I haven't bought a single album this past month, or at least any that I've received yet. I did drop some major cash on an ultra-rare Pavement bootleg called "Stuff Up the Cracks," which I will be sure to write about in next month's column. For now, I'm going to write about the hell of trying to find music on the internet.

ITEM: I recently arrived home from a short holiday in the nether reaches of the globe (not the Netherlands, but I wanted to use the word 'nether') to find a brand new computer in my house. Not any little run of the mill baby computer, but a souped-up computer with all kinds of high-speed gobble and gook. Best of all, this piece of plastic has got a cd-rw drive, meaning I can steal all kinds of music from the internet. Problem is, where to find such things?

I used to have Napster, but they went into court and had to put up with all that crap from Metallica. Hey Metallica, fuck you (remember when Metallica was a metal band? I guess now they're an alt-country rock band or something. More like Garth Brooks than Black Sabbath anyway). My friends have recommended Morpheus, but I'm just not down with this file-sharing phenomenon when it is expanded beyond music files. I just want a big ole website with every mp3 in the world. This, my friends, does not exist.

Really all I want is two songs: "There is No Depression in New Zealand" by Blam Blam Blam, and "Ooh Do I Love You" by Cap'n Jazz. I can not find these anywhere. If you all can find them, help me out a bit, eh? I'll give you eternal love and affection, despite your obvious shortcomings.

ITEM: Sting sucks. Bono is a weasel. Watching these guys show up at the Olympics and the Super Bowl reminded me of how pathetic some people get after selling a few million albums over 20 years or so. Some bands get it right: AC/DC sounds exactly the same now as they did in the beginning. Angus Young is wearing the same schoolboy outfit he was born in. That is incredibly respectable. But U2, Jebus help them, are running around the world trying to convince everyone that the adult-contemporary pap they are recording now is a return to their rock and roll roots. And people are buying into it! How stupid are people anyway? Yeesh.

Oh yeah, and Paul McCartney should seriously consider retirement. First of all, that song "Freedom"? Is he trying to become the British Lee Greenwood? And secondly, the halftime duet with Terry Bradshaw. Holy shit, I thought my ears were bleeding.

That's it for now. I hope I buy enough crap to write about next time.