I did it. Windows finally pushed me over the edge. I wiped the hard drive and installed SuSE 8.0 Professional. I still have no Internet access but at least I have an operating system that seems to get along with my machine.

Listening to Vapor Trails, the new Rush CD that came out yesterday. Makes me want to give up playing guitar. Kind of ironic, because it was a Rush album that made me want to pick up and start playing many years ago. The new CD is very heavy and harmonically rich. Evil guitar tones. Idiosyncratic. No keyboards on this one. Probably as heavy as I’ve ever heard Rush; very stripped down and primal. It has the energy of their first four albums but with more depth. I’m not very good at describing music in terms that make sense to people other than me, but if I had to use two words to describe the CD, i’d go with "rich" and "heavy."

Singer Geddy Lee is a huge baseball fan. And speaking of baseball (sorry, that was a brutal segue, but I had to do something), how about Junior Herndon. The forgotten pitching prospect, Herndon tossed a seven-inning no-no last night at Tacoma. After getting hit hard early in the season, he’s put together back-to-back excellent starts. Still isn’t striking anyone out (Herndon matched his season high last night with three; he’s made seven starts).

At Mobile, Eric Cyr worked six solid innings at Greenville, allowing one run on four hits, with one walk and four punchouts. Arguably his best start of the year.

Down at Elsinore, Tagg Bozied returned to the lineup, this time in right field. Xavier Nady is still DHing. He’s supposed to be headed to Portland any day but he’s still played only one game in the field so we’ll see.

And finally, here in San Diego, the Pads rallied back from a 4-1 deficit to defeat the Expos, 5-4. Ryan Klesko hit another homer off a lefty. Yep, he’s up to .378/.442/.730 against southpaws, with four homers in 37 at-bats. Anybody still think he can’t hit ‘em? D’Angelo Jimenez also had some nice at-bats, just missing a grand slam in the sixth before singling in the winning run in the ninth.

Dennis Tankersley makes his second start tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing him try to run that slider past Vlad Guerrero. Should be fun…