I normally don’t go for blondes (nor redheads, which is what’s lurking underneath in this case). At 34, I’m probably on the outer limits of age-appropriateness in going after a 19-year-old. And celebutante party-girl actresses? Definitely out of my league.

All that said, I can’t see how I wouldn’t pick up the February issue of Vanity Fair, coming out this coming Tuesday (talk about an advance publishing schedule).

Although, as juicy as Lindsay Lohan’s confessions of eating disorders and drug intake might be, it’ll be a challenge just to get past the cover photo.

Geez, was New Year’s Eve really less than a week ago? The year’s seemed chock-full already (in a good way).

I ushered in ‘06 at a house party, with a small group of revellers. One of the party activities was to have people create their own mix CDs, which would then be tossed into the multi-disc player to serve as the night’s extended soundtrack. Even though I’d just as soon have filled up my iPod rather than burn an hour’s worth of stuff onto a CD, I obliged.

And here’s what I put together (not necessarily in this order, but since it went into random play, it’s irrelevant):

1. “Ch-Check It Out” - Beastie Boys

2. “Call Me” - Blondie

3. “Toxic (U Know Y Its Toxic mix mashup)” - Britney Spears vs. Moguai

4. “I Fought The Law” - The Clash

5. “Holiday In Cambodia” - Dead Kennedys

6. “Everybody Wants You To Emerge (Barry Harris revamp mashup)” - Fischerspooner vs. Billy Squier

7. “Take Me Out” - Franz Ferdinand

8. “Walking Contradiction” - Green Day

9. “Mr. Brownstone” - Guns n’ Roses

10. “24 Hour Party People” - Happy Mondays

11. “Authority Song” - John Cougar Mellencamp

12. “Sympathy For The Devil (Who Killed The Kennedys mix)” - Laibach

13. “Supernova” - Liz Phair

14. “Come Out And Play” - The Offspring

15. “Turkish Song Of The Damned” - The Pogues

16. “Spider Man” - The Ramones

17. “All Hands On The Bad One” - Sleater-Kinney

18. “Oh!” - Sleater-Kinney

19. “Zero” - Smashing Pumpkins

20. “Seether” - Veruca Salt

The party crowd consensus leaned more toward traditional/hard rock, which is why I laid off on the rap. Otherwise, I’d have tossed in a couple of Public Enemy tracks.

I was most pleased to hear the majority of these songs tick up on the CD changer that night. As best as I can recall, at least 15 of the 20 played — not bad, considering the odds. I kept marking whenever one of my songs loaded up. I was waiting for someone to accuse me of somehow rigging the stereo playback to give preference to my disc; I wouldn’t even know how to approach something like that. I was just lucky.

I’d also like to note that my tracks on my disc blared through markedly louder than the others. I know how to pump up that volume!

I’ll have to come up with a more radical mix to bring in 2007…

I guess it’s not lost on too many people that Ana Marie Cox’s departure for the greener pastures of book publishing at Riverhead/PenguinPutnam results in two males — veteran pro bloggers David Lat and Alex Pareene — becoming the voices behind Wonkette.com.

It’s an interesting branding problem. In this case, the suffix “ette” clearly referred to Cox’s perspective as a woman in DC’s social fray. So, now you have a couple of guys writing for a girly-named blog. And that doesn’t even factor in the replacement of Cox’s style, which undoubtedly will make it a different read (there’s the issue of whether or not a semi-personal blog like Wonkette can be transferred and still retain its identity; I don’t have a problem with that, no more than with any other media organ).

I’m sure the desire to preserve both Wonkette’s brand and familiar URL played in to Gawker Media’s decision. Most readers probably won’t even consider it. But it sure strikes me as some odd blogger gender-bending.

Am I the only geek who corrupts the pronunciation of “FireWire” into something like “fahr-wahr”?

Makes me feel like such a techie-hick.