grady (factory@sprynet.com) proffered:

: Nice Price Books is open till 6:00 p.m. Xmas Eve. [...]

For alternate Christmas excitement, try getting out your trusty keyboard
and playing only the F#, A-flat, B-flat, and C# (all black keys), all and
octave plus below middle C, in various patterns. I've been doing that on
the old SK-1 for an hour now (while watching "Roots: The Gift", a film
which features the future captains of Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well
as the future chief engineer/children's literature guru on the Enterprise) 
and it's just as thrilling now as it was when I started. It's a series of
melancholy and slightly exotic tones. 

The 20s of December are the best time of the year in Chapel Hill, all
peaceful and quiet. I loved it when I was a wee child growing up in this
fair town, and I love it more now. It's summer without the heat, dude. 

Rebar are certainly one of the best five bands in North Carolina. That is
not my opinion. It is a scientifically verifiable fact. 

Seeing as how the year is ending, we should offer up opinions on the best
local releases if 96. My vote goes to the "Nowhere Part Two" single by
Simeon. It's only one song, or even just one riff, but it's a nearly
perfect six minutes of lumbering narcolepsy. With the locked groove at the
end of the single side, you can listen to it forever. 

The Squirrel Nut Zippers CD, and the vinyl versions of the records by the
Archers and (especially) Analogue win awards for outstanding packaging.

I'll bet the top selling 1996 album by a North Carolinian was the Andy
Griffith record. Billboard certified it gold, meaning it had over 500,000
sales, but not yet a million. Take that with you to the Shoney's breakfast
bar. Go Andy! 

Nate Florin