The operative was busy. It was the season of the wolf, and this year he wasn't gonna get thrown off into some other crazy situation.He was staying in the crazy situation he enjoyed. So with HTML tags floating in his mind, his girlfriend's engagement ring coalescing in his heart, and the chaos of running the site circling his head, he was somewhat surprised to see the message on his doorstep.

It was another corpse -- that's how the Soul Review Board delivered their messages -- a bloated caucasian male in off-the-rack slacks, an empty shoulder holster hanging loosely off one arm, an LAPD badge gleaming in the winter sun despite drops of blood coagulating on its golden surface. The envelope stapled to his shirt, however, was spotless, the regimented handwriting of SRB scribe Brandi Loco scrawled neatly across its surface. Upon opening it, within was a folded white sheet of paper with that same perfect handwriting, and only three words.

"Puffy. Must. DIE!"

The operative sighed and trudged up the stairs to his apartment, overlooking the Jungles of LA. As he clicked the secret switch underneath his futon, he assembled the tools of the trade and reviewed the career of Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, discerning the reasons an assassination order came down on the Bad Boy.

A model of entrepreneurial spirit, he rose from intern and tour dancer to one of the defining names in urban music. Using a careful mix of familiar elements and gritty urban talent (Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, et cetera) to create a sound and vibe that was at once fascinating and inspiring, he made a place for himself and had fun.

Then he decided to open his mouth.

From the opening chords of "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down," it was just a matter of time until Combs filled somebody's crosshairs. His relentless and pedestrian theft of 80s hits left a palatable stench on the fine art of sampling which it has yet to fully recover from. His rhymes were the stuff of fine, vintage sewage, easily craftable by any eight year old with a forty ounce of Yoo Hoo in him.

Puffy's rhymes often spoke of guns and crime, especially after his association with the now-late Christopher Wallace. This was particularly galling, as Puffy hailed from the same ghetto-lite New York suburb that produced Heavy D, "Money Earnin' Mount Vernon." By mixing Heavy's livin' la vida skrilla style of flashy new money and girls with the criminology that was making charts from west to east, Puffy reinvented a poorly thought out genre and made it incredibly big money.

Along the way, he may have betrayed Andre Harrell, his mentor at Uptown Records, but no one knows for certain. The once road dogs are now as distant as Nome and Newark.

The final straw was probably the Forever album, which committed the twin crimes of remaking songs by Public Enemy and MC Lyte, in such an irritating and blatantly money grubbing fashion that it was unmistakable. Sampling 80s music was one thing, but soiling the Holy Name of Chuck D was another. Time to decompose.

So, with a freshly loaded pair of Heckler & Koch MP5s, his trusty katana Nina, and his Monte Carlo gassed up, the operative prepared to make the drive, and wondered if he'd have to cap Lil' Kim to get Puffy. "That'd be a shame," he thought to himself, loading the trunk, "her rhymes were beginning to improve. Oh well, one less whore in the world."

With a thunk of the lid, he hopped in and drove east.