Short-timer's Disease is something I've now got an awfully bad case of. Six more workdays until a nice long (albeit unpaid) stretch of freedom comes my way. This morning's commute was the most bizarre I've had yet on the Seattle bus system. Fridays, the traffic is usually much lighter than the rest of the week, and you can actually get parking in some of the park and ride lots that are near where the buses arrive, even if you arrive after 8 AM (I wonder why that is - do people just drive themselves in on Fridays, or are that many people just playing hooky?).

Today, however, my bus arrived, almost entirely full. The large number of people at the stop I was waiting at ended up standing up in the center aisle. I've never seen a bus on this particular route so full. Today's anomaly? Half a bus full of teenage French school girls, on their way to do some shopping (fait du shopping) in downtown Seattle. Insert your own snarky dirty-old-man joke here - you know I thought of a few.

It's been about 18 years since I sat in a French class in high school, but I was surprised by how much of what they were saying I could still pick up. I think I've still got enough rudimentary skills in the language where I could probably make myself understood to a native. It's nice to know that I didn't kill all of those old brain cells.

I've been working a bunch on the various Web sites, the fruits of said labor will begin appearing very soon. I'm getting the Wonky store ready to re-launch, I'm finally making the .Forum layout match the rest of the site, I'm consolidating the old "News" section into what is now the ".Blog", etc. I'm also working on making the Half Zaftig site into something that will resemble some sort of useful informational source about the band. Slow but sure. With the HZ site in particular, I'm trying to time it's arrival with the impending release of the demo - which we may actually finish tracking this weekend. I'm doing what I hope is my last lead vocal session for that stuff tonight, and we'll try and get the backups done when Lizzy is in this weekend. I told you that those tracks will all be available for free download, right? If I didn't, now I have.

It's May on Sunday. Fer cryin' out loud.

I've just received news of my end date for my current development contract, and it's next Friday, May 6. Those of you in my family who read this and have been hoping ardently for a sooner end date than later may now exhale in relief. Myself, I feel somewhat ambivalent. This contract has been really important in a lot of ways, the MOST important being that it earned me enough cash to get myself completely out of debt (aside from my car loan) for what might be the first time in my adult life. I even have SAVINGS now. Because I've been billing my services as a vendor, and thus I'm an employee of my own company, I can - get this - lay myself off, which allows me to collect unemployment insurance from the state until I get my next paying gig. Yeah, I know! Hey, I don't make the rules. This dude abides.

And I've really liked being in downtown Seattle everyday, I can't lie. And there's been a couple of people I've met here that I'll hopefully continue to know in the future - but you know how it is with "work friends." You're all hunky-dory on the job, but when you move on, 99.9% of the time you never, ever see those people ever again. That would be kind of a bummer this time around, something I wasn't thinking about my last contract at BillG's Playground & Money Machine.

But. I can use (and afford) a break. The Mike Keneally Band is gonna be doing some touring in the very near-future... and I smell an opportunity to follow them around a la the Nitrous-Sniffing Deadhead Hordes of Yore. That might be pricy with gas prices on the rise... but hell, life is short, is it not? We'll see.

Also I have a whole bunch of songs that need writing for the new Half Zaftig disc, and we currently have only around 60-75% of the material necessary for that. Here is a golden moment to go to town creatively. In fact, the batch of stuff we've been working on was largely composed the last time I found myself out of work, so I'm optimistic about my chances for some tightly compressed creative success in this area.

And there are cute dachshunds to hang out with at my house. And a lot of Doom 3 yet to be played.

<Shatner>

Sounds like FAHN.

</Shatner>

This is fantastic! Episode III is only three weeks away! I saw the novelization at B&N the other day and Walked. The. Other. Way. When I was ten, I got the paperback of Empire before the movie came out and devoured it. So I knew Luke's Big Secret when I walked into the movie for the first time. I actually recall reading that part in the book in school - in that magic hour when I was "done with my work" and could quietly do whatever until the next lesson began. I remember being so stunned at the revelation that I couldn't move. Prior to the Big Secret becoming known to myself and my compadres, our biggest excitement about the second Star Wars was that FRANK OZ was performing some new character named Yoda. We were on first-name basis with every Henson Muppeteer at that time, and we were all certain that we were headed for a future as performers on The Muppet Show. So when the first kids started seeing the movie and reporting back to those of us who hadn't, the questions were all about Yoda - did he look real, what did he sound like (a cross between Fozzie Bear and Grover was the consensus). Ah, Star Wars nostolgia. Maybe you had to be there.

How, exactly, did it become mid-April already? My goodness.

I'm in the midst of one of my more serious attempts to Get A Handle On Everything I'm Doing, rather than continuing to exist in a constant state of overwhelm. Things are going well, if slowly, but the fact that I'm being proactive about items on my task list is already bringing me obvious and fruitful results. Thanks so much to Wired for mentioning David Allen's book, whose precepts I am trying to assimilate as quickly as possible.

Ooh! I just noticed there's a new volume of the Complete Peanuts series out! SWEET!

I haven't gotten to EVERYTHING that I need to get done, that much is true. Foremost among the many open tasks before me is getting the Wonky Records store back up - there's new Half Zaftig merch to be sold, don't chew know - and it looks like next week will be when that finally happens.

This weekend we're doing more studio shenanigans, the whole band will be there cuz it's time to lay down some mo' drums. More studio diaries will be available for your perusal, I'm sure.

After a long search, Pete finally found someone who could fix my poor old Tascam Porta Two 4-track machine, which went belly-up on me earlier this year as I was attempting to transfer all of my old 4-track tapes into the digital domain. Solid Repair got my venerable old machine working again, though apparently not without the use of lots of improvisation, popsicle sticks, and bubble gum. I've really beaten that old machine into the dirt over the years, but I've gotten more than my money's worth. All I need is for it to last a little while longer for me to get all those masters safely into the new medium.

I read an article about "Peak Oil" in that issue of the Rolling Stone with the "Rock Kids" on the front, and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me. Can we really be headed back to an agrarian society within 20 years? No commercial air travel? Man. Maybe I should worry less about new permutations of the Locrian mode and more about growing vegetables in the back yard.

May 12 gets ever closer! The last time I'll ever see a new Star Wars film for the... first time.