I can’t believe I am only getting around to this now. I think we bought our house seven or eight years ago.

What is the best thing about owning a house? The pride of ownership? The equity you build up? The joy in owning a piece of the American Dream?

Wrong!

The best thing about owning a house is the mailbox. You can have whatever kind of mailbox you want. I have always wanted a big, gaudy, tacky mailbox. There are a lot of mailboxes like that in Florida, especially in beach communities. There are mermaid mailboxes and manatee mailboxes and flamingo mailboxes and dolphin mailboxes and and and…just about every kind of mailbox you could want.

So imagine my disappointment when we moved in. No mailbox.

Instead our subdivision has those stupid big gray metal boxes all over the place so the mailman can stop and drop off mail for 20 households at once. That’s bogus, man! I am being deprived of my inalienable right to own a novelty mailbox!

When we moved in and she saw how distressed I was over the whole affair, Mrs. Fab suggested that I buy one anyway and we could put it in the den and she could put my mail in it every day.

Don’t patronize me, woman!

The whole point of having a novelty mailbox is so that the whole neighborhood can enjoy its beauty. And now I have been robbed of that joy.

Bitter? You bet your ass.

Yesterday I wrote about my love of the 70’s Station on XM Radio, and I listed some of my favorite tunes. I tried to include mostly songs that you wouldn’t hear on a commercial radio oldies station with the exception of a few classics like My Sharona.

As much as I love listening to the 70’s Station, there is, of course, a downside. That downside being that the decade of the seventies produced some truly wretched music. I mean, putrid. Listening to the 70’s Station, you have to take the good with the bad. For every Rubberband Man there is a Disco Duck. I can usually take one bad song in a row, sometimes two. Any more than that sends me scrambling for the remote (you don’t think I change my channels manually, do you?) to flip it to the 80’s Station or a comedy or sports channel.

Here, in my mind, are some of the culturally low points of seventies music:

Anything by Donny Osmond, Donnie and Marie, or The Osmonds
Anything by Ray Stevens
Anything by John Denver
Anything by Anne Murray
Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr.
My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing by The Hillside Singers
Dueling Banjos by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel
You And Me Against The World by Helen Reddy
Fly, Robin, Fly by Silver Convention
Disco Duck by Rick Dees
Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (it’s Springsteen’s original or nothing)
Hey Deanie by Shaun Cassidy
Rise by Herb Alpert
Watching Scotty Grow by Bobby Goldsboro (a much better choice: Watching Scotty Die by The Dead Milkmen)
My Sweet Lord / Isn’t It A Pity by George Harrison

If hell has a soundtrack, this list pretty much makes up the bulk of the playlist in heavy rotation.

I feel unclean just having typed this out.

I graduated high school in 1980, so the music of the seventies is what I remember most when I was growing up. I guess that’s why when I am in the car listening to my XM Radio I have it on the 70’s Station more often than not.

I like the music from the 80’s too, but it’s easier to hear 80’s music than 70’s music. And for you kids out there, if you have not listened to any music from the 70’s you are missing a lot.

There are certain songs that, when they come on, I crank them up and sing along with probably more enthusiasm than is proper for a man of my age. Here is a list of my can’t-miss must-turn-it-up songs from the 70’s Station:

Lady Marmelade by Patti LaBelle
25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago
She’s a Lady by Tom Jones
Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass
Burning Love by Elvis Presley
We’re an American Band by Grand Funk Railroad
Get Down by Gilbert O’Sullivan
Papa Was a Rolling Stone by The Temptations
Thunder Island by Jay Ferguson
Rock Me Gently by Andy Kim
Radar Love by Golden Earring
Ballroom Blitz by Sweet
Jackie Blue by The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
Chevy Van by Sammy Johns
Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You by Sugarloaf
Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance) by Leo Sayer
Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry
That’s The Way I Like It by K.C. and the Sunshine Band
Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder
Car Wash by Rose Royce
Lido Shuffle by Boz Scaggs
Because the Night by Patti Smith
My Sharona by The Knack

The appeal of this music…I can’t explain it to you kids.

So…if you are ever at a stoplight in North Central Florida and you look over at a red SUV next to you and you see a bald guy singing and dancing in his seat…make it a point to say hi to me.

I make no apologies.

Today I am on the road, headed to Huntsville, Alabama for Big Spring Jam XV. You know a concert is good when it has Roman numerals in the title.

I am meeting up with some friends in the area for three days of partying and concertgoing and karaoke and margaritas.

If you live in the Northern Alabama area…oh…sorry. So few people in Northern Alabama can read.

It’s a long drive, about 8.5 to 9 hours if memory serves. I used to drive to Alabama a lot when I worked for the blood bank, so I don’t even need a map or directions, except for how to get to my hotel once I hit town.

I don’t mind driving. It relaxes me. I have my XM Radio and my iPod to keep me entertained, plus I imagine I will be fielding some phone calls and text messages during the trip.

I will be up there for three nights and then will drive back down to Gainesville on Monday.

I wish I had more time. I have friends all over the state that I would like to catch up with, and it would be cool to have time to stop and meet Angel if she wanted to. But time and margaritas wait for no man.

Janna and Mrs. Fab are running the show over at the senior blog. I will still post here. Actually, I already have the posts written, although I might substitute some Huntsville posts for the ones that are already loaded up.

So I am headed north.

It’s a quest. A quest for fun!

Name that movie.

I would like to thank the makers of Freeze It for saving me some major league embarrassment up in Huntsville this weekend. Something like that could kill my mad street cred.

But luckily, the makers of the very best topical pain relief agent EVER came to my rescue, and now I can look forward to partying like a rock star for three glorious days.

And there ain’t no party like a Fab party, ’cause a Fab party don’t ever stop.

Let’s watch!

Well, not from my behavior, that is.

And it’s not just at home. It’s at work, too.

Oh sure, I can play it straight. I’m good with the customers. I make pithy comments in meetings. I am appropriately subdued and thoughtful and introspective when dealing with anyone from corporate. But when I am in my cubicle…it’s playtime.

My latest toy is my chair. What a wonderful thing a chair can be!

Last week I found that I could relieve my boredom a little bit while waiting to speak to a customer by spinning around in my chair. I could only do one revolution, because otherwise the cord from the headset would pop my head off, but it was still fun.

And then I found that when I take my headset off…well…then with a good push off my desk I can make five or six complete revolutions in my chair.

What a wonderful discovery!

Of course, you can’t do that too often, or you can make yourself sick. I didn’t get to that point, but I kind of skirted right up to the edge of the abyss.

Here’s a tip: you can make yourself even more dizzy if you look straight up while you are spinning. Another fun thing to is try to get up as soon as the chair stops spinning. I guarantee you can’t do it.

So…yeah. I’m 45 years old.

No matter what your needs are, it is very likely that Co-operative Bank has the credit card that will meet those needs. They have a variety of plans designed to ensure that with smart spending habits you will pay a minimum of interest.

For instance, they offer a credit card with a 0% interest rate on both purchases and balance transfers–you can’t get any lower than that. Are you a socially conscience consumer? They also offer a card that as you use it will earn money for the non-profit organization of your choice. If you are a frequent traveler, you might be interested in their travel card, which, among other benefits, will earn you travel reward points as you use it.

It is nice to find a bank that offers numerous creative programs for savvy consumers. Check them out for yourself, I bet you will be impressed.

That totally rhymed. Did you pick up on that? Good.

My homegirl Bluepaintred, one of the cool Canadians, has started up another blog. I swear, between her three kids, her other three blogs, her husband, and her baby seal clubbing addiction, I don’t know where she finds the time.

Her new blog is called Where Was I? It’s an appropriate name because I think she is often confused about where she is. I assume that is the case because she is always talking about me coming down there. Hello? Honey? You live in Canada and I live in Florida. I would have to come up there.

Sheesh.

Anyway, she is having a contest! You need to check it out and enter, and in so doing you can win either a bitchin’ video game or $30 PayPal do-re-mi. You know you could use either one of those prizes.

Check her out. She’s awesome. Enter the contest, write a post, bookmark her blog, order some dead seals from her…go nuts.

I said go nuts. Like, now!

If are not familiar with the site Tattoo Lovers I suggest you check them out. It is a dating site specifically for single folks who love tattoos and have tattoos. In other words, the cool people. Mrs. Fab won’t let me get a tattoo…

I really think tattoo dating sites are a great idea, and Tattoo Lovers is THE premiere dating site for tattooed singles online. It’s free to sign up and you can immediately begin browsing among the thousands of profiles available.

A lot of my blogging peeps have tattoos, and for those single gals and guys in the blogosphere who are inked, this definitely is a dating site worth checking out. You know…if Mrs. Fab ever got wise and left me, then I could get a tattoo and join the site..

You? Do you? Hey…how about you?

Did I mention that it’s red? That’s right…just like Satan.

Over on It’s Write Now (puns are fun!), the lovely and talented Emma is holding a contest for that very item. How lucky is that?

You can read all the details in the contest post right here.

Basically, you need to create a post much like this one pimping the contest, link to the site and the contest post over at her blog, and then leave her a comment with the url.

And while you are over there, you probably want to bookmark her site. It’s all about writing. You know how I love to write. It’s my second favorite activity next to performing my Minnie Pearl impression at parties and funerals.

So what are you waiting for? Satan’s iPod doesn’t grow on trees, you know!

Actually, I have no way of knowing if that is true.