So Little Time: Don't panic. Updates will be sporadic at best for the next week. But as always, I will return with lots of new material. Fear me.

Sleazebag Watch: No sooner do I post that ridiculous piece of spam I posted yesterday than I get another one from them:

You urgently should send 535 $ to the address
Details for transfers (in USD):
Beneficiary:acc.# [[account number censored]]
Personal datas: [[name censored]]
Beneficiary's Bank: SAVINGS BANK OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION SIBIRSKIY OFFICE
KIROVSKIY BRANCH 8047 SWIFT: SABRRUMMNH1
Beneficiary's Bank account: [[account number censored]]
Intermediary Bank: THE BANK OF New York SWIFT: IRVTUS3N
Question of life and death!
Your destiny and destiny of many people depends on you!

So it turns out that $535 is the exact amount that will save lives. Whodathunkit? Morons. No wonder they lost the cold war.

Band of the Year: Since I've been commenting on CDs I've been listening to, let me just say that the Band of the Year for 2001 was Pizzicato Five. I know they've been around forever (long enough that they broke up before last year), but last year was when I discovered them and that's all that counts. The music is part j-pop, part sixties movie soundtrack style, and a bit of manic jazz. The lyrics are mostly Japanese with smatterings of French and English. You ain't gonna hear it on the radio. The correct CDs to buy in order are: 1) Playboy Playgirl, 2) The Fifth Release From Matador, 3) Happy End of the World. I'm going to rip all three and just set Winamp to shuffle mode.