Vet/Tire/Volume

Had kind of a busy day yesterday. Mary Beth and I rounded up Trudy to take her back to the vet for her shots and annual. We were feeling like she was just seeming to recover from her surgery/last stint of vet visits and she was going to be so pissed at us for taking her back so relatively soon. But she's been very forgiving this time and after the brief initial what-the-fuck was pretty loving most of the day yesterday. Also, the visit was good 'cuz the doctor confirmed her clean bill of health. We were a little worried about her eating, because it's not what it was from before (but also before her thyroid and heart were working mega overtime). But she's gained some weight since the operation so everything's looking to be good and we're happy about that! Then we went and did our usual errands. After that I went way out east to pick up a new bike tire. While I was out I stopped by a couple hardware stores to see if I could find some cassette splicing tape for this project I'm working on (yeah, I knew it was a long shot, surprise, they didn't have anything that even resembled that...such is the tragedy in this post-Radio Shack age). Anyway, spent a bit of time changing the tire on my bike. I figured it'd be somewhat involved and it was a pretty big pain in the ass. I did get a new tube to go along with the tire just in case and when I got the tire off it looked like the tube was fine so I left the old tube in. Well, I go through all the trouble of getting it back on only to find it'd gone flat again and, yes, the tube does have a leak after all. So I've got to do all of it all over again to change out the tube! Didn't have time last night 'cuz I was going to a show (so I guess that's what I've got to look forward to this morning). The show was good. It was up at Goner. The opener was SMF, three junked up guitars just making a noisy racket. It was pretty awesome. It was Eric "Oblivian" and two other guys. Not sure if it's a regular thing or just a one-off kinda thing for this show. One guy played a lap steel and another played something called a banjitar (like a guitar but the neck was a banjo neck or resembled it). There was a lot of atonal detuned strings and feedback and general skronk. My only regret was that I stupidly forgot my earplugs. It was all loud and in a small record store room. Then it was Tashi Dorji and he was awesome. Did a set of improvised, experimental guitar. He had a mix of picked kinda stuff with "prepared" techniques. He put tape on the strings a different points, jammed pieces of wood and metal under the strings. He used looping and delay pedals a good bit and some distortion. It was pretty awesome. By this point my right ear was peaking and hurting so I had to keep a finger jammed in that side for much of his set. It's been so long since I haven't worn earplugs at a show. God that shit's brutal, I need to not be dumb like that again!