Sixty seconds make a minute. Hard work and diligence make success. Rum, Coke and a lime make a Cuba Libre. Plastic and leather make "Pleather." Sixty minutes make an hour. A bassist, pianist and drummer make a jazz trio. Time, heat and pressure make coal into diamonds. Kruder and Dorfmeister make remixes. Twenty-four hours make a day, and what a difference a day makes - just 24 little hours.

As always, I'm happy to be of assistance. Next week, I'll tell you how to make "whoopie" - as much as I can, before the authorities intervene.
 

Reading through Urban 75, the self-proclaimed voice of the UK Underground, I was gently reminded of the Opera Principle: it usually sounds better when sung in someone else's native tongue. Deprived of immediate meaning of the words, you find yourself admiring their expression and shape; whatever meaning you glean from them will usually be far more personal than if you had understood every last syllable. In a like manner, the way Urban 75 deals with global concerns and earthy pleasures seems so foreign - despite being delivered in (mostly) understandable colloquial English - that even the most simplistic, single-minded or just plain silly of statements takes on a deeper gravity. Even the Shockwave games - including "Perpetual Bubblewrap," a Zen-like exercise described right on the page as "useless" - seem more serious somehow, because they're just that far removed from your experience. If this were an American site, I'd shoot many holes in a page given over to "Ten Reasons to Legalise All Drugs," but as done by these classy Brits, I'm ready to petition the UN. Whizz for everyone.
 

"Repo Man": the movie most often quoted by males aged 25-40. I have no scientific proof to offer, but how could it be otherwise? "Put it on a plate, son, you'll enjoy it more." "I don't want no commies in my car." "Plate of shrimp." My friend Gregory holds that if someone quotes a movie, and you recognize that it's a movie quote but you're not sure which movie it came from, it came from "Repo Man." I believe him, as I also believe that Alex Cox, "Repo Man's" writer/director, may very well have peaked with the 1984 film. "Sid and Nancy" was nearly as good but not quite, while "Walker" and "Straight to Hell" were unrepentant shitbombs both. (To be fair, I haven't seen "Death and the Compass," "The Winner" and "Three Businessmen," because the only video store 'round these parts is Blockbuster - a disgustingly amoral operation whose idea of edgy fare is "American Pie." Freakin' wipes. I hate 'em.) Despite those failings, Cox remains one cool cat in my eyes. Anyone who could have made anything as cool as "Repo Man" deserves immunity from criticism; you know, like Iggy Pop, whose best work was way before you were born, you rotten little suburban punk. Bottom line is, Cox fully deserves this cool fan page, and a hundred more just like it. Why? Because he dresses like a detective.
 

The images are a bit small and pixelated, and the navigation leaves something to be desired, but any site that delivers even one picture of a "muffler man" is worthy of praise. Roadside Peek isn't the only website devoted to roadside signs and attractions (and it certainly isn't the only such site I've featured on this page), but can one really get too much of this sort of thing? Besides, there's over a dozen "muffler men" here, along with many images from classic Route 66 - the "Mother Road." Roadside Peek's heart is as big as the American West, and right where it should be.
 

Of course it's stupid. That's the idea. With a name like Seanbaby.com, what kinda site do you expect? One of those paperless paper trades? Dancing gerbils? Digital postcards with life-affirming MIDI? You couldn't be any farther off the mark. Try an entire section devoted to dissing the Superfriends. A collection of Hostess ads featuring Marvel comic characters, gorged on Twinkies. A page called, simply and oh-so appropriately, "The Stupid Page." And it's all written in the funny, post-ironic idiom that the candy-hair set persists in riding hard and putting up wet. Wacky. I laughed, I cried, I laughed, I cried, etceteras, ad infinitum. I'm listening to Petula Clark, Lida Husik and Funkadelic right now; it may be affecting my judgement. Just so you know.

Yeah, I've sold out. See those advertising banners and commerce links all around me? Just imagine them as Hitchcock DVDs or bottles of Wild Turkey and you'll feel some measure of my pleasure. Burn, baby, burn! Think of me as "Passagee," the greedy little rat-bastard Pokemon. See you next week.