Comcast, you sly devil.

Came home and flipped on my television this evening. Hit the GUIDE button, just as I always do and the guide that popped up is not the guide I know and love. It's some deep sea blue abomination that seems awfully hard to read to my ever-aging eyes. "Christ, now I gotta learn the flow all over again", I said aloud to no one. Comcast never told me they were making sweeping changes to my service. Perhaps they did on 1 of the 15 extraneous slips of paper folded carefully folded into my monthly bill so as to eject on separate and random paths when cued by my pull from the envelope. Pick those up and dump those directly into the trash, I will. Show them to fuck with me, I will.

Comcast doesn't stop there with the sweeping changes, though the next change is surely a welcome one. Seems years ago Comcast gave me cable music stations and just as quickly as I came to depend on them for conjuring any mood I chose, Comcast saw fit to mysteriously pull them from my cable repertoire. Bastards. Well, it's back, and man is it ever. First stop, Classic Country. As if programmed by genius, Don Williams was first in line. And we're not talking 'I Believe in You' or any other obvious hit, we're talking "Heartbeat in the Darkness". From the Definitive Collection, but not an obvious choice. Next we're on to Classic R&B where I was treated to The Stylistics' "You Make Me Feel Brand New". I misted up a bit. Nostalgic tears. Man, I loved The Stylistics when I was little. My favorite was "You Are Everything". They were one of those bands I thought for sure was staffed with a female lead only to find there was no female in the band. I thought Smokey Robinson was a woman for a long time, would argue with my parents about it. There was no way "Being With You" was sung by a man. It would take years for me to develop the gender bender region of my brain and accept things as being out of neat categories.

On to the Metal channel, which I am still a little shocked wasn't my first stop. First song out of the gate was Soundgarden's "Outshined". Hmm. Now, I tend to get a little bitchy when people start dumping any and every song that is even slightly harder than "Mmbop" into the Metal category. Soundgarden was a lot harder in its early days, yes, but "Outshined" was grunge and grunge is rock, not metal. Just don't argue with me on that. Next selection was "Blackmail the Universe" from Megadeth. Now, I can get behind that reigning hell on the Metal channel. Since then, the channel's gone into a direction I don't exactly love. We've had Iced Earth, and they're fine. "Prison Sex" just ended and now Nehemiah is screaming at me. Now, here's how I break out my love/hate for metal. If you're kicking ass and I feel like you are inviting me to kick ass with you by singing along, air guitaring, coming up to drum solo, whatever, then I am all over it. If I feel like you are screaming at me in an angry dog bark and I can't understand your lyrics, which I assume are all about condemned souls, hell on earth and evil gnomes, then I am not all about it. I want metal that deals with the lighter, good times in life. Metal that speaks to me about things I know all about- teenage delinquency, rebelling against the man, hating your job, partying, being a badass and most importantly- liquor. I don't need to hear Meshuggah scrowl for a constant minute, unabated. Gimme Paul Stanley's opening wail in "Heaven's on Fire" over that industrial sandpaper shit anyday.

And now "Man in the Box" is on. Again, NOT METAL. I think at this point I should just change the channel, cause I'm getting a little too worked up. Let's take a look around.

Arena Rock. "Yankee Rose". A+. Did you know Diamond David Lee Roth was born on Oct. 10th, 1955 in Bloomington, IN?

Classic Rock. "Let's Dance". Um, am I so old that 1983 is now considered "classic"? If so, then what's 1969? Mesozoic? I'll let the fact that "Let's Dance" is, like, the definition of pop slide on this one.

Retroactive. Don't know what the hell that is, but apparently it's "Message in a Bottle".

Soft Rock. Oh boy, I love me some soft rock, and Billy Ocean takes me there. Yes, Billy, there will be sad songs to make you cry. Happens to me everyday. Anyone know when Billy got dreads?

Singers and Standards. Anita O'Day and Billy May's take on "Spring is Here". Anita O'Day was born Anita Belle Colton.

70's. "Black Dog". The first Zeppelin song I remember hearing, though it was "Over the Hills and Far Away" that put me over the edge.

Light Classical. Now there's a concept. For those who can't stand the unadulterated thrashing of regular classical.

Metal. Oh yes, much better. Now Priest is metal. "Metal Gods" is metal, though the chorus could be a bit more dramatic. Pro-Pain. Wow. Contents Under Pressure. That was one of the first records I worked when I signed on with Sony. I forgot all about that band. And now we're back to Lamb of God and the scrowling I hate. Conan O'Brien did a nice bit last night about these hard core bands leafing through bibles trying to find their names. What, praytell, is the fascination? Chimaira. I hear good things about them. Kerry King is a big fan. They are from Cleveland and we all know that Cleveland rocks. The members of Chimaira play ESP guitars. Wow. Guitars that can sense what you are going to play before you even play it. Seems like cheating to me.

Enough of the loitering. It's time for Adult Swim.

P.S. How's my driving?