Water, water everywhere.

Thanks to a really bad rain storm on Wednesday, my basement is a complete disaster. The whole place flooded, and we spent a lot of yesterday and most of today trying to throw things away, get stuff cleaned and organize all of the boxes and stuff that are now all over the ground. We have so many clothes that got wet, but our dryer isn't working ('cause water got into that too), and so we have clothes hanging all over the house. It's pretty bad. Here's a picture.

You can see on the wall where the water was. A lot came in, and now there are leaves and mud EVERYWHERE. Even though I've been cleaning up since I woke up this morning, I still feel like we haven't gotten very far. And Hurricane Dennis is supposed to be coming through soon, so we're a little worried about that. We're just trying to get the important stuff upstairs just in case we get more rain.

Right now is actually the first time today I've been able to sit down and do something online besides check my email. But I think we're done for the day, which is good because I'm exhausted.

So while I was sweeping leaves and mopping up mud, I listened to 99x on my old boom box (there was no way that I was gonna take my ipod down in all that mess). Mainstream radio isn't bad all of the time. 99x has actually really improved their programming over the past couple of years, and I can honestly say that I enjoy their selections more often than not. The best thing on the station though is their hour long program Retroplex. It comes on every weekday from 12 to 1 p.m. and features 80s new wave, 90s alternative, old school punk, and some older college radio favorites. The show seems to be mostly made up from requests from listeners, which makes it even better of course. And Steve is one of the more entertaining DJs at the station, so it's always fun listening to him. The only thing not cool about this show is the name. Because before it was called The House of Retro Pleasure, and that was way cooler.

Whenever you listen to Retroplex, you know you're going to:

a. Hear a song that you love that you haven't heard in forever
or
b. Hear a song that you that you never knew the name of, but dug every time you heard it
or
c. Hear a song that you've never heard before but really enjoy.

Steve played lots of cool stuff today, including a song from Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band, the 101'ers. I never knew about the 101'ers (looks like a cd of their recordings was just released on the 14th of last month) but really liked what I heard. Retroplex strikes again!

During the show, this girl called in requesting a song she didn't know the name of. But she said that it was by Echo and the Bunnymen, and that it had a kind of creepy feel to it. She also said that it was on the Sid and Nancy soundtrack, and in the movie "with the bunny" (Donnie Darko). Turns out that she was talking about The Killing Moon. GREAT song that I haven't heard in awhile so that was nice.

So if you're not tied to any particular lunch time ritual already, check out Retroplex while your inhaling that sandwich of yours. Since most of you probably don't live in Atlanta, you can listen to the show online at 99x.com