P.S. We have a cat!

One of the things I love about programming is that at times, it’s very reminiscent to my years building websites. Except all the sharp things I ever had a website do, I can make a program do tenfold. I can create a program that does exactly what I want and I can make it pretty to boot! Needless to say, I’m still blissfully in love with my job and my tickets have been bought—flights have been booked, schmancy hotel reservations made—for my upcoming trip to the FileMaker Developer Conference. Go me!

I’ve basically been working a lot but right now that’s a good thing. I’ve also been on a Remission / Ain’t It Dead Yet binge with some healthy doses of the Birthday Party’s Hee Haw and Live Seeds, which is such a phenomenally good recording and I just can’t get enough of it. Ever. Especially “New Morning.” It would make me die happy, sigh.

I desperately want Betty to go to Rome with Gio because that’s what I would do. And I cried horribly when Amber died. I mean, I sobbed.

Right now we’re listening to this amazing live recording of Otis Redding. I can’t imagine being in a club somewhere and hearing this for the first time. How could you not dance? How could you not tap your feet and shake your shoulders and stop what you’re doing and be absolutely stunned?

Thankfully, it’s true what they say about raining and pouring and even the reverse holds true. Things have been going remarkably well for me lately and tomorrow I start my first freelance programming gig. I’m very excited. One of the major challenges of my regular job is not only am I learning a new language but I’m also coming in at a very late stage in the development process and sometimes it’s difficult to follow all of the relationships. This new project will also be a custom solution but I’ll be working on it from the get go. Yayayay.

Surely, it must be that I paid homage to the Patron Saint Rabbitrabbit this morning that this month has started out so well.

It looks like this month is going to end on Bruce Springsteen / Einstürzende Neubauten notes. The highest, most shining ones being “Drive All Night” and “Steh auf Berlin,” the latter of which sounds absolutely delightful but the construction sounds across the hall from my office—I could do without that noise.

Recent feed reads include Who Are We? Coming of Age on Antidepressants which seemed especially relevant because I accidentally went cold turkey on my meds. I was still okay on day four but I’ve been feeling my condition slowly deteriorate since then. It’s been an interesting experience but I’m finally picking up my refill tomorrow.

Anyway, I’ve just finished gorging myself on Santitas tortilla chips, Gefen Coconut Flavored Macaroons and cranberry juice. (Last night I had duck with almond-encrusted brie!) I amend my previous report on music month-end because today I was also Live Seeds obsessed. Go into a little space, shut the door and play “The Weeping Song,” “Jack The Ripper” and “New Morning” as loud as your poor ear drums can handle.

Building a financial management program for myself has become a popular extracurricular activity, soon to be joined by either running or racquetball since I finally bought a proper pair of sneakers today. At Diff’s somewhat insistence, the pair I ended up buying were pink. The big sneakers in the sky must have been smiling down on me at that moment because the pink cross-trainers also fit my budget and non-aesthetic needs.

I’ve been utterly obsessed with more or lessly one mix all month. I keep expecting Stork to tell me to turn it off. It has a core of day-in-day-outers and a peripheral of nonessentials which are sometimes themselves reoccurring. The main core is Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Bruce Springsteen, Einstürzende Neubauten and Goon Moon. Right now my formula is one album, one artist. The regulars are wearing their Abattoir Blues Tour (I picture myself as Warren Ellis), Nebraska, Kollaps (some of Blixa’s vocal movements put me completely beside myself with delight) and Licker’s Last Leg album covers. The rest is made up of an Alien Sex Field best-of (practically a regular on the rotation), Billy Bragg’s Taxman, I Say I Say I Say by Erasure (which came out the same year as the following album and I owned them both even then) and Portrait of an American Family. Other recent second fiddles include The Tear Garden (especially Last Man), Nine Inch Nails’ Still, Welcome to My Nightmare, Smashing Pumpkins and Juju by Siouxsie & the Banshees. Now that I have the cake, I’m piling the icing on pretty thick. I love how reliably music can take a good thing and make it even better.

What have you been listening to?

But today I decided to plug the iPod into our piano speakers and truly, nothing can make you realize how inadequate your life is like a subwoofer. (I imagine Charles Goodyear felt similarly when he accidentally discovered vulcanized rubber.) It still isn’t glorious surround sound but it’s formidable bass! It’s more depth! It’s great.

I haven’t completely given up on the Two Bose Method, though. There’s a time and a place for the Bose—mainly when we’re in the kitchen—but the Piano Method will probably dominate all other times. This is especially exciting because with all of the warm weather we’ve been getting, it’s inevitable that evenings be spent outside on the porch, which is out of Bose range. Skippy!

UN calls for farming revolution – “The Unesco study recommends better safeguards to protect resources and more sustainable farming practices, such as producing food locally.”

World Bank tackles food emergency – “World Bank head Robert Zoellick warned that 100 million people in poor countries could be pushed deeper into poverty by spiralling prices.”

Rising Food Prices Spark Growing Concern – “Deadly rioting broke out this week across Haiti and Egypt, where rampaging inflation has driven up food prices.”

Can People Have Meat and a Planet, Too? – “But one could envision someday a model, say, of a solar-powered facility in southern California or Singapore basically turning sunlight and desalinated seawater into growth medium and then tons of cruelty-free, sustainable nuggets of chicken essence.”

This Charming ___ charm bracelets, finally bought Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, whites / neutrals with kapow! colors