This week: Neil Michael Hagerty in a car commercial. Talking shit about Gary Coleman. A healthcare tie in thing that sucked. Plus the last Friday Night Noise, with Richard Ramirexz, Merzbow, and Kylie Minoise.

In case you were wondering - and you probably weren't - Friday Night Noise has bit the proverbial dust. In other news, I did this thing about Burning Star Core. And this here, about a new M.I.A. song. And this kinda-rambling thing about the slow demise of CDs that inspired some anonymous Internet asshole to yawn. I made intentionally wrong-headed guesses about Simon Cowell's American Idol replacement. (Do you have, like, any idea about how happy I am that I don't have to write about that show this season? Seriously. Now I can watch it if I wanna or just forget about it for a few weeks, if I want. Which is what's gonna happen, because, you know, The Olympics, right? Right. Oh, yeah - I did this thing about the forthcoming Pavement best-of. What else to say? Still alive.

Beginning this week - the one that's ending now - I'm a "national music" blogger for City Pages. Not a full-time thing, no, but something new and interesting. And consistent, which is a meaningful word these days in reference to freelance writing. Anyway, I did this thing about Avatar. And this other thing about Shani Davis. And this sort of miserablist rundown of songs.

I’m not dead

Not literally, anyway. But I’ve been a bit of a phantom, and will probably continue to be a phantom, because - drum roll - I can’t do online stuff at work anymore. Riot act has been read. So if I don’t reply to something you sent me right away or post on your blog or pop up on message boards (probably won't in the ILM singles/albums polls for 2009) for a while, there’s a reason why. I barely have time to catch my breath at this point. I barely have time to write, and a lot of times when I do, the amount of stress (self-induced and otherwise) is almost creatively crippling.

A lot of you know that I’ve prayed more lately than I ever have before in my life, and those of you who didn’t know that know why I would pray this hard. (For any number of reasons, I'm not going to come out and say what I mean. You can read between the lines, Hey, I just bought a new issue of Paste the other day!) I’m itching for a new, improved paradigm that results in happiness for me and my family, where there’s time and energy and resources for all of us to actually enjoy our lives. Life is too short to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing stuff that I have no passion for; I've already blown too many years that way.

So here’s to fingers crossed, to prayers offered, to a paradigm that’s way, way better than the one I’m trapped in now - which, with every passing day, feels more like a prison camp than real life. Bear with me.

This SNL Digital Short is kind of what 2009 felt like for me, except that that this SNL Digital Short is funny.

This just struck me like thunder today - seems like a motto/slogan for my 2010

"We could nick a boat
And sail off, to this island
We could bring your little ghetto-blaster
THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS"
-Bjork, “There’s More To Life Than This”