This record is not all that impressive. If anyone knows of a better Stevie Wonder album, please tell me.

Another dinner party tonight, this time at our house. I'm overly curious as to whether sausage is an acceptable entree, it's a question that is making my head hurt. I wish I knew how to cook better, that way I could impress people.

So very moody lately. Went home after work yesterday and promptly sat on the couch, drank too much beer too fast, and watched the Sharks get killed by the Ottawa Sentators of all people. Got sleepy, very sleepy, and tried to watch The Dark Crystal but I fell asleep before 10:00. I woke up at 4:00 am and felt like the biggest scrub loser, drinking too much, eating too much, and sleeping too much. Perhaps it's all recuperation, but isn't it all just a tad depressing at times?

Why do cops always have to pull some kind of authority trip on me? I had to rush off after lunch today to take care of an old parking ticket, which included having a cop sign off that I corrected the infraction. So I pull up behind a guy on the main street though town, walk up to his window, and ask him if he could sign the ticket for me. He says "Sure, but I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the street" in this really deep voiced tone. I felt like going "Oh, golly gee thanks! I didn't notice I was standing on the side of the road! You sure saved me there!" Of course, I just complied like a wimp.

Creeper Lagoon was pretty mediocre last night. But boy, are Jimmy Eat World fans a bunch of meat-heads or what? I swear, half the guys there were members of the University football squad, what with their baseball hats and baggy shorts with big pockets. After a "Dear Deadly" in Creeper's set, one turned to the other and said "Whoah! That was a good one dude!" I couldn't make this up. Oh, and half of them were wearing Millencolin shirts, which I think is a pop-punk band from Sweden. Too strange.

• Review of the newest J Church CD: weak-sauce.
• The cuts on my finger have still not healed. I should be a band-aid rep.
• Today was gorgeous. Little yellow flowers have popped up all over the wine country between the vines and the rosebushes.
• Another J-Church note: Arbor Vitae is one of the best singalong albums, ever. Period.
• The new Creeper Lagoon album has some certifiable, grade A hits ("Hey Sister" and "Wrecking Ball").
• Catholics make the prettiest churches.

Over and out.

Ok, so I’ve been on hold with a previously mentioned evil company for 17 minutes now. As if that weren’t bad enough, they have the same 8 bars of the crappy elevator music song playing over and over again. It’s literally looped, you can hear the glitch in the processor when it loops. So, here’s your fun for the day. Pick up the phone, call 1-800-334-5000, press #2 at the menu, and the listen to the looping oboe from hell. It’s seriously fun. It’s more fun if you have speaker phone and can use it to annoy anyone around you.

Had a splendid dinner last night with one of the best Caesar salads I’ve ever had (I can still taste the garlic). We looked at a ton of travel pictures from all over the world, made me a tad jealous that I can’t afford to travel much.

I got a postcard in the mail from Texas. A friend of mine in Austin is being featured in a photo exhibit and now I’m (again) trying to come up with ways to get myself to Texas to see it. I don’t know if I’d be able to do the drive-straight-to-Texas-for-36 hours again, but it’s still a thought.

During 2nd intermission tonight I did a bunch of dishes I had been meaning to do, put on an old Jawbreaker CD, and got all sad 'cause music around here isn't like that anymore. Everyone keeps trying real hard to be the next Third Eye Blind. I was lucky enough to score the new Creeper Lagoon CD, the album they've been sitting on for a couple years now. It's good, but a bit depressing since it just falls into the "overproduce me" category that has invaded the main music scenes of most cities.

You know those phases you go through in life? Right now I think I'm in my Trefoils (ala the Girl Scouts) and J-Church phase. I can't seem to get enough of either. I bought the newest J Church CD, even though it's on a crappy bro-punk label (I got it used, they won't see a cent) and am saving it until Wednesday when I can listen to it in its proper wine country environment.

I have to go wake up MRA now 'cause we're going to dinner with my old roomate.

So I'm doing some cleaning up here. I took off my Top Ten of 2000 'cause, well, it's February. That, and I couldn't fit anymore files on my server so I had to dump all those MP3s. Darn. I'm going to make some sort of new list mighty soon. Top releases of January? Who knows.

The good news is that there's a new MP3 of the week. Since I'm going to see Mark Kozelek play solo tonight, I thought it would be fitting to put a Red House Painters song up here. This is Kozelek's take on the Neil Young song "Midnight On The Bay." Perfect for this evening.