Ha! Just when you thought I was going to miss an entire month for journal entries, I slip one in right at the last moment. I haven't been as active as I'd like to be here on RinkWorks lately. Well, getting laid off work and taking long camping trips will put a crimp in your daily routine. But even if I get scarce from time to time, I'll never abandon RinkWorks, and even when my work on the site is not visible, I'm still plugging away at it in one way or another. Currently, most of my effort is still going into a rather large upcoming project of unprecedented size and complexity.

Anyway, I wanted to post a little addendum to the discussion on music that occurred here this past May, in which I discuss the current crop of teen pop bands. I have now consciously paid attention to the work of Britney Spears. I heard it on the radio yesterday while coming home from a camping trip in northern New Hampshire. One of her songs came on, and my wife, Darleen, said, "Oh, Britney Spears!"

And I listened for a moment, and I said, "This is Britney Spears?"

"Yeah," she said.

"It sounds just like the Backstreet Boys!" I said.

"What??" my wife exclaimed. "It's a woman."

"But it doesn't sound like a woman. Her voice is all electronically altered."

"Noooo," my wife scoffed in frustration. "She sings Crazy."

"That's Britney Spears!?" I said.

"Yeah."

"I thought that was the Backstreet Boys!" I said, quite truthfully.

"What!?"

"Ha!" I said with the joy that comes with epiphany. "Britney Spears is a boy band!"