I found DJ Lex five or six years ago when I began to explore this new phenomenon (to me, back then) called, Internet Radio.

Lex was featured on the internet radio site, Live365.com.

When I tuned it, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
Lex played the best music of the 80's and he played it in the best format of the 80's - the extended version.

I collected a few extended mixes on vinyl when I was younger (in the 1980's), but I could never find the songs or mixes I wanted.
Lex has them all - in spades.

Listen in.

Lex's home page is here: Club80's.com

Lex can be found on his site and on iTunes and probably a lot of other ways.
Your ears will lead you right to him.

This is one of the official FIFA Street trailers.
Are you kidding me?

The official site is here.

I found this man while browsing around the iTunes store, most notably in the retro-80's section.
His name is Johan Bengtsson and he's from Stockholm, Sweden.

I listened to a few previews of his music on iTunes and was immediately taken back to my formative years say, 1984-1988 when the style of music Mitch Murder makes seemed to be all the music there was to hear for me - and I loved it.

I still do.

Mitch Murder is not retro-80's.
He's a musician making great music in the 80's genre of music.
His upbeat tunes ring of John Hughes movies, scenes from Miami Vice, 80's high school dances and seem to usher in the great pop songs and pop music of that era.
His slowdown tunes also carry the 80's genre feel, but border and move into jazz and R&B.

Whatever type of track Mitch Murder is playing, the music that plays out of the speakers as the end result is quite remarkable and distinctive.

Enjoy.

My wife and I decided (independently, I must add) to gift each other with a Nook for the other's birthday. The "let's take a look at the Nook at Barnes and Noble" visit was a priceless one as both of us were deftly trying to get the other's thoughts on the device while having the same covert questioning tossed back at us. 

Once it came out that we each were planning the same birthday gift, we each quickly decided on a first generation Nook.

After charging it, fiddling with it, working out how to use the most basic of features, I suddenly ran straight into something that struck me as rather nifty. I will explain it this way:

1) Books in the public domain are free to download
2) Books in the public domain are 70 years old or older
3) Most classic books are over 70 years old
4) Most of the important books of our planet, humanity and history are over 70 years old
5) I would really like to read those classic book everyone who reads always talks about 
6) I now had no excuse not to read those books

I quickly found myself searching down classic books I had only read parts of in school, or had heard about or have had been told I should read and never had.

I slapped a copy of Don Quixote (Cervantes) into my Nook.
Then a copy of Paradise Lost (Milton).
The a copy of Bleak House (Dickens).

I started reading Don Quixote and loved it.
What a treat.

While watching a movie with my wife one evening, one of the characters mentioned he was reading a book by a French author named, Balzac. I had never heard of this man, sad to say. I spent a little time researching Honore' de Balzac and then certainly had to read his work. I downloaded a (free) copy of his book, The Country Doctor.

I was immediately taken in.
Balzac.
Another author to read like Dickens and Cervantes.
Another wonderful, quite unexpected treat.

I then hunted down my favorite author, P.G. Wodehouse.
I downloaded a book of his I had never heard of, The Girl On The Boat, read a few pages, laughed out loud twice and closed up my Nook a very happy man.

The next day or so, I downloaded Edgar Rice Burroughs', A Princess of Mars, the first of the John Carter of Mars books. My friend, Billy, is a big E.R.B. fan, and I have read most of this book but I have to give it a go again and finish it up so I can get on to the rest of the John Carter series.

A few weeks passed by before I found myself looking for other sources of free, downloadable e-books. Somehow I had missed Google Books as a source of the books during my initial search. Once I worked out Google Books' search format, I found a book I have long wanted to own - Pitching In A Pinch by Christy Mathewson, circa 1915. I also found the book How To Play Baseball by John McGraw on Google Books.

Mathewson played major league baseball from 1900 to 1916. He is considered one of the best pitchers over to toss the ball in baseball history. Pitching In A Pinch is Mathewson's personal account of what it takes to be a successful pitcher in major league baseball - and he should know (Matthewson's career statistics).

McGraw was a major league baseball manager from 1899 to 1932. From 1902 to 1932 he managed the New York Giants (the baseball team). McGraw is regarded as the best ever, or at least one of the best ever major league baseball managers in the history of the game. McGraw managed Mathewson on his Giant teams from 1902 to 1916. Mathewson and his wife along with McGraw and his wife became the best of friends.

I then soon located Touching Second by Chicago Cubs legendary second baseman, Johnny Evers. Evers major league playing career spanned twenty years from 1902 to 1922. This book is Evers' description in his own words of what it takes to be a successful major league baseball player.

A quick rundown of my Nook documents results in this:

Don Quixote (Cervantes) - 1605
Paradise Lost (Milton) - 1667
Bleak House (Dickens) - 1852
The Country Doctor (Balzac) - 1833
The Girl on the Boat (Wodehouse) - 1921
A Princess of Mars (Burroughs) - 1912
Pitching In a Pinch (Mathewson) - 1915
How To Play Baseball (McGraw) - 1914
Touching Second (Evers) - 1910

I thought the same thing you are probably thinking right now - I could go to the library and check out all of these books and read each one of them.
You are quite correct.
I could not, however, carry all of these books around with me wherever I go in a device that is smaller and weighs less than one standard hardcover book.

If I could choose to ready any books - if I had my druthers - I would read the classics.
That is what I am doing.
I like contemporary fiction and non-fiction also, but I think that if I want to really learn to read and improve myself as a person, a thinker, a husband, a father, a friend and a helpful member of society it may be all right for me to read from the pens of those great ones also, instead of only reading from the pencils of today's current best-selling authors. 

Don Quixote (circa 1605) - every one knows that book.
In 406 years will anyone remember the Harry Potter or the Twilight series books?

The most striking fact about this entire Nook episode for me is that a cutting-edge piece of equipment like this e-reader has given me an opportunity/motivated me to search out written works from technological epochs ago. This is an entire endeavor that crosses in some way the space/time continuum. 

I am so glad the Nook is here today.
I am glad my wonderful wife considered me when she thought about the Nook.
The Nook has compelled me to seek out what are generally agreed as the finest works of literary history.

I guess for a man like me, it takes a snazzy piece of technology to help to search out the finer things in life.

I had never owned a Bob Dylan vinyl album, but I now own at least twenty Bob Dylan albums in either CD format or in MP4 format purchased from iTunes.

It is something neat, this Nook.

What is gives me a chuckle just like when I am reading a passage from Wodehouse is the dawning-on-me fact that I now want to own printed/published copies of these books I am reading. But I don't need them - I have them all now.
In one place.
All together.
Bound in a leatherette cover just for me.

I am beginning to lose all of my books.

I think they are being taken -
By my Nook.

Cricket is a cool game.
Rich in history, rich in countries and leagues.
This game has an awful lot going for it.
It was extremely popular in the USA until just after the turn of the 20th century when golf and tennis became more popular sports to play on large patches of grass.

I've been nosing around about the game for about a year now, and I am still interested.
It's taken me a lot of time to learn the basic rules, what the batsman is trying to do, what the bowler is trying to do, how it is fielded scored and strategized.

Here are some sites that may help you understand a bit more about it and maybe catch the Cricket itch:

BASICS    BASIC RULES    CRICKET ON ESPN.COM    CRICKETWORLD WEBSITE    VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS (South Africa vs. England)     LIVE/REPLAY CRICKET ON ESPN3

Okay, so we all have one of these and they've been around for years.
Actually, my brother doesn't have one - he has what he calls, an anti-iPod....

We all know what these are and probably have one - unless you are one of those people that have consolidated your portable music devicing into your cell phone.

I just have to state the obvious again:
These are the coolest, most practical invention of my lifetime.

iPod = Carrying around absolutely nearly every song I own and being able to listen to any of them any where I go.

Apple's latest ad for the their 160GB iPod Classic states you can now carry around your own Top 40,000.
Yeah. Awesomeness.

Yes.
All those songs.
All those albums.
All in one device.

Everybody's life should have its own soundtrack.
We all know what soundtrack we would like to have.
With an iPod, you can have it -


Apple's iPod home page.

I have to begin this with a loud mention of my friend, Billy.

I have known Billy and his family for nearly ten years.
When I first had the honor of spending time with he and his family, he always had with him a thick, gray bound, hardcover book he would carefully read, eagerly comment on, then slide back into it's appointed place on the bookshelf.
There was no title on the front of the book, and while the spine of the book was in great shape, whatever title had been stitched/printed on the spine of the book had long since worn off from wear, travel or just plain admiration.

Billy only told me snippets of the story he was reading within that book, but when he did tell, there was something so certain and determined in his face that was only trumped by the happiness in his eyes over how much he enjoyed that hardcover, gray book.

Billy mentioned small adventured of Pellinore, Lancelot and Gawain.
He mentioned places I'd heard of before - Cornwall, Tintagel and Camelot.
He would mention the Round Table, and I, of course, would nod and think, "Well, that's all neat. King Arthur, the sword in the stone, the Lady in the Lake, Lancelot messing around with the Queen and that Merlin guy in the purple, triangle wizard's hat. Yeah, I got this."

Billy would always tell me, "You should read this book."
"Yeah, I will," I would say. Sure.

Read the book?
I'd seen King Arthur cartoons.
I'd seen that Sword in Stone cartoon. 
I'd seen that King Arthur movie with Clive Owen in it.
I'd seen that Bugs Bunny episode about it.
Everybody knows about it.
Why would I need to read a book?




That space between the previous line of print, and this line of print is there to specifically express my grand ignorance of the subject matter.

Over the course of the next few years, Billy would mention he was reading, Morte de'Arthur again (again), and tell even more snippets of it.
I think I asked him once just how many times he had read the book.
I think he told me he had then read the book eight times.
Eight times.
The book is 600 pages.

Billy had read the book eight times a few years ago.
I am sure he has read it at least ten times by now, if not a dozen.

Billy always told me he would rather have a copy of  Morte de'Arthur in paperback form because he enjoyed reading those makes of books more than hardcover versions.
I kept that fact in the back of my mind for birthdays and Christmases, but I was inspired by him as a friend one day at the book store and picked up a softcover version of the book for him.
I delivered the book straight away.

A few days later while I was again spending time with he and his family, Billy presented me with his gray, hardcover edition of Morte de'Arthur.
He gave me his copy of this book.
That was something.
That was pretty amazing.

What did I do with the book?
It sat on my bookshelf for a year. Then another.
I picked it up and tried to read it.
I didn't enjoy it.
Back to the bookshelf it went.

I pulled the book from my bookshelf a few more times over the last few years.
I just didn't get it.
I got married (extremely happily), moved to a new home and was graced with some wonderful bookcases.
The book sat on those new bookcases.

I recently read Malcom Gladwell's Blink, and needed to switch genres,
I needed something fiction, but didn't want a crime novel or a historical novel and didn't want to go back to a book, author or series I was familiar with.
So - I pulled that gray, hardcover book, Morte de'Arthur from the shelf.

I have not put the book down since.
I have read through to the beginning chapters of Book III, about 100 pages in, and I cannot get enough of it.
I have already ordered, received and used, The Arthurian Companion, so I can keep track of who is who, where is where and what is what in this great tome.
I should mention, The Arthurian Companion is the reference book Billy uses while he reads Morte de'Arthur.

I am writing this about this book I have only read 100 pages of, because I want to urge you to read it.
If it takes you as long as it took me to finally read the actual book, you may get around to it by the end of this decade.
I hope you don't wait that long.

The book is epic.
The book is small.
What is written in rich and wonderous.
What is not written is as almost as rich and wonderous as your mind fills in the gaps and rolls through the passage of time.
You will read of massive wars between factions of kings commanding legions of knights.
You will read of nighttime wanderings thorough the woods when horses trip over tree roots and toss their damosel riders to the ground so their knight escort must encamp them both until dawn.
You will want to know more about the characters who only make cameo appearances in events.
You will want to know just what is happening in the wide world beyond the reach of Arthur's rule because something or someone may be plotting or already on its way against him and his.

I will drop a few nuggets here that demonstrate that I certainly did not have this King Arthur thing down.

1. The sword is not in a stone, it is in an anvil.
2. The lady is not in the lake, the lady is of the lake.
3. The round table did not come into being by means of Arthur.
4. Merlin would tell me woeful things about my future if I ever thought him to wear a purple, pointy hat.
5. Arthur is not the standard of virtue and chivalry, by his own admission.

Morte de'Arthur is all it really is cracked up to be.
I have read adventure books, hero books, epic books and war books.
This book sets the standard for all of those genres of books that came after it.
Morte de'Arthur was published in 1485.
That adds up to a lot of books that came after it.

Please, read a true version of the book.
Please, don't read a modern/Americanized/easy-to-read version of the book.

The language is not difficult.
The language is completely readable,

Morte de'Arthur is the reason there are books.

I will quote my friend Billy:
"You should read this book."