well, i write this sitting in a hotel room in hesperia, california, listening to veruca salt on my newly-purchased-as-of-last-weekend iPod while snacking on starburst.

i've spent the entire week out here in the high desert about 80 miles northeast of los angeles. saying that i'm travelling to california for a business trip sounds good, but this isn't exactly glamorous at all. we travel daily to the testing facility in the middle of the nowhere, 45 minutes away from our hotel. the area around the hotel is all civilized, but out where we're working all day (been clocking 12-14 hour days) it's nothing but blowing sand and cacti.

it's got its pros & cons, for sure. it's good to get travel experience, makes you a little more marketable and somewhat wizened. you get a little sick of the people you're with for about 16 hours a day, but that's to be expected. you rack up hours like nothing else, which in my case, is kind of a break from the norm. the whole thing is kind of a break from my usual workdays, so i can't really complain about that.

it's a little tough trying not to miss home & alayna at times, but time flies pretty quickly. it's my theory that some of the single folk that travel a lot for us don't seem to mind being gone nearly as much cuz they don't miss anybody back at home specifically. everybody misses their creature comforts at home, but it's a little harder missing somebody that you spend every single day with. that's the part i'd have to get used to a bit more if i'm gonna travel at all frequently. luckily i'm heading home tomorrow.

so yeah, last weekend i bought a 30gb black iPod with a nice 17% work discount at the grand opening of the northpark apple store. i was trying to hold out for the next round of iPods coming out, but i kinda figured with the trip upcoming and the work that i've put into getting everything iTunes happy (for both my shuffle at the gym and mac at home) it was time to buy one, even if there was technically nothing wrong with the iAUDIO player i'd been using for over a year. it ended up being the terrible organization (all manual based on whatever directories i created) that forced me to have to abandon the perfectly-good player for something more suited to my needs. i add a lot of music to iTunes fairly often, and 75% of the time i wanna listen to that at work or on the road, so i need good, quick access to the newest stuff added. simply playing the iTunes' playlist "Recently Added" on the iPod is by far the easiest way to achieve that. so far i'm pretty happy with the purchase, as long as the battery life doesn't suck. i love the album art display on the screen though, i'm in the process (well, when i'm back home) of updating iTunes with as much album art as i can track down.

and before i go, the 10 most common albums/songs i play at home and on the road lately... (hey, i'm bored in a dark hotel room at 11pm PST)

zebrahead - waste of mfzb
last.fm zebrahead fans = 11,258
5-6 fantastic tracks from an '04 japan-only ZH album.

hellogoodbye - shimmy shimmy quarter turn
last.fm hellogoodbye fans = 23,432
their EP is absolutely terrible, but this one track hasn't gotten old yet.

the new pornographers - twin cinema
last.fm new pornographers fans = 37,469
great indie stuff, on a lot of top album lists of 2005

radiohead albums OK computer & hail to the thief
last.fm radiohead fans = 245,754
for a long time i've had a lot of trouble classifying radiohead into any specific genre, so i've sorta slacked on playing them at all. but sometimes their stuff (while at times quite weird) is perfect for the setting, such as passing in & out of consciousness on a 3-hour flight. ;)

black eyed peas - the boogie that B
last.fm black eyed peas fans = 124,897
i never really heard this track before an entourage episode i watched a couple weeks ago, but it's one of their top 5 best i'd say.

sons and daughters - the repulsion box
last.fm sons and daughters fans = 9,602
more great indie music nobody's ever heard of, heard them first on showtime's weeds.

the decemberists - her majesty
last.fm decemberists fans = 84,749
i grew to like their 2005 album, now i like their 2003 album just as much.

third eye blind - out of the vein
last.fm 3EB fans = 41,738
somehow i really overlooked their 2003 album and it got almost no airplay, but it's actually pretty good, in that mainstream radio-friendly way.

the magic numbers - (self-titled album)
last.fm magic numbers fans = 26,238
more indie shit, but catchy.

queens of the stone age - (self-titled album)
last.fm QotSA fans = 124,256
waaaay overlooked greatness from waaaay back in '98.

long post, but it made up for a lengthy absence...

--j