The Bunny, The Chicken and I took a little shopping trip this weekend. We weren't in the market for anything other than paper cups to feed our latte addictions, but we did use the opportunity for a little retail therapy.

I got one of these (so maybe I can finally sort out SQL JOINs), one of these (not great, but worth watching again), two of those (I now have a bajillion gigabytes storage for my PDA) and a shiny copy of Iron Maiden's Edward The Great.

Shut up. Stop judging me. Iron Maiden used to be cool. In 1986, nobody rocked harder than Maiden. Now? Eh, not so much. But back in the day they were all that, plus tax. I used to be a huge fan. I bought everything I could find. I even special ordered stuff. I had patches and buttons, stickers and shirts. And of course, a respectable collection of cassette tapes.

I haven't played any of those tapes in years. I had to dig through the basement to find them just for that picture. 80s metal doesn't age particularly well and I don't often find myself actually wanting to listen to them. The band has a few songs that have stuck with me, like "Wasted Years" or "The Trooper," but I'm mostly content to leave those tapes collecting dust.

There is one exception. I'm still not tired of "Still Life." But as you can see (or maybe not) my collection is missing Piece of Mind. Because that was the one tape to which I listened most often, it ended up somewhere else. Presumably I listened to it and didn't put it away, which is completely understandable when you consider how inconvenient it was to get to the rest of them.

Of course, it's always possible Michael Douglas stole my Piece of Mind tape.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he did. That's just the kind of thing he'd do. Fucker.

Anyway, I needs me some Still Life. I looked at a bunch of stores and couldn't find a copy of the album I was missing. Still Life was never especially popular, so it's not on any of the Best of/Greatest Hits releases. No Still Life for me. But that's alright. I bought Edward The Great anyway. At least now I have high quality digital versions of some of my favorites.

Most music honestly isn't worth buying, but I really don't mind supporting artists I really like. And support Maiden I have. This purchase marks the fifth or sixth time I've paid for a version of "The Number of The Beast."

When I was in high school, I tried to learn to play guitar. That didn't work out so well. After several lessons, the only thing I'd really learned is that I'm more or less tone deaf. Maybe not tone deaf, but at least tone stupid. My instructor would ask me questions like "which of these two notes is highest?" and I wouldn't be able to consistently tell him.

But despite my complete ineptitude, I still managed to learn how to play Number of The Beast. Or at least the rhythm guitar parts, and probably only because it's so damn simple. The rhythm guitar in that song is something like 4 notes and two chords. Despite the fact that I've long since forgotten how to play the song, and was never any good at it anyway, it's given me a lingering prejudice.

I'm a complete meathead who would often incorrectly answer questions like "are these two notes the same?" and I still learned how to play the rhythm guitar to one of my favorite songs. Therefore, rhythm guitarists are probably also complete meatheads. James Hetfield? Meathead. Paul Stanley? Meathead. Dave Mustaine, Rudy Schenker, Malcolm Young? Meatheads, all of them.

Around ten years ago I was working with this young guy named John. Iron Maiden might have saved John from a very poor decision.

John: Hey, did I tell you I'm getting a tattoo?

Me: No, you didn't.

John: I'm pretty pumped about it.

Me: What and where?

John: I want the Pantera logo across my back. Huge letters, like six inches tall, from one shoulder to the other.

Me: Uh… really?

John: Doesn't that sound cool?

Me: No, it really doesn't.

John: Why not?

Me: Do you really think you'll always be this interested in Pantera, and that being a Pantera fan will always be this fashionable?

John: Pfft. I don't care. I'll always like them.

Me: How cool would I be today with a giant, 10 year old Iron Maiden tattoo on my back?

(looong pause)

John: You might be on to something there.