This picture is relevant. Trust me.

You all probably hate me by now, right? I’m the dude who’s supposed to be keeping this blog up-to-date, and you feel as if I’ve neglected you. It’s OK to feel that. It’s rational. Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you. But, see, I have a reason for slacking. A sound reason, in fact. Spam. Yes, spam. Over the past week or so the comment boxes have been jammed with more ads for weight loss, vision repair and boner health than I can shake a stick at. (In retrospect, that sounds plenty perverted.) So, in short, I’ve had to trim through the fat that is 600,000 e-mails telling me I have a new comment on my Sufjan Stevens blog. The e-mails get me excited, because I’m an excitable guy, but when I check the actual comments, I’m slapped in the face with the promise to increase the blood flow in my netherregions. My blood flows just fine down there, thanks. Maybe it’s time to implement a CAPTCHA system, though that may piss off the two people who actually seriously comment on these. Who knows. I’m open for suggestion.

I’m in a pissy mood. Flooded inboxes will do that to you. But being all jumbled and crabby has given me perspective on things, specifically, the 2000s and their relation to music and life in general. Somehow. I’m not sure how being pissy can give anyone perspective, but it was admittedly a poor transition; don’t knock it. The 2000s, though. What a decade. They gave us George W. Bush, 9/11, “Lost,” Super Bowl XLII and Owl City. Oh, rejoice, for we have survived another fabulous decade. Yet, looking back at it all, I can’t help but feel indifference to the lot of it.

The problem people have with the 2000s — or the “aughts,” which has always sounded stupid and will not be used from this point forward — was that they lacked character, or flavor. There was nothing shimmering about them. As a decade, the ’60s were about hippies and protests and race riots and the space race. The ’70s were groovy, baby, and gave us “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” Farrah Fawcett and John Travolta. The ’80s stand out because of the music, the fashion and Michael Jackson’s noted blackness, while the ’90s showed us perhaps the polar opposite (bad music, bad fashion, a white MJ). But, being a Chicago kid, the 1990s also had another MJ: Michael Jordan. So it wasn’t all bad.

But these 2000s? What of them? There were no distinct styles people wore, no distinct sound the music maintained, no distinct anything, really. Or maybe that’s just what I’m feeling, personally; I mean, it’s pretty difficult to judge a decade we’re only a month or so removed from. Then, one day, I flipped on Nickelodeon — “Drake & Josh,” specifically — and it all hit me. That show was the 2000s. It was the sights, the sounds, the styles. Don’t believe me? (I wouldn’t either.)

I’m hard-pressed to come up with what specific types of clothing people wore last decade, but that’s only because the two decades previous, the ’80s and the ’90s, stand out so emphatically above the rest. Watching a teenage Drake Bell leap over his couch, however, showed me the ’00s aren’t so much about loudness and extravagance, and a life of excess, but about a reduction in character, and an overhauled sense of humbleness and subtlety. The colors people wore five, six, seven years ago were muted, the hairstyles subdued, the technology smaller, the ins and outs of who we are marginalized. And “Drake & Josh” is proof of such.

Drake is the show’s pretty boy. He’s a musician and he gets all the babes, so naturally, he dresses well and comes off charming and suave. So, naturally, being suave and dressing well means keeping up with the latest clothing trends — note his flared jeans, his tight T’s and his helmet haircut. Just what was it about those three things that makes them synonymous (to me) about the 2000s? I can admit, embarrassingly, I wanted to be like Drake. No, I wanted to be Drake, hair helmet, tight-up-top, loose-at-bottom pants and all. I shopped for tighter pants in Kohl’s girls’ department. I grew my hair out and straightened it and combed it to fit his style. Because Drake was cool. Drake was the 2000s.

There was also Josh, but beyond his excellent role in “Mean Creek,” he never contributed much to the world. Are the 2000s defined by subtlety, then? Form-fitting outfits, do-it-yourself record releases, self-starting, blogs and the blurred line between “underground” and “mainstream”? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think the decade will have a face until around 2017 or something, so I could be entirely wrong. But I’ll never forget how self-conscious a time it was living way back when three years ago. With my flare jeans. With my cool haircut. With my tight T.

Been a while d00dz, but don’t sweat it, ol’ Dereky here hasn’t forgotten about y’alls. (Why am I talking like a fourth grader with a sugar buzz? Better question: Why am I watching “Degrassi”?) A lot of cool and interesting news has broken the past few weeks, but the most important item to note is Radiohead adding itself to Twitter.

Ahem. Excuse me for a second.

RADIOHEAD IS ON TWITTER?

Yeah, yeah, you read correctly, Thom Yorke and Co. have finally signed up and will be tweeting all the important — and not so important — details of what goes into being one of the world’s biggest rock acts. Yorke himself appears to have his own account, but it’s yet to be Twitter “verified.” How does one go about being verified as “real,” anyway?

Neither Yorke’s account nor his band’s has much going on yet, but I expect there to be some interesting things happening in the coming months. New album chatter, perhaps?

So, what does the IRR community think? Is this a good move for the group?

Last month Indie Rock Reviews more or less broke the upper-left corner of the Internet when it revealed plans for a Cap’n Jazz reunion. Details at the time were sketchy, but the days following the news bulletin were telling, with two members of the group offering conflicting accounts of the supposed reunion. Davey von Bohlen, lead singer of Maritime, was interviewed by A.V. Club and said a Cap’n reunion was like “putting the cart before the horse.”

Soon after the reunion rumors started swirling, reader Seth Engel, of Chicago, e-mailed IRR saying he got in touch with Sam Zurick, who confirmed the reports. With that in mind, it was still one person’s word over another — until yesterday, when A.V. Club (and a host of others) reported that Cap’n Jazz would reunite at Chicago’s Empty Bottle Friday night. Believable or bogus, there is a lot of hype surrounding the night, which is a record release variety show for Tim Kinsella’s new compilation, “Joan of Arc Presents: Don’t Mind Control.”

Let’s examine the facts, however few and unfounded they may be. First, the “what” has already been confirmed: Cap’n Jazz, according to Zurick and several others close to the band, is reuniting. But what about the “when”? Take ex-Braid frontman and frequent Kinsella collaborator Bob Nanna’s latest tweets into account, especially this one:

Whirlwind Nashville trip almost over. Then ians pizza, @Threadless bingo, and oh yeah, cap’n jazz.

Meaningful? Meaningless? A red herring to throw us all off the scent of the band? OK, next we’ve got Oh My Rockness’s Twitter feed, which has been oozing with Cap’n Jazz-related updates. But this doesn’t prove anything — does it?

Whatever the “word on the street” is, and whatever the facts will end up being, you can believe one thing: People are excited. Even if nothing transpires, there is a hype surrounding the band and its individual members that hasn’t been there for a long, long time.

Rad news, fellas, just in time for the new year. IRR favorite Cale Parks (Aloha) has a brand-spankin’ new project in the works called BRAHMS, and it’s a good’un. Hate to keep this brief, but I’ve got an every Degrassi ever marathon to keep up with. JT got stabbed a few episodes back and everyone is pissed. But the new band’s MySpace is below for your personal enjoyment. Synth grooves, man, ya dig?

BRAHMS on MySpace.

I would like to take a brief moment to thank all our readers, supporters, followers, fans, friends and family members for making Indie Rock Reviews what it is today. Seriously, it means a lot to us. Every comment, link back to one of our posts or plug you give us, we appreciate. I appreciate.

It’s still awkward and a little confusing when I mention the site in conversation and someone stops me and says, “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” or, “I think I checked you guys out once.” It’s awkward because I’m a pessimist and don’t check our traffic, so I honestly have no idea how popular or unpopular we are. It’s confusing because when I started here, the site was so small and basic, nobody had ever heard of us. But those days are over, and we’re starting to pop up on some radars.

So, once again, from thanks for your support. If you’ve ever left a comment, clicked a link, referred the site to a friend, or even helped us out on the publicity side of things, thank you.