Public service announcement (bordering on an advertisement).

I realize we are in the digital age, man, where CDs are, like, all obsolete and shit.

But if you're like me, you have a bunch of CDs you have no need for anymore because of said digital age, and you're craving all those CDs you sold in college (or lost in breakups) and never repurchased, and spending $10 on iTunes isn't really that appealing.

If you're more like me, you tried to condense your CD stash by pulling them all out of their cases (keeping the front cover art) and donating the cases to random art projects via Craig's List. So what was once a 5-bookshelf collection is now a 7"x7"x24" collection.

And if you're even more like me, you have a 7"x7"x24" collection of CDs taking up space but you don't want to throw them away because they're not recyclable, and you can't take them to Amoeba because they wouldn't want it in the first place. In fact they would probably laugh at you for bringing it in. ("The Bee Gees Greatest Hits. Uh... no thanks." Clearly they haven't read this post.)

So. If you are like me, you should sign up for this cool new CD trading service. It's super easy - it uploads all the music you have stored on your computer, you add any others not stored on your computer and indicate which CDs you want to keep (for me, it's all my grunge, anything sentimental and anything I bought digitally that I can't legally trade), you browse others' CDs to add to your own want list, the company sends you shipping materials and you pay a mere $1.75 when someone ships you something from your want list. And you ship your crap you don't want anymore to people who want your crap. And they pay a mere $1.75 to receive it.

It's quite ingenious. It's almost like the eBay of CD recycling. Over the past month I've managed to get rid of things like The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams (don't tell Kim), Cake, and a lot of stuff I bought secondhand in the first place and didn't end up liking. Of course, I kept a burned copy in case I change my mind in six months and want to listen to all that stuff.

In return I've completed my Too Much Joy and Dead Milkmen collections, built up my Beatles and Run DMC collections and recovered a copy of the DGC Rarities that I loved in 1994. (I had tape versions of all of those, but seriously, TAPES? That's like, soooo 19th century, man.)

And today the standard company CD case (ironically for a Dead Milkmen CD) included a hand-written political message, "Vote Ron Paul for President, 2008" (no hyperlink because I cannot in good conscious support that), which of course inspired me to start writing "Stewart/Colbert 2008" on all the CD cases I send out.

So here's the true public service announcement, brought to you by the Dead Milkmen:

The man said "Keep your head and arms inside the mixer at all times." But Bill Jr., he was a daredevil, just like his old man. He was leaning out saying, "Hey everybody! Look at me, look at me!" POW! He was decapitated. They found his head over by the snowcone concession.