A 2009 writer block?  Worse, try searching the apple trailers using “9″ or “9.99.”

Last 12 Months Most Played Tracks

I’ve got a wide variation of bands in my last 12 months.  When you look across 3 years or so of data, you get a different picture — with some dominant bands/names.

3 Year Most Played Tracks

Pictures created using wordle and last.fm.

If this holds true, expect Slumdog or Frost/Nixon to win.  Depending on what time period you aggregate on inside of the Google tool, it appears Slumdog has the slight advantage.

Where we spent Friday the 13th and weekend.  I didn’t know they released a new version of the movie.

In my initial preview I found “Tonight” to be the same old Franz — in a boring way, while “Noble Bird” was the same old Andrew in a good way. I turned to Twitter and Google to see what everyone else is thinking.

First, Google shows parity in the US across the two acts in search, with Franz Ferdinand getting substantially more news hits. Oddly, the albums were released in separate weeks and search results don’t reflect this.

Andrew versus Franz

The most interesting distinction through Google Trends came through the location information. I started with no regional filters. Franz Ferdinand popped very high in Croatia and other seemingly odd places. I then filtered for only in the United States.

Andrew versus Franz by location

Bird crushed Franz Ferdinand in Austin, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis. FF dominated Irvine, CA and LA. Not sure what that means? Bird rocks and FF doesn’t (yes I live in Chicago).

Franz versus Andrew

Twitterers are making more noise about Franz Ferdinand (sorry about the color swap, blue = bird in these graphs) — though in general, the tweet rate looks low. They start to look similar over the last few days.

The real metrics here are actual listens, downloads, or sales. Based on current Amazon Sales Rank, in CD format, “Tonight” ranks #36 and “Noble Beast” ranks #94. However, as an MP3 download,”Tonight” ranks #54 and “Noble Beast” dominates at #12.

I have a few tools I can use moving forward to track this stuff in more detail. Not sure what to make out of this just yet — but interesting nonetheless.

Because of The Lazarus Project, my most recent read, I’m thinking more about how previous generations have viewed the world.  What troubled them?  What made them happy?  Are we, today, more similar to them than we think?  Or more distinct?

Jobless numbers at an all time high. 

I asked my wife this morning if our daughter will someday talk about living through the Depression…

The group, part of MIT’s Media Lab, designed a device that gathers data on the environment around the user, searches for information using the Internet as a data store, aggregates the results and presents it back to the user via a display. Think of it as a meta-data system for real life.

From Fast Company. My term for this whole field has been Augmented Reality… location awareness + wireless data streaming = a completely “marked up” world.

I raise these questions because of the upgrade occuring on the Washington stop of the Blue Line.  Sometime before Thanksgiving I believe, the escalator was blocked off.  Weeks later a sign was erected that said something about pardoning our dust, we are upgrading the escalator with a completion time in summer 2009.

Today I got to see why they had walled off the escalator these past months:  they were building a plywood staircase where the escalator was!  So I wonder if they are going to now tear out the concrete steps, build plywood ones there, close the other side down again, rebuild the escalator, close down the other side, rebuild the steps, then open everything up again by this summer on time and on budget!

Didn’t the head of the CTA take over the Chicago Public Schools?  I can’t wait to see the renovation projects in store.

Minutes later in the limo as they drive off camera catches him practicing a salute.  Reminds me of the days I learned to properly salute.  Think of how much on the job training he has in front of him…