Embarrassing! You know, I thought that my record player was broken for the last couple of days. I'd try to put the needle on the record, but the record wouldn't move. I took the thing apart to examine the belt and the belt was fine. I reset it anyway. It still didn't work. I spent several hours just staring at the thing rubbing my chin, wondering what the diagnosis could be. In the 11th hour full of panic, ready to go see what they got for record players at Circuit City's closing sale, I made the grand realization! It had become unplugged! I plugged it back in and shockingly, it began to work just perfectly like it used to. My friends, you are witnessing absolute genius. Currently listening to Queen: "The Game" and drinking black coffee.

Besides that Thin Lizzy record, a couple other new records that came out yesterday: U2's No Line On The Horizon and Neko Case's Middle Cyclone. Buddy and Julie Miller had a new record as well, but I haven't had a chance to listen to that yet. I'm not really a fan of either U2 or Neko Case. But I really enjoyed listening to the new U2. I always am impressed with The Edge's guitar work and Bono's singing. Even though we can all admit that Bono is a super annoying human being, with all that AIDS in Africa work and he's always inducting someone for some stupid award, but I'll always be the first to admit that he's a good singer. Like I said the record is pretty cool, but the little record executive inside me says, "I don't really hear a single." Now the Neko Case record, great singer as well, not nearly annoying in celebrity news as Bono. The thing that bugs me is that it's weird country music. The instrumentation isn't standard country, but the thing that makes it kind of weird is that there isn't really any hooks on the record. See, I'm a hook guy. I want a hook, I need a hook. There ain't nothing here for me to grab on to. I'm sure that if I listened to the record 35 times nonstop this week, I would love it. I really don't have time to do that. I won't do that. I just got a new Thin Lizzy live record. I got listen to that shit. And I'm also not really into the lyrics: She'll eat you, she's a whale, she's a tornado. Not even really like fun hip hop metaphors. Sorta cringe worthy. Now the album cover, I'm divided. It's either the greatest album cover (aside from those Roxy Music covers) or the worst. You decide:


Well, as for right now, I am going to say that it's the greatest album cover ever. OK best of the year. Wait did this get released this year?:


Cause if it was, than you know, that Lil Wayne wins.

Also, I just watched Murder, My Sweet the other night in my film noir class. And in the next few days, I think I'm going to rank all The Philip Marlowes on screen. In case you are not familiar, Raymond Chandler wrote a series of stories involving Private Detective Philip Marlowe. Then movies followed. He's been portrayed on screen several times but a lot of different actors: Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Elliot Gould, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, and more. I think that I just need to see The Lady In The Lake and The Falcon Takes Over (which Marlowe is not called Marlowe, but The Falcon, retarded). If you'd got a couple of cents to throw in on the matter, don't hesitate. And I'm still deciding if it's going to matter which is the closest to Chandler's version of Marlowe. I heard that Timothy Dalton was the closest to Ian Flemming's version of James Bond (Don't ask, I don't remember where or when I heard that) but that doesn't make him the best James Bond, even though I do like Timothy Dalton's Bond very much. And one other thing, I thought that The Maltese Falcon was a Philip Marlowe story for the longest time, even though it's extremely clear that the main character is named Sam Spade and it's also extremely clear that Dashill Hamet, not Raymond Chandler, wrote the Maltese Falcon. Like, I said: you are witnessing absolute genius.