ROB THOMAS HAS 20/TWENTY VISION

With the upcoming release of its next album, "Mad Season," Matchbox 20 will officially change its name to matchbox twenty.

Picture Nancy Kerrigan on the ground in tears screaming, "Why?! Whyyyyy?!"

Here's the official reason. We have too many dot-coms being run by 15-year-olds, too many news programs opening up with Elian Gonzalez's finger, and too many bands that sound like cheesy screen names on AOL: Blink 182, Eve 6, Eiffel 65, Stroke 9, 8 Stops 7; not to mention the police code bands: 702, 311, A3;and the stinging accusation U2!

MB20 merely wants to distinguish itself. Hey! Distinguish this! The real reason can be traced to 3, sorry, three things: Madonna, kabbalah, and numerology.

Lead singer Rob Thomas recently joined Madonna at a kabbalah lecture by Hasidic Rebbe Shlomo Shun where the hidden meaning of numbers blew the young frontman's mind. Using an ancient numerology formula, Thomas decoded the number "20" as the 20th letter of the English alphabet, which Big Bird can tell you is the letter "T."

"It was like a sign from God," Thomas said. "Matchbox 20...Matchbox 'T'...matchbox twenty!" It's magical, it's mystical and it's spreading like hepatitis B. Blink 182 is now "blink one hundred eighty-two," 98 Degrees is now "ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit not Celsius," howie klein',390,400);">howie klein',390,400);">Howie Klein's former record label 415 is now "four hundreds one ten and five ones," and Bono has finally settled on "you too, you brain-dead rat bastards!"