405

Listening to: The Magic Numbers! "Love's A Game." Apparently even your mom and grandma will like this stuff (assuming they're American).

Highlights from the Northwest:
- Being impressed by American Airlines, their inflight radio stations featured some very up and coming or hypey bands, like Bloc Party, Everything But the Girl, the Dukhs, Husky Rescue, the Decemberists, Prefuse 73, Robbers On High Street, Clem Snide, A Girl Called Eddy, Lemon Jelly, and Aqualung. Hats off to them.
- Eating excellent Chinese food plus getting to have some of that Cantonese fare.
- Driving along the 405 in Seattle and then realizing that DCfC made a song about it, which I own. It's a subtle charmer.
- Eating maple syrup cookies.
- Blasting the Pixies and Junior Boys in a humongous house in which we stayed.
- Breathing mountainy fresh clean air every day.
- The awesome skinny mirror in the hallway.
- Hearing little kids speaking Chinese. It's too cute, really, I could hardly take it.
- Hanging out at Vancouver's Stanley Park- raccoon, comedic shuttle driver, hollow tree, Guinness Bridge, field trip children, dense foliage and all.
- Checking out the Zelda ocarinas at a stand at Seattle's Pike Place Market.
- Wearing a snowboarding helmet while riding a pink little girl bike around their neighborhood. Loved the stares. Amazing what you will let yourself get away with when your visage is hidden.

I really felt like watching Willy Wonka (the new one) the whole week, but it doesn't come out til the 15th. Movie stars are no heroes, but I'm starting to develop more and more respect for Mr. Depp as an actor. What a successful weirdo!

Purchased a 10" Toca Percussion djembe today. It should be coming in the mail in the next week. I've already been developing beats on various makeshift practice areas, like my thighs, a huge plastic bubble, bongos, and hard tables. The goal is expression, not perfection. Which is also another excuse I use to validate my laziness.

In the news, bill passed that gives teachers in Texas a raise. Yeah! Maybe I won't have to move to Connecticut after all. I really wish the US would grow a brain and start paying their educators a lot more money. Not so much because I'm in anguish over the measly paycheck, but that America's youth, in their most formative years, are in their hands. Look to the future! I read another article awhile back about how we are having to recruit foreign engineers, scientists and other smart people because there's not enough of them here to fill some jobs that require a high level of intelligence.

Apparently, while the North Pole is melting fast and losing glaciers, the South Pole is simultaneously freezing up, which means the earth will be lopsided.

OK, gonna go upload the most fanciful pictures of the week onto PHOTOGS. Get ready.