Once more I didn't read many books published in 2004, so that category is out. But anyway:

• Best movie of 2004: Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Best movie of 2004 (runner-up): Team America: World Police
• Worst movie of 2004: Taxi
• Most disappointing movie of 2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Not as good as it was supposed to be.]
• Most disappointing movie of 2004 (runner up): Resident Evil: Apocalypse [The last one was cool, this one wasn't.]
• Most overrated movie of 2004: Shrek 2
• Most surprising movie of 2004: Primer [You can make a cool, entertaining movie for $7,000? Who knew?]
• Most surprising movie of 2004: Dawn of the Dead [Better than the original.]

• Best music of 2004: Modest Mouse: Good News For People Who Love Bad News [Best single: "Float On" by same]
• Worst music of 2004: Peter Yarrow's "America Come Home" [holy crap this is embarrassing!]
• Most disappointing music of 2004: almost everything was disappointing
• Most overrated music of 2004: All that junk that sounds exactly the same, you know that song?
• Most surprising music of 2004: nothing was surprising

• Best TV show of 2004: Deadwood [Al Swearengen is the greatest TV villain since Mr. Burns]
• Best TV show of 2004 (runner up): The Wire
• Best TV show of 2004 (honorable mention): Lost
• Worst TV show of 2004: The one where the guy picks the girl from the other girls who all compete for the guy to pick them? You know that one?
• Most disappointing TV show of 2004: The Farscape Miniseries [Nothing could have satisfied the anticipation or expectations.]
• Most overrated TV show of 2004: The Apprentice
• Most surprising TV show of 2004: Battlestar Galactica. [Half way through season one, this is still good.]

• Best Technology of 2004: Firefox Web Browser
• Worst Technology of 2004: Segway Human Transporter [What are they kidding?]
• Most disappointing Technology of 2004: Winamp. [RIP.]
• Most overrated Technology of 2004: Cell phones. [They even made
  a movie
  about them.]
  
• Most surprising Technology of 2004: That's classified

• Best News of 2004: SpaceShipOne wins the X-Prize
• Worst News of 2004: Earthquake and Tsunamis in Southeast Asia
• Most disappointing News of 2004: Abu Ghraib
• Most overrated News of 2004: A Marine shoots a wounded combatant in Falluja. [Have they even *heard* of what combat is like?]
• Most surprising News of 2004: Yasser Arafat no longer among us. Which is almost certainly a good thing. Did you see that funeral?

• Best Person of 2004: Nobody. Everybody sucked this year.
• Worst Person of 2004: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [yet another one to loathe]
• Worst Person of 2004 (runner-up): FCC Chairman Michael Powell [It's none of your business buddy!]
• Most disappointing Person of 2004: Bernard Kerik [What was he thinking?]
• Most overrated Person of 2004: Janet Jackson [Thanks for riling up all the red-state wackos.]
• Most surprising Person of 2004: Richard Branson

• Best Politics of 2004: There was nothing good in politics this year
• Worst Politics of 2004: George Bush vs John Kerry. [These are the choices? We couldn't come up with someone just a *little* bit better?]
• Worst Politics of 2004 (runner-up): The FCC Crackdown on media. [Who do these people think they are?]
• Most disappointing Politics of 2004: John Kerry nomination
• Most disappointing Politics of 2004 (runner-up): The Intelligence Bill. [This could have been useful if it had *removed* some bureaucracy.]
• Most overrated Politics of 2004: Separation of Church and State [as with most things, Ben Franklin had it right at the beginning.]
• Most surprising Politics of 2004: Howard Dean [This guy made Icarus look like SpaceShipOne]

• Best announcement of 2004: Howard Stern moving to Satellite radio [take that, FCC!]
• Worst announcement of 2004: Anything from the FCC
• Most disappointing announcement of 2004: Anything from Congress
• Most overrated announcement of 2004: dunno
• Most surprising announcement of 2004:
  Humans related to Hobbits
  
• Most surprising announcement of 2004 (tie):
  Petri dish brain flies F-22 jet simulator
  
• Most surprising announcement of 2004 (runner-up): Virgin Galactic [Richard Branson may be the real Delos Harriman]

• Best Show of Respect of 2004: 60th Anniversary of Normandy Invasion and Battle of the Bulge
• Worst Show of Respect of 2004: Certain Democrats toward Ayad Allawi
• Most disappointing Show of Respect of 2004: Yasser Arafat. [This guy was a terrorist. A terrorist!]
• Most overrated Show of Respect of 2004: Certain Republicans toward Ayad Allawi
• Most surprising Show of Respect of 2004: Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam). [Why defend this guy when he refused to defend Salmon Rushdie from the psychotic Islamists who ordered him killed on sight?]

• Best Organization of 2004: Scaled Composites
  
• Worst Organization of 2004: The FCC
• Worst Organization of 2004 (runner-up): The NHL
• Most disappointing Organization of 2004: NASA [two years running! The shuttle program goes on – without any flights, but the Mars rovers and the Cassini probe meliorate things]
• Most overrated Organization of 2004: al Qaeda [three years running!]
• Most surprising Organization of 2004: Boston Red Sox

• Best Country of 2004: USA! [screw you guys, it's always USA]
• Worst Country of 2004: Any theocracy.
• Most disappointing Country of 2004: Spain. [Socialist cowards!]
• Most disappointing Country of 2004 (runner-up): Russia. [Sliding backwards.]
• Most overrated Country of 2004: USA [Come on, rest of the world, live your own lives.]
• Most surprising country of 2004: China. [New constitutional private property protections may allow for the world's largest middle class there.]
• Most surprising country of 2004 (runner-up): Ukraine. [Stickin' it to Putin.]

I got a package of Greeks from a Winamp trojan horse. It was of the clever variety (Athenian I suppose): re-spawning the killed process, installing itself in the System Volume Information folder, mimicking real and ubiquitous programs. The trigger seemed to be an Internet Explorer object, so mine never did anything (I use Firefox now). And anti-virus scanners couldn't find it.

Anyway, after several hours of slow learning, I recommend this tool for when you need to mark a file for deletion on system reboot. And this freeware antivirus program seems just as good (or bad) as the commercial ones.

This website keeps a database of logins to those annoying websites that require you to come up with some phony registration information before you can read their content.

Go on, place it.

Gotta love the annual Wired vaporware awards.

Okay, I give in. Firefox is not the best technology of 2004; SpaceShipOne is. I had figured it was built largely before 2004, but anyway, sure. Firefox is still pretty good, but I agree -- it's just software, and even *I* can write software....

It seems the UN wants to become the Lead System Integrator for a new Tsunami Warning System, since the affected countries don't want "the US to come and tell them what to do, or Japan or Australia." This makes perfect sense: why allow a competent country to solve the problem when the UN can make a total mess of it, siphon off funds for limousines, hold long deliberations in lavish hotel lobbies? At least then the leaders of incompetent countries can pretend to have a part in it, feel proud and robust, parade before the populace, lift sparkling flutes aloft to toast their grand accomplishments. Only the UN can be entrusted with such an important project as that.

My problems will soon be solved by the Quantum Sleeper. Soon I can sleep peacefully while the traffic of footpads and scofflaws proceeds around me – as the world crumbles – and not even their bio-chemical shells will affect me. I've ordered a custom one for full CBRNE protection, and also with wheels.

Currently the Best Friggin' Song Title is Mogwai's Hunted by a Freak, although the Best Friggin' Song is currently Mogwai Fear Satan. I'm all Mogwai currently.