I like music quite a bit, which sometimes makes me ashamed about how little I know about it. I have trouble even understanding the concepts of basslines and tempos and treble clef aria reverb synthesizers. I also don’t know a lot about the people who make music. But just in case I ever get roped into some sort of Music Knowledge contest, I’m going to make this list, so that the facts will be on the Internet to back me up! Here comes a list of the Top Ten Things PDR Knows About Music:

1. Music is played by musicians or groups of musicians (colloquially known as “bands”). The act of playing music (called a “gig”) is, in fact, a form of communicating with noise!
2. The first musician was probably Beethoven! This was ironic because in his later life, he suffered from a condition which would make it hard to appreciate music: Orneriness!
3. Instruments were first added to singing by accident after a singer forgot the words and tried to cover it by pretending to get a trombone stuck in his mouth, but it turned out even better.
4. Modern music was invented by humans (Homo Sapiens), a species on the planet Planet Earth. They use music to give people time to think between commercials on the radio!
5. Elvis Presley was a musician whose name is an anagram of “les evil’s prey” because he was constantly being hunted by Les Evil, supercannibal.
6. Rick Davies from Supertramp and Ray Davies from the Kinks are not the same person, in spite of the fact they have the exact same name!
7. Speaking of names, the band Radiohead takes their name from a song by Talking Heads. The name of that song is “Radio Head”, which leads to the astounding coincidence that the song the band took their name from, has the same name as the band! Spooky coincidences like that make me suspect their may be some truth to those people who think musicians are in league with the devil (or multiple devils).
8. They even have music in Greenland! It is not even punishable by death there!
9. Even the full twenty-three minute long version of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” is not long enough to sate me. I could listen to that song for roughly Four Hours at a time.
10. From classical to country, from reggae to rap, from folk to funk, music is always, always, capable of rocking.

Here’s the part with Phone Guys:

Okay, so, as I’ve mentioned, I’m in a state of brokeness these last few months. But having just gotten paid and having woken up pretty early by my standards, I decided to get some shopping in. Today, I’m spendin’.

First off, I went down to the comic shop to pick up the stuff in my account. I figure I should at least clean out my account every few months so they don’t hate me. Judging by the number of Captain Americas that were waiting for me, I’d say it had been three months since my last trip to the shop. While I was there, I also picked up the Hark A Vagrant book, since that’s something I wanted to pick up a few months back or whenever it was when it came out, but I wasn’t spendin’ then. Today, I’m spendin’.

Then I went and got groceries from that store that is below my apartment. I think most people will agree that food is not something I should feel bad about spenin’ on. Mostly I think I did pretty good. I got stuff that was on sale and stuff that is frozen, so I don’t panic and assume I have to eat it all right away. But then I went and bought some juice. I love juice and all, but if I’m supposed to be saving money, it is a dumb expenditure. There is water, free water, pumped into my apartment for free! Someone remind me not to buy juice ever again until I’ve got at least $2000 less debt than I’ve got now. I don’t care if I am spendin’, I could be spendin’ more wisely.

One of the other things I decided was worth spendin’ on was a pack of four Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup “bars” which, despite being called bars on the package are actually the regular three cups, which is exactly what I was expecting, I’m not complaining about that. My thought process was like this: “Those things cost $1.50 each in the vending machine at work and this pack of four costs only twice that. Sound logic. I could get them pretty cheap and they could last several days. Probably worth spendin'”

But now I’m actually looking at these things. They have simply got too much associated garbage. There’s the bag they all come in, then there’s the four wrappers for each “bar” and then each one also has a paper support thing and then each individual cup is also in a little individual cup/wrapper thing. I’m not good at math, but I’m pretty sure that adds up to A LOT of garbage. It makes me feel wasteful. Someone needs to get me a better means of enjoying Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups without producing so much waste. Until then, I don’t think I should be spendin’ on them either.

Also, I suspect they will not last as long as I’d hoped either.

Gee, I’m running late with the comics post this day.

First up: Little Choy:

Wait, what is going on here? Oh. I’m being told that Little Choy is tired of insulting humans and that, all year long, he is going to be travelling to other worlds, other galaxies, and other universes to insult aliens. You really can never tell where this guy will turn up next.

And of course, the Phone Guy are, as always, having a conversation on their phones:

A conversation between Kiiip and myself has recently made me realize that God existed before the Earth, so he is extraterrestrial, and thus an alien. Kiiip amended it to make it clear: He’s an Illegal Alien. God has no legal right to live here on Earth and he is taking our jobs and our women (our virgins, even). And then he had a kid, an anchor baby, to give him a credible claim to humanity. Go figure. We shoulda built a fence.

Haiku!

I see frankensteins.
They’re coming for me. Oh no.
I must run away!

Not much of note just now. Trying to get more things done at once than I’m actually getting done. To make things worse, Marq is again Internetless. I’m going to have to find some superior way of making us millionaires. A quicker way.

At this exact moment I’m weighing the pros and cons of taking a nap. Cons are currently winning, but my eyelids are really filibustering here.

Hey, a few days ago was Groundhog Day. I didn’t consciously know it was coming, but I must have subconsciously, because my dream the night before had Bill Murray in it. So that’s neat.