OK. It's late. I'm working and I'm really digging "First Impressions of Earth," the latest from The Strokes.

Just thought I'd share.

I think I want to be English.

Or Welsh.

Or Scottish.

Or Irish. (As in my being directly from Ireland, not just in terms of heritage which I already am)

I'm not sure why; it's just a feeling. Or maybe I want to be a guy from U.K. who now lives in the States. Perhaps a guy from the States who now lives in the U.K.

I do know that most of the music I like is from that general area and since obsessing about tunes consumes a good chunk of my time, lets just go ahead and go all in. It would at least save me money on currency exchanges buying stuff off of Amazon UK.

All of this is brought on by my reading my latest issue of Q magazine. It's just full of bands I may never get to see and albums that are too hard to read about in domestic magazines.

On second thought, I really like being from the States. It's just me.

I wonder if I can just get a cool British accent instead.

A lot of times the song you hear come on the radio is that song you hate and you hear it all the time.

I'm glad to say the song I seem to hear most often is quite good. "Shadowland" by Youth Group is worth a listen if you get a chance.

So I'm writing a check the other day, my first of the year, when it hits me.

It's 2006 now. Some scratching out was involved.

So I just thought now that we are a good 10 days into the year that now would be a good time to look back at my faves of 2005. Sure most everyone else did their lists at the end of the year, but who wants to be a conformist?

Here they are in no particular order:

"Twin Cinema" by The New Pornographers
"Tourist" by Athlete
"You Could Have It So Much Better" by Franz Ferdinand
"Silent Alarm" by Bloc Party
"Don't Believe The Truth" by Oasis
"X&Y" by Coldplay
"Get Behind Me Satan" by The White Stripes
"Plans" by Death Cab For Cutie
"The Weight Is A Gift" by Nada Surf
The self-titled effort by LCD Soundsystem