Been listening to KZUM tonight. Right now, they are playing some utterly trippy mixes of ambient wackiness. It just made it even more bizarre by tuning my second set of speakers into the streaming web version, which is delayed by a few seconds from the over-the-air broadcast on the main system. I'm in one of those moods.

For the first time since starting this job, I drove my car to work today. It was raining like a mad hyena when my shift began at 16:00 CDT. Earlier in the afternoon, when I arrived back from church, it had been sunny and hot. What fun weather.

[...]

Wow. The shit they just played on the air -- a bunch of poetry read over spooky sounding music -- could as well have been a poetic version of one of Ran Prieur's essays. It went by too fast to transcribe it, but it talked about how the End of the World begins slowly, imperceptably. How everything you consider grand is really a poison, that has been killing life; it will wither away. Beautiful stuff. I love it.

Even before that bit started, I was thinking about the possibility of how public radio might be a way of transmitting encoded messages that fall under the radar of the establishment, but can be understood by the rebel underground. Or even better: Injecting messages into the subconscious of the listening populace, planting the seed of knowledge the people will find in their own minds when the time comes.

Earlier this evening, while I was at work, they were playing quotes from George Bush from a couple years ago about bringing "Freedom and democracy to Iraq", and him talking about how reliable his intelligence sources are. Quotes that are now even more transparently foolish and/or deceptive, if they weren't already obvious back then. But the wacky part: It was all set to Star Trek theme music! I sat there trying to figure that one out. Maybe they were trying to evoke the more negative aspects of the Spaceman card? That's what came into my mind, anyway.

Now, the sound is totally mysterious and intense. Repeated chanting, with more things being said over it. More abstract. Chimes and whistles. Angels. Now my subconscious is being programmed. But with what? The needed knowledge that will awaken when the time comes, or a poison pill? I trust that it is the former.

"I touched her thigh, death smiled."

The plasmate finds a way.

Tonight, some guy came into the station asking if a hurricane in the gulf was going to drive gas prices higher. Something about causing the refineries to stop. I had heard rumors about the possibility a few weeks ago, but nothing real recently.

I get home and check cryptogon, and sure enough. Crude over $70. Odds are that with this news, gasoline will probably go up another notch tomorrow.

Makes me think maybe I should go ahead and fill my car back up now, rather than wait a couple more weeks. Maybe tonight, go back to the station and pay at the pump, just in case the fax hits my manager's desk tomorrow morning. (I've noticed that the last couple times, he's put off raising it until the last possible second he can get away with, usually waiting till just before he goes home at the end of the day. I suspect he dreads doing it. I think it's partly because he knows that after enough price hikes, it will eventually drive business down. Also, I believe he honestly has the concerns of his customers and employees at heart. Times are tight for a lot of people.)

Alright, I'm going to do it. I'm insane. Back to the station I just came from, where I will fill my car with gas. Having run on what's in there since early June, back when it cost less than $25 to fill my tank, now it's my turn to feel the sticker shock.

Here we go.