I am sad. I want more comments. I want a slew of people on here commenting on my whimsical yet sarcastic banter. (on a side note: can it possibly be considerd banter when there is only one person involved? ) I also want corporate sponsership. I want to be paid to write the previously-mentioned whimsicalities. That would be great. Here's my plan. For the next month t I will systematically name-drop one hot celebrity a day. This will surely increase my traffic and the inevitability of success. Speaking of success, I ran into Lindsay Lohan the other day and she gave me some great tips on how to make better use of my fridge space. I got two words for youse people- tupper ware. Well, I best be going Johnny Depp is at my door with his new muskrat. Adios.

In honor of the recent rainy weather let us remember Jonas Hanway, the first man to walk the streets of London with an umbrella. It is said he was pelted with rocks by the treet urchins for looking the fool. Let's thank him for his resolve. Otherwise I'd be a lot more wet.

He also wrote an interesting article on the evils of tea in which he blames it for bad moods, hamring teeth, depression, fits, and otherwise "spreading its baneful existance" on England.

More about the history of umbrellas here.

This may be getting a little out of hand.

After being arrested for stealing a car, then 17-year-old Devin Thompson of Alabama took a gun off of one of the police-officers, shot this and then two other officers, and fled in a stolen cop car. Thompson is now suing the makers of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for " the training of Devin … to kill three men." He is also suing Wal-Mart and another gaming store that sold it to him. Oh yeah, and don't forget Sony. They made the playstation2 unit so they're to blame too right.

But why stop there? What about Magnavox? Surely this wouldn't have happened had there been no tv to play the game on. And let's sue the Pepsi compnay that made it possible for him to stay up all hours of the night, hopped up on caffeine from Mountain Dew binges. And don't forget Sears. They sold his parents the couch that gave him such long hours of comfort while being "trained." While we're at it let's just go ahead and sue Dr. Furgeson who helped deliver baby Devin all those years ago. Isn't he partly to blame for this?

Where does the blame lie? When will the blame die?

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I am torn in two.

Here's my dilema. I like music. I like old music; I like new music. I like fast music; I like slow music. This, however, poses no problem. My problem lies in that I like digital music, and I like analog music.

I love records. I love their hugeness, the popping sound they make when the needle first hits. It makes me feel cool to own them. Miles Davis made records. He owned records. Louis Armstrong didn't have a cd collection did he? That's cool. And the art: liner notes to devour, cover images to ponder, great big beautiful labels. It is settled. Records are cool, nay awesome.

However.

I love my ipod. I love that I have 400 albums on that motherfucker. I can take it anywhere and listen to almost any album I own at any given time. Mankind has never experienced such freedom as I can each day. Pavement at 10am Tuesday? Done. ELO at 10:35? Got it. Jack Kerouac reading Dr. Sax during lunch? Yup. This is the good life.

So how do I balance this all? Do I only burn songs of albums which I have bought? Do I burn songs at all? Do I buy both the iTunes and vinyl version? (I think not) These are the things I worry about. I am pathetic. I am not, however, alone.

Read this interesting letter to fans that Sleater Kinney recently sent out, begging them not to download their new album before the finished product (art, packaging, etc) could be released.

Most children don't think like children. Some children think like police-officers, some like fireman, some like house-wives. I thought like a detective. My mom loved murder mysteries, whether in book, movie, or television form, and she instilled this love in me. We would watch Murder She Wrote together and try to figure out who the killer was. We like that about Murder She Wrote, the whole solvability factor. That's why we never watched Columbo. They always showed who had done it in the first 10 minutes, and what was the fun in that? You would spend the whole show knowing who the killer was and watching 'Ol 'Lumbo monkey around in his trench coat. Murder She Wrote was a much better choice for the mystery-lover because you the viewer could participate in the crime-solving process. When we would watch together she could always solve the mystery before the second commercial break. (My mom, I mean. Not Angela Lansburry. Though Angela Lansburry could also solve the mystery before the second commercial break. [though she never revealed her solution until the appropriate time]) At first I was often wrong in my accusations. I was sure of the butler's culpability when the real villain turned out to be none other than the wife. I was certain the girlfriend did it when it turned out to be the dad. I always fell for the not-so-subtle hints the writer dropped to lead me in the wrong direction, but soon I became wiser than him. I studied under the best tutors in the world. Professor Lansbury. Detective Enyclopedia Brown. Mme. Sawyer. Insector Holmes. My mind became a crime-solving machine. Weapons, locales, motives, and suspects all whirled around my head and sorted themselves into their proper place. To this day, every time I enter a room I'm casing the joint. I'm searcing for subtle clues. I'm solving the case. At some point this went too far. When I was a child I thought like a detective, but now that I'm a man I'm paranoid and suspicious of everyone.

Today is Shrove Tuesday. My friend James is trying to celebrate Mardi Gras style. For him this means a hawaiin shirt, Whaler's rum, cajun style Pringles, and lots of cigarettes. I am participating in 2 of the 4. We are sitting on his porch enjoying the future. AirTunes broadcasts on to the stereo. Each of us are trying to outdo the other. I win. I need to drink more rum. That would be me winning. And I need to play a kick-ass song. I think I'll serve up a little Johnny Cash. Cash always means winning. (In the monetary sense and otherwise) Apparently were all out of rum. Here's to a month of sackloth. Out.

I have a friend. For the time being, let's call him Mitch. I think Mitch is a free spirit in a world full of expensive camels. He does things that I only wish I could do. He's been to South America. I don't know what he did there for certain, but It was surely fantastic. He lives the life fantastic. He got drunk in a foreign land and beat the shit out of a mutual friend. He makes rash descisions without fear of consequences because that's the way God made him. There is no other way for him to be, and I wish I could say the same for myself. He drinks whisky indiscriminitely, and types with a religious furvor. He loves the baseball. I love that he loves the baseball. He is a funny man. He makes me want to drink absinthe and serenede the moon. I wish to sit beneath him at the table and drink whatever spirit misses his mouth with the hopes of gaining some courage (liquid or otherwise). Here's to you comrade. Happy Groundhogs Day. I hope you never see your shadow.