Okay, what, exactly, do you want to know about Malimus? Huh? Malimus is a sponge. An Evil Sponge. From Outer Space. Malimus is the only Minion to ever visit the Secret Sponge Satellite of Evil that is in continuous orbit on the dark side of the moon (thus shielding our Headquarters and Relaxation Spa of Evil from the prying eyes of various governmental agencies, The League of Extra-terrestrial Fungal Justice, and the Microsoft Network.)

All of the other minions are jealous because Brendan likes me best and invited me up to visit for the weekend while they had to stay home and water the plants.

HA!

Huh? What's that? Oh, sorry 'bout that, B. Didn't mean to give away trade secrets like that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sure. No, you won't have to do that. I get the picture.

Um, so, yeah. Where was I?

Malimus is the alter-ego of a guy who lives in the North Atlanta suburbs, has been happily married for five years, and works in the omnipresent IT industry to such an extent that has enough disposable income to afford to buy lots of CDs and go to lots of shows. Yeah, that's who Malimus is. He's most definitely not an Evil Minion of a galaxy-wide conspiracy of Bad Fungi, and he has most definitely never been to a super-secret Satellite of Evil in orbit behind the dark side of the moon, because such a place quite obviously doesn't exist.

Better? Okay, okay, I'll take care of it. Sheesh!

So, being that Malimus is just this schmuck you might curse out for having cut you off on GA400, I'll now provide you with a semi-reasonable way to know it was he that did the cutting.

1. The dark blue streak that nearly ran you into the retainer wall, if slowed down to the point of being able to recognize it as matter rather than a stream of energy, looked a lot more like a Saturn SL2 than one of those goddamned tanks all of the housewives up there drive around in, as if they are suddenly going to have need for off-roading capabilities on their way to the fucking mall! The dark blue streak looks nothing like a modified X-wing fighter that has been stolen from the Empire and recruited into the service of Evil Fungi, Inc., although you may hear something that sounds like a guy making "shooting laser" noises at the other cars on the road.
2. You hear, from afar, the unmistakable phrase: "Get the fuck off the road you goddamned Yankee import! This ain't fuckin' Boston, you freak! Learn to fucking drive!!! And while you're at it, learn to fry your fucking food!!!!"
3. Superchunk's Foolish is playing at absurdly loud volumes and some gruff, surly, somewhat hairy guy is screaming "WATER WINGS! MADE OF WAX, MADE OF WATER, WAS TOO DUMB TO ACCEPT THE OFFER, OR WAS IT TOO SMART!!!" one and half keys removed from Mac's voice.
4. He's staring at you. Yeah, you.
5. Perhaps, if you ask nicely, he'll let you buy him a beer.

What? I am distracting them from the satellite bit. What the heck do you think I'm doing? Okay, how about a list of CDs? What if I distract them with a list of CDs? I mean, you saw High Fidelity -- these kinds of people live for lists.

A List, By Which to Distract You For a While

Part 1: Guilty Pleasures from a Wasted Youth - Def Leppard, Pyromania; Styx, Paradise Theatre.

According to all of my hip, punk-when-punk-was-punk friends, the very existence of either of these albums in my collection is cause for alarm and/or bodily harm. Know what? I don't care. I grew up in the wilds of South Georgia buddy, and punk rock, it never got to South Georgia. Closest we ever got was the bone-crunchin', ass-kickin' metal, to which we will get in due time. But there was no punk in South Georgia, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna pretend there was. You got your Replacements records, me and Bully, we got our Motley Crüe records. I know every word to every song on Paradise Theatre, just like I know all the words to Home, Sweet Home, and if you don't like, you're free to kiss my post-metal, lilywhite ass.

Part 2: Bring Unto Me, the Classic Rock -- Led Zepplin, IV (or "Runes", or whatever the hell you want to call it. The one with Black Dog and Stairway to Heaven, dammit); Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon; The Who, Who's Next.

I don't have time to listen to you whine about how "corporate radio" overplays these bands. I know how corporate radio overplays these bands, and though you probably can't conceive of it, the fact that they do so bothers me a thousand times more than it would ever bother you. Because I like these bands, and I can't listen to them for more than 10 minutes on end before feeling nauseous over the amount of times I've heard them overplayed. Trust me, if Atlanta's Modern Rock Radio Giant Power99X suddenly decided to play Ruby Vroom non-stop for the next 20 years, you'd get tired of that too. It's not a function of the power of the music, though, and I refuse to abandon totally three extremely talented bands, and three extremely powerful albums to the wastelands and it's KISS army inhabitants.

Part 3: MMMMMM, Pop - The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Don't even try to dis this album. Not while you're listening to the poor imitators thereof and feeling all indie and hip about it. While it's not true that the Beatles invented pop music (Buddy Holly and the Crickets; look them up) they may very well have perfected it with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Part 4: The Bone-Crunchin', Ass-Kickin' Metal -- Metallica, Master of Puppets: Sanitarium, Battery, Master of Puppets.

Sure, most of their released material from "the Black Album" on is shite, but the string of anger, spit and blood pressed to vinyl between Kill'em All and ...And Justice For All is holy fucking ground, and if you don't think so, well step right up and I'll kick your skinny, thick-glasses wearin' ass all over this mosh pit.

Part 5: College, or Here's Where It Gets Odd:

1. R.E.M., Green: You know those people who R.E.M. sold out to with this album. The one's that rushed out and bought the "pop" album that "betrayed the punk and country roots" of R.E.M.'s corpus of work? That was me. Michael's bank account still thanks me.
2. Nirvana, Nevermind: Depending on whom you are I either don't have to explain this or never could no matter how long I tried. (Might as well throw Pearl Jam's Vs in there as well.)
3. Sugar, Copper Blue: The greatest rock-pop album ever made.
4. Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend: The greatest pop-rock album ever made.
5. Weezer, Weezer: Anyone who doesn't like this album takes themselves far too seriously.

Part 6: Into the Great Unknown (Past and Current Picks with At Least Nominal Indie Cred)

1. Archers of Loaf, Vee Vee: We might as well just say "the entire catalogue" and be done with it, but Vee Vee is the shit of shit, brother. Just a touch above Icky Mettle on the Quality Of Writing charts but not quite weighed down by the expectations dumped onto All The Nation's Airports' production.
2. Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds Five: Yeah, whatever. Fuck you. I like piano rock.
3. Drugstore, Drugstore: All of the flap and hype you hear about Morcheeba, or Portishead, or Garbage, or Goldfrapp, or whatever today's name-of-record is for pouty, female synth-pop, only with a real songwriting talent and a real rock-n-roll band.
4. Hum, You'd Prefer An Astronaut: Hum sound like the Midwest in slow decay: all rust and creeping topsoil withered away by exposure.
5. Lyle Lovett, Joshua Judges Ruth: My wife prefers his big-band sound. I prefer his whacked-out country songs. Either way, there's not enough praise in the world to fill up the amount Lyle Lovett deserves.
6. Bob Mould, Workbook: Bob goes acoustic. Quiet, reserved and melancholy, he's still punker than your Nancyboy ass ever dreamed of being.
7. Pain, Wonderful Beef: As if it's not enough to write bouncy, infectious punk-pop tunes with the most literate lyrics this side of art school crap, they make a stuffed piñata man before every show and throw it into the crowd so it can be ripped limb from limb during Fight. Fight's not on Wonderful Beef, but it really doesn't matter, does it?
8. Radiohead, OK, Computer: Ignore the fan base and listen to the music. Ignore the fan base and listen to the music. Ignore the fan base and listen to the music.
9. The Rock*a*Teens, Cry: Two words; Black Ice.
10. Soul Coughing, Ruby Vroom: The greatest use of a sampler in recorded musical history, including the criminally overrated "Braying Echo Noise from An Airport I Got Stuck At With a 4-Track" by Brian Eno. If M. Doughty wasn't so damned stoned, he would kick Brian Eno's ass.
11. Superchunk, Foolish: The greatest breakup album, ever.
12. Superchunk, Here's Where the Strings Come In: What was once bitter and Foolish is now angry and pissed off. WOOHOO, ANGER!!!

Part, um, 7: Other Things - The Hank Williams Singles box set, American Recordings and Weld/Arcweld. Look them up.

See, I told you a list would distract them. Are we on for dinner this Friday? Which docking bay should I park in?