The always prolific Neil Young has few big projects going on right now.  The first has been in the works since the 80s and (cross your fingers, will be coming out soon)…  Neil has been teasing his fans with the prospect of his Archives project for decades – always putting it on hold because the technology wasn’t there yet.  See Neil at the JavaOne 2008 conference unveiling his project that will be coming out on DVD and Blueray.

See part two here.

In addition to the archives project Neil has been working on unveiling an electric car.  Nicknamed “Linc Volt”, Neil has been retrofitting his 1959 Lincoln Continental with an electric engine with his team.  The Car will be entered into the Automotive X Prize that is offering a $10 million prize to develop a vehicle that gets 100 mpg plus.  The car is also the subject of a upcoming documentary being put out by Neil’s film company Shakey Pictures called “Repowering The American Dream”.  See a video about it below and read Neil’s Huffington Posts about the project and electric cars here.

Lastly you will see Neil’s new album that is being released on March 31st 2009.  It’s called Fork In The Road and you can watch the music video for the first single below.

Shirley Manson of the late 90s alternative rock group Garbage is now a Terminator.  Shirley plays Catherine Weaver the CEO of a mysterious technology company and secretly a…. T1000, a liquid metal killing machine on Fox show Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  See Shirley in her bizarre killing machine debut in the 2nd season premiere below.

Surprisingly the show isn’t too bad.  The writing isn’t always that great, but what do you really expect from a science fiction show on Fox.

Instead of writing up my own explanation of what Metacritic.com has to offer and why I like it I will let it speak for itself.  Here is the description straight from the site.

“Metacritic compiles reviews from respected critics and publications for film, video/dvd, books, music, television and games.

Our unique Metascores show the critical consensus at a glance by taking a weighted average of critic grades.”

Much like Rottentomatoes.com metacritic has the critics score as well as an average rating from visitors.  Unfortunately the sites back catalog of reviews is a little light, as they only started compiling info on new releases as of 2000.

The well respected Pitchforkmedia.com and now Pitchfork.tv are now dual heads of a burgeoning internet giant and tastemaker.  Established in 1995 by fellow Minnesotan Ryan Schreiber.  The headquarters was moved to Chicago in 1999 and in recent years has expanded to an additional office in New York City.

Pitchfork is a daily visit for the music focused, myself included.  Personally I enjoy the news portion of the site as it is one of the sole places you can get news about serious/indie music on the internet.  The album review portion of the website is also extremely vital although it can be a little labored/pretentious for my taste.  I prefer to just read the short sinopsys and note the albums rating.  One of my largest disagreements with the site is the fact they only do 5 reviews every weekday and they end up missing some very vital releases.  Then again my tastes have always been caught between the obscure and rightfully accessible.  Another notable section on the website are the features that they periodically post.  Including interviews, best of lists, and live show reviews.  Speaking of live shows Pitchfork started hosting live music festivals a few years back featuring 3 days of bands.  I myself have made it for the last two years and would suggest it to anyone that is into independant music.

Pitchfork.tv is a newer edition to this media empire.  It is what it sounds like… an visual media extension of the original website where they host a bunch of original content, music videos and a one week only feature.  My favorites from this site are the sketch comedy show produced by the lead singer of the band Les Savy Fav – Tim Harrington and one week only feature where you can tune into a new music documentary each week.