A FINAL REMINDER to make plans for our MISCmedia@1 party on Thursday, June 8, starting around 7:30 p.m., at the quaint Ditto Tavern, 5th and Bell. Yeah, it’s 21 and over.

YEP, IT’S A BIRTHDAY for the current business incarnation of MISCmedia (1 year), this website (5 years), the ongoing Misc. project (14 years), and yr. ob’t. corresp’n’d’t (a whoppin’ 43 years).

And while I’ve made every attempt to stave off the threat of looming geezerdom, sometimes I can’t help but go all back-in-my-day-Sonny. (You think a 56K modem’s slow? You never had to use a 300-baud acoustic coupler!)

And there are definitely certain activities which just seem a lot less fun if practiced while in ones forties, such as:

• Explaining to people repeatedly that your name isn’t “Humphries,” you’re not William Steven Humphrey, and getting called Clark Kent is neither new nor particularly clever.
• Awakening after a night spent sipping a sequence of ten or more Electric Iced Teas.
• Wearing the same socks for four days straight.
• Breathing second-hand cigarette smoke.
• Breathing second-hand pot smoke.
• Eating mayonnaise straight.
• Eating an entire bag of iced animal cookies in one sitting.
• Eating heavily greasy foods. (I don’t remember the Kentucky Fried Chicken from my youth as having been the total grease sponge it is today.)
• Running breathlessly after a bus that’s starting to leave the bus stop you’re still across a just-turned-green light from.
• Getting lightly nudged in a crosswalk, on a cold and rainy night, by a car whose driver’s looking strictly the other way, looking just for other cars and not for people.
• Watching hardcore pornos.
• Watching softcore pornos.
• Watching Entertainment Tonight.
• Sleeping at a woman’s place for the first time, and getting pawed all night long not by her but by her ultra-sharp-clawed cat.
• Standing in a noise-and-smoke-filled club through three mediocre bands, while waiting for one great band to start its set.
• Waiting for someone to not phone you back.
• Listening to an excited person who thinks they’re the first to tell you the good news about Amway.
• Listening to an excited person who thinks they’re the first to tell you the good news about Werner Erhard’s Landmark Forum.
• Listening to an excited person who thinks they’re the first to tell you the good news about hemp.

On the other hand, many activities are just as exciting now as ever:

• Sex.
• Looking for sex.
• Drinking diet root beer ’til you burp.
• Watching Cartoon Network.
• Listening to the Fastbacks.
• Drinking a whole pot of coffee and writing until three a.m.

ELSEWHERE:

• Snickeringly “naughty” sound bytes from the classic Match Game!…