Pick 3

Here's a little audience participation number. Pick 3 invites you to give not one, not two, but THREE opinions on the topic at hand. The topic will vary: three best switch-hitting American League shortstops, three best cookie recipes, three most vapid celebrities. You never know what you're gonna get, but you're gonna get a chance to make your picks and make your case.

To start things off, list the three greatest guitar riffs in rock music history. Not great guitarists, not smoking polyrhythmic Mahavishnu John McLaughlin solos. Just riffs.

I'll get the ball rolling with my faves:

1. Aqualung (those first six notes)
2. Smoke on the Water (need I say more?)
3. The All-Purpose Chuck Berry riff. (You know the one I mean.)

OK, that leaves about a million others for you to divvy up amongst yourselves. And after you post your 3, I promise you'll think of 30 more, but there's a three riff per post limit.

And while we're on the subject of threes, I refer you to three additions to the blogroll. Lance Mannion and Jason Chervokas should have been on there ages ago, and I have no excuse other than that I am a filthy hippie slacker. These two worthies, along with blogroll stalwart Tom Watson, have a new blogging venture called newcritics, self described as "Web-based criticism in literature, music, film, theater and art from a diverse group of writers." Great look, great content, great writing. It's slick as snot on a glass doorknob, and as cool as the other side of the pillow. Check 'em out!