Reasons I Haven't Been Posty McPosts-a-lot.

1. Philadelphia Me doesn't need this like State College Me did.

2. State College me listened to the radio everyday, and Philadelphia Me can't even GET radio. Discmans with radios are too expensive, and the walkman I bought last fall (for real, I bought a walkman!) gets craptastic reception. Plus I got an Ipod for Christmas and nuff said. Without radio pumping the same 20+ songs into my ear as I walk around town, it's hard for me to gain the kind of personal relationship with New Pop Hits that makes me want to wax poetic. I've only heard the current #1 "Glamorous" ONCE, and that was when I was making a Itunes playlist called 40 Oz. Of Ludacris (a 40 song extension of the Featuring Ludacris CD-R I made last year) on my girlfriend's computer, well before it was a single.

3. Said girlfriend (of almost a year) is very distracting. And awesome.

4. My input glut and other people's output glut. I've got several dozen LPs and about a hundred CDs culled from used bins and such, sitting in alphabetical piles, waiting to be judged. Either I'll toss them, put them in my collection, or throw them on the pile of hit-or-miss I need to cull key tracks from. Said culling pile is about 40+ deep itself, waiting for when I clear out the 44 hours of music on my computer I need to put into 70+ minute playlists and burn onto disc. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but it's time-consuming and I'm not inspired to describe in detail why I kept these 7 tracks off of Washing Machine and not the other four. If the album's profound, usually somebody's already noted that, and if it's just a preferred guitar sound over consistent beats, somebody's usually called that one profound as well. I'd rather move on and King Solomon Crappin' You Negative.

5. While I still read Billboard.com every week and download mp3s from Forkcast and Idolator almost every night, the cost-benefit of perusing new releases regularly seems awful. The only upcoming album I know I'll be buying asap is Era Vulgaris by Queens Of The Stone Age. I still check out stuff from my housemate Sara's promo pile, and occasionally some pop product will be enticing enough to get me on limewire collecting singles'skits'n'all, but when I go to AKA to shop, I usually walk out with some used CDs I used to have on cassette, and a shoegaze album from 1990 (my version of "pure moods") that's avaiable for $10. Not Neon Bible.

6. If I knew screencaps and soundclips like Rich, I'd probably detail my adventures in DVD-land (thanks to my job I see plenty), but as of now I'm too lazy to bite his motif like I should. I'm thinking about jackin' Joshua "Jane Dark" Clover's soon, though. I'd be so lowbrow in comparison you wouldn't even notice.

7. I really shouldn't say this out loud, but I think I want to write a novel...wait for it...based on a dream I had two years ago. NOW you can laugh. Yes, sometimes I feel like I want to make the jump from critic to avid fan/mediocre artist. I've got Ira Kaplan's Disease. Maybe I'll get Leila to harmonize with me in an acoustic duo called The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag. How is that NOT better than a blog?

8. Pop culture seems very sickly and unimpressive right now, and I don't really have a baby boomer's courage of conviction to either give it my all or wail repeatedly about how Taking Back Sunday is barely fit to lick Sponge's asshole.

Thing is, writing this has made me curious to actually review Neon Bible, if only to ponder whether people got this excited about the Waterboys. I also should praise the glory that was Tommy Lee Jones in 2006. Having voiced my neuroses, I'll probably just return to the blurbier, multi-post format I used to have, rather than this one-biweekly-treatise-at-a-time set-up I've got now. That way I can save my deeper thoughts for the novel!