Happy Days Are Here Again

So thanks to my wonderful girlfriend Milli, I now have, for the first time in many, many years, my very own portable record (phonograph) player and some LP's!

She got it for me on my birthday. What a gift. While I certainly appreciate the clarity and convenience of CD's, mp3's, and the like, you cannot approach the warmth of good ol' analog-recorded vinyl albums. You just can't. And there's just something about the sheer size of an LP record. It's so cool to whip that bad boy out and slide it onto the turntable, to watch it start spinning and for the needle to settle into the groove.

She got me a selection of old LP's from the likes of Dylan, Cash, Keith Green, Jim Croce (one of my childhood favorites) and more. Great records, and, as it happens, records that I do not even own in CD format. Jive Monkey regular Lorie (who is also Milli's roommate -- small world) added two fantastic LP's to my collection: another Dylan classic and "Bramble Rose," a recent release on vinyl from Tift Merrit.

You know what I've been doing lately in my spare time: spinnin' records. Yeehaw!

I think I will keep Milli. Single fella's, if you ever get you a girl that's cool enough to buy you a turntable, then you'll know you've hit the jackpot.

Plus she's really really cute. And nice and righteous. And that's important stuff. But that turntable thing -- man o' man.