Writing Makes My Head Hurt

By Alex Wendt

It's been a little quiet as of late around these parts, unless you count Dave's appearance on Politically Incorrect, or the boys being on the MTV Video Music Awards. I've started working nights, so I missed both of these occurrences, and based on what I've been hearing, it's just as well that I didn't catch the VMAs. It's not like I lost sleep over it in the first place.

Lately, there's been a lot of other things going on in my life and in the world around me, so I thought I'd just run down things I've been paying attention to, my views, etc. You might agree, you might not.

The rules of every New Fall Television Lineup.

1. At least one new show must use "Unbelievable" by EMF in its commercial.

2. The Olsen Twins must be in either a Saturday Cartoon preview show or an evening network show.

3. More feminine hygiene products are advertised during "Ally McBeal" and other "girl-friendly" shows than at any other time during the week. You think I'm joking. Pay attention.

4. Include at least 3 shows that contain truly unfunny comics.

5. Confuse the hell out of me by taking a comedian, put said comedian in a show, give him/her a different name on the show itself, but name it after their real name. What do I mean? A good example is "Costello" on CBS; her real name is Sue Costello, but on the show, it's something completely different. Why? What's the point?

Red Hat Linux 5.1.

Aubrey King (my infamous partner in crime) and I have been geeked over this for weeks. We both own it. Unless you are a die-hard computer geek like myself (and that's said in a good way), this probably won't mean much to you. If you have an old 486 and Windows 3.11 isn't satisfying you the way it should, maybe you should pick this up. At least go to http://www.linux.org or http://www.redhat.com and see what I'm talking about. Props go out to Waldo Jaquith for having the link to linux.org that I first clicked on.

Some music I've been paying attention to.

Granted, these selections aren't for everybody, but they're worth checking out.

"Follow The Leader", Korn "Return Of The Candyman", Charlie Hunter and Pound For Pound "Renegade Master", Wildchild "Decksanddrumsandrockandroll", Propellerheads

These are just some releases that are worth checking out. No, I don't expect everyone to be a Korn fan or a Propellerheads fan...but I figured you might see something worthwhile here.

Commercial holidays.

I'm hoping that the holidays get less commercial this year, but good luck to that. As of late August, the local drugstores were carrying jack o'lanterns for trick-or-treating. Come on already. Christmas last year was okay; the high point was the party I threw where people drank their way into Christmas 97, and one friend of mine mixed Kahlua with everything else at the bar. He stayed til 7 in the morning. Now THAT's Christmasy.

DMB news.

I'm hearing there's new tour dates in the future. I'm kinda geeked for that. Roadtrip, anyone?