Went thrift store shopping early this morning. I say early, because Bunny decided that 8:00 was a good time to get up and play "throw the paper and let me catch it" with him. I didn't know a cat could make such a racket, but being the suckers we are, we got out of bed and played with him for awhile. I got a LAPD uniform shirt from the 1980s, and Miss Rodeo America got a hot pair of boots. Lucky, lucky us.

Half of my computer seems to be broken lately. My scanner crashed everything each time I try to run it, even though I re-installed it. I can't run Soulseek any longer, that crashed everything as well. This is alarming, mainly because I neither have the appetite nor know-how to fix these things. Call me lazy, but fixing and improving electronic equipment has never been my forte, and I'm afraid I will kill it altogether someday.

Dinner with the brother and his girlfriend tonight on hip and happenin' Market Street in SF. I'm actually quite looking forward to it, although the prospect of finding parking in the Mission/Castro neighborhood two nights in a row sounds more like punishment for stealing chickens or something rather than the precursor to a fun night out. In order to keep me happy, Miss Rodeo America has taken to doing silly dances in the car so that I will laugh instead of getting frustrated. Last night it worked, *and* she found the spot. Dinner was great, mainly because it's always fun to watch the yuppies try and mate.

Just for kicks, here's Papa M's 17-minute cover of The Byrds' "Turn, Turn, Turn." You have been warned.

It's come to this, I'm dancing around in my chair at work to the German version of "Rock Me Amadeus," and then putting on "We Built This City" and rocking out even more. They might as well pay me to sit and listen to music at this rate, since there is no real work to be done in my warehouse. They moved the 17-year-old punk girl over by my table though, and today she's wearing a Bratmobile t-shirt and has scrawled big black Xs on her hands. It's cute, as in the "awwwwww....I used to be like that" cute, not in the "hubba-hubba" cute.

In other news, at Amscray practice last night, we penned a new song called "Butcher Shop" that is short, catchy, poppy, and really addictingly fun to play. Congratulations, on quitting the butcher shop.

Moody, moody day. You know something is wrong when you put on The White Album and it doesn't sound like what you want to hear.

I've been picking up and putting back down a bunch of records in the past couple days. Yesterday it was the Lovage album, but the record's cover was far too lame, so I put it back. Today I held on to the Gram Parsons Retrospective on Rhino for about fifteen minutes before decided that $30 was more than I felt like dropping at the moment.

The All Music Guide has become my newest secret-peek-while-at-work addiction. In our short time together, I learned that Swervedriver had released a UK only album between Mezcal Head and the disappointing 99th Dream. Right on. I promptly downloaded that puppy and rocked heartily through downtown Santa Rosa this afternoon. Amazing. I also learned that Cracker has a new album coming out next week. I tried the little record store up here today, and they didn't have it in, so it's another mass MP3 search for me tonight. Co-produced by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, Forever is supposed to be eons better than their last two disappointments. Of course, I emphasize supposedly, because I no longer trust music critics after they caused me to waste $15 on that stupid Beachwood Sparks record. Wankers.

Laundry tonight. Sharks v. Detroit national broadcast at 5:00. Cheap beer on the couch. A sleepy space-kitty. Miss Rodeo America. Dishes. Fighting headaches. Fighting sickness. Fighting the cold (I drove through an ice puddle today, weird). Putting my jackets back in the closet. Sleep? Right now it's a drive back to the office to work three more wicked hours.

DIY not AFI: This statement was spray painted on the trash can out front of the infamous Berkeley punk club 924 Gilman as I drove by this afternoon. Funny that AFI is the latest target of the East Bay punks ire at being too popular for their own good. I saw AFI's first show at the club in 1994, which, coincidentally, was Rancid's last show there. Back then, AFI were what all the Berkeley punks were into, EBHC and all that jazz. Now, from what I can tell, the band are more Misfits than East Bay hardcore, and singer Davey Havok gets comparisons to Edward Scissorhands quite often. Funny how times change, but it's pretty obvious to me it's not 1994 anymore.

Oh, where to start. Last night we headed out to SF for the fifth time this weekend, count them, 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5! trips across the Bay Bridge, in order to see Guyball create a laugh-riot at his at his comedy event. He was so funny that I cried, then almost sprayed Budweiser out my nose.

The rest of the weekend was spent in the car, or so it seemed. I did harvest some hefty new MP3s, went out to dinner, and inspected my cat's testicular area for "drainage" or something. Oh, and Bunny thanks everyone for their concerned emails and messages. I think he's feeling better, although not quite himself, but hey, he's a cat, I don't know what he's really thinking.

Back to rehersing tonight, hopefully work on recording demos of new songs soon. After that we're heading over to the indie hot spot to check out Replicator do their rock thing. The first time I saw them, Conan Neutron made sparks shoot out of his guitar somehow. Although he claims it was really his guitar "catching on fire" or some such nonsense, he has yet to replicate the feat.

MP3 of the week: If you drive anywhere today, drop this track on a cheap CD-R and blast you some real basement rock: Boston. We sung this song, guitar lines included, while swerving through the Oakland hills last night on the way home from dinner, and it felt damn good. If you feel like *really* rocking, find the next track, "Foreplay/Long Time," take your hands off the wheel, and practice some airdrumming. Right on.