I actually bought a real, honest-to-some-goddess, shrink wrapped CD copy of the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bullocks. Yes, I've heard it before. I've even bought the album before, twice in fact. I owned it on cassette at one point and somewhere in my brother's garage floats a circa 1983 vinyl copy hand carried from England (used to be you couldn't get such subversive music outside of LA and New York unless you knew a guy who was going to England). But I bought it again.

My friend Andy gave me a Barnes & Noble gift certificate for my birthday and it arrived via email last year. It got tagged as spam by an over zealous filter and wound up languishing until recently when I cleared out all my 27.org mailboxes and, as a side project, went on a hunt for it to see if I really received the email. I did and it was a very sweet gift.

I bought a William C. Dietz (my favorite author outside of John Steakley) book, a computer geek book, and... I had nothing. I honestly drew a blank when it came to filling the remaining $15, so I left my browser window open on the bn.com shopping cart page for a couple days. Something or other around that time reminded me of high school, and then the song "Pretty Vacant" popped into my head for no reason at all (it happens to me a lot -- not-so-much ironically when the title in question this time is considered). I went and added the Sex Pistols to my order and hit submit.

So that's how I bought a brand new copy of a 27 year-old record at full price instead of finding it used somewhere.

I'm listening to it now. It sounds very pet rock in here. Makes me want to smoke a clove and hide shit in a trench coat and ditch class and cause trouble and run away from The Authorities. Except now half my life has past since I had anything to rebel against. I live in darkest suburbia and am generally happy with how things turned out, although back then I used to wonder if I'd ever make it this far and I'd try to imagine what my life would be like if I did. I didn't think I'd be not only listening to but also buying the same old records. Heh... life is strange sometimes.