One of my favorite things about my iPod is the shuffle songs feature. It randomly selects tracks from your stored music and plays them in no particular ordera novel way to hear your collection. Lately though, its seemed that the tiny D.J. inside my iPod has been playing songs in less-than-random order.

For example, yesterday morning I set my iPod to Shuffle Songs. I listened to about two-dozen songs, and noticed a definite theme emerging. Almost without exception, everything I heard was from the same four artists: Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mountain Goats, Nellie McKay and Sufjan Stevens. (In case youre not familiar with these names, you just need to know that they share a lot of the same stylistic traits.) In one instance, I heard a track from the NMH album, immediately followed by a live version of the same song. Out of the hundreds of songs on my Nano, the all-knowing iPod D.J. played two versions of the same song, back-to-back? Was there something going on here, or was it just a coincidence?

Later in the day, I set the iPod to Shuffle once again. This time there seemed to be a country themeall songs were from Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn or Jolie Holland, with one brief exceptiona rather inexplicable Nine Inch Nails interlude, smack dab in the middle of Country Hour. My iPod D.J. is not without a sense of humor.

Im ordinarily not one to look for patterns in the chaos, so I figured I was just going a little nuts. It was only the stress at workit had to be. Then I read this Newsweek article by Stephen Levy, Does Your iPod Play Favorites? and felt slightly less crazy:

Last spring it dawned on Apple CEO Steve Jobs that the heart of his hit iPod digital music player was the “shuffle.” This feature allows users to mix up their entire song collections-thousands of tunes-and play them back in a jumbled order, like a private radio station. Jobs not only moved the popular shuffle option to an exalted place on the top menu of the iPod, he also used the idea as the design principle of the new low-cost iPod Shuffle. Its ad slogan celebrates the serendipity music lovers embrace when their songs are reordered by chance-”Life is random.”

But just about everyone who has an iPod has wondered how random the iPod shuffle function really is. From the day I loaded up my first Pod, it was as if the little devil liked to play favorites. It had a particular fondness for Steely Dan, whose songs always seemed to pop up two or three times in the first hour of play. Other songs seemed to be exiled to a forgotten corner of the disk drive. Months after I bought “Wild Thing” from the iTunes store, I’m still waiting for my iPod to cue it up.

Its always such a wonderful feeling to realize Im not alone in my madness. I cant wait to see what iPod D.J. has in store for me today.

Prepare to be stunned by the originality of today’s question…here it is, the last Question of the Day for 2005. Happy New Year!

What is your New Year’s Resolution?

Like most of us, I’ve made New Year’s Resolutions throughout my entire life. For many years, they were the generic, “lose weight, quit smoking” type of Resolutions. Then I went through a rebellious phase, not that long ago, where I swore off the Resolution entirely. I thought it was oh-so clever to answer, when someone asked what my Resolution was, “My Resolution is to not make any Resolutions.” This was largely borne of self-directed disgust with my inability to follow through with anything. Not just New Year’s Resolutionsbut diets, quitting smoking, you name it, I failed at it. It made perfect sense, I thought, to quit setting these goals I obviously couldn’t achieve. I couldn’t lose if I didn’t play. This philosophy informed my life for a few years, and it’s been only recently that I’ve realized how much my life has been ruled by fear. Fear of failing, fear of embarrassing myself.

As I prepare to enter a new decade of life, I look back over what I’ve accomplished thus far. Sadly, what I find is very little. I’ve spent my entire adult life drifting along, slacking, and not really doing anything of interest or real significance. It’s sickening. I have all the theories (excuses) in the world: I lack focus, I lack ambition, my degree is in the wrong field, I don’t know the right people, I’m too old, I simply don’t have any talent. There are varying degrees of truth in most, if not all, of these reasons…but what I’ve overlooked is how much fear has ruled my life. The reason I haven’t tried to do anything, to accomplish anything, is because I’m terrified of failing. And the reason I’ve failed thus far is because my goals have always been too high or too vague.

So last year, I decided to take a slightly different route. I decided to use the New Year’s Resolution as a means to achieve something real. Not some all-encompassing vow such as “lose weight,” or “quit smoking,” but small, reasonable goals, ones that might even be fun to work towards. I thought about what my developing interests were, and set small, related tasks for myself.

One Resolution was to “travel somewhere new.” I accomplished that one several times over, whether it was exploring an Oklahoma ghost town or another state.

Another was to “have something published, no matter how insignificant.” This year, I wrote two letters to the editor that were subsequently published in a Local Independent Weeklyand I suppose you could even count this blog and the excerpts of it that once appeared in Look@OKC.

I wasnt so successful with my third Resolution, become an expert on modern art. I read a couple of books and then more or less forgot about it.

You win some, you lose some.

I discovered that it also makes an enormous difference when my goals are adding more enjoyment and fulfillment to my life, rather than taking things away (food, cigarettes, booze). Some people thrive on self-deprivationI am not one of those people. Although I still need to work towards healthier habits, my goals for 2006 are much smaller and more specific. Im going to eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink more water. Now that I have an iPod to distract me, Im going to walk every day on my breaks at work. I still cant be sure Ill succeed even at these meager goals, but my chances are a little bit higher than if my goal was to lose 20 pounds.

So what are my other Resolutions for 2006?

Im going to visit a new country (okay, so maybe this one is cheating a little bit since were going to Europe in a few weeks).

Im going to write a book.

Im going to start a meetup.org group for couples without children.

Along with Dwight, Im going to develop a website featuring local restaurant and bar reviews.

So maybe my book will never be read (much less published), no one will join my group and our website will wither away in obscuritybut at least I will have tried. Thats something I can be proud of. I dont want to waste another ten years doing nothing except complaining about how little Ive accomplished. It’s sure to be even more depressing at 40 than it is at 30.

We love nothing more than a good year-end retrospective. So without further ado, here are our favorite albums of 2005:

Guero (Beck) - This was the first album I bought this year. Not a life-changing experience, but its a damn fun listen, and probably one of my favorite Beck albums to date. Listen for guest vocalist Christina Ricci (yes, that Christina Ricci) on Hell Yes and guest bassist Jack White on Go It Alone. A nice mix of Crazy Party Beck and Serious Beck.

Favorite Tracks: Que Onda Guero; Hell Yes; Go It Alone

–SARAH

The Sunset Tree (The Mountain Goats) About coming to terms as an adult with your dysfunctional childhood. John Darnielles brilliant, narrative-style songwriting captures small moments in time and makes you feel like youre right there with him. This is one of the most moving albums Ive ever heard.

Favorite Tracks: This Year; Dance Music; Up the Wolves

–SARAH

Get Behind Me Satan (The White Stripes) After the sonic head smack that is the opening track “Blue Orchid,” you’re left with an album primarily composed of marimba, piano & acoustic guitar. Not what you’d normally expect from a garage rock duo. But, Jack White manages to pull it off. Clearly owing much to his work with Loretta Lynn on her brilliant Van Lear Rose as well as to his work on the Cold Mountain soundtrack, GBMS portends the evolution and future of White. Look for his newest project, a collaboration with fellow Detroit musician Brendan Benson, in the new year. The band created out of this collaboration, The Raconteurs, are scheduled to release an album in May 2006–an album NME has already dubbed “Detroit’s answer to Nirvana’s Nevermind.”

Favorite Tracks: Blue Orchid; Little Ghost; I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)

–DWIGHT

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) Not the greatest album ever released. Not really a “hit” single on the album either. But after listening to this one a few times, you begin to realize that there is something special about it. It sounds like some “Best of” indie/modern rock compilation. It will inevitably remind you of some of the other music in your collection. Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel, Television. That is to say, if the album truly is derivative, then they’ve derived from the cream of the crop. Oh, and they don’t have a record label–this album almost solely owes its success to blogosphere buzz.

Favorite Tracks: Clap Your Hands!; Over And Over Again (Lost And Found); Upon The Tidal Wave of Young Blood

–DWIGHT

Late Registration (Kanye West) I have to put this on the list because its probably the first rap album since Outkasts Stankonia that Ive actually liked. Gold Digger is just about the only song right now that could get me on the dreaded dance floor. Nor does it hurt that Kanye totally called out George W. this year.

Favorite Tracks: Touch the Sky; Gold Digger; Diamonds from Sierra Leone

–SARAH

The Magic Numbers (The Magic Numbers) One of the most melodically beautiful albums of the year, with terrific male-female harmonies. Great to listen to when youre in a mellow mood. The songs evolve at their own pace, and the vocals are gorgeous.

Favorite Tracks: Forever Lost; Love Me Like You; I See You, You See Me

–SARAH

Illinois (Sufjan Stevens) The second part of a 50 part series(?), Sufjan Stevens presents an adventurous yet very accessible album revolving around the state of Illinois. He takes the stripped down art of folk music storytelling and adds layers of beautiful orchestration and fantastic lyrics. Part travel diary and history lesson, the album delivers lyrics like: “Stephen A. Douglas was a great debater, but Abraham Lincoln was the great emancipator.” This is the perfect sort of album to live with on a lonely, dark night, or perhaps, on a road trip to the Windy City.

Favorite Tracks: Come On Feel The Illinoise! Pt. I:The World’s Columbian Exposition / Pt. II:Carl Sandburg Visits Me In a Dream; John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; Decatur, or Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother!

–DWIGHT

And finally, just because we couldnt let the year end without mentioning this:

Worst Song of the Year My Humps by the Black-Eyed Peas. Listen to it and youll know why. Never have I felt quite so creepy about my lovely lady lumps. Amazing that such idiotic, juvenile crap can somehow still get on the radio. My dogs could write a better song than this. This may quite possibly be the worst song ever.

–SARAH

Stayed tuned for Two-Headed Blogs Films of the Year

Add this to the list of Dwight and Sarahs Favorite Things That Are No More:

The Green Door (329 E. Sheridan) will be closing at the end of January 2006. Please go out and see at least one show before its too late. (A good one would be the Flametrick Subs on January 14th.) There will be a three-day, all-local Farewell Bash January 27th January 29th, bands to be announced. Check the Green Door website for more information, as well as their upcoming calendar.

R.I.P.