Jimmy Buffett makes an appearance in today’s Reality Check comic strip by Dave Whamond:

(hat tip Steve for passing this along)

After the two Sydney Opera House shows sold out in mere minutes, Jimmy Buffett has added a third show Down Under, reported Richard Wilkins on this morning’s Today Show.

Buffett will perform at the Hordern Pavilion in Moore Park, Sydney on Australia Day: January 26th.

Tickets go on sale January 7th.

Buffett’s previously announced Sydney shows will take place January 23rd and 24th at the Opera House. There is also an Auckland, New Zealand show in the works.

Update – Buffett comments on the strong demand:

“I had no idea we had so many birds in our nest down under. I was just thinking that the kinds of crowd we would expect in Sydney would be on par with the size of audiences we play to in Europe. Boy was I wonderfully wrong about that. We are happy and glad to add another show. It also means more surf time for me.” Jimmy commented from Florida this weekend.

An exclusive Internet Pre-Sale will be available for all current Chugg Entertainment Members, as well as those that sign up before 5pm (AEDT) Sunday 2nd January 2011. An email containing all relevant Pre-Sale information will be sent to Chugg Entertainment Members on the afternoon of Wednesday 5th January, allowing them access to tickets from 9am – 5pm, Thursday 6th January, or until the Pre-Sale allocation is exhausted.

We’ve parsed the numbers… here’s the top Buffett World headlines from 2010, taking into account page views and Facebook ‘Likes’.

What do you think is the biggest Jimmy Buffett story of the year?

1. Jul. 11th – Buffett & Friends Play for The Gulf Coast
2. Jan. 20th – Margaritaville to Open in Niagara Falls This Spring
3. Nov. 24th – Buffett to Play Australia in January
4. May 13th – Margaritaville Hotel Coming to Pensacola Beach
5. Mar. 19th – Jimmy Buffett and Zac Brown do CMT Crossroads
6. Feb. 12th – Buffett Releases Live Acoustic Album “Encores”
7. Mar. 25th – Buffett Being Considered for 2011 Super Bowl
8. Jun. 13th – Margaritaville Beach Hotel Planned for Myrtle Beach
9. Jun. 28th – Gulf Coast Concert Rescheduled for July 11th
10. Jun. 20th – Buffett Announces Free Show for the Gulf

We’ll do a full 2010 Year In Review in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for that!

Check this out…. a home Christmas light display set to the tune of Jimmy Buffett’s Christmas Island:

(hat tip Rick)

Jimmy Buffett is lending his voice to a Mark Twain tribute album that is being put together by the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Missouri:

The country-flavored CD is still a work in progress. Some of the audio is still scratchy around the edges. Carl Jackson’s voice fills in for Jimmy Buffett’s throughout the current product as he waits for Buffett, a late contributor, to finish recording his spoken-word turn as Twain’s ragamuffin hero Huckleberry Finn.

Clint Eastwood plays the voice of Twain in the dialog with Buffett that will buffer between the musical numbers on the album. Other artists lending their voice and musical talents include Brad Paisley, EmmyLou Harris, Vince Gill, former Shenandoah frontman Marty Raybon, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, and more.

Mark Twain has been very influential on the music and writings of Jimmy, most notably on the songs That’s What Living Is To Me and Take Another Road.

The museum hopes to release the album in time for the holidays.

The space shuttle program is winding down and NASA is giving you the chance to decide what wakeup songs will be played for the final missions.

The wakeup song has been a part of the space program since the days of the Apollo missions. Jimmy Buffett’s music has been played at least three times: “Window on the World” earlier this year, “Oysters and Pearls” in 2008, and “Twelve Volt Man” in 2006.

NASA has chosen 40 previously played wakeup songs (with Jimmy’s “Window on the World” being one of them) and they want you to vote for your favorite. The two songs with the most votes will be played during the STS-133 mission that is scheduled to launch on November 1st.

Go to songcontest.nasa.gov to vote for Jimmy now!

“Window on the World” is currently at #9 with 1,900 votes. The current top two vote-getters are the “Star Trek Theme Song” with 23,000 votes and “Countdown” by Rush with 17,000 votes, so Jimmy needs our help!

Jimmy Buffett was interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Thursday. They walked the beach and discussed the oil spill and its effect on the coastal communities. If there was one message Jimmy was trying to get out, it was that he wanted folks to come down… either to help out or just come down and visit the beaches with your family.

Here’s a portion of the interview:

Cooper plans to air more of the interview on Friday and Monday. If more video is posted online, we’ll bring it to you.

CNN.com:

“This is the beach of my misspent youth,” he said, as we began to stroll along the water’s edge.

“You’re not human if anger isn’t the first emotion,” says Buffett, who has long been involved in environmental causes.

“Can Margaritaville survive an oil slick?” I ask. “Sure, hell, we’ll survive,” he says quickly, “people on this coast can survive anything. I mean, it’s another storm, it happens to be one we’re not quite used to in terms of what it’s leaving behind, but you know, this is hurricane country and people bounce back, and I love the resilience of people.”

Buffett himself has just opened up a hotel in Pensacola Beach, not great timing he admits, but he is not surprised this spill has lasted so long. He says he didn’t believe the early estimates put out by BP about the oil flow.

“You know what,” he says,”I’ve been in show business a long time, I know liars when I hear them. I thought they were lying from the beginning. That’s just me personally.”

The Gulf Breeze News has a great article on the recently announced Margaritaville Beach Hotel in Pensacola, Florida. According to the article, the ball began rolling back in March. In fact, the March 31st impromptu show at the Panama City Margaritaville came after Buffett toured the hotel property.

Marilyn Hess feels as if she won the lottery. As head of Little Sabine, Inc., she was finalizing the details to open a Gulf-front hotel on Pensacola Beach, replacing the Holiday Inn that Hurricane Ivan washed away in 2004.

A phone call from a friend turned her plans upside down.

She met the friend, who is also involved in hotel development in Atlanta, when in walked Jimmy Buffett and the CEO of Margaritaville Holdings, John Cohlan.

A few days later, Buffett came to tour the nearly completed hotel and invited Hess along on a road trip to his Margaritaville Café in Panama City where he planned an impromptu performance.

Hess said she couldn’t believe she was on a road trip with Jimmy Buffet, music legend and connoisseur of the laidback lifestyle, and felt like a teenager.

“He is charming and delightful,” Hess said of Buffett.

To top it off, Buffett insisted on stopping each and every Budweiser beer truck he encountered to chat with the drivers and talk about his Land Shark Lager.

“He pulled into the Circle K in Navarre because he saw the beer truck there, and he took pictures with everybody,” Hess said. The employee behind the counter begged for a photo to show her boss, a Parrot Head who otherwise wouldn’t believe he missed the chance to meet his idol.

The article also reveals some details on the hotel:

To meet the target opening in mid to late June for the Margaritaville Beach Hotel, workers are retrofitting the kitchen to accommodate “Frank and Lola’s” restaurant inside the hotel so it can serve signature Margaritaville Café dishes such as the “cheeseburger in paradise.” A pool bar is being constructed as well as an outdoor bar and entertainment area tentatively named “Land Shark Landing.” The Margaritaville Café is scheduled to open on a parcel adjacent to the hotel in Spring of 2011.

Room rates will range from $195 to $450 per night depending on the season and accommodations. Margaritaville Beach Hotel will offer meeting space, a board room and a spectacular view of the Gulf of Mexico through massive glass windows.

“It will have the most beautiful bar area you can imagine,” Hess said.

The article also says that USA Today will feature a spread on the hotel this Friday.

Read the full article here.

Jimmy Buffett’s official website Margaritaville.com has received a makeover. There doesn’t appear to be many new features, just mainly cosmetic changes. And the tour dates page seems to have been completed before the fall dates were added, because they are not listed.

Here’s a quick tour of how the Margaritaville.com site has changed over the years. How far back do you remember?

1997

1998

1999

2001

2002-2003

2004-2005

2006-2007

2008-2009

Tickets for the October 21st Jimmy Buffett show at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, California go on sale Monday morning at 10 am PT through TicketMaster.

Click here for TicketMaster direct link

Prices are $30 and $130, plus fees.

And if you’re new to buying tickets to Jimmy Buffett shows, read our Ticket Buying Tips.