My cel­e­bra­tions of our so-called "Inde­pen­dence Day" are prob­a­bly dif­fer­ent than most.

No flash­ing lights, no bar­be­cue, and I don't blow shit up.

Why? Not because I don't believe in the hol­i­day, but because I don't like to "cel­e­brate" it in the ways that most are accus­tomed to. Sorry, but going to the park and stand­ing in line or fight­ing for a shady spot in 90+ weather isn't my idea of a good time. Add to that the gen­er­ally sub-part fire­works dis­play, just-plumb-annoying™ local bands, more scream­ing chil­dren than you can shake a stick at, and I'd be more than happy to just set­tle in with a decent book.

The hoopla sur­round­ing the fourth is no bet­ter than any other hol­i­day, with per­haps the excep­tion of Christ­mas, being that it's heav­ily over­rated and given just a bit too much atten­tion by the gen­eral pop­u­lace. But, such is life, I guess.

Any­who, I set­tled in and watched TV most of the nite. When Dan came home, we got into Super Mario Mode™ and played for some time, but the built-in midi music got very annoyng, very fast.

So I impro­vised and fired up Winamp. And I must say — you've never played Super Mario until you've done so to Madonna's "Lucky Star." Try it and I'm sure you'll agree, Mario and Madonna are a match made in heaven! But that mar­riage wouldn't last long, how­ever, as Dan threat­ened to hit me by the time we got to "La Isla Bonita". So, given the activ­ity, I thought I'd intro­duce a touch of class, and put on "The Com­plete Birth of the Cool" by the Great Miles.

Good­times were had by all. Happy fourth of July!