THE GREAT GADFLY:

I Wanna Wake You Like An Animal

I hereby openly testify that, for my money, when your evil Phantom-Zone-refugee downstairs neighbors have kept you awake all night with their mid-weekly Kryptonian meth bender, cackling and blasting "Grand Theft Auto" until the wee hours of the morning and thereby depriving you of much-needed sleep, nothing is more satisfying than rolling out of bed at 6:30 a.m., gently placing your boombox on the floor (directly above their evil Kryptonian bed-coffin, you hope), and playing Nine Inch Nail's "The Downward Spiral" at top volume.

I think Trent Reznor must have had his annoying neighbors in mind when he recorded this album - in fact, it might very well be a concept album ABOUT annoying neighbors. Clearly, SOMEONE had his goat when he wrote those songs, and the heavy bass and false endings that fill this album are guaranteed to peeve anyone on the other side of the floorboards. There can be no better album for this specific purpose, I'm telling you.

Not that I'm petty or vindictive, but it put a satisfying sheen on the morning.

And, oops, my alarm was set to go off about ten minutes after I left this morning, meaning there's nobody home to turn it off and it will squawk aggressively into oblivion (okay, it turns itself off after ten minutes). That was an accident. I swear. No, really.

Heh.

On the way to work this morning, I saw a sign in front of a church that said "It Doesn't Cost Anything To Be Nice".

Oh, I disagree. The cost of being nice can send you plummeting blindly into the bleakest debt, and the riches of being mean can amount to a penthouse jacuzzi filled to the gilded rim with champagne and jewelry.

I think Lux Interior said it best:

"Satan, baby. Satan."