My original plan for honoring Martin Luther King Jr. - spending the day in NYC - took a hit thanks to the crappy, rainy weather. I like culture and adventurous wandering, but not if it's going to rain on me. So I had to come up with an equally satisfying Plan B. A dry Plan B.

I devised an ambitious four-step plan:

1. Watch a season or two of "Sex and the City."

2. Finish the Great Music Ripping Project.

3. Buy an iPod.

4. Combine the efforts of step two and step three.

It's ridiculous that I haven't bought an iPod. People say that to me all the time (usually as they look at my thousands of CDs) - "how can YOU not have an iPod?" But for me, picking which one I wanted was my Sophie's Choice. I have changed my mind at least 100 times and thus never got one. Until today. Which isn't to say the flip-flopping didn't continue until the last possible minute. Just last week I told the Good Doctor I was leaning toward the 8-gig Nano. Today, I bought the 30-gig video version.

But on what should have been a happy, happy day - skipping out of the store with new toy in hand - everything almost went to shit thanks to the incompetence of an incredibly dim young man named Vic. Never has it been so difficult to spend $300.

Making said purchase required two trips to the iPod customer service desk, two to the cash register and one to the Best Buy customer service desk, to rectify Vic's various missteps. By the time I left, I was so irritated I flipped a motorist the bird as I walked out of the store (in my defense, he had parked on the sidewalk in front of the store because he was "just running in for a minute," and almost ran me over in his haste to pull away from the curb).

Luckily, that 20-minute debacle wasn't enough to ruin the afternoon. The rest of the day has been spent at Casa Magnolia, ripping away. I know my musical tastes are all over the map but seeing it all laid out in front of me in a list on iTunes really bangs the point home. I think my favorite consecutive string of artists is Belinda Carlisle, Benny Goodman, Bernaud Uedre and Big Audio Dynamite II.

As for Friday, getting a shot injected directly into your spine isn't as bad as you'd think. It helps if a woman you've known since elementary school, whose husband was your senior prom date, turns out to be your nurse and helps facilitate the one thing no one else could manage in four weeks of agony - legally prescribed painkillers. The nerve remains as severely pinched as it was a month ago. But now, I don't care as much. And I'm one step closer to having something in common with His Holiness. Not that I'm planning on getting addicted to Vicodin. But I could.

I've also decided not to let it slow me down anymore. Friday night, I went out with the clowns and Saturday I went to AC to see a concert. Sunday, of course, was spent watching football. You know when Chevy Chase tells his assembled family about his desire for a late present in "Christmas Vacation?" I have dreams of a similar scenario involving this man.