Finally Friday. We had a barbecue at work today and I ate about a pound of beefsteak tacos in the span of approximately five minutes, filling up my belly to the breaking point and making me sleepy for the rest of the long afternoon. Weasled my way out of the warehouse early and took off for home and a nap.

The nap never came although I tried, so instead I rode my bike up to the record store to, as I told myself, pick up "a couple of things." What I found was an urge to browse the vinyl bins for the better part of an hour, looking over LP covers and reading liner notes. Picked up some gems, including the Hey Jude LP by The Beatles that I'd been wanting come across. My patience paid off, and it's currently spinning on the player. Came home and cooked up some dinner, watched a little Oakland baseball on TV, tried to relax, but as of now, it's still not coming.

Miss Rodeo America is out of town for a week, the longest we've been apart, and the loneliness is starting to take its toll on my moods. Always ancy, never quite knowing what I want to do or eat, waiting until my eyelids are already dropping before I crawl into bed for sleep. I'm hoping the music with soothe me a bit, that I'll get some decent sleep, and then wake up in the morning for the cool sunny drive up to my housesitting assignment in Santa Rosa.

"Radio is a sound salvation
Radio is cleaning up the nation"

Almost a year ago, the fine citizens of these parts were blessed with a radio station we could listen to in our cars when we got tired of mix tapes. That's right, an all 80's station. For the first few weeks we dug on The Clash, Blondie, the Psychedelic Furs, even silly stuff like The J. Geils Band and John Cougar. However, after those first few glorious weeks, we started getting very, very tired of that *one* Blondie song, that *one* Clash song, and so on. It was both annoying and frustrating. They started playing One by U2 every single day on our driver home from work. We started predicting what block we'd be on when Bono started whining.

Soon after, they changed the station to "80's...and more!" Then it was "80's, 90's...and more!" Now it's "80's, 90's, and today!" How stupid is that? Now it's just a "hits" radio station that bills itself as what the listeners wanted to hear, which is more annoying than a "hits" radio station billing itself as just that.

Finally, Planet Clair came along and explained the situation in a well-deserved public rant. I was a bit relieved to find out that I was not the only one who was annoyed and irked by the radio situation. Then I find this shocking fact: Chicago has the very same station. Now I'm wondering if they have the same DJs and play the same songs at the same times. Do they have the same "morning commute" and "afternoon commute" setlist? Do they only cut in locally to do traffic reports? Scary. I can't wait for the days of subscription digital radio. Sign me up pronto.

It didn't really matter anyway, since when I got back to work, there was still nothing to do except watch the time click by on my little digital phone.

Went out yesterday morning and got a new lizard to keep Bruce, our big lunky Bearded Dragon company. We got a little baby from a couple who breeded them in their apartment, and promptly named him Baltimore because, well, that's a good name for a baby lizard. Bruce is not happy about the new living situation, and even though Baltimore is in his own cage across the room, Bruce has been puffing out his neck and trying to fight not only the little guy, but Miss Rodeo America and myself as well. It's hard to tell a lizard to chill out.

Played a decent game of baseball at a new field in San Francisco yesterday, under the view of the freeway going by. The wind moved the ball around in the air and made it difficult to catch, but we had fun nonetheless. After the game, we took the Amscray van home and got stuck up in in Bernal Heights, trying to turn around without sliding down a steep incline. Miss Rodeo America was certain we were going to perisih, and was coming up with ways to explain to her dad why she was in the hospital. In the end, with tires screeching in the gravel, we got the thing down from the hills and quickly headed to lower ground.

MP3 of the week: I really should get the new Juno album. They were jerks when my old band played with them, but I dig the songs enough. Rock.