Lunar Obverse

So cool. Get up, turn on the computer, open up iTunes for some IntarWeb radio (yay! KEXP!)…

And it comes up, and comes on, just as a Harvey Danger song is coming on… a slower, demo version of “Pike St./Pike Slope” which originally appeared on “King James Version”.

I still haven’t heard their Christmas song, “Sometimes You Have To Work on Christmas (Sometimes)”… which appears on their new EP of the same title. I guess I’ll have to dig back in the KEXP archives and find it… or I could ask for it for Christmas…

hint… hint…

Well, I broke down and bought a new battery for my 3G 40GB iPod, a.k.a. “DeadSexy”. Sure, Apple says it’s still “within specification” but dammit, the battery doesn’t even last for a couple of hours playing if I have a playlist that’s longer than 4 or 5 songs. When the thing was new, it could play for 7-8 hours before the battery was dead…

Lithium ion batteries are great, but they start deteriorating as soon as you start using them. Bleah.

I ordered it from Laptops for Less. Only $29.00 + FedEx 2-day shipping for $10.00. Less than half what Apple would charge for the same replacement.

It’s apparently a little tricker to swap out the battery in the 3G iPods but, what the hell, I’m handy with tools… can’t be that hard, can it?

Sorry, people. No big amazing posts over the weekend. I spent more time thinking about writing than actually writing. It’s amazing the contortions I can put my mind through in order to avoid writing.

• “I can’t write now — my apartment is filthy!”
• “I can’t write when Smacky’s scratching himself bloody from fleas; I need to give him a bath.”
• “I can’t write here — it’s too quiet. I’ll go downtown and sit in a coffee shop somewhere.”
• “I can’t write here, it’s too noisy. I’ll go back home where it’s quiet.”
• And the worst of all: “I can’t write now. Maybe I’ll just poke around the internets and see if I’m inspired…”

(That last one is where hours upon hours disappear)

The good news is, this weekend I hung out and drank beer with Caleb and Gus, watched “Ocean’s Twelve” (stylish, witty, excellent entertainment that doesn’t aspire to be more than it is), watched “Donnie Darko” (the non-director’s cut) for the first time (amazing movie but I’m left feeling ‘what’s the point?’), cleaned my apartment, gave the cat a bath, posted my editorial on Sec. Rumsfeld (see previous post), ran 3 miles… more or less, and got most of my laundry done. Oh, had lunch at a swank restaurant in the Pearl District. Can’t remember what it was called, started with a “P”, but it was very good. Just normal day-to-day stuff.

Sitting at Starbucks I saw a girl who bore a striking resemblance to Allyson Hannigan. As I sat there trying to get up the nerve to talk to her (and struggling to find something to say other than “You look like Allyson Hannigan” or “Is it true what they say about redheads?”), she sat there with a notebook, kept checking her phone for messages, and kept looking around. Obviously waiting for someone. The someone showed up; a short guy, balding, goatee, glasses. The girl and he sat down and she started telling him about his part — apparently this girl was a filmmaker and was casting him in it. I listened in as best I could and tried to figure out if they were going to be very long. If not, I’d still try to talk to her.

A half-hour later, they were still deep in conversation. I headed home.

I got a “Contact Me” message last night and it wasn’t one of the 3 or 4 regular readers. Email is always good!

Turns out the guy was trying to track down the live version of “Cinnamon” by the Long Winters (OK, just John Roderick), as heard on KEXP last week, and my site helped him pinpoint where to look in the streaming archives. It’s always good to hear from people who share my good taste in music. Behold the power of Google, or something.

Then I noticed it was Jerry “Tycho” Holkins from over at Penny Arcade! Coolio! An honest-to-internets webcomic superstar! Probably too much to think that he’ll be a regular reader of my rants and posts, but, still.

So the weepy, previous association I had made with the Long Winters can now be replaced with a new, decidedly non-weepy association. Which means I still get to listen to them. Yay, me!

Tycho and his partner, Mike “Gabe” Krahulik also do good work under the Child’s Play banner. Feel free to donate to help out the kids.

Quick post on lunch break (I love free wireless internets!)

Went to Taco del Mar and I didn’t want a lot of food. Was going to get a fish taco and a drink. But it’s Double-Punch Monday (two punches on your customer-appreciation card) if you order a burrito) so I decided I’d get a fish burrito. But only an Almost Jumbo (half the toppings of their regular sized ones, on a smaller tortilla).

When I got up to the counter, though, they were temporarily out of fish sticks. I had to wait about 4 minutes for them to bake.

So when I finally ordered, they upgraded me to a full-sized burrito “for waiting”. Um, yay? I felt pressured into eating the whole thing.

But it was soooooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooooooooood!