Woke up early with a nasty rumbling in my tummy, so I took an early walk out before most people were out and got coffee and chocolatines. It was already warm even though it was early, and the only other people out were the excercisers (joggers, cyclists, walkers), and a guy walking down the street with a large padded wicker chair balance on his head.

Finally cleaned up the music mess of minidiscs, CDs, and cassettes that was piling up in front of the stereo, opened all the windows, let the light in, put away all my coats for the winter. Have the Pittsburgh v. Buffalo hockey game on the TV, appropriately muted and way across the room. After the Sharks got knocked out, I've decided I want the Penguins to win the cup this year, it would be perfectly fitting. Besides, I like the city of Pittsburgh.

Going to take a walk later, letting all the stress of the week burn off. White ale in the moonlight last night started the therapy, springtime is continuing it.

Karma's Payment: It was a nice evening last night, and my house was too hot to sit around in, so Miss Rodeo America and I took a nice walk. We went to the bank, and then got coffee. Wouldn't you know it, I gave the guy a $10 and he gave me back change for a $20. Some people call that stealing, I call it good karma.

With my newfound cash, we walked the other way down the street and had a pretty good dinner in the local chain-but-still-it's-damned-good-and-cheap pasta place. The waiter, informing us that he was taking the weekend off to go out of down, decided that all drinks were on him that night. So, we sat there for a long while and talked and drank pints and wine until it was time to walk off the load.

The sun had set so we walked down the street to our local pub and had a couple more pints at the bar after the sun went down, and then went home happier than when we left.

Gorgeous, albeit windy-as-all-hell drive today through Sonoma county, making mad deliveries every which way. After lunch, I came down with this really annoying headache. Not overwhelmingly painful, but enough to bother me. You see, up in Lake county this weekend, I took a turn in the mountains kinda fast and my sunglasses went flying from my visor out the window, landing in the other lane, and were promptly crushed by a big yuppie silver SUV. I think my eyes were sore today from the sun.

So, I pulled into the super-new-and-improved gas station store in Cloverdale and concocted a recipe to rid myself of the headache.

• 1 Mountain Dew (size large)
• 1 Packet of Advil (2 tablets per pack)
• 1 Tandem Ice Cream bar
• 1 Pair sunglasses (aviator/Elvis style, gold rimmed, foolish looking)

Needless to say, after consuming beverage, ice-cream, and Advil, and donning my super-fly shades, I felt much better. I also got both stared and laughed at in the freeway. I will not back down in the face of such adversity.

Speaking of ice-cream, I'm totally digging these Tandem things by Nestle. You see, they're rectangular, and half Klondike bar-ish and half icecream sandwhich. So, when I eat the Klondike bar half first and think to myself, "hmm...I should have gotten an ice-cream sandwhich..." Voila! There is is, the best of both worlds.

Another rock show tonight. Party animal. I 'aint got no other pants.

So, Radiohead are playing near here. Of course, by "San Francisco" they mean "The worst venue ever built, so uncomfortable and nasty that now I don't want to go, and besides, it's way the fuck down in Mountain View, a good 45 minutes south of San Francisco at the Shoreline Ampitheater" Corporate music sucks, sometimes.

MP3 of the week: All indie-scenester kids seem to be in love with Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. However, I am not. I'm in love with the more pop-friendly Born in the USA. I can't get enough of it, and it seems to be the most fitting music for any type of situation. Going over the bridge into the city? Put on Born in the USA! Driving on a levee road on an incredible spring day? Put on Born in the USA! Sitting on your roof drinking a beer and looking over the city? Yah, you get it. Besides the grade A hits (Born in the USA, Dancing in the Dark), the super catchy singalong pop tunes (Working on the Highway, Glory Days), this record has a dark side.

The closing number, My Hometown, as well as I'm On Fire are haunting and touching, like most of Nebraska with some more production. I think I can remember where I was everytime I've heard the latter, something about its simplicty, shortness, phrasing. Pure New Jersey genius.

How to get dust up your nose the easy way: We took a roadtrip this weekend up through the middle of Northern California to see some places I'd never seen. We hit up a thrift store in Sacramento, got offered wresting tickets in Yuba City, drove through our upcoming roomate's hometown in Sutter (all orchards, almonds and walnuts, as far as we could see), gazed at the bluffs as we drove north into Chico. The college town's graduation was that weekend and there were no motel rooms to be found, so we headed to Paradise up in the mountains and scored a vacancy, ate some steak and calamari and walked to hell and back trying to find liquor. We ended up trying to be trashy and drinking nasty wine-coolers while we lounged in the motel room watching bad TV.

The next morning we wandered back to Chico and got coffee and a bagel, I attempted to write about the adventure here, however, the cafe's crappy Prodigy DSL didn't like Blogger, or any other site for that matter, so I gave up. Miss Rodeo America sat in the park in the center of town and ate coffee cake, staring at the hippies/bad kids/wanderers who hung out there. The air was cool and the trees gave enough shade to cover the entire town.

We left, and headed out west towards the mountains, venturing onto a gravel road lined with, yes, dead coyotes hung on the fences wearing hats. This is no joke, and we were mighty creeped out. Right before we saw the coyotes we saw a 12 year old kid on an ATV riding down the middle of the road, staring at us with a rifle strapped across his front like a Mexico City policeman. We rode into Paskenta to find a rodeo going on, with cowboys riding horses down the middle of the road. We tried to drive over the mountains, but the road got worse and worse until it turned into a dirt trail, and my '86 Accord just wasn't up for a 25 mile journey over this terrain, so we headed back. By this time, everthing in the car was covered in a thick layer of dirt from all the dust kicked up by the car. The CD player was brown, my sunglasses had to be spit-cleaned, and my toothbrush is now brown with dirt. Nastiness all around.

By the time we pulled into Calistoga, wrought with yuppies and "precious" stores, we were famished and had a wonderful dinner (Cheddar burger, garlic fries, freshly brewed beer) outside underneath trees and flowers and cool goodness all around. Put on some Radiohead and drove back home, content with our adventure.

Lostforlife is dead again. Damn. Damn.

Uh. Yah. Coyotes. On Fences. The MP3 of the week is late, I'm sorry. Kick me.