Took off from work to walk down fourth street and get me some coffee, ended up dancing down the sidewalk as the train whistled behind me and it felt good to know that I was getting away for the weekend. No more warehouses for four days. No more mindless chit-chat, well, there will probably be *some* mindless chit-chat.

Reading about Thugbot's adventures in Minneapolis had me cracking up at work, and my co-workers became suspicious that I wasn't actually writing a spreadsheet. I didn't get to hang out in that town enough while on tour, but we're going back in August for the Minnesota State Fair. I hear they carve Miss Minnesota's bust out of butter. I am not making this up.

Take note, day-old vegan apricot scones get stuck in your teeth. I think the ingredients have turned into glue inside my mouth. Still tasty, but it feels more like a bad Double-Dare punishment than eating breakfast.

Three things:

I reviewed the new album from Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes.
So did Armando from Bellmas.org
I'm in for a weekend of rain, rain, and more rain on my trip to Oregon. We leave in the morning.

I'm excited to get out of town, even though I've been to Brookings twice already. More than anything, I need to avenge the stunning ass-whooping I got last year at air hockey. My friend from Seattle taught me a lesson in power. Because I won't be around computers, the MP3 of the week will materialize sometime Monday night, and the daily photo will take a rest until Tuesday.

• :: singing along to Gram Parsons.
• :: eating the best Mexican food in California.
• :: driving in a light rain (and smelling it hit the grass).
• :: blasting Sugar records and then hitting the accelerator.
• :: reviewing records.

I have no complaints. Now go and enjoy your evening.

This new record by Bola is quite amazing. Seriously.

The coffee I made this morning tastes strangely like it was brewed with meat, and there are powdery bits of coffee grounds floating around in it. It's a nasty concoction, I'll never get this right.

New Amscray songs are complete, and yet *another* new song was hashed on last night. It's about a friend who moved away, and it's slightly twangy, and it sorta sounds like Cracker's "Another Song About The Rain." I like it quite a bit, sometimes the simple things sound the best.

We tried to go to Chinatown over in SF yesterday to shop for pajamas and city-themed trinkets, but as we got close we thought to ourselves "hmmmm, i wonder why there are so many people dressed up in costumes." It was then that we realized it was Chinese New Years, and that we would be better off parking in Oakland and swimming over. Instead, we indulged our addictions and headed over to the record store and purchased ourselves silly. It was actually a beautiful day, so driving through the city felt more glorious than tedious. It helped that we bought Back In Black and turned that baby up.

Although there was nice weather yesterday, it didn't compare with the beauty that was Saturday. While sitting around drinking coffee in the morning, we decided to take off for the day, quickly hopped in the car, grabbed the atlas, and hit the road. Up through the wine country, around Clear Lake, back down through Ukiah, and finally to Boonville, home of the Anderson Valley Brewing company and their sweet, sweet alcoholic nectar: Boont Amber. We hit the gift shop and brought a six-pack home, and had lunch overlooking the green hills and little wisps of smoke rising from ancient chimneys. Gorgeous and calming, the sunset drive back home was one of the prettiest things I've seen in a long, long time. A 315 mile trip in all, it prepped me for our 11 hour drive to Oregon on Friday.

MP3 of the week: I put Trace on while driving to the video store last week, and ended up listening to "Windfall" four times in a row. Need I say more?