New stuff.

I’m pumped.

There’s a masters degree graduation today, we’re expecting a bouncing baby brewery to be installed during the remainder of May, and now the Manic Street Preachers have a new album due out in less than two weeks. It’s called “Journal for Plague Lovers,” and will be the third album of original material the Manics have released since D and I moved into the house where we now live in 2003.

That’s one way I measure such things.

It’s been a great year for new music of the sort that I prefer. Recent releases by Gomez, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Doves and Fastball have been in heavy rotation, supplanting U2’s “No Line on the Horizon,” which took me through late March and early April.

New grads, new music, new brewing equipment, new winery down the street, new thrills in the NBA playoffs, a new baseball season, and best of all, a new holiday excursion coming soon. I’m pumped.

All that stuff about new hope in springtime might amount to something, after all.