Man, oh man. I was offline all day yesterday because my internet connection died. Had to take extreme measures and sign up with another internet provider... the easiest way for me to do that, unfortunately, was to use my AOL disc. I haven't used aol in like 4 years... and vowed I never would again. Ever. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and so I'm back online again with AOL. Ugh. It already sucks. I forgot... I must say, though, that hearing that little man in my computer saying, "Welcome! You've got mail!" Brought back many fond memories...

See, I got my first computer in '91... it was a Macintosh Performa 405 (66 mhz processor with 4 megs of ram! A screamer!). It was soooo exciting for me, being in college, having a computer, and then there was this thing called America Online that had these crazy features like chat... I was hooked. Totally hooked. I couldn't stop chatting! That I could sign on and talk to people halfway around the world was insanely fun, and I made a lot of "friends" in the music chat rooms back then. We would exchange tapes (ha! tapes! The good ol' days before CD burners were around!) of artists we liked. It was a fun little innocent community. No spam. No porn. No psychos. Just nerds like me who had found a new toy. And it was so easy... I couldn't understand why other people weren't all into it like me. But no one that I knew was online. I don't think AOL even had a web browser back then, because Al Gore hadn't yet invented the internet. So AOL was this cozy little micro-internet with all sorts of fun things.

Ahhhh... those were the days. I still have friends from those old AOL days... the Shawn Colvin bulletin board on AOL became, eventually, in '95 or '96, the Shawn Colvin email list which is still alive and kicking today, and my good friend Jean runs it. Jean was there in the beginning too. Life is weird.

I remembered last night how bad AOL got once it really took off... you could never get on because it was always busy, so you'd sit there and dial for like an hour listening to busy signals through your modem. And if you got online around 5:00pm, it was slow as all get out because everyone and their dog was online at that time... internet rush hour. That's so stinking funny!

So yesterday I was offline all day. It's amazing what wondrous things can be done when one is not tied to one's computer. My whole house is clean! And, for some weird reason, my cd burner is suddenly working again (my computer is possessed), so I was able to burn about 40 LJG CDs that I've been needing to do for three weeks now.

David and I have watched a total of 7 hours of 24, season 2. I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't think they would be able to pull off another perfect season like the first. The first season was so incredible, so well written... and dang it, if we didn't stay up till midnight last night because we couldn't stop watching! Every episode ends with a cliffhanger. Actually, several cliffhangers. It's horribly addictive.

This season, it has all the same characters as the last, but they've also introduced a few new characters that have their own arc (which will, I'm sure, eventually connect with the main story). I've decided that every blonde on the show is terribly irritating. Kimberly, the daughter of Kiefer's character, is annoying because she is so stupid. Then there are these two california rich girl sisters that I just want to punch... all they do is whine and cry. Ugh. But I am pretty sure it's written that way. Oh, and the wife that Kimberly works for as a nanny is also blonde and powerless... there's a domestic violence story going on there too, and that one disturbs me greatly... but all the stories rolled together make this show just absolutely amazing. There is so much going on. And the "real time" concept in this show is so cool. So cool.

So that's what I've been doing with my life the past couple of days....

Oh, man, we had a GREAT gig at Scenic Loop Saturday night. It was chaotic at the front end... we got there and found out that we were playing inside because of the rain, which was fine, but the sound system that is inside only had 4 channels to plug into. David and I alone use 5 channels (two for vocals, two for guitars, one for cello), and we were going to have drums and an additional guitarist who himself had 2 guitars. So that was a little freaky. We made it work... had a full band running through one speaker, but it was so much fun. Ron did amazingly well on guitar... it was so nice to hear those parts and to have them played live.

So we had a great gig... the place was packed and we got a great response. Went home and slept like banshees because we were exhausted and had to be up at 5:30am to do worship at church. Worship on Sundays is always an adventure... there are always a zillion technical issues and other things to make my life so much fun on Sunday mornings when I am always half asleep... but that went fine. Then David remembered that our sound system was locked away in our car which was locked up at Quality Automotive because it's getting a new transmission... and he needed the sound system for his gig with Chris immediately following church. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, we got word to Chris and they used Chris' sound system, but that was nuts too. THEN, as we're rushing back to church so that I can do worship AND youth group for the evening service, we see Chris' car fall apart in front of us, so we have to push his car off the road and throw all of our stuff into his car and take him with us so that I can be dropped off in Pipe Creek and Chris and Dave can go back to San Antonio to mess with Chris' car. So by Sunday night, I was exhausted. Exhausted. But it was a fun weekend.

Wooo-hoo!

NP: June Christy -- Something Cool -- The complete mono and stereo versions (1954).