Music section updated with some tasty new tracks that are being spun out here on the kick-ass alternative stations. Usual rules of courtesy apply.

In similar news, dooce was forced to take down her music page due to bandwidth costs. She's the reason why I started putting music up here -- I've always loved sharing good music with others, and I've enjoyed seeing and hearing what other people listen to. It's not the artists I'm protesting by downloading music, it's the record labels -- both because of the rising costs they're putting on things and also because of the fact that most of the music they're allowing out to the public these days is absolute crap. I'd gladly pay a monthly fee to a company like Napster if the selection was good and the audio quality was worth it, but the record companies are intent on squeezing every last red cent out of the consumers and not giving much back to their artists. I know for a fact it doesn't cost $17.99 to record, market, produce and ship a CD, but I can't seem to find a disc for much less than that these days. One of my former co-workers used to work for a record label and he often told me that the recording industry was one of the most cutthroat industries out there, and they'll stab whoever they need to in the back in order to make a buck.

The revolution will not be televised. Let it spread from computer to computer, from MP3 player to MP3 player, from CD burner to CD burner. Music is about the artistic expression, not the money. ("Although some money would be nice...")

Today I received a package that my parents had sent out to me. Just some random things -- the DVD remote that I accidentally left behind, refund checks from my insurance agency for cancelling my car and renter's insurance since I didn't need it anymore, a copy of Esquire that came after I'd left. Mom also included souvenirs of her last trip to New York City: a piece of concrete from Ground Zero that she had taken the last time she was there and a hat that says "New York City Ground Zero" on it. My family has an odd way of collecting souvenirs. For some reason, we collect rocks or other small pieces of things, but mostly rocks. I have a rock from Pompeii where Mount Vesuvius erupted, I have a piece of brick from Red Square in Moscow, I have a small piece of the red carpet from the Cannes Film Festival. And now I have a piece of Ground Zero.

For the first time since September 11th, I found my eyes welling up with tears as I held this piece of concrete no bigger than the palm of my hand that had been shipped 3000 miles to me. It wasn't a longing for home. It was a realization that out of those mighty buildings that had been there, this was all that was left. So much work that went into those buildings, so much time and energy expended on them, and they were brought down in the space of a few hours. All those wasted lives cut short, all the experiences they'll never have and all the people they left behind. All wrapped up in one little piece of concrete.

I briefly put on the hat and looked in the mirror. It fits and it actually looks good on me, which is odd because I don't normally look good at all in hats. But after a few seconds of staring at my reflection, I took it off. And I won't put it back on, most likely ever again. Because even though it's one of maybe five or so hats that I've ever looked good wearing during my entire life, I just can't bring myself to support the commercialization of this tragedy. Too many good people died, too much pain and suffering has taken place as a result of this for me to trivialize it with a baseball hat or a t-shirt or something of that nature. I will remember them and honor them in my own way, but I don't need to buy a flag or a hat to do that.

Before I left for California, I switched cars with my father. He graciously gave me his newer car since it was a little bigger and was in a little better shape than mine. He didn't think my old car would be able to make the trip across the country. Plus, they're planning on selling one of their cars and only taking one across the country for their own move, so they wanted to sell off my older car rather than their newer one.

Dad wrote me an e-mail a few days ago saying that there were problems with my old car and he didn't know how long she was going to last. I felt a rather strong pang of guilt for leaving her behind in Connecticut to "die a slow death," as it were, since we'd been through so much together and I had always thought she'd last a lot longer. She was definitely an extension of me, we made quite the team and I still haven't fully accepted the car I'm driving now as "my own." That is, until I got another e-mail from my mother this morning. The problem with the car had been solved. Dad found out what it was just before he was getting ready to take the car to a mechanic to have her looked at. He had gone shopping a week ago, bought broccoli and a gallon of milk, then forgot them in the trunk and left them there to spoil. The smell had permeated the car and he thought it was a problem with the engine. So instead of taking the car to the mechanic's shop (who conceivably could've either laughed their asses off as I did or charged him an exorbitant amount of money for some made-up repair... or done both), he took the car to an auto cleaner who is fumigating the car and shampooing the fabric inside the cabin and trunk.

I really should've expected something like this. We are talking about people who had to call me long-distance to ask me how to fix their computer and program their VCR. And Apple says their iMacs are relatively idiot-proof... well, they haven't tested them against my parents. They're brilliant people in their own way, but technologically, they're like island natives and I am their missionary, coming to bring them into the modern age and civilize them using the Internet.

Why I Blog:
- I enjoy writing. Blogging gives me the ability to express myself without having to worry about losing interest, since I've got a ton of started-and-unfinished stories because I just lost interest in writing them. Blog entries are as short or as long as I want them to be, and I don't have to worry about developing a plot or a character over the space of a period of time. I can write one (and sometimes more than one) in a single sitting.
- I'll be honest. It gives me a certain satisfaction when people read my blog, especially when they tell me they like my writing. Fans are a great ego-booster. Don't deny it, you know you like having fans too.
- I like the interaction with my readers. I like having a public forum to say what's on my mind and have people either relate to it or argue it with me or agree with me.
- I'll be honest some more. I like talking about myself. If I didn't, I wouldn't blog. And neither would you if you didn't like talking about yourself.

Why I Shouldn't:
- I say some controversial things here. One of these days, my big mouth will get me in trouble and something I've written will come back to bite me in the ass.
- I'm sure I'm on John Ashcroft's list of Public Enemies for all my anti-President Moron remarks and tirades.
- It's a little disconcerting to me when I'm interacting with someone and they know things I haven't told them personally. Especially if I've never met them before. I know that this is a public forum for me where I frequently post details about my life, but when someone I've never met knows intricate details of my life and brings them up to me, I get a little weirded out. One of my close friends already knew that I'd gotten the Dream Job before I had a chance to call him and tell him because he read it on my blog, and when he said "I know" when I told him, I had to ask him how he knew because I didn't realize it.

Eh. All in all, I think I'll keep doing it for a while.

I can't stand white chocolate. Milk chocolate is okay, but you can really jumpstart my engine with some dark chocolate. That's why I prefer Mounds over Almond Joy, even though Almond Joy is the better-selling candy bar. Strangely enough, I seem to be viewed as a pariah among some because I do prefer dark chocolate. I consider myself a connoisseur though.

When I was a teenager, my parents took me to Boston to go to a "chocolate buffet" that a hotel held every Saturday afternoon during winters. It was abject heaven. Imagine several tables filled with cakes, cookies, chocolate fondues with fruits to dip, cheesecakes -- all chocolate or chocolate-based. And it was all-you-can-eat. Had I made plans to go on a regular basis when I lived there, I would've been the fattest person in all of Boston.

I spent 12 hours at work today. It's printing day, and everyone works a little longer on printing day. And you know what? I didn't think twice about it and I didn't mind at all because I love my job. And I hate to keep dwelling on it since I feel like I keep covering the same ground when I say it, but I'm so happy here. For the first time in a long time, I'm really content. Now I just need to lose all that weight I put on in the past couple of months.

The only thing that bothers me is that the playing field has been leveled. I used to be able to easily distinguish myself at the other places where I worked because I was "the interesting one." I was a former professional radio DJ. I had a firm grip on the entertainment industry and could be relied upon to answer the most obscure of pop culture questions. I was the music guru. I had met famous people through my former jobs and through friends. But no more. I realized that today when someone had a question that at any other job, they wouldn't have had a clue what the answer was and come immediately to me. But the person not only had some idea of what the answer was, she didn't come to me to confirm it -- she went to the person sitting next to me. Not that I minded that she asked someone else, but it was just kind of a harsh awakening to the fact that I'm no longer considered the All-Knowing Swami of Pop Culture and Media. It was reinforced when I was discussing music with the person sitting next to me and the topic wandered towards Matthew Sweet so I offhandedly mentioned that I had met him. Usually, I get a response of "ohmygod, you met Matthew Sweet? How cool is that!!!" But the response didn't come and I quickly understood why: in this industry, in this town, in this workplace, there are so many famous people that stop by or are seen or interacted with that name-dropping doesn't really have an effect like it did back East.

I am not a unique snowflake. I'm part of a damn cool and interesting blizzard though.

On various occasions, I've seen women exiting a Men's Room with a sheepish grin (that damn cute smile that always gets them off the hook -- it's like that look a pet gives you when it knows it's in trouble and it pulls that "how could you be angry at me? I'm so cute!" look -- but I digress) and explain it by saying that the line for the Ladies' Room was a bit too long and they just had to go.

Personally, I have no problems with a woman using a men's room. I just can't see why women would want to use a men's room.

Let's be frank. Women's bathrooms are usually much cleaner than men's. Men sometimes have aiming troubles, especially when we're chemically enhanced. And it's also a well-known fact that men don't put the seat up or down that often -- I'm sure all the women out there have stories of their boyfriends and the troubles of trying to break him of the habit of leaving the seat up. Quite frankly, the thought of sitting down on a disgusting toilet is pretty repellant to me. That's why I avoid public restrooms. I'll do Number One because I can just unzip and let 'er rip, but I just can't handle Number Two in public. I'll wait until I get to a minorly "trustworthy" toilet. No sitting down for me.

Dear Lord, I sound like a "Seinfeld" episode just waiting to happen.

So they lit up a nice "monument" at the WTC site to commemorate 9/11. Two points of light. I just hope President Moron doesn't cause 998 more buildings in America to be taken out by terrorists or other hostile forces just so we can have the "thousand points of light" his daddy preached about during his tenure.

I'm tired, it's been a long day. To top things off, I think my new roommate is having some issues with having to share his space. On top of a number of other issues, when I brought up getting some extra channels (such as HBO and MTV2), he freaked out and started talking about how he's been here for 2 1/2 years and has things a certain way that he likes and there's a sense of consistency because it's his home. I had to tell him that's fine and I'm not trying to upset his delicate balance, but he has to look at it from my point of view since this is my home now too and I don't want to have to feel like a guest in someone else's place in my own home. Either way, I get the distinct feeling that he's not pleased with me getting furniture and unpacking my stuff (he kept making comments about how much stuff I had) because it creates a sense of permanence that he might be uncomfortable with. I also get the distinct feeling that he views it as his place, no matter who's living there, and anyone else who moves in is just a temporary partycrasher. That would explain why he made up all these excuses about how the mailman knows he has roommates and why he didn't have to put my name up on the mailbox.

I don't relish the prospect of just setting up my room with the intent of spending all of my time in it, but I will. Basically, I'll have a TV and my entertainment center set up, my computer with all my music and (eventually) my DSL (which he also got a little ruffled about, saying that it required a contract and what if we decide we don't like living together, it would be a hassle to undo it) and a fairly big space. It wouldn't be so bad, I've done it before. I just hate feeling like a prisoner or a guest in my own home. And as of next Wednesday when I get my California driver's license with this address on it, it will officially be my home -- at least as far as the state's concerned.

Has anyone else noticed that we still haven't caught Osama bin Laden? Need I remind anyone that we're coming up on the six month anniversary of September 11th, and our country with its nanosecond-long attention span is already starting to forget what happened and going back to the tabloid-esque stories that gripped our attention prior to 9/11 and complaining about the increased security measures? Did anyone notice what an incredibly long run-on sentence that was? There's some old trite saying about those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. So will someone please tell me why, when we gave arms to the Afghan mudjaheddin in the '80s and expected them to win because the Soviets had little experience fighting in a cold, mountainous terrain where superior firepower had little advantage, we now expect to win a war under the same circumstances where we're probably fighting our own weaponry albeit only 20 years older? Machine guns and RPG shoulder-launched missiles and SAMs haven't changed that much in the last 15 years, so we're basically fighting people who are using our own weapons against us. In addition, we don't have much experience at all fighting in the type of battlefield that our forces are currently waging war in, plus the Afghans know where all the hideouts are and they're experienced in using the terrain to their advantage. Funny how in such a relatively short amount of time (when you look at the big picture), the perception of a people can go from Poor Oppressed Masses Fighting the Evil Communist Empire to Wily and Devious Terrorists Who Will Be Smote by Superior American Forces Because We're Better and We Have Justice On Our Side.

I think President Moron may have found his own personal little Vietnam. We've become embroiled in this and it's going to be very hard to pull out without looking bad, yet I don't think we're ever going to be able to fully declare victory over Al Qaeda. They're too spread out all over the world -- and if we just start romping through the Middle East to take out terrorist cells in various countries, it probably won't sit well with those countries' governments -- and it'd be an incredible loss of face for little Georgie to admit a stalemate at the hands of some third-world radicals. Either that, or one day, we'll just wake up to a press conference where Donald Rumsfeld declares that the War on Terrorism is over because we just weren't paying enough attention to it.

In other news, my willpower has gone completely down the tubes and I'm eating everything in sight. I just hope I can put a reign on it before Krispy Kreme Thursday, or else there will be a scene in the break room much like that of a Looney Tunes cartoon involving the Tasmanian Devil.

Where did the expression "happy as a clam" come from? If I were a clam, I wouldn't be that happy. Destined for a short life of being cooked, shelled, sliced, diced and eaten? That wouldn't make me very bloody happy at all. If I were a clam, I think the only thing that would make me happy is a nice undisturbed clam bed somewhere near the Bahamas.

I had a mild hysterical breakdown in the supermarket tonight. I couldn't help it. I just stood there laughing uncontrollably. Thankfully, it wasn't an all-out guffaw, I was able to pretty much hold most of it in so I didn't attract too much attention. However, it took over a minute to calm myself down to the point where I could proceed without too much trouble. Those of you who live in the Northeast are well-versed in the Blue Laws. For those of you who don't know what Blue Laws are, they're horrifically outdated Puritannical state-imposed laws that forbid various unwholesome activities on Sundays. In the Northeast, this translates to the fact that all sales of alcohol are banned on Sundays and past certain hours. Liquor stores (since in the Northeast, liquor is sold in separate stores) close at around 8PM in eastern Connecticut, in Boston they close at 11PM. So if you're having a party and you run out of alcohol at 10:45, you better pray there's a liquor store across the street or else your party's going to end early with some disappointed partygoers. If it's Sunday and your buddy forgot to buy beer for the big game on TV, you'll probably end up sending him to New Hampshire, the only state in the Northeast that has state-run liquor stores and allows liquor sales on Sundays.

But this is the West Coast, not the East. And the sun may rise where I come from, but here is where it sets. And they're very liberal in a healthy way here.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen -- they allow liquor sales on Sundays here. And their liquor is in the supermarkets. So there I am, standing at 9:30PM in the middle of a Ralph's supermarket, amidst three rows of liquor for sale, laughing my ass off as the impact of where I am hits home. But quietly. So I got myself a sixer. I really didn't have a burning desire to drink beer on a Sunday night, but I just had to buy it anyways.

So as I sit here, typing away and drinking my beer, I raise my bottle and say, "It's all good, yo."

Now I know where the lower strata of Los Angeles society congregate, for I have seen it with my own eyes. It's a place in a strip mall called "Target," which some try to make upscale by pronouncing it "tarjé."

Truly, Target attracts the crowd of people who have been told "you are not welcome on these beaches." I saw it all. From mu-mu-wearers to women with moustaches to five hundred pound men looking longingly at the industrial-size Twinkie boxes on sale, I was witness to a slice of society not normally associated with the firm bodies and gorgeous looks of Southern California.

Not only that, but on my way out of the store, I was accosted by both the Girl Scouts and the Scientologists and the Hare Krishnas, all pitching their wares and brochures. I'm not making this up. Why should I? My life is already weird enough, I don't need to make anything up.

Where am I off to now? The next ring of Hell -- IKEA.

Random tidbits:

- More license plate madness: 2COOL4U, ALWYSRT (always right), HOTPINK, TOOFINE

- I could always tell when I really liked someone, because I'd always get nauseous when I was around her. I think that's the reason why I lost so much weight during my freshman year of college, because I fell hard for someone who enjoyed spending time with me (but just as friends), so I never ate because I was always nauseous. So I need to find someone out here to fall in love with so I can lose some weight already.

- I'm beginning to suspect my new roommate has a bit of OCD. He's putting things in piles -- even things that I leave down in the kitchen, like the accoutrements to my George Foreman grill which he stacked up on the counter -- and repeatedly warns me about not waking the neighbors. He also is a bit tense about the carpets, he doesn't want anyone coming in to the apartment wearing shoes. Even when I was just bringing my stuff into the foyer so I could get it out of my car, he kept saying he didn't want shoes on in the apartment -- left a note to remind me as well -- but needless to say, when he's not around...

- My new pillows smell a bit like charcoal. Is this normal?

- For some reason, Boston is very dusty. My stuff would accumulate massive amounts of dust and I'd have to clean regularly. When I moved out, I found huge-ass dust balls in areas that I never was able to get to with a vacuum (under the bed, for example). Apparently, I brought some with me -- I just looked over at my clockradio and noticed that there's a layer of dust stuffed in the crevices around the buttons. I'll clean them out, but I hope L.A. is a little less dusty.

So I decided to treat my car this morning with a hand washing. She was pretty filthy since she hadn't been cleaned since we left the East Coast, and we had passed by a car wash on Santa Monica Boulevard labeled "The Best Hand-Wash Says KNBC" and both looked longingly at it. So this morning, as a treat for moving all my stuff into the new place last night, I took her over. Of course, Murphy's Law of Cleanliness was in full effect, and as soon as I pulled out of their parking lot with a gleaming clean car, a bird crapped on my windshield.

The cars at the wash weren't as interesting as their license plates. Californians seem to have a fascination with vanity plates. Some of the more original ones included:
- ILSUE4U
- TX LWYR
- CLS OF 88
- 2HIP4U
- ALLSWEL
- LUV2SKI

And my personal favorite:
- O2LVNLA (oh, to live in L.A.)