One perk about working where I do is that we get (essentially) a three week vacation break during the holidays. It’s not company policy, per say, but since I can rarely use my vacation during school days, I end up taking most of these three weeks off. My roll-over is January 28^th, so I’ve been frantically using up my personal days before the start of our quarter, that being today.

So, that explains my extended break. I know it’s tradition to warn readers ahead of time about long absences, but I’m happy to report that my weeks of rest have me fired up for daily posts again.

First, a big backup of linkspam . . . Tomorrow, I’ll hit the magazines.

- Here’s me recommending a service I haven’t tried . . . but I fully mean to, because in the sea of music services, it at least has a new pricing model.

Amie Street

(from BoingBoing)

Amie Street is a very interesting music publishing site that offer quality DRM free music for a very reasonable price. Songs start off completely free. As it gets more known the price increases up to about one dollar for a song if it gets really popular. They have also included a nifty recommendation system that gives the user rewards if he or she recommend music that turns out to become popular.

- This next link is vital. You must familiarize yourself with Mashable’s 2006 Social Networking Awards or forever since into the oblivion of obsolescence. Or something equally dramatic.

In all seriousness, Mashable has the best rundown of this year’s Web 2.0 developments, including “editor’s picks”, “popular choice”, and “2007 preview” for each category.

Social Networking Awards - The Top Social Networks of 2006

1. Mainstream and Large Scale Networks

2. Widgets and Add-Ons

3. Social News and Social Bookmarking

4. Sports and Fitness

5. Photo Sharing

6. Video Sharing

7. Startpages

8. Places and Events

9. Music

10. Social Shopping

11. Mobile

12. Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

- One might be tempted to look outside of the usual year-end reports from Billboard to double-check music purchases for 2006. Here are two options:

ResourceShelf » List & Rankings: Amazon.com Releases Its “Best of 2006 List”

Categories include:

+ Books
+ Music
+ DVD’s
+ Electronics
+ Automotive
+ Toys
+ Many other categories

Also includes:
+ Most-Loved Products
+ Most Wished-For Products
+ Most Popular Gift Products

End of the year charts from Radio and Records

- Totally Sweet Education Tool

History of Rock Visual Timeline

From the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . . .

an interactive, animated compendium of rock and popular music history.
Discover unexpected connections between artists. Track the growth of a musical movement. Zoom in on the day the Beatles invaded America, or out to a bird's-eye view of the blues' sweeping influence. It's all here.

- Fun BoingBoing Guitar Tech picture – plus patents – a most librarian-friendly resource . . .

Ironic Sans has a collection of links to patents filed by celebrities, along with the patent illos -- Eddie Van Halen's rock-out guitar-support; Zeppo Marx's cardiac monitor; Penn Gillette's sex-bathtub; Michael Jackson's anti-gravity effect; Jamie-Lee Curtis's baby garment; Hedy Lamar's crypto device and many others

- News tidbit:

Record co's seek $1.65 trillion from AllOfMP3.com

- Iggy Pop: "Godfather of Punk" Interview

The best part of this extended and funny NPR interview is the part where he attributes libraries for his success. Honestly, we should be exploiting the heck out of this quote.