New Year memo

Happy new year, everyone. It's been a decent year here and I hope the same's true for all of you too. Thanks as always for checking in and following along at "the Home of the Plangent Memoria"™—it appears there were more of you showing more interest than ever in this little blog over the past year, and it's much appreciated!

First: Good news! The prolonged 100 Other Songs countdown is wrapping up soon—I never thought it would extend into the new year, but what the hell, I took a train out of town for the holidays, so there you go. Between it and last year's 100 Hit Songs countdown I have found the write-ups to be fun and plan to continue them sans the countdown overlay into the future forever (or for the time being), probably on Wednesdays. For those of a mind, I also chip in a "song of the week" over at Balloon Juice, a sensible place for the U.S. citizens among us to go get on your political exasperation. My song picks usually appear on Fridays or Saturdays.

Planned new stuff for this year mostly involve movies. I spend a good deal of time with them these days, at home with the remote or out at the theaters predictably annoyed by fellow viewers, who chat, say "what was that?" and "what's going on now?" a lot, and check email on their smartphones. Furthermore, they all appear to be standing on my lawn. But I digress. I am starting a Movie of the Year feature on Fridays, looking at favorites by year, which will alternate every other week with the usual Friday movie reviews. It starts with 2011 and then I work my way back. This one's going to take awhile. More on that soon.

And too: Last year I was invited to participate with a couple of others on Facebook in a countdown of our 50 favorite films. I will reproduce my write-ups for that here on a weekly basis (so, yes, this will take awhile too) and will include invaluable thoughts on the enterprise of constructing and addressing a countdown too—exciting. The Facebook 50 '11 will also start later this month, as a regular feature for Tuesdays. More on that one soon too.

Thanks as always for stopping by, reading, and leaving comments—I love to get them. All the best to everyone for a great new year!