Lori and I have taken to walking before work in the morning, in hopes that this act will become habit and thus provide us with the semblance of an exercise routine. From our home by the Green Lake we walk for about 45 minutes to a spot near the UW campus where I can catch a bus into the heart of the city. It's a much more civilized way to start a day, as opposed to subjecting myself to the horrors of nearby Aurora Avenue and the downtrodden masses clogging the 358 bus ... by walking onto campus I not only get some exercise but I catch one of the 70s, where I always get a seat and nobody is drunker than me.

The check is in the mail, so the End Times will be heading to Egg Studios once again in late August, this time with the Blacktree Singers in tow. With luck we'll have Endless Jim along as well to help manage the session and ensure that no one loses their mind. After these exploratory recordings are complete I'll be able to either grab the concept and start running or quietly shut up about choirs and go back to wishing I had the guts to sing myself. Check back in September for the results, I'm sure they'll be inconclusive ...

My hatred for the telephone resulted in a lost opportunity to hang with our old friends Dave and Sherry (he of the fabled record store Flat Black & Circular, which I wrote about last month). They're somewhere in the Northwest right now, were close to Seattle over the weekend but since I rarely-or-never check our voicemail, Lori and I didn't know about it til too late. I'm so used to the cell phone now that I forget we even have a land line ... technology is a drag.

PS. Speaking of technology, I bought my first Ipod on Sunday. Lori's had a shuffle of her own since winning it through some kind of library raffle, so we've been sharing that one for a couple years, but they're cheap enough now that I wanted my own. I too got the shuffle, since it was the least expensive and I prefer listening song-by-song rather than artist-by-artist anyway. Man, they get smaller all the time ... I swear this one is shrinking before my eyes as I stare at it now. Currently stocked with the following: Judee Sill, Slayer, Rainbow, Captain Beefheart, Motorhead, Germs, Circle Jerks, Black Sabbath, Gories, Damnation of Adam Blessing, Venom, the Bob Seger System, Amboy Dukes, Townes Van Zandt, Down MF and assorted other geniuses.