Forget radio, turn on the Playstation

This week’s column will have two sections because two major things have been on my mind this week.

First, what is going on with music today? I know I sound like an old man, but this really bothers me. Here’s a sample of what I encountered flipping through the radio today: “Ughh! I wanna blank my blank in the hee-haw.” Followed by “I wish I could die, so painful I whine and I whine pity me.” (Staind is the king of this music. I don’t know how Aaron Lewis is still a sane person.)

Then there is pop music, which has skewed my view of reality. The other day I was in the car listening to KISS FM, and heard *NSync, Jimmy Eat World, the Backstreet Boys and Nelly back-to-back.

What is going on there? Pop, the kings of Emo rock, more pop, and then rap/hip hop all in a row. It doesn’t make sense.

Of course, my final stop through the dial cruises through 15 country stations. I can’t dignify this.

Now, I do not want anyone to think that I am against musical diversity, because whatever you like is cool with me. In fact, I even like some of the aforementioned things I made fun of. But it just seems like everything within a genre sounds exactly the same.

This leaves one option on the radio, the king of the feel good tunes. 98.7 FM, K-LUV. Laugh if you must, but Sunday night doo-wop makes me want to put grease in my hair, a pack of cigarettes in my rolled up sleeve, go out and kick some Eastsider ass.

But hey, don’t listen to me, as I’ve seen all the weird looks I get when listening to The Casualties or NOFX or the Dead Kennedys on campus. I’m sure 95 percent of you think it’s all crap, if you even know what it is. I was just wondering what was up with all this newfangled music, and where all the imagination went.

Now, on to part two for this week. I would tend to think that I am a fairly normal college student. I have my friends and we do our party thing, we do our hang out thing, and we do, well, our stupid things. But I am writing this on Friday night knowing that it won’t run until Wednesday.

Why, you ask? Because I’m not sure if I will make it out of my room before then.

I would not call myself a video game addict, but I do enjoy the game of football, as well as some other games. For those of us who tried playing games like Rogue Spear on the computer in the residence halls and ended up being about as successful on the keyboard as Argentina’s economy, something has come to save us.

Now you can hook up your Playstation 2 to the Internet. The Playstation 2 network adapter, released last Tuesday, will allow everyone to play compatible games against people anywhere in the country. Madden 2003 and SOCOM: Navy Seals are the two most popular Internet compatible games.

Now, instead of throwing your controller at your buddy when he throws a 96-yard “Hail Mary” for a touchdown with three seconds left to beat you by one, you can attempt to hit the person you are playing by hurling the controller as hard as you can through your TV screen and out his.

I would not, however, recommend this, as it can be very expensive.(They just don’t make TV screens as durable as they used to.)

This will be the end of me. I can sense it. This is now my 17th year of some sort of schooling, and this will be the thing that has the power to make it all crumble. (A quick note to my professors: This does not mean I won’t be in class. So please don’t hit the auto-fail button. Thank you.)

So kids, the bottom line is, don’t listen to music anymore. Just sit in your room playing video games forever. At least that way you won’t have to worry whether or not your Polo shirt is washed.