CREAM REUNION SET FOR MAY at the Royal Albert Hall, according to Jack Bruce.

RYAN ADAMS will be releasing three albums in 2005. Some samples from o­ne of the records can be heard o­n his website.

ROBERT POLLARD AND TODD TOBIAS announce a second Circus Devils disc for 2005.

CROOKED TIMBER recently had a Friday Fun Thread" asking readers to suggest songs that should have been hits, but were not. Ken King will be glad to note "Big Bird" was suggested; you'll undoubtedly see a few of your favorites as well.

BARRY WILLIAMS, A/K/A GREG BRADY, a/k/a Johnny Bravo, is getting divorced again.

SUNDANCE FILM FEST screens were awash in all kinds of bodily fluids, as audiences were treated to graphic scenes of rape, castration, dismemberment and sex acts that crossed the threshold of almost every imaginable taboo - sometimes by performers who will be too young to attend these movies when (or if) they make it into theaters.

STAR WARS EPISODE III: THE REVENGE OF THE SITH: The "crawl" at the beginning of the movie that sets the scene for the end of the saga is officially public.

IRAQ ELECTION REAX: Regardless of o­ne's position o­n the invasion of Iraq, I think most feel glad that the election went off without major incidents or attacks. The Arab street was split, but mesmerized, according to the Associated Press. Some in Europe were outright against the election, as this photo demonstrates. Jeralyn Merritt rounds up blogger reactions to the election, both here and in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan printed an e-mail from a war critic that raised some interesting points.

Aside from the Sunni triangle, the Iraqis turned out by the millions, walking for miles (some o­n crutches) and looked pretty happy. Some of what comes next was covered in my weekend update below, but even if Sunnis are under-represented in the drafting of a new constitution, the interim constitution provides that the new o­ne can be vetoed by three provinces, which helps ensure that Sunnis will be part of the process.

IRAQIS BITTERLY DIVIDED OVER OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Sunnis May Sit Out Awards Night, U.S. Fears.

CLINT EASTWOOD takes the Directors Guild of America award for best director. Marty Scorsese sweats. I thought Million Dollar Baby was a better picture (and better directed) than The Aviator, though it was also far more heart-rending.

SPACE-AGE ROBOT GUIDE DOGS for the blind. Which would also be a good band name.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MOVIE about the man who urinated his way out of avalanche.

BEN FOLDS LEAVES SHATNER BEHIND, starts making real music again. Actually, that's not my headline. I would note that Shatner's disc got generally good reviews. Besides, no o­ne leaves Shatner behind.

JIM CAPALDI, a founding member of Traffic, is dead of stomach cancer at the age of 60.

RAY PETERSON, who hit the top ten with "Tell Laura I Love Her" in 1960, died last Tuesday in Smyrna, Tennessee.

KIM JONG IL, last seen in Team America: World Police, may be seeing his regime unravel in slow motion, according to the London Sunday Times.

A DOWNSIDE OF LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION: A 25-year-old woman who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year, according to the London Telegraph

WISCONSIN ELECTION FOLLOW-UP: According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, city officials said Thursday that 1,305 same-day voter registration cards from the Nov. 2 election could not be processed, including more than 500 cases where voters listed no address and dozens more where no name was written o­n the card. This number was far lower than previous estimates of 8,300 or more, but raised new concerns, because it leaves a clear gap of more than 7,000 people who voted o­n Nov. 2 and cannot be accounted for in city records.

CELEBRITY CATFIGHT AT DAVOS? Sharon Stone raised $1 million in five minutes o­n Friday for mosquito nets in Tanzania, turning a panel o­n African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser. In the audience was Angelina Jolie, who has been a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugee issues for four years. Jolie later said she thought it was "wonderful" what Stone had done." Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is leading U.N. anti-poverty efforts and who was speaking when Stone stood up, said before the session he intends to meet with bed net manufacturers to speed up production. "There's actually donor money coming in, but there's a bottleneck in production because there are o­nly two or three companies right now that really have this technology to make these high-quality nets," he told The Associated Press. That may explain why Jolie said o­n Saturday that celebrities grandstanding as advocates of the poor can do more harm than good. "I think you can do damage," Jolie said. "Celebrities have a responsibility to know absolutely what they're talking about, and to be in it for the long run."

RELATED STORY? Angelina Jolie gave Brad Pitt a vial of dried bat.

OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL: Kojo Annan, son of the U.N. Secretary-General has admitted he was involved in negotiations to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the auspices of Saddam Hussein. He is understood to be co-operating with UN investigators probing the discredited oil for food programme.

RAY CHARLES WAS GREAT, but what about Esref Armagan? His paintings aren't masterpieces, but amazing when you consider he has been blind since birth.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

ALT-RADIO: The Big Ticket is all over the debut of "The Current," KCMP 89.3 in Mpls, the first two hours of which included Earlimart, Jim White, Ani DiFranco, Luna, Hank Williams, The Replacements, Iron & Wine, Johnny Cash, Death Cab, Wilco, Patsy Cline, Frou Frou, The Arcade Fire and a set featuring !!! ("Hello, Is This Thing o­n?") into The Jam ("Going Underground") into Dylan ("Subterranean Homesick Blues") into Radiohead ("Subterranean Homesick Alien"). There are also links to streams of the station, MP3s of a couple of songs played, an eight hour playlist and more.

WILCO UPDATE: Rolling Stone reports that the songs o­n the expanded version of A Ghost is Born (noted here yesterday) will be available for those who bought the original via downloads at the band's website. So this expansion is just cool, not annoying.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS are working o­n a new album, according their post at Matador. Check out their unintentional influences.

EVA LONGORIA: If she ever gets bumped off of Desperate Housewives, she could probably get her own reality show... on cable or pay-per-view.

SPECIAL TSUNAMI FARES! Singapore Airlines has second thoughts about its promotion, complete with an ad showing people fleeing a giant wave. Or would that be first thoughts?

PAUL GIAMATTI OSCAR SNUB: I may not like the snub, but it's great fodder for Uncle Grambo at Whatevs.org. Uncle G has a style all his own.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN: "The whole culture is in the craphouse." Hoffman said he had stopped working a few years back because he had "lost the spark I always had." But he shouldn't feel too guilty over Meet the Fockers: more than o­ne critic thought he was o­ne of best things in it.

"BRING OUT YOUR DEAD..." "I'm not dead yet..."

IRAQ ELECTION: It has already started... in Australia. The Wall Street Journal has an interactive guide, covering vote estimates, security issues, the structure of the new government, key politicians and parties and more. The Arab press seems more optimistic about the election and Iraq's future than Arabic-language papers in Britain. For that matter, it seems more optimistic than Reuters, which begins its coverage with a prediction: "The United States is likely to latch on to any sign of success in Sunday's Iraqi national election amid increasing momentum for the earliest possible withdrawal of American troops." The Reuters article goes on to discuss suggestions from Rep. Marty Meehan and Sen. Ted Kennedy (both D-MA) to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. However, it must be noted that both see the bulk of any withdrawal occurring in 2006 -- by which time the stress on U.S. troop rotation would probably require some drawdown anyway.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY touts software that translates color into sound for the blind. Those with sight can get their synthesesia from hallucinogens.

9/11? WE ASKED FOR IT, according to University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill.

MOJO draws up a list of Top 100 Soundtracks.

ASHLEE SIMPSON'S PHONY BUZZ is exposed o­n Metafilter.

OPEN SOURCE BIOLOGY: The Biological Innovation for Open Society and Science Commons want to give scientists free access to the latest methods in biotechnology through the web. BIOS will soon launch an open-source platform that promises to free up rights to patented DNA sequences and the methods needed to manipulate biological material.

ANIMAL-HUMAN HYBRIDS spark controversy. Some will ask, "What is the Law?"

MP3s: Now with surround sound.

EX-LIBERTINES FRONT MAN PETE DOHERTY now has an ex-galpal: Kate Moss. So he'll have more time to work o­n the crack and heroin addictions.

COLDPLAY is investigating the leak of its new stuff o­n the internet. No Rock 'n' Roll Fun already has a theory, but not o­ne Mr. Paltrow will like.

THE UNITED NATIONS is taking credit for Australian and U.S. tsunami relief, according to the Diplomad.

THE BBC COVERS THE BLOGGIES... but without any hyperlinks, so you would have to go to the Bloggies site, which works o­nly sporadically due to bandwidth limits.

THE BBC IS BIASED in its coverage of the European Union, according to an independent report commissioned by the BBC's Board of Governors. It said BBC impartiality had been undermined by "an institutional mindset, a tendency to polarise and over-simplify issues, a measure of ignorance of the European Union o­n the part of some journalists and a failure to report issues that ought to be reported, perhaps out of a belief they are not sufficiently entertaining." Also: "We were asked whether the BBC is systematically europhile. If systematic means deliberate, conscious bias with a directive from the top, an internal system or a conspiracy, we have not found a systematic bias. But we do think there is a serious problem. Although the BBC wishes to be impartial in its news coverage of the EU, it is not succeeding."

WHY THIS BOOK REVIEW? Only because I liked the contact info in the tag line.