Ah, junior year. I remember it like it was yesterday. Actually, the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed over the last four years has impaired my memory quite significantly. But I do remember that things were simpler. My friends were only a neighborhood away, my parents paid for everything (besides the bottles of Jose Cuervo I could literally chug from!), and I didn’t have to worry about landlords, electric bills or term papers.

I was working a job, getting straight A’s and somehow managed to go clubbing every.single.weekend. without my parents finding out.

When it came to music, I pretty much only listened to whatever was on the radio when I was driving around with my friends. And Bright Eyes. I always listened to Bright Eyes. And, because of my addiction to the night life – even though I couldn’t even legally drink yet – I fell in love with the Hot 100 charts on Billboard.com. I would peruse the latest additions and then download them with Napster.

Lucky for me, Billboard keeps all their Hot 100 charts online. So, I was actually able to look back and view the top songs from five years ago (wow, that seems like a really big number) when I was a wee 17 year old.

Junior year – of high school and college – has probably proved to be the most exciting. You’re finally comfortable where you are, and adult-like things like graduation are but a miniature blip on your radar. (You’re mostly worried about what you’re gonna wear to that killer house party you are going to go to this weekend). Perfection.

Anyway, let’s take a trip down memory lane to my original junior year here. Good times.

VH1’s “I Love the New Millennium” premiered this week. Much like its fabulously entertaining predecessors mocking the 80’s and 90’s (sorry, the 70’s one predates me), it doesn’t fail to deliver laughs and amusing sound bites. Although I think I Love the New Millennium might be jumping the gun time-wise (they are discussing things that happened, like, last week!), I adore the short-attention-span-theater for the distraction-inclined:

Exploring all the pop cultural guilty pleasures, memorable products and people, disgraces and debuts, fads and fashions, scandals and sensations.

With clever and over-animated comedians dissecting and reflecting on everything from metrosexuals to Dance Dance Revolution to Sudoku, you can’t help but giggle at the off the wall and politically incorrect observations. In honor of the show, I decided to take a yummy walk down pop-culture memory lane from 2000-2004. Here are some of my personal favorite memories from the new millennium…and the ones I despise.

New Millennium Favs:

Napster- The inspiring illegal innovation that started it all. Thank you, Shawn Fanning, for changing the musical and digital landscape.

Uggs- I don’t care how hideous they are and how far-gone the trend is, these babies keep my tootsies toasty on the way to class or, if I’m feeling really lazy, at the bar. Read More »

We all know that David Beckham is too. hot. for. words. And we wouldn’t turn down a romp in the sack with Brad Pitt, Will Smith or Jason Bateman. But, there is something to be said for the nerdy boys. They are sweet, smart and totally under-rated.

I have always held a soft-spot in my heart for the underdogs, and techy, nerdy boys are no exception. So, I am bringing to you the hottest nerds out there.

These boys give nerdery a verrry good name.

Read More »

Now a days, it seems like if you don’t have an iPod and an iPod speaker system, or a very large collection of CDs either in disc form or hanging around on your computer, there isn’t a whole lot you can do for music variety. The radio stations play the same song every ten minutes or so, and unless you have a laptop, even iTunes’ handy Party Shuffle option can leave you in the musical dust. So what do you do?

What if I told you that there was a service online where you could enter a song or artist of your choosing, then get an indefinitely long playlist with songs that have similar sound? Not just any songs, mind you; these are songs like you’ll like, songs that you’ve never heard of before and songs that you adore. Above all, what if I told you it was absolutely positively free?

No, it’s not an e-mail scam that’s going to give you free software as long as you sign up for about fifty different sponsors. It’s Pandora, and she wants to be your friend. Read More »

We all know how exciting it is to see a classic hit like “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey pop up on a list of stealable downloads, saying it will only take 20 seconds until that baby is yours to keep forever. You say, “Dude. I have to download that. I don’t care if I’m stealing. It’s JOURNEY for gosh sakes.”

Tempting, I know.

And even though the government has been warning us to stop illegally downloading music, ever since the beginning days of Napster, we continue to do it anyway. We are such badasses.

Recently, however, there’s been an even bigger crackdown, and it’s college kids they’re after. With the rise of the Recording Industry Association of America, emails have been sent to hundreds of college students across the country and counting, warning them they have been caught in the act and if they don’t settle their cases out of court, they will be fined more money than college kids can afford.

MSN.com reports the case of University of Nebraska-Lincoln sophomore Sarah Barg, who received an email advising her of the fact she was caught downloading over 300 songs (some of which included songs by the Spice Girls – AWESOME!) on a campus computer using Ares – a site much like Kazaa, Limewire and Bearshare. At first, she brushed off the email, as we all probably would. Some one who downloads the Spice Girls doesn’t exactly scream “evil threat to society” to me. Read More »