I take a break from my work to post, how lucky thou art.

Charlie (linked above as Llamas Galore), posts about blocking out all unwanted emails, but if I incorporated his spam block program into my mail programs I would miss out on all sorts of great offers. The most recent of which is some sort of drug which promises, among other things, to reverse aging.

Now perhaps they meant that the drug would reduce wrinkles and other effects of aging, but their wording leads me to believe that they are touting a product that actually makes people younger. How would such a product work? Would my mind retain all the things I've learned over the past 22 years and 7 months while my body shrinks down to that of a 10-year-old? Or would the converse take place, keeping my chiseled physique intact while my brain unlearned or forgot important things like how to drive a car or how to program in C#?

One recent memory I'd like to forget is the lyrics to the newest song by Avril Lavigne, which is unfortunately titled "Sk8r Boi" (yes, the title has the number 8 in it). Avril, who is doing her damnedest to appeal to the pop-punk crowd, tells the oft-told tale of a hip punk boy who asks out the prissy popular girl. She, of course, turns him down because her friends don't like his "baggy clothes" and he goes on to rock stardom on MTV. It's a story we can all relate to, at least the part about becoming a rock star.

Story songs usually don't work (see Pearl Jam's cover of "Last Kiss", especially with Eddie Vedder's voice), but what makes this one especially bad are what have been described by David as "the worst lyrics ever". Right from the get-go, you know they will be bad: "He was a boy, and she was a girl, could I make it any more obvious? He was a punk, and she did ballet, what more can I say?" This, in a nutshell, is why story songs don't work. You have to set up the characters a little, just like in a real story, and character development does not lend well to music.

The other major problem (besides the chorus of "he was a skater boy, she said 'see you later boy'" and the unfortunate rhyme of "TV" with "MTV") is that rather than think of clever words to fit the meter, Avril just extends the trite ones she has in unnatural ways. Because of this, the word "Slammin'" becomes "Sa-lammin'" and the word "Down" somehow becomes "Dayyyyyyyaaaaaaaeeeeoooowwwwwn".

And she wears a damn tie.