Crazy to think that, in two weeks, I'll be in Chicago. Between then and now, I have four band practices, two days in Long Beach filming the video to "Cross Your Heart," three shows (two being out of state), and three nights with Miss Rodeo America to spend as we please. It's a pretty full plate, but I'm looking forward to every minute.

We had a bomb-ass weekend, the like of which I hope is repeated soon and often this summer.

Friday night we hit up our favorite-yet-secret restaurant in SF and chowed down, then headed back to the East Bay for some late night drinks, a Budweiser 20-pack, and a late night game of charades (in which, I helped mow down the opposition with such clues as Aeon Flux and National Lampoon's European Vacation). By 4 AM I had already eaten my leftovers and had likely broken my toe (the jury is still out on that one) while running up the outside stairs in my socks. That was how I knew it was time to go home.

Saturday we walked around the neighborhood in the hot sunny morning, sipping coffee and getting our little bits of exercise. But that afternoon we went to the first barbecue of the summer, where I made the legendary food of my little league childhood: the Dorito-chili-boat. The simplest white-trash recipe in the world involved cutting open the (small) bag of Doritos lengthwise, opening the can of chili, and, in this case, placing it directly onto the grill to heat. Once it was hot, I crushed up all the chips into tiny pieces and poured the chili inside and mixed it all up.

After doing the math, I figure I ate about 200% of my RDA in sodium, but damn, it was good, and following it up with a couple pints of homebrew from our friend's kegerator was the icing on the cake.

We then went to the burned out medical building on 40th street and played a rousing game of "butts up!" (don't ask), in which I was both elbowed in the ear and smacked very hard in the ass with a tennis ball. Our out-of-shape selves didn't last very long, but while we did it was good times all around.

Apparently though, all that tennis ball throwing wasn't enough, and the barbecue quickly turned into a full-out lemon war, with both fresh and rotten lemons flying every which way, over fences, through trees (barely missing the scared chickens running around in the yard), and smacking people in the stomach. After a lot of standoffs, hurt feelings, and pissed off neighbors, the warfare finally came to an end and everybody made their way home. After the best shower ever, we watched a couple of movies and then hit the sack.

Sunday we took it easier and got up early and took a drive to do some thrifting, where I picked up a Best Of Steely Dan double LP and a handful of great Buck Owens records. We took the long way home and got some cheap gas and then some groceries, and spent the rest of the evening listening to baseball and cooking up some Bratwurst on the stove (apples + onions + beer + brats = yummy) and watched another movie.

Now I'm back at work and hating it, but knowing we're going to start the porch-b-que season tonight makes me happy.

Oh, and there's a new MP3 of the week, of course.