The worlds largest listener music poll commenced on Australia Day, Wednesday January 26th. The annual poll allowed Australians to vote for their favourite songs of 2004.

The top ten were as follows:
1) franz ferdinand - take me out
2) missy higgins - scar
3) eskimo joe - from the sea
4) the killers - somebody told me
5) spiderbait - black betty
6) missy higgins - ten days
7) john butler trio - something's gotta give
8) little birdy - beautiful to me
9) powderfinger - bless my soul
10) the white stripes - jolene (live)

You can check out the rest of the list here, and check out pics of this years Big Day Out. I'd also recommend checking out the main page of the website if you're into this sort of music.

We've finally finished the rating system! You can now give points to pixel art pieces based on how much you like a piece. You no longer have to put something in your favorites (unless you want to) to show your appreciation for a piece. Some notes about ratings...

• Annonymous Rating
  The points you give to a piece are completely annonymous so please give your honest assessment of each piece. We associate all your ratings to you of course, but they will never be made public.
• Build a Stronger Gallery
  Pixel Joint wants to build stronger artists and one way to motivate people is a little friendly competition. Want to see what people think is the strongest pixel art? Just check out the top rated pieces and take notes!
• Flexible Ratings
  You can change the rating of a piece at any time so if someone applies a killer update to a piece you can knock them some extra points.
• Good Karma
  Wouldn't you like someone to rate your piece? Well, take a little time and return the favor!
• The Future of Ratings...
  Right now the total points are being kept hidden so we can add some other features. You will soon have the option of making your pixel art's ratings private so only you can see them if you so wish. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve the rating system please comment on this news post.

Go ahead and start rating some pixel art. Do it!

The trailer for Frank Miller's Sin City looks stunning. Really nice style to it and it looks like they went all out with the cast.

I never read Fantastic 4 comics beyond when they would crossover with Spider-Man, but the trailer for the new flick sparked my interest and it's got the Nip/Tuck pick doctor as Doctor Doom! Sweet.

Any self respecting nerd should also check out the trailers for Tim Burton's two new flicks -- 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Corpse Bride'.

You might have noticed a "Rookie" or "Flatfoot" next to your handle the last couple of days. This indicates your rank in the Pixel Joint chain. You can increase your rank by posting more comments and pixel art pieces and ratings (coming very soon). You go up a rank for every 100 combined points you contribute (1 point for each comment, 1 point for each pixel piece, 1 point for each rating). You can also choose what "rank theme" you would like to use in your user profile. Right now we have two -- Crime Syndicate and Law and Order.

Level	Points	Law and Order	Crime Syndicate
1	0-99	Rookie	Thug
2	100-199	Flatfoot	Hustler
3	200-299	Private Eye	Enforcer
4	300-399	Deputy	Button Man
5	400-499	Detective	Made
6	500-599	Sheriff	Underboss
7	600-699	Fed	Boss
8	700 and up	Special Agent	Kingpin

I read about the pixel artist Craig Robinson in Wired Magazine awhile back. A very different style than what is commonly found around the pixel art scene. Diversity is where it's at.

Oh yeah, pay special attention to the Minipops section. The book of Minipops is a real bargain at Amazon.com -- only $9.71. And no, we are not getting paid to endorse the product you cynical bastards.

Two isometric cities have been revitalized recently... PixelDam and KirupaVille.

Check em out.

You think hardcore drug use and senseless violence is limited to humans? Think again...

Evil cat

Bloodthirsty tree climber

Naughty chimp

Junky monkey

This squirrel is just plain rude

I'm a huge fan of Marvel Comics... I've always loved the comics and several of the movies based on the comics have been very good over the last few years (X-Men, Spider-Man, Blade), but the baseless lawsuit of NCsoft just seems insane.

According to Marvel, software developers should waste resources policing what PLAYERS create. Releasing software tools to the public to expand games is in real jeopardy with this case and that's just a damn shame.

GameSpot

MSNBC

BBspot (Marvel Sues Makers of Pens, Pencils)

Borat got some people at a rodeo pretty miffed with his unique brand of humor.

Check it!

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Gameboy Advance) is out in both the United States and Europe as of this week. I just bought the game and am having quite the amount of fun! The pixel art work is WONDERFUL, and actually quite amazing. Some of the characters pull off a cel-shaded type of look with wonderful animations (what amazed me most was that when their faces turn to look at you, they can also look diagonal! DIAGONAL!).

Moved around the front page design quite a bit to focus more on the pixel art and less on the boring old news. Also added the "Favorite Pixel Art" section so you can see what everyone else likes.

We're going to be adding a few other features soon including a much needed ranking system.

Late addition to this post... just added a comments section for news. There have been several requests to add this feature so you bastards better use it!

Whoo.
It's finally done. You're very own iSTVAN (going by his real name, Ivan) has released his brand spanking new website for the superhero black comedy 'Black Hole.' You may have seen some images for the 'Black Hole: The Game That Sucks.' This is where it all began...

You can read the first episode, view non pixel related art, read about me and the other co-creator and lots of other neat stuff.

Check it out!

Special thanks to Jonathon Smeby for designing the site.

While browsing about Wikipedia I stumbled across a couple of sites created by FOX because they were referenced in a Simpsons episode.

Check out WhatBadgersEat.com and MrXsWebPage.com for a good chuckle.

Amazing little pixel character collection built by the many talented pixel artists out there. This has been around for awhile apparently, but it's new to me!

Give it a look see.

The trailer to the children's classic is worth a look. Gene Wilder's Wonka is a tough act to follow, but if anybody can do it it's Johnny Depp.

For those of you who don't know, Ad-Awards is a nice website that gives out awards to advertisements from all around the world. They have released their January selection. Only four, but it's worth it.

Click here!

Saw the trailer for the Assault of Precinct 13 remake last night. Looks like it could be pretty decent. Before you check out the new movie do yourself a favor and watch John Carpenter's original work. A couple of scenes are pretty shocking even today.

No real point to this news item (yeah, I know most of the news items are pretty pointless). Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year. Stick to your resolutions! Or don't.