The new year is only a handful of days strong, yet I’m already growing quite a few new infatuations. Here are six things I’ve developed strangely obsessive, crazy love for in the past week that will probably endure throughout the next 12 months.

1. Streaming stuff

Anyone who follows tech news in the slightest knows that the shift from TV and DVD to streaming video is inevitable. (Sucks to be Blu-ray…) And many of us have certainly gotten our feet wet–even just a little–in Hulu.com‘s Web-based programing. But not until this year have I officially started to go all in for streaming anything and everything. Over the holiday I cozied up with my computer countless times to enjoy Netflix‘s selection of on-demand movies (at no additional cost to me). Feel like watching Alien at 3 in the morning? No problem. Just click and the movie begins playing. Bonus awesomeness: I got a Roku player (pictured above) in the mail yesterday. The little black box lets anyone with an unlimited Netflix subscription stream available movies directly on their TV over a WiFi or ethernet connection. Sure the selection is relatively slim (only 12,000 titles so far) compared to Netflix’s full offerings. But aside from the $100 for the box, this service is offered at no additional cost. At all! None! The picture is phenomenal, and the setup and interface are super-easy. And soon enough, one can assume, more movies and TV shows will start rolling in. My ultimate goal here–the Roku player being just the first step–is to ditch cable TV (and save like $60 a month in the process). Of course, my love of college sports and my addiction to MSNBC might get in the way of all that…

2. Ditching magazines (for the most part)

I’m sorta totally over my usual stack of magazines. My regular queue of Esquire, Rolling Stone, GQ, Wired, New York, The Fader, Fantastic Man, Purple, Spin… Those kids just aren’t doing it for me anymore. In 2009 I’m looking to cut my magazine purchases by like 90 percent, at least until these books can figure out a way to win me back that isn’t derivative content or better-left-online entertainment coverage. I will, however, be sticking with my weekly copies of New Yorker, loving the artistic beauty of Interview and every now and then perusing the awesomeness that is Decibel, one of the only music magazines still worth reading.

3. Metal

For the past few weeks, I had an itch and the only thing that can scratch it is heavy metal and its various subgenres: doom, sludge, dark, black, stoner, speed, grind, instru-, melodic, etc. For the longest time I’ve treated metal like I treat classical music, keeping it at arms length for fear of becoming too obsessed (I can’t possibly buy every benchmark recording can I?), but thanks to a healthy crop of albums from 2008 that recently dove onto my radar, that barrier’s been shattered, trampled, torched and the ashes have been pissed on. Metal helped me cure nervousness about holiday air travel and catalyzed concentration for return-to-work editing. It’s given me something to discover, something fresh and new at least to my ears. Awesomely named bands such as Krallice, Nachtmystium, Disfear (boy howdy!) and Made out of Babies dropped terrific albums this past year that I missed completely. So if you’re curious or feeling misanthropic, stay tuned to my Missing Notes blog for a rundown of my favorite new metal discoveries–with music.

4. “Man” writers

One of the perks of ditching magazines (read above) is that I have more time to read more books (one of my new year’s resolutions). At the moment, I’m sticking with writers that remind me (read: teach me) what it means to be a “man”–particularly Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway–though I’ve given my girlfriend strict orders to terminate this infatuation in the case that I unknowingly become a) sexist, b) racist, c) an asshole or d) impotent. All of which are realistic fears when dealing with such guy lit.

5. The Diane Rehm Show

Diane Rehm is a host on National Public Radio. According to Wikipedia, she’s 72. But she sounds at least 30 years older and, with every word uttered, on the brink of death. Needless to say, she and her show are amazing. Rehm’s Friday News Roundups are two hours of concise, thought-provoking, informative and enlightening week-in-review roundtable discussion. Hour one is domestic news, and hour two is devoted to international goings on. For anyone looking to stay in the know about current events without pouring through blogs and countless newspapers, these Friday segments are pure money. Subscribe to her show via podcast and enjoy the awesomeness every week.

6. The NBA

For a while there, I was through with the NBA. It was around the time when greatness was measured by Shaq’s unstopableness and hack-a-Shaq became a legitimate team strategy to win games. Yawn! But now that Shaq is fat and awful (and most likely injured or retired, I don’t even know) the league is reinvigorated with young talent and new teams vying for the title. Hell, I think I even saw a squad run a play. Imagine that! Boston is classic and way more intriguing now that the egos and hype have started to derail the train slightly. Los Angeles is a necessary evil and all the more frustratingly villainous as players other than Kobe start holding their own. And Lebron, well, he’s gonna get his title. Some day.

Peep the Ciara video for “Go Girl (feat. T-Pain) and Beyoncé newish vid for her beyond infectious track “Single Ladies” and you’ll note a certain metallic touch to the styling.

Queen B’s cuff and Ciara’s whole post-elevator get-up smacks of slick femmebot appeal that nods to the work of an incredible Japanese artist—Hajime Sorayama.

Sorayama’s hyper realistic renderings are often of languid, scantily-clad women in incredibly erotic poses (most of which are much too blue to be shown here) and the way he cannily catches the interplay of light on skin, silk, and hair is stunning to behold. Especially when you consider he never uses human models.

But it’s his capturing of light on metal that Sorayama is perhaps most
famous for. The term Gynoid was coined by a female British sci-fi
writer Gwyneth Jones to depict female cyborgs and it’s Sorayama’s
Gynoid series that is an astounding achievement. Despite their robotic
limbs, these women are no less exquisite and certainly worthy of being
inspired by.