I'm 41 now so I've decided I need to develop my grumpy side. So here's a rant about the sorry state of pop music.

Pablo Picasso: "Mediocre artists borrow; great artists steal."

Any time you skip a commercial ... you're actually stealing the programming.

"It is a case of bootleggers bootlegging bootlegs."

Maybe people aren't buying the latest crap because it sounds just like the crap they bought ten years ago.

Music is just background noise for whatever it is that you're really doing.

Music used to be an event, not a product. For the iPod generation, music as Art is being increasingly devalued, even as it becomes pervasive to the point of ubiquity.

... a deal for licensing of music online ...

Audiences scale, communities don't.

What am I going to use it for?

The steady stream of celebrity death should ensure plenty of free promotion -- elaborate outside advertising isn't necessary when the passing of even culturally marginal figures receives extensive what-does-it-all-mean metareporting in the nation's newsweeklies.

The Internet may be a mould-breaking new medium but, like all the media that came before it, someone has to pay for it, and that usually means, one way or another, users.

Needless to say, blogs are addictive. They are not, however, the most economical use of your time.

The live audience cheers for Krusty as the show comes to an end and Krusty exits the stage.

Off stage, the Fox producer approaches Krusty, smiling and holding a piece of paper. In a soft, serious voice, he says, "Krusty, the ratings were good -- Raymond re-run good."

There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.