3:09 a.m. Well, the music has made things very interesting around here for me ... but it certainly doesn't translate into words. Writing about music is about as interesting as writing about dance. I hear things. They spun around on the stage. There were violins. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.

Muffles the sound of the keyboard, which has always been a sort of music to me. Often I marvel at how my brain is rigged up to allow me to stroke these keys just so ... and the words fall onto the screen ... and there's no conscious effort to pick out the individual letters.

I practically think it, and the words appear. Unless I'm very tired, or sick, or I've been away from the machines for a few days. The connections must be woven out of the most gossamer of neural webs. If you pull too hard your concentration is broken and thoughts scatter like blown dandelion fuzz.

I'm listening to Liszt. Ladies swooned when he played. Who could blame them? Next. Mozart. Who can think when he's asking you to play with him? But isn't some of this music a certain reminder that we are more than human -- that there's something shockingly miraculous, barely glimpsed, forgotten ... something huge that we know we know ... just on the other side of a thousand perfect thoughts?

I keep remembering the scene near the end of Soylent Green with Edward G. Robinson lying back and having the death of his dreams. Grand music, maybe Ode to Joy, or Grieg, and a wide-screen movie in techny-culler with surround sound.

I won't give away any more of the plot for those who haven't seen it yet. It's part of our culture, our shared heritage, and so you must rent it or watch it when it's on TV.

And the music ain't half bad, either.

So now we are in the final countdown month to the big 2-0h.0h.0h. I just hope it's not uh-oh, you know? How could you ever duplicate and stash away all those things you love and use and depend on throughout any typical day?

Working backwards from tonight, there would have to be apples, tea, water, Chinese chicken salad (sorry, Igor -- there goes your lunch tomorrow), soy silk (both chocolate and vanilla), whipped cream, and cocoa ... and you get the picture.

If we run out of everything fresh and frozen, then I would finally eat a lot of the strange stuff stuck in the back of the cupboard. Stuff too good to throw out, but too annoying to eat unless there's nothing else. Beets. Kidney beans. Soy nuts (don't ask). Champagne Jell-O --ugh.

And what is going on with the adds for search engines on TV? What is that all about? Why would Lycos, GoTo, and Alta Vista pay fabulous sums of money to advertise their completely free and completely useless services in between the Star Trek special (which was really nice) and Star Trek Voyager?

Am I missing something? Are we that lost? And did you hear about the people in (I think) Texas who sold the domain "business.com" for -- are you ready? Are you sitting down? Of course you are ... you're in front of a computer, after all ... for $7 point something million dollars.

What company is so stupid and so generic to have paid that kind of money for a non-name like business.com? Words fail me. There aren't enough letters on this keyboard to express my wonderment. I want me some of that loose and plentiful money of stupidity. The holidays are approaching and I would use the money only for good.

You have my word on it -- it's right here on the keyboard.

Maybe it's better if I don't tell you what this is a picture of. It's a little hard to explain.