Random Things I've Been Obsessing Over

1) Those asinine cell phone commercials with the smirky youngsters who blab about needing a phone that works in some smashing together of several cities. If I had three wishes, one would definitely be to punch every single one of those actors in the face so hard that the writers who came up with the commercials felt it.

2) Why did Black Sabbath make a huge shift from slow, doomy metal godliness to fast, generic L.A. metal (not that there is anything wrong with that) when Ronnie James Dio joined? Seriously, the music is almost unrecognizable as Sabbath when Dio joined. Say what you will about Sammy-era VH, but Eddy sounds like Eddy, even if not the same Eddy as before, if that makes any sense. I would normally chalk it up to a switch from pot to coke, but Sabbath had already made their LA coke album, in Los Angeles of course, with Vol. 4, which features the tip of the hat to coke with "Snowblind," so unfortunately I can't necessarily blame LA for this...

3) While it was romantic for Stevie Ray Vaughan to sleep with his Strat, was that really comfortable? Really?

4) And speaking of SRV, which is funnier -- people paying $8,000 for the limited edition "Lenny" Strat that is a replica of a guitar purchased at a pawnshop for $350 in 1980, or people spending $250 or more on replica cigar box guitars that are supposed to be like the ones that poor bluesmen started with? I say its a toss up -- the Strat is more expensive, but the cigar box guitars are just mindblowing....I would love to go back in time 60 years and tell the guys in the Delta that couldn't afford the cheapest of guitars about that one...