The brief version ... spent a week in Europe doing science-type things and driving around the Mediterranean, then came back to RC for three days, then flew off to Boston for another week. In between i've had car trouble, plumbing trouble, a wedding in LA, a football game in SF, and random other tidbits that to the perpetually cheery are what make life interesting.

As i've fallen into a severe posting deficit, i can't even figure out how to pick up where i left off. Let's see ... yes, the latest Stars ep Sad Robots is freakin' awesome ... Sarah Palin must be stopped ... Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea. Ok.

I put together some photos from my European odyssey here. Enjoy. Unfortunately nothing documenting the foibles of me fighting Italian drivers on the road or attempting to converse with my decade-old high school French.

My Jetta's catalytic converter crapped out about a month back, and after taking it to two repair shops i decided not to pay the $2k to get it back in tip-top shape. Luckily it ran fine (the shoddy CC only meant it wouldn't pass a smog inspection), so i decided to hedge my bets by trading it in now while it was still worth something. After getting tossed out of a Toyota dealer for apparently wasting the salesman's time (my valuation of a Camry V6 and the trade value of my VW were considerably off his estimates), i went to Anderson Honda in Palo Alto and got a good deal on a brand spanking new Accord V6. My lousy negotiating skills were even able to get a reasonable trade on the Jetta, while Veronica showed up while we were doing the paperwork and worked the finance guy for a better deal on the loan. So far i haven't crashed while mesmerized with the GPS. Give me time though.

Been playing lots of Rock Band 2 ... i've been obsessed with unlocking Megadeth's "Peace Sells". My efforts came to fruition yesterday, with the unexpected bonus of "Battery" by Metallica. Finger shredding goodness. "What do you mean i don't support your system? I go to court when i have to."

The Trojan vibrator ad blows my mind. Although i think my head would literally explode if i saw that one followed by Subway's "five dollar footlong" commercial.

Flying back from Boston i noticed my iPod was missing album artwork for some of my songs. What?! My pristine library missing artwork? Arriving at home i was able to inspect in iTunes. Everything looks fine ... hmmm ... wait, some of my tracks are missing all of their tag information. Huh? After further delving i discovered approximately 1000 of my songs were corrupted, and had to be reencoded and retagged from scratch. Dammit. After a few hours hard work (made slightly easier by my array of Applescript tagging tools) everything was back to normal, and i could get back to the unchecked growth of my music collection. Today's discovery was the new Deerhunter album Microcastle featuring the awesome back-to-back pair of "Never Stops" and "Little Kids". I'm a bit ashamed that a while back i referred to them as "indie electronic" ... not quite accurate that.

Other than seeing Juve in Torino and AS Monaco in France while in Europe, i haven't partaken of a lot of footie this year. Chelsea are doing well despite having half the squad injured, although a loss at home to those scouse gits Liverpool dropped us into second, with the Reds looking like genuine title contenders for a change. United are underperforming at present, with Dimitar Berbatov not looking particularly impressive in a red kit and the whole team perhaps feeling the after-effects of Cristiano Ronaldo's flirtations with Real Madrid. They rely on him entirely too much anyway.

Although i'm in my second year of being a 49ers season ticket holder, i'm not that into American football at the moment either. I have yet to see the Niners win, and each trip to the stadium involves a 15 minute walk to Caltrain, a 45 minute train ride, and a 30 minute walk to the stadium, done in reverse on the way home. That leaves me with little energy to cope with the crushing disappointment of watching the home team get humiliated, especially considering that our seats are in a section that typically holds a lot of the away fans. Watching the 49ers give away a 9 point fourth quarter lead to the Philadelphia Eagles was particularly frustrating, considering the abundance of annoyingly vocal and confrontational Philly fans in our neighborhood.

I've got three shows to recount on my concerts page, although the memories are getting hazier the more time i let go by. Despite my best predictions My Bloody Valentine actually did get back together (and played unquestionably the loudest show i've ever heard), and a scant three days later i saw a brilliant Sigur Rós at the Greek Theater. The weekend was rounded off with my first encounter with Iron & Wine, with Sam Beam performing with only an acoustic guitar and his boundless charm.

Being in Europe with fellow Joy Division geek Gary, we took a jaunt to Genoa to visit the cemetery containing the statues depicted on the covers of Closer and Love Will Tear Us Apart. For our next vacation we're planning a ride on a spaceship to pulsar CP-1919, immortalized on Unknown Pleasures.

V and i are making a concerted effort to routinely eat at home, and so far so good. I discovered that i quite like spending time cooking after getting home from work if i have music on in the kitchen, so i bought an iPod dock on a recommendation from Rob. Last weekend as Veronica was sick i spent a while in the kitchen trying out recipes from her favorite Mexican cookbook. I've made a chicken and lime soup, pico de gallo, chilaquiles, and flautas with chorizo and potatoes. Mmmm. I imagine it's quite a sight watching me chop onions while bouncing around to Bent.

Although the comedy duo that is John McCain and Sarah Palin make the choice in the presidential election obvious as far as i'm concerned, i can't say i'm overly impressed by Barack Obama either. Simply put, both tickets are stocked with the kind of scheming opportunists and spin doctors that have got me thoroughly disgusted with politics as a whole. Can Obama fix our collapsing economy or the clusterfuck in the Middle East? Maybe. Who knows. About the only thing that can't be spun is social issues like gay marriage, which means the only thing i feel passionately about is voting down California's Proposition 8.