I went out for lunch yesterday at Chili's. It was pretty busy, but I could still sort of here the background music coming from the speakers in the ceiling. There was some Van Morrison cover, and then something that I knew I'd heard before, but couldn't immediately place it - was it Ryan Adams, maybe? Then I thought I recognized it, but couldn't say for sure, so I went to the bathroom - I remembered that they generally have speakers in there, too. Well, it was what I thought it was - Josh Ritter's fantastic "Kathleen". The live version of that, off the EP bundled with the major label re-release of his latest album, Hello Staring, is really, really great. If you're in the Boston area, you should go see him, either tomorrow night at Avalon (at 92.5's Riverfest, opening for Bruce Hornsby and Suzanne Vega) or next Saturday, opening for Keane at the Fleet Pavillion. He's hugely popular in Ireland, but not as much in the States yet, which is a shame. I'll admit, I haven't seen him live in years - not since seeing him back at the Cat and the Cream a few times during college. Josh ate at the co-op I lived in my freshman year, and lived down the hall from me my sophomore year. He's a good guy, and he makes good music. And now he's in the rotation in chain restaurants' background music.

Before I kill my checking account, that is. I'm feeling a strong urge to buy a new computer - specifically a Mac. Both the iMac and the Powerbooks are so nifty looking, and Tiger seems like such a great OS...but to get what I want would cost a ton ($1,674 for the 17" iMac with 1gb RAM and 2.0ghz processor, $2,549 for a 15" Powerbook with 1gb RAM, 128mb video card, 1.67ghz processor). Even the 12" Powerbook runs at $1,499 base. If I didn't have a computer, maybe I could rationalize the price, but I've got my laptop from work...the only reason I can think to get a Mac is that it'd be cool, and that's just not enough of a reason to spend that much money...right? Please, someone, tell me not to buy one! I need reinforcement!

I've discovered that I really like reading new fiction on long plane flights - I read the entirety of "God of Small Things" on one transcontinental flight, and yesterday, I read Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Which was awesome and strange, by the way. Anyway - for some reason, I'm able to read fiction faster than non-fiction on flights - I need to remember this for the future.

I'm sitting at the computer at my mom's right now - had to stop by on my way to the airport to drop off a CD I burned for her, and to play with the cat a bit more. Turns out it was a good thing I stopped here - I knew my flight was delayed half an hour or so, due to "late arriving aircraft" or something along those lines, but now I see that it's been delayed an hour and fifteen minutes. Sigh. So I guess I might as well sit here and play with the cat for a while - that's sure preferable to sitting in Logan Airport getting frustrated. The cat's much cuter than grumpy business travellers.

While driving to work today, I passed a Honda CR-V (or whatever that thing is called) that had a bunch of stickers and labels on it, proclaiming it to be an electric vehicle, and singing the praises of some organization dedicated to cleaner air. That's not all that noteworthy in and of itself, yes, but the driver had his window down and was smoking a cigarette. It just seemed a bit incogruous.

It wasn't deliberate, but this weekend has turned into quite the British pop culture experience for me. Last night, I saw the Chemical Brothers and New Order in Oakland, tonight I'm watching my first Dr. Who on DVD ("Dalek Invasion of Earth", from 1964 - black-and-white '60s Brit sci-fi fantasticness), and tomorrow, I'm going to see "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". So far, I can say that the Chemical Brothers were great, New Order was very good, and I'm enjoying Dr. Who - I'll post a mini review of the movie after I've seen it.