Seaside Funband & Invisible Opera Company of Tibet

Most people seem to be in a good mood today. One of the baristas at CZ greeted me by name when I walked in which surprised me. I have no idea what her name is so I felt kind of bad that I couldn't return the personalized greeting. She even asked where I worked and, when I told her, she sounded all surprised. It seems I don't look like your typical DHFS employee. Then again, I neglected to tell her that I fixed computers and had absolutely nothing to do with families and people's health. I probably should have left her a bigger tip for having been so nice. In addition, Harry spoke to me in the hall today. He said, "There he is. How are you this morning?" Nothing special but he's never said anything to me whatsoever when we've passed in the hall since I started here about 8 months ago. And then I had to work on Bonnie's PC. Bonnie is the secretary/receptionist for our CIO, Denise. I had to un/reinstall MS Office and FrontPage so I had her computer tied up for 15 minutes or so. When I told Bonnie this, she decided to go out for a walk outside. About a minute after she leaves, I'm tying my shoe when Denise walks over looking slightly befuddled: "Who are you? And what have you done to Bonnie?" I watched her eyes look me over. First she looked at the pen in my breastpocket which has a Devil Ducky on it and then she glanced at my "Reading is sexy" pin. I await the fallout from my unprofessional attire.

I found an article in the Crap Times concerning the roundabouts near my house over on Thompson drive. It states that there have been some two dozen accidents have been reported by drivers using the roundabouts since they opened last October. There's nothing involved with these roundabouts that can't be handled by following the rules of the road. Like checking for cross traffic when you enter and intersection or, heaven forbid, actually obeying the yield signs. I've almost t-boned a couple numbskulls because they couldn't bother to yield. Yield means those cars in the loop have the right of way. I remember one buy I almost hit didn't even look to his left. He just kept looking straight ahead. This was too bad because, had he looked to his left, he'd A) have seen oncoming traffic and B) seen me giving him the finger.

It's lunch time now and I ran out and got some iced coffee and a burrito from the stand up at Wisconsin & Main. I'm listening to Part 3 of the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy featuring the adventures of Zero on the planet Gong along with the Pothead Pixies and the Octave Doctor in You by Gong. I've known about Gong for years and have heard an occasional tune by them but this was my first purchase of one of their albums. I like it so far so I may have to buy the first two albums in the trilogy, The Flying Teapot and Angel's Egg. The influence of these folks on Ozric Tentacles is now glaringly obvious. I'd only heard a couple Gong tunes prior to now and they were shorter and more focused than the longer, spacier jams. Don't get me wrong, they were fucking weird (e.g. - "A Perfect Mystery") but a structured kind of weird. Check out these lyrics:

Zero: Look up in the air!
Yoni: The Octave Doctor's there!
Zero: And when he strokes his wadn
Yoni: Your middle eye comes on.

I also got Are You Sitting Comfortably? by neo-prog heroes, IQ. It's probably their most poppy sounding album but there's some great tunes on it. The other CD I bought yesterday was one by Spock's Beard's older albums, before Neal Morse found Jeebus and left to do whatever it is he's doing. SB are part of the second wave of neo-proggers. They're a lot like old Genesis which you'd think would instantly appeal to me but I'm having a fuck of a time getting into them. When they do complicated bits - instrumental passages, overtures, and the like - they are fantastic. Great chops and great melodies. But when it comes time for vocals, I just feel like I'm listening to Journey. (Journey after Steven Perry joined, that is)

Well, I've just been informed that I'm soon to be the offical ArcView installer so I now have a couple grand worth of software sitting at my desk. OK. Time for a smokey treat.