Smoke and Water

The Water Board sent us a goodie bag for Earth Day, filed with flow limiters, aerators and a low-flow showerhead. They also sent a heavy duty plastic bag that was thick and creamy with plasticizers and not recyclable for a one-use task - checking the flow rate of the shower. I wonder how many hundreds of pounds of plastic they mailed out for Earth Day? Thanks, water board! The best bit is that my original shower had measured up at 3.1 gallons per minute and the new low-flow one comes out at, uh, 3.1 gallons per minute. It's worth keeping as it has, as STB put it 'three equally annoying settings' - fine spray, drenching spray and knocking you repeatedly on the head with pulses of water like a sort of automatic Donald Rumsfeld.

I may also use the bag as a chic purse for a while.

Sea of Cowards, the new Dead Weather album, hasn't been released yet and I'm already feeling bereaved as the band is drawing to a close. I doubt if they'll find the time to all of this again - I guess they almost didn't find the time to get this far, as touring before the album's release isn't usually something bands do pursposefully. Jack Lawrence is going back to the Greenhornes, Alison Mosshart is in the middle of a new Kills album (at least we've got that to look forward to - and possibly a tour!). Not sure what Dean's doing but Them Crooked Vultures will finish touring soon so Queens of the Stone Age may be back on the table. No idea what Jack is going to do. Both Jay Z and Tammy Wynette have been mentioned. Hey, to save time he could record with both of them at once! That'd be cool.

I've lost count of how many singles have been released from SOC so far, but the latest one is Gasoline - so new that the video seems to be a placeholder rather than a finished video. But who knows? It's certainly watchable enough to stand alone.