I promised myself that I will not be negative this week. Mostly because I don't feel bad. I don't feel like everything is falling to ruin around me. I don't think the sky is falling--yet. So I'm gonna be good. I'm gonna be nice. Everything is good. Really. For the most part. Good.

Sure, it took less than a month for the new Prez* to bomb Iraq, but look at it this way--he isn't declaring war or anything. So really, he's just reinforcing all the stupid policies our government has held as right and just for the last 10 or so years. It's not really an act of aggression, it's a regression to the same old stalemate that's been going on for years. So it's not so bad. Bush gets to show that he knows how to say "yes, bomb them" when his advisors tell him Baghdad is lookin' a bit too spiffy these days. Saddam gets to show pictures of Iraqi citizens with blown off legs (How do we blow their legs off from the air? That's some weird technology we've got) because we are the Great Satan. And I'm sure those fighter pilots were getting really antsy to pop a load off. Everyone gets what they want. Everyone is happy. Everything is good.

Eminem might get a Grammy. The daily paper I read is really pissed off about this. Apparently, in their view, the Grammy's are about art or something. Or at least art in their narrow point of view--because in their narrow view, anyone who says bad things about pretty much every type of person in the world is not art. But what they don't seem to understand is that the Grammys are about money. Eminem sold about 8 million copies of his album last year. That's about 8 million bucks for him and tens of millions of bucks for his record company. That's a lot of money. He totally deserves a Grammy. He's making the whole machine run--and he gets to shoot his mouth off about whatever he wants--what other criteria is there for receiving a Grammy? I mean, Milli Vanilli got a Grammy--and they didn't even sing on their album. Whoever thought Grammys were about artistic merit? Considering how many albums Eminem has sold, I think there will be a bunch of pissy little white boys who suddenly think the Grammys are hip if he gets one. So everyone is happy. Everything is good.

There is a cool website called Plastic (www.plastic.com) that I get most of my news from on the web these days. A bunch of web editors from hip and cool publications (like Feed, Spin and the Modern Humorist) funnel news stories into the Plastic hopper and after reading the latest screed about Britney's tube sock fetish, readers (like myself) can submit snide comments that everyone can check out. Based on what moderators score your comments, you receive Karma points. I have 10 Karma points. I'm also a moderator at times. It makes all of these strange (and sometimes very mainstream) stories that much cooler when you can write a couple of jokes and see what others think. It's extremely liberal (politics wise), so if you're one of those compassionate conservatives (and if you are, why are you reading my column?) you might want to stay away. But for people like me, it's a virtual smorgasbord of fun. Everyone is happy. Everything is good.

Even though I spend much of my work day downloading songs from Napster, checking e-mail, stock prices and news at Plastic, and playing simple 80s-style computer games, I got a raise at work. And it was a pretty generous one, considering that I've done no specific training or schooling for what I get paid for. I'm not going to go into the details of this development too much, but everyone is happy. Everything is good.

I have begun to recycle my past a bit. Because of the degrading nature of audio and video tapes, I've started to record songs (and in some cases, video) from old bands I've been in. And because you can put these incredible recordings up on mp3.com for free (no matter how good or bad your stuff is), everyone in the world can check out a defunct for ten years band called Billy's Gun (named after Billy The Kid's elephant gun) for free. After a couple of weeks on the site, I'd say that this music has gotten a pretty good response considering that 1) no one knows about the band 2) there is no publicity surrounding Billy's Gun--and the band description on the site is mostly made up and uses fake names and 3) this stuff was recorded in a friend's living room 10 years ago when hair rock was king. Everyone is happy. Everything is good.

And spring is coming. Every day in the 60s means one less cold day means that we're having a nice pre-spring day. Once again I can kick the soccer ball (out of doors), throw the baseball and hike on the rolling hills above Magdalena. The nastiness of winter (which isn't really that bad here in the Southwestern High Desert, but it has snowed a lot this winter) is gone and the promise of good times and good beer in the sunshine are becoming reality once again. Everyone is happy (and the ski areas still have a lot of snow). Everything is good.

So don't be so down when you find out that you didn't win the lottery. Or if you get laid off from that dot.com. Or if the Prez* mispronounces Zimbabwe. Because, overall, everyone is happy. Everything is good.

Matt Worley is trying to raise is overall Karma with good thoughts and happy warm feelings.