Amusement.

Where half of the staff currently resides, it is in what might refer to as the snow belt of America. After a certain period of time, the darkness (and consequent lack of sunlight) assaults and overruns my sense of humor and sometimes, the reserve of hope I carry for nights starting at 3 p.m.

It is no surprise then, that my family has purchased for me, at great cost, a piece of technology I simply refer to as the happy lamp. I fully expect the nice lady to come around with the happy needle sooner or later. This, and other happy needles have been instrumental in my continued survival around here.

Augustine reminds me I gain little from telling you this. I note otherwise. It is my hope, readers, that you learn from what I am about to say.

You do not have time to spend your free time doing things you don't like. Your free time is valuable enough as it is. I realized this some time before playing Rock Band for 5 hours more or less straight. True, I do have other homework to do, and I had about 3 hours of sleep last night, but my mind hasn't felt that clear afterwards for weeks at a time. Yes, I had to wake up with a half can of Jeff Gordon approved energy supplement, but I felt (finally) like I was doing something worth doing. And, when the band got a sound guy and bodyguards, I took that as confirmation that something was going right.

Perhaps it was another misplaced urge to play some Hot Water Music songs and having to settle for Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult and Black Sabbath. (Toward that end, if I must pledge fealty to a Black something band, then I bend my knee to Black Flag.) It is not that Highway Star, Don't Fear the Reaper and Paranoid are bad songs, and the original bands are not good, in fact, quite the opposite. But, I don't really want to play a nice, clean guitar part with a singer who has, you know, notes to hit. I want to play a song where the guitar players are great, and the singer looks over at the crowd and passes them the microphone.

Alas, Rock Band in it's wisdom, does not understand this. I did, however, have a little leap for joy when I saw that singer's avatar now had a NYHC shirt on. I took that as a little tip of the cap and a secret handshake between someone at Harmonix, and anyone else from the punk and hardcore scenes who found themselves playing their game. And my heart sang, just a little, when I saw on Kotaku that At the Gates (From Slaughter of the Soul, no less!) was going to be on the March 4 DLC update.

As I write this, I have a couple other projects and assignments I should be turning my head to, including an interview with the Out_Circuit mastermind, Nathan Burke, in advance of his new disc Pierce the Empire With a Soundwhich is a fantastic little disc, perfect for wandering out in the deep, deep snow and getting lost with your thoughts and neuroses.

Brand New might still have the words "wake up, you are going to die" on their myspace page, and they hit the nail on the head for the first time since they wrote Moshi Moshi and Guernica, but this is Eleven Names, not Long Island, so I'll do this a little bit differently. Find something you enjoy. Find something that amuses you, and do it. It (especially around this time of the year for our readers in the Northern Hemisphere) is a cold cold world, and if you can make people laugh, then you have warmed it, if only for a moment or two. There is enough pretentious, humorless garbage floating around me that I can guarantee you with all my heart and soul, humor and joy are two of the few things still worth doing.

Carpe diem. Carpe noctem. But carpe something.