Tune-o-matic.

Yeah, we been workin' on a song list, goin' down, down, down, workin' on a song list - whoop! - writin' the set down.

Nah, Big Green's not doing oldies - no sweat, man. Been there, done that. Besides, if you try to pull that off in the Crab Nebula, they'll cook you for dinner. Literally. (Ask sFshzenKlyrn, he'll tell you. That is one brutal venue, even for an etheric, transcendental creature with no fixed hairstyle.) Just making a point there, my friends. We've been slaving over this song list for the last week, in case you're interested in what we've been up to (and haven't been checking the mansizedtuber's twitter feed). You may think that's about the easiest job in the world, but I warn you.... I WARN YOU.... it's not anything like easy. In fact, it's a lot harder than ... well, than that easy stuff. And there's a whole bunch of reasons why.... not least of which is the stark reality that we have to hole up in the Cheney Hammer Mill together with no distractions, no outside influences, no take-out or dial-a-pizza... just the band and our various minions. Insufferable is the word. In. Sufferable.

All right, so that's not a very good reason. Here's another one: we've got about a million songs. No, I mean it. Christmas songs alone, there are about four albums worth... not including any of the songs on 2000 Years To Christmas. So that means we have to yank out all of our demos, all of our notes, all of our old song lists, and pore through the lot, writing down the ones we want to do, crossing out the ones we don't. Even Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has his personal favorites, and his understanding of music is limited to a few lines from the 1956 World Book Encyclopedia, which his inventor Mitch Macaphee inserted into his memory banks as test data. (Hey... he's going to be traveling with us to the great beyond, so why not allow him a few requests, right? I said, am I right? Hel-looooo?)

All right, well... you can see how this process might lead to chaos. In fact, it already has. No one seems able to agree on what songs we should work on. What are the chances that we would each end up with a different set of 25 songs? I swear, this place is more dysfunctional than the New York State Senate. In fact, in the midst of our desperation, we've asked Mitch Macaphee for his assistance. (Sometimes a mad scientist can see his way out of a conundrum much more easily than, say, an unemployed musician or an oversized root vegetable.) It took Mitch about three hours to come up with a solution of sorts. He walked in from his lab with a small, oblong metal box which he called the "Tune-o-matic." He pressed a red button on the right side of the machine, and a slip of paper emerged from a small slot on the opposite side. The paper has some writing on it that appeared to be in Vietnamese. Mitch took one look at that and stormed out of the room with the tune-o-matic under one arm. There has since been some banging and swearing from behind the closed door of his lab... I suspect we'll be seeing more of this wondrous device presently.

For the nonce, however, we have decided to take matters back into our own hands. Matt has been writing the names of all of our songs on one wall of the rec room. John dug up a box of darts. (If you've got a better method, let me know. )