What’s everyone been listening to this year? I thought 2004 was pretty stellar, musically. More bands than ever promoted the neo-new wave movement and on the whole, this was a really good thing. In no particular order, here’s what I liked:

Not sure why, but I’ve become somewhat addicted to Moleskine notebooks. They’re durable, have nice paper, and look somewhat unobtrusive. So I was especially happy to see they had a 2005 planner.

What advantages do they have over, say a spiral bound notebook? None, really. Except they look and feel cool, and make you want to use them.

And yes, I’m a nancy-boy. But I’m cool with that.

Those of us kool-aid drinkers are all a-twitter over ThinkSecret’s rumor that Steve Job’s keynote at the Mac convention week after next is going to be a under $500 Mac, aimed at folks who love their iPods but can’t bring themselves to fork over the $1,000 or so that it takes to get into an iBook or iMac.

One of the cooler rumors I’ve heard is that it’ll be aimed at the living room, taking the “digital hub” idea into actual production. Which makes me wonder if Apple hasn’t swung a deal with the MPAA to deliver movies-on-demand, or some sort of iTunes for flicks.

Thanks to Jeff

Shimano has updated its Ultegra gruppo to 10 speed (in the rear, multiply that by either 2 or 3 depending on the number of chainrings on the crank to get the number of speeds)

Why do you care? Well, Ultegra 9 speed stuff is selling at extremely steep discounts, and is good stuff. For instance, the Ultegra-9 double crankset is selling for= $90, instead of $170.

Will it make you faster? No, but you’ll feel cooler. Though not quite so cool as if you were running this