Yay. Also, woe. Also, yay.

There was a band rehearsal scheduled for this weekend just past, enhanced by the presence of our new long distance member, eintx. A few weeks ago, my upstairs desktop suffered a graphics failure (either the monitor or the card, don't know which) so most of my lyrics became inaccessible. But I wasn't worried.

Then on Saturday the downstairs laptop (nominally Jan's, but I was planning to use it for the rehearsal) decided not to let me access any of the virtual synths I'd used for the sequences. But I still had usable files on the upstairs laptop, so I wasn't worried.

Then when I tried to make audio mixdowns on the upstairs laptop it started crashing every time I opened a file. At this point I went from not being worried to not panicking.

Despite all this, it was a really great rehearsal. CT is back in its groove (or rut, depending on who you ask) and it's marvellous to have a fourth voice and another instrumentalist again, even if she can only attend rehearsals once or twice a year. Let's face it, that's sometimes been all we've managed. :) I'm looking forward to my and Valerie's slots at Duple Time, and to what will come after.

So now I have to investigate the graphics card on the upstairs desktop, update the device drivers on the upstairs laptop anduninstall and reinstall the drivers for the iLok dongle on the downstairs laptop. And then I'll be fine. I hope.

Various things

eintx brought me an article written by her partner, the last he wrote before leaving his paper, the Bonn General-Anzeiger, about the euro and how it all began so hopefully. Here in insular old Little England, there's a tendency to think of the euro as something They Did (or Tried To Do) To Us, because of course the world revolves around us and our enemies are everywhere I tell you. If anyone still thinks that, the article (which is in paper form and Deutsch; I haven't been able to find it online) has some interesting insights, some of which I even understood.

Otherwise, poking my head up for a brief glance at the real world, things still don't seem to be getting any better. Andrew Neil in the Radio Times says debt-based capitalism has failed, which he only just seems to have realised even though we've known for some time, but doesn't seem to see any solution beyond a prolonged period of austerity, privation and hardship, a "Lost Decade" or several. Of course there won't be any solution as long as our governmental systems remain the same, and I rather fancy that through all this horribleness the rich will stay just as rich as they are. The austerity, privation and hardship will only apply to all of us out here. The Tories continue to move steadily towards the abolition of the benefits system so that they can give more money to their friends and watch us all starve. The LibDems (I speak of their leaders, not the innocent rank and file) can rot in stinking hell for eternity for giving us into the hands of these scum. There will never be true democracy, the kind that might actually not be the worst system except for all the others, till Conservatism as a political philosophy is discredited and forgotten as the shabby scam it was. And the same probably goes for socialism. Why in heaven's name can't a government just govern?

In local news, iLok's first suggestion has proved a broken reed, so I'm waiting for another response. If I don't make it work today, some major rearrangement is going to be necessary before I can send out some things that certain people need urgently. No pressure, then. ":)"

Circular reasoning is circular?

Do we actually know that the universe is 13.7 billion years old on any other evidence than the fact that 13.7 billion light years (or thereabouts) is the furthest we can see, or is Professor Brian Cox (in the RT again) going round in educated circles here?