$20 at the VOA. Nice. Though I think I paid a bit too much. Still. It’s perfect. It’s on casters. Yay.

I can’t stop driving.

I can’t. Paul McCartney won’t let me.

See, there’s this window at work where I work. And at 5 p.m. the sunlight becomes a laser, and the laser is pointed right at your eyes. And the blind that’s on the window is pathetic and every time you move it, one of the panels falls off. And every time this has happened this week and every time the sun gets in my eyes, my auditory cortex fires off the harmonic whipped butter that is “Sun King.”

They are these random happenstances that often drive my most excellent decisions. And so on Thursday evening as I was squinting and looking forward to six more hours of providing the most excellent technical support in New York State, and as I was looking forward as well to TV and Tequila Thursday, which we shall discuss in this Web space at a later time (Damn You Shonda), I decided that what was needed was an Abbey Road Weekend. So therefore and thereby I declare and confirm as of now.

Rolling Stone rates Abbey Road as the 14th greatest album of all time and Sgt. Pepper’s as the best. I’d flip those rankings.

Abbey Road is the greatest rock and roll album ever recorded.

And that’s why I had to drive by my own house. Because I haven’t yet gotten to The End. Because I haven’t yet heard that curious tribute to the Queen. Or to the queen. Or to Queen. I’m not sure which.

But I’ve got a belly belly full of wine.

I can’t stop my car, but I get to my destination shortly. That is one thing that makes Abbey Road the finest rock and roll album every recorded. It is lush and gorgeous and orchestrated and beautiful. But it is concise.

And as I turn around at Ellen Smith Road, I am so into the album and its end that I sort of cry a little.

This is what makes me cry. Brilliance. Brilliance makes me cry. Not much else does because I do not have many expectations left and so I can no longer get that deeply disappointed or hurt. But when I experience other people doing something that is brilliant and them doing that brilliant thing brilliantly, I cry. And as I’m doing a somewhat illegal u-turn at Ellen Smith Road and as I’m listening to the final strokes of “Medley,” well. Boohoo. Fuck me, right?

Abbey Road is often arranged with this odd syncopation. Choruses do not always fall where one expects them. And yet, if you have listened to the album, you do not ever miss a cue when you are belting it out in the front seat of your automobile. It excels in so many musical areas that it is difficult to identify them all. It has a sense of humor. It excels in musicianship. It is adequately rough and ugly and yet it is beautiful. Its soul is large and throbbing. It includes beautiful orchestration and blues and damned near heavy metal. It utilizes tempo changes more effectively than any recorded work I have ever heard. It is among the evidence that Ringo Starr was a unique drummer and one of the finest on the planet.

There is no recording artist today or yesterday or last week or in 1978 who does not owe a debt to Abbey Road. And especially you, Radiohead. I am certain Thom Yorke has spent a lot of time with this album. Certain of it. He and his band’s sound would not exist without it.

So therefore, I am declaring this an Abbey Road Weekend. Oh yeah. Oh right. Go get one of your copies out and spin it.

One of my little life missions right now is to understand how to correctly create a delicious hamburger, and I am having a hell of a time getting it right.

I did the burgers on Monday, and while they were damned good, I got lucky because the meat was good, not the cook. Despite my better knowledge, I did a lot of things wrong.

I worked the meat too hard in the bowl when I was seasoning. I used garlic powder. Bleh. I packed the individual burgers into a plate, working the fat in the meat way too hard and making the patties too thin. I likely ended up with an overheated cast iron skillet and left them on too long, concerned that the cheese would not melt correctly in time.

They were still delicious. But that spoke to the quality of the meat, which came from a fresh cow purchased by my household and stuck into their freezer. The meat was sublime. The cook did not fuck it up but did not add skill and grace and patience to the program to elevate that food even higher.

I’m learning though. I figure if you’re going to bother to cook with cast iron, you should take the time to figure out how to use it most effectively. So I went to Home Depot and bought an infrared thermometer. This is, I figure, the only way to learn better how to control the temperature of your cooking surface. And I do not figure that burgers require a 600-800 degree cooking surface, as might a nice steak. Burgers can likely do best at 350 to 400, I figure. You want to cook them hot and fast, true, but this is not a solid piece of muscle and bone you’re slapping down. It’s meat that was run through a grinder. It’s a bit soft and will not require immense temps to be perfect.

Thus, the temperature Gatling gun. I want to know what surface heat will cook that sucker the best and to learn how to gauge my times appropriately. I think if you’re cooking with cast iron, there’s a whole ‘nother set of rules about temperature than if you’re used to you usual aluminum anodized skillet or whatever. Because cast iron can get to 350 in like ten minutes at a setting of about 3 on the gas.

This is, you might say, way too much hand-wringing about a damned hamburger. But if I can get a method down to consistently lay down a perfect juicy burger each and every time, I can understand more about other kinds of cooking. Cooking is learning. Eating is learning. And right now, I seem to be fixated on the hamburger.

If I had advice to those who use a third-party hosted piece of software, such as a content management system, such as, say, WordPress which I utilize for fun, or, say, ProStores, which I utilize as part of my day job, it would be this: Don’t Marry a Theme.

Flexibility in this regard is key and can improve the functionality of your site. Worry about if it works before you worry about if it’s pretty. You can always hang up a new placard later.

So I had to change this theme here tonight; had to. The old one was doing something dreadful and I do not want to mess around trying to fix it. The damned thing was closing my comments despite the current settings, and I received a comment tonight that simply must go up, from the late Pete Schoettler’s wife, acknowledging my post about his passing and his brief career as a drum major, and I was not going to allow her comment not to be seen here.

Sorry Mom. As much as you like the old theme with me in the old Superman outfit, that theme gots to go. It wasn’t workin’.

And Nina, I’m so glad you found my post. Thank you.

Once upon a time, the makers of the most ubiquitous search engine in the world set out to create the most ubiquitous e-mail system in the world.

They made it light and simple and elegant. And they introduced a completely new concept to e-mail: Rather than e-mail being individual, disembodied messages, e-mail is actually a conversation and should be constructed as such.

This is how Gmail worked initially, and it was awesome. I was sold at the time by Gmail’s ability to handle e-mails as conversations, but I also enjoyed how simple and elegant it was and how easy and efficient that made navigation.

Why is it that a company creates such a simple, wonderful tool and then eventually loads it up with clutter that eventually makes it impossible to use?

That time has come with Gmail, and, by way of digression, Twitter as well. Gmail these days is next to impossible to use. My window is cluttered with chat buddies, a feature that I never configured and buddies I never added, and commands are now run by icons that are about as intuitive as trying to read a bowl of soup.

Gmail was once a breath of fresh air, such a grand new service that it not only improved e-mail, it actually elevated it. It has recently become a bucket of mush.

This is why my e-mail is moving to a new service. I’ll let ya know if you need to know.

Of all the godamm things I feel compelled to come back to my blog to write about and it’s NBC’s The Voice. Am I that shallow?

Okay. So I am. Whatever.

I have just gotten done watching this television program for the first time, having just watched episodes one and two of season two on-demand. I have, in previous seasons, been known to watch the Idol. And friends, I’m here to tell you: The Voice is Idol’s smarter, better, faster cousin.

Let’s face it: Idol is a disorganized mess. There are judges, and the judges and their drama eclipses the show. Then sometimes these “coaches” come in and offer some idiotic platitudes about singing from your diaphragm and crap, and then there’s the Idol Cares segment, which is when you get up from your chair and go off to drop a load or have a sandwich or something. It’s a mess. I’d say it’s a Jackson Pollock painting, but even Pollock watches Idol from the grave and he’s all like “What a fucking mess! What the hell is that supposed to be?”

The Voice, however, was designed with nifty, contoured edges. The “judges” ARE coaches, looking to build a team for competition. They sit in big red barber chairs facing away from the performer, so they have only the voice to help them choose. If they are for the performer, they bop a button and the big chair turns around so they can see said performer. If more than one coach selects a performer, then the performer must choose what team to be on, and the coaches can argue their case.

These are the television producers you want on your team, people. It is clear that these geniuses of media designed this show utilizing a flow chart, unlike those who designed the Idol, which was clearly created by throwing balogna at one another’s bare asses.

And. Not only is this program’s planning and execution terrific. But at the start of episode #2, the coaches, who are Christina Aguilera (have I mentioned that, secretly, I am a fan?), CeeeLo (formerly of Goodie Mob and currently of whatever the heck he wants), Adam Levine of Maroon 5 (whose band turned in a killer performance live and early in the morning on The Howard Stern Show) and some country guy, performed a medley of music by this guy called Prince.

This performance could have easily sucked. But it did not suck. Because, clearly, someone who actually knows and loves the Purple Guy’s music put the thing together. I mean, if you’re doing a Prince medley and you include “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” you’re a fan. Only a cover of “She’s Always In My Hair” or “Let’s Pretend We’re Married” would have further knocked off my socks. I’m not sure what purpose this performance played, but it did not suck, as well it could have.

As I said, I have watched the Idol show there previously, and I couldn’t help but to feel drowned in its own pomposity. The Voice is a much better alternative if you insist on watching one of these silly televised talent programs. Which, apparently, I do.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer “natural” peanut butter of the Smucker’s variety. I find the other brands, well, they taste peanutty and all, but for me, there’s no texture or flavor like the one that a natural butter can impart.

But, as we all know, that stuff is a pain in the ass. It’s delivered with an inch of peanut oil on the top, and you’re supposed to stir it in, but dude, it’s PEANUT BUTTER. You cannot just reach in there with a spoon and create a decent emulsion.

The solution is also a pain in the ass. But it works. It will provide you with a well blended, smooth, yummy natural peanut butter that can be refrigerated (as it ought to be) but that will spread reliably, even just out of the chill box.

Goes like this: When you first open the jar, dump all of the contents into a KitchenAid bowl and give it a good four-minute mix, then move the contents back into the jar. You will create a lovely emulsion that will last all the way to the bottom, a creamy, spreadable mass.

My new insurance agent’s office keeps a pooch, this elderly, fat, patchy cocker spaniel mutt with a cyst on his back, named “Lucky.” As I waited this morning, Lucky came over, gave me a sniff, then rolled onto his back and insisted on a belly rub. I rubbed the dog’s tummeh and was certain I had picked the right insurance agent.

This may be one of the most foolish things I’ve ever come across on the Facebook. I didn’t want to go over and poop all over the wall of the person who hung it. That’s not nice and I often feel bad if I walk over to someone’s Facebook wall and smear excrement all over it. But I had to note it somewhere. Why not at the Adventures site, after all.

I’m not sure which I despise more about this garbage, which, if my sourcing is accurate, originated from the page of one Tony Hurlow, not sure which I hate more about it, the dishonesty, or the brash ignorance. Or do I simply hate that I can’t tell which vapid quality is driving this?

Here’s the thing. Atheists believe one thing. There is one thing that atheists believe. Atheists disbelieve in deities.

Beyond that, it is entirely presumptuous to assume that every person who rejects the notion of deities puts full stock of the universe’s origins into the hands of Georges Lemaître. I’m not certain most folks who are atheists give a G* about how this all came to be. Some may have become atheists simply so they could stop fussing around with it, all this hand-wringing about how the whole universe began. But I don’t know. Unlike Tony Hurlow and my Facebook pal, I don’t presume to speak for all atheists.

I can’t even tell you with 100 percent certainty if I am one myself.

But this little bumpersticker, it’s hardly the explanation of the Big Bang you’d consider adequate for a second grade class. It is a gross simplification of ideas that are so complex and shimmering that only a handful of people on the entire planet have actually ever grokked them. And those ideas are nowhere near as silly as that of the virgin birth, of the resurrection, of a guy flying from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged horse overnight, of a guy out west chatting it up with Native American ghosts, that Jesus Christ was actually reincarnated as the Emperor of Ethiopia, that the creator of the universe is actually a giant spaghetti monster, that the Earth is actually the center of the universe.

This little slogan here, it lies. Atheists do not “believe” in the Big Bang and Evolution. Atheists prefer not to try to speak to an imaginary friend in the sky. That is all. But saying that Atheism is a religion is like saying that not collecting coins is a hobby. An Atheist may pick up, you know, a “book,” for instance, and read some ideas that scientists have developed to try to explain all of this, and he might stroke his chin and go yeah, that makes sense. That hardly means that the bloke thinks that Stephen Hawking is the Lord.

I can’t help but wonder, when I see something like this. Dude. If your faith is so great, if your religion is such a terrific product, then why do you have to sell it so hard? Just pray and believe and stop lying about the rest of us. I think that one’s in the Bible in there somewhere.

Oh, and one more thing. I mentioned earlier in this piece of a man named Georges Lemaître. He was the Daddy of the Big Bang Theory, though he’s not the one who coined the term. But he did first introduce the notion of what he called the “primeval atom.” Also, I should mention, Lemaître was sometimes addressed as Abbé or Monseigneur.

He was a priest.

P.S. Some bonus footage I recently discovered. Here’s Neil deGrasse Tyson remembering how he met one Carl Sagan. This story reveals Sagan to have been one of the coolest dudes evar. Listen.

* This is part of an ongoing effort to encourage those of the humanist ilk to get away from the GD when you feel like letting out a good cuss and blaming the universal force that is A) Godless and B) More often than not the ACTUAL CAUSE OF WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO SWEAR IN THE FIRST PLACE. Gravity, kids. Use it as a swear, early and often. If you don’t believe in God, why blame Her?