. I know they get more traffic than 3DGPU, according to Alexa’s information. Yet they have a PageRank of 4 out of 10.

Consensus? While GB isn’t very popular, Google loves the site more than two more popular sites, because of web standards. Interesting, yes?

New Project In The Works

In my continuing pursuit for wealth and fame, I’ve come up with a new project that I’m working on that I hope to be a great resource on the internet. It’s the most ambitious one I’ve come up with yet. I’ll unveil it when it is complete, but for now, just know it will be awesome. I’ll give you one hint: food.