Tis the cusp of the weekend, and a young man's fancy turns to thought of ale and music halls, or so I assume. Mine do, at least, and surely I am just as representative of the species as I was during the halcyon days of the mid 80s.

Certainly the television industry considers me to be--the whole 18 to 49 male demographic being more or less an undifferentiated mass of testosterone when it comes to advertising, so it seems. For that, I thank them. Membership in this most valued of consumer groups assures me that, for the next eleven years at least, I can seriously consider taking up snowboarding and Doing the Dew--something I assume is a euphemism for early morning sex on the front lawn.

Sounds dampish. Should the occasion arise, I shall strive for the apical position. It's drier, and, as Founding Father Benjamin Franklin pointed out--cleaner.

Early to bed and early to rise.
Making love in the grass,
Leaves stains on the thighs.

Sadly, ale I cannot share with you. Too bad, there's an out of season saison in the beer fridge that I need to get rid of, as well as a couple of rauchbiers, a type of beer I've come to regard as a practical joke in a bottle--good for startling an uneducated palate. Think of an alcoholic Slim Jim mixed with a jigger of Liquid Smoke, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it tastes like. There's also a year-old six-pack of Romulan Ale, which I would not drink if my life depended on it--but you would be welcome to it.

Music, on the other hand, is easy to share--a thought that troubles the dreams of record executives everywhere. How are they to afford the upkeep on a second mistress when the proles insist on access to melody without the added value brought to the product by a record label? Those album covers don't come cheap, you know.

In a decision that surely adds a toss and a turn or two to the troubled rest of the record exec, I swore off buying new material from the record companies ages ago. When I don't buy directly from the artists, I use EBay as my record store, specifically purchasing only the cds that I can buy with change I pull out of the couch.

It's worked out great. Yes, I've bought some god-awful crap from the one cent cd vendors at EBay, but when the total paid for a cd including shipping is less than two bucks, who cares? And inevitably, amid the dross I receive on a regular basis, there is the musical equivalent of a gold nugget.