You Dreamed of Heroes Riding Across the Sea

This World Wide Web and global village connectivity is paying off for me, big-time, this Christmas as I have all my shopping done (I think). I don't have to brawl at the mall or feel like a salmon going upstream to fulfill a biologic destiny--I can smile, at least until the statements come in the mail, thanks to the on-line merchants who've built a better virtual mousetrap and have delivered on their promises of a new world in the morning, or within two days if I choose priority shipping. Oh come all ye Commerce, Epay and by PayPal....

I'm still handicapped by my lack of ability to visualize items. Unless I've seen it on a store shelf, or caught an advert in a newspaper or on television, simply reading a description on line with or without specifications on size and weight, I'm clueless as to the item's actual size. I live in fear this will be the Christmas where that Stonehenge vignette from Spinal Tap comes to life under the tree in the living room of my house (a tree that looks spectacular and which I can admire without ego since my wife made all the Christmas magic happen. Again).

I'm glad I'm done, more or less, because almost, admittedly only momentarily, I caught a TV spot for Jenny McCarthy, in my opinion this generation's Lucille Ball, but without the red hair or her comedic gift, is hawking a workout video for Wii or maybe it's a computer fitness program that, when followed faithfully, will enable me to transform myself into her image and likeness. Such news usually causes me to inventory our supply of stout rope and mentally map which overhead fixtures might best support my weight, so enthralled at this prospect am I, and then came the deal-clincher. In the background, though thankfully NOT by the original artists, the soundtrack to her sales pitch was The Beatles' Revolution

The Beatles were the soundtrack to my growing up, and not just me--a whole generation of nations. Every time their song catalog gets sold, someone does something like this and (take my word for this) it really grinds a lot of us greatly. Almost ten years ago, somebody in the telecommunications industry thought exploiting Come Together to pitch themselves was a brilliant idea. I was hoping we would, indeed, come together and throw stones through every plate glass window in their corporate headquarters. Now, I can dream, should I find the workout under my tree, to finally develop enough upper body and arm strength to be able to hurl a small car both for distance as well as height. -bill kenny