And You Jump Like a Son of a Gun

I used to love to make mix tapes.

I'd spend hours choosing the songs, then mapping out the order... drawing the artwork for the sleeves... those were the salad days, my friends.

I'd give 'em to girlfriends; I'd give them to strangers at the bowling alley... but what I'd never do was tell anyone that each tape had a very special, very unique theme.

Any yahoo can make a "Songs to listen to in the dark" mix, or a "Bitch left me and took my Scorps T-shirt" mix... hell, I made two of those in 1986.... I'd like to think my themes were more... esoteric.

In 1991 I made the "Lead singers with at least one sibling with Cystic Fibrosis" tape. 1994 saw the arrival of "The sum of the numerical values of each band's drummer's name equals 103..." that was a good year. Of course 1996 gave us "Bands represented by Quakers."

Obviously, the day of the mix tape is gone... all but a memory, misty and water-colored.... I've tried to get into burning mix CDs... but it's just not the same. I actually miss sitting on the floor, surrounded by LPs and counting off BPM while gulping down Lucky Lagers. Maybe, God help me, I've outgrown mixing music... but I haven't outgrown amusing myself with stupidly-obscure themes or almost-impossible-to-grasp narrative threads, dammit!

To wit: you probably haven't noticed, but each day I post a bunch of items there's a common theme that unites them. Sometimes it's obvious (here's a popular theme: "Dubya is a dickwad!"), and sometimes it's not so obvious... like the time the theme of the day was "Women of 80's Bay Area Weathercasting." I'm pretty proud of that one.

So... wanna' play a game Dr. Falken? Whenever I post a bunch of stuff on any given day, try to figure out the day's theme! It'll be fun! Leave me your guesses in the comments... or maybe we'll post 'em in the forum... have you seen my forum? It's pretty much just me and Joe trading quips, but even that's a party! You should check it out! It's over there to the left... it reads "ENTER MY FORUM."

If anyone wants to play, I'll be happy to play along and announce previous days' themes a few days after the original post. We could even play for your favorite charity, if that makes it more appealing... 'cept you'd have to make the donations... but it's for the kids, right? So everybody wins!

So, now that I've revealed the existence of my little blog's countless, underlying, random themes... what do you think today's theme is? I defy anyone to uncover today's theme! HA! That's right: consider yourselves defied.

Good luck... and remember: the Dude abides.