Okay, I'm listening to Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force album and reading about Mike Varney, the guy who writes the Spotlight column in Guitar Player magazine and discovered most of the would-be Edward Van Halens of the `80's (Yngwie, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, etc.).

Now I'm wanting to do it again. Write about music. Start a new Web site. Even if it was a overlooked, cobwebbed corner of the Internet, it would be better than not being involved at all. I love to find people that I think have merit and try to draw attention to them through a quality write-up.

But then, my Web skills are back in 2001. All of the stuff I've done has been done with an 11-year-old copy of Microsoft Front Page. That looks good on this page and looked fairly professional in 1999, but in 2009, I'm way in the dust. I need a more updated program, but from what I understand, most of them cost $600. For some reason I might be tempted to buy two Peavey Windsor amp heads at that price, but a software program? Hmm...I dunno. In the long run, though, the software would certainly do more for me than the amps. Would a Blogspot page do for now, or is that the lazy way?

Seeeeeee...saaaawwwwww...seeeeeee...saaaaawwwww...

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Beating Up on Mitt Romney

I'm up to five readers now; time to thin the herd. Is it possible for these comment links to register numbers lower than zero? Can I have -5 comments? Guess I'll have to piss everyone off with some comments on a conservative politician and find out.

Mitt Romney was on Larry King the other night -- or rather on his show, not physically on Larry King. Larry asked Romney what he thought about congress taxing the AIG bonuses at a high rate as a way of trying to get the taxpayer's money back. Mitt, of course, being a Republican who's all about frugality and personal responsibility, was indignant that the AIG executives would have the nerve to take taxpayer money that was meant to keep the company afloat and boost our economy, and instead put that money in their pockets to head to the casino in Monte Carlo or down to the pro shop to grab that new state-of-the-art tennis racket.

And of course I'm being facetious. Mitt said, "Oh, I'm against that. See, what if congress said, 'That Larry King has said some critical things of our president. We should tax him?'"

Mitt, that analogy does not mirror the current situation at all. Mitt, why is it if a single welfare money takes her $400 check and spends it on cigarettes and doughnuts you think we should cut that check right off, but if someone who's already worth $22 million takes another $2 million from the taxpayers and uses it for his own personal enjoyment, you think it's important that we leave him alone? As the lenders of the money, do we not have the right to be upset if the money is not used in the way in which it was intended, and to get that money back any way we can? If the bank loans me $80,000 to start a pizza parlor, do they not have a right to be upset if I use it to go sailing? We're not taxing a personal income, we're taxing our loan.

"But Art, have you not read any Ayn Rand books?," Mitt says. "These men are the fine minds that power our great nation! Are you playing class warfare games? Are you punishing achievement?" These guys didn't achieve anything! They sank a company! I could sink a company, and probably far faster than them! Where's my $2 million check?

Can you not see it yet? These guys don't care about personal responsibility, achievement, entrepreneurship, Christian morals, or anything else! They care about filling up their pockets any way they can, whether it's through selling you a salmonella-tainted pack of peanut butter crackers (Peanut Corporation of America), importing some corrosive Chinese drywall, or just outright depositing your check in the bank and sending you a phony investment statement (Bernard Madoff). Wake up, for God's sake!