IF YOU SKIPPED the site over the holidays, be sure to check the surprise stocking stuffer below for more links...

WHALE-BLOGGING: Yale Law Student and New Republic intern Will Baude's writing about a lone whale singing at 52 Hz spurred discussion along the blogosphere. The links are collected here. And when Will notes that "in the comments to Amber [Taylor]'s post folks muse about whether one is always lonelier than two," I think you can guess who those folks are. But where was our Richard Ness to keep the Nilsson flame alight?

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU: It's definitely a Wes Anderson movie, so if you've seen Bottle Rocket, Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, you know what you're getting into. Some who have panned the movie think Anderson is verging on (or has crossed into) self-parody, but it didn't strike me that way so much as a continuation of his distinctive style of cinematography and art direction. If anything, the performance of The Life Aquatic is less mannered than Tenenbaums, and perhaps slightly less stylized in appearance (at least when it is above sea level).

That being said, I prefer Tenenbaums, as I think Gene Hackman was more sympathetic as a flawed patriarch than Bill Murray is in The Life Aquatic. The movie is more often tart to sour -- more like Rushmore in tone. Moreover, The Life Aquatic is more uneven than Tenenbaums, perhaps because it is Anderson's first script written with Noah Baumbach, rather than longtime collaborator Owen Wilson (who only acts here).

Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Life Aquatic, particularly the performances of Cate Blanchett -- who is almost as good here as journo Jane Winslett-Richardson as she is playing Kate Hepburn in The Aviator -- and Willem Dafoe, who practically steals every scene in which he appears. It was also nice to see Bud Cort, as I have always imagined that Wes Anderson was deeply influenced by Harold and Maude. And given the nature of this site, I should mention that the soundtrack is intriguing: primarily Bowie classics, often reinterpreted as Portuguese cafe music.

JOHN MAYER was stopped from running through the halls of his high school, even when he was to be inducted into its Hall of Fame. I can't believe the Associated Press missed the obvious joke.

CATS AND DOGS: getting their own coffins. DOGS: getting their own ice cream.

TEEN JESUS: The computer-generated portrait was created by Italian policemen from the Shroud of Turin.

ENGINEERS probably can explain these pictures. I expect it has something to do with leverage.

DENVER SAMARITAN hands out 35 thousand dollars to the homeless on Christmas Eve.

PHARMA COS warn employees about Michael Moore, whose next film is rumored to be about the U.S. healthcare system.

MY KIND OF TOWN: YMCA director fired after the parents of young children arriving for a morning swim meet clashed with participants in an overnight transgender fashion show and ball.

FARK: What if bin Laden made albums, not videotapes?

UKRANIAN ELECTION RE-RUN: Looks like a big win for Yushchenko. Probably good news for the West.

WASHINGTON GOVERNOR'S RACE: More ballots turned up in Alaska.

WEIRD NEWS: Sky News names its top stories for 2004.

THE SCREAM: Norwegian police have identified a suspect in the theft of a version of the iconic painting.

EARBAGS: Going on my list.

STONEHENGE: A fresh theory on how it was built was tested earlier this month. And where are they now, the little people of... Stonehenge?

HERE'S A FEW shiny new links to tide you through the Yuletime...

PULP CHRISTMAS: Video by Rankin-Bass, audio by Quentin Tarantino, colliding in this Quicktime clip. Not for the kiddies!

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS: "More is More" seems to be the slogan in Brooklyn, if this photo gallery is any indication.

CANDY CANES help U.S. troops find insurgents in Iraq.

SANTA SUIT gets boy barred from junior high school dance.

A CHRISTMAS STORY: Teenager accused of sniping at Santa with a pellet gun.

NORAD TRACKS SANTA here on Christmas Eve.

VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS? Here's the recipe.

HONG KONG CHRISTMAS, sporting a "Hello Kitty!" Christmas tree.

CAN SANTA GET ME an 18-foot mecha exoskeleton?

"SOMETHING" OF THE YEAR TIME is here.

WEIRD NEWS of 2004.

CNN: The Year in Entertainment.

PARIS HILTON: barred from Lloyd Grove's gossip column. It's the gift that keeps on giving!

DECEMBER 26th IS BOXING DAY, whatever that is...

I DOUBT that I'll be posting links over the Xmas weekend, so there will be a little bit of "Everything Must Go!" today...

PATE ON THE RADIO FOR THE HOLIDAYS: For the past 16 years, Jon Solomon has DJ'ed a 24-hour marathon of Christmas tunes at WPRB (103.3 FM), now located in Princeton, NJ. Either Craig O'Neill or Ken King found him on the 'net. After discovering he was a fan of "My Turn," I sent him "Rope Around the Moon" and "New Year," both of which were aired last year. I should have examined that playlist more closely, as this article Ken found reveals that Pate is not the only Ames band to make the list. ISU Daily employees of a certain vintage will find this twice as funny.

ON THE PITCHFORK: The Top 50 Albums of 2004, with lists for singles and reissues as well.

SCARED OF SANTA: If you haven't seen the link before, here's a lovely photo gallery of frightened children for your amusement. These French kids, however, were not afraid of Santa, beating him after he refused to give them extra sweets.

FESTIVUS: The New York Times has in-depth coverage (registration or bugmenot required). Whoda thunk Chicago and Austin to be big Festivus cities? OK, lots of people.

SPEAKING OF AUSTIN: MTV's "The Real World" is headed there next. Stardom beckons for Jon Hahn!

CATS AND DOGS: There are now more dogs and cats in Italian homes than children.

HOGS AND DOGS: The L.A. Times reports that law enforcement authorities arrested seven people in three states on charges stemming from "hog dogging" events, in which pit bulls or bulldogs are placed in a pen with pigs or wild boars and are timed as they pin the squealing animals with their powerful jaws.

NATASHA LYONNE bites dog. Sadly, not a shocker.

MONKEYS IN JAIL: This story is from September, but just as funny now.

UPDATES ON PAST LINKS: Ex-Expos beat porn merchant for baseball park in Washington D.C., leaving only the taxpayers and the local community as the losers. Washington state Governor's race recount swings to the Democrat, as previously predicted, though more legal action is almost sure to follow.

EXERCISE IN A PILL may be on the horizon.

LEARN TO FIT BRAS in Britain. It would be nice to make money from a hobby.

WOMEN MAKE BETTER ASTRONAUTS: New medical research has revealed that the mental and physical characteristics of women mean they are far better suited to long-term space travel than men. Insert your own out-of-this-world sexist punchline here.

POP-TART EXPERT allowed to testify in flaming pastry trial. And you thought that was going to be about Britney Spears, didn't you?

AMERICA ONLINE will roll out its own free web-based e-mail service, but only to subscribers at first. Genius.

HARVARD GAZETTE: This is old, but who doesn't want to see how Bogota, Columbia deployed mimes for law enforcement?

BARNES AND NOBLE has the best singles scene in NYC. I always get a little funny look when I tell people I avoid the bar scene; this poll is giving away one of my secrets.

TWINS SWAP IDENTITIES FOR JAIL BREAK: This had to be a sitcom plot once.

SON SEALS dies at 62 due to complications of diabetes.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Someone who may wish to remain anonymous tipped me to Ask Snoop, a site that shizzolates web pages into hip-hop lingo n' s**t. It's like having Barbara Billingsley on da airplane wit yo' a** at izzall times.

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, Spam, Spam, Spam, rejected guilty plea and Spam.

THE BODY ELECTRIC: This one's for Craig O'Neill -- "Subway Robot Paints to Rush Tunes"

LISA MONTGOMERY, suspected of strangling a mother-to-be and cutting the baby from her womb, was nabbed --and the baby rescued -- through the internet.

HARDCORE PRIVACY: Yahoo! e-mail accounts are so protected that the family of a Marine killed in Iraq is being denied access to it.

GALLUP POLL: Online news gains on traditional media.

AP MEMBERS POLL: Top Ten Stories of 2004

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE: "'All Kinds of Time" used for NFL promo; Two CDs planned for 2005.

IRAQ: Generally, you don't expect to find good news in a story headlined "Blasts Kill At Least 64 In Iraq's Holy Cities." But the quotes from Iraqis in the article are rather encouraging.

PAUL GIAMATTI, the star of Sideways (which may be the best movie of the year), is really cool.

SELF-ESTEEM: Boosting it actually may do more harm than good.

ANCIENT ROMAN REST STOP under a German bus terminal. Imagine how stinky that restroom is.

JIBJAB'S "THIS LAND" takes the honors at Atom Films for 2004. If you haven't seen it, it's still worth seeing.

ECOTOXICOLOGY: The "new science" that will cause someone to advocate banning toothpaste and shampoo -- most likely someone who doesn't use them enough now.