the listenerd

*Love: All the bloggers have told you this – Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel are engaged. That dude must have some smooth game, because even I think he is unattractive. And that’s like the pot calling the kettle horribly disfigured.

*Metal Beef: It’s Kip Winger vs. Lars Ulrich. God, I love a good beef. Side beef: Tila Tequila vs. Rihanna. Eh.

*Comments: The post most commented-upon over at Stereogum this year was one discussing VH1′s Top 100 Songs in Hip-Hop list. I used to comment on Stereogum. God, that’s weird to think about.

*Musical obits: The Times has put together a musical montage from musicians who passed away in 2008.

*Concerts: Kraftwerk will be playing with Radiohead on the latter band’s Latin American tour, kicking off March 2009.

*Blogs: Fimoculous’ 30 most notable blogs of 2008. This list – a new version of which comes out yearly – is usually very good! It feels more mainstream this year! Waxy, Gawker, the NYT. Maybe it’s not the list who’s changed, it’s ME. It usually is. It usually. Effin’. Is.

*Social media: The Wall Street Journal takes on the unsavory topic of DEFRIENDING. I have long been a staunch advocate of defriending, and defriend at least once a week. I have to tell you, without fail it feels great. I’d guess that I eventually refriend about 15% of the people I defriend. [ypulse]

*Ugh: Is Steve Jobs ok?

*Dumb: This post on Retweets as a primary metric in Twitter authority rank (whaa???) made me finally unsubscribe from TechCrunch. I can’t take the time to explain why it annoyed me so much, but at the heart of things is a profound lack of perspective.

*Security: Check out the Top 100 passwords. “Fuckyou” slides in at #49, but what’s really surprising (and effed up) is #5. [can't remember]