It's official

Apparently the messy are more creative and productive than the neat. This is fantastic news for those of us who wrestle with the urge to be tidier but tend naturally to the disordered, although I think we all knew we were in the moral and creative right of it all along. I now hold my breath for the conclusion that the verging-on-downright-neglectful-and-filthy are as gods compared to those who actually do the stuff they are supposed to in life.

That's it, held it long enough. At least I'm reasonably turned out in person. Just don't go poking around in the dark corners of my house...

Did a clean install of the old XP Home on my main desktop box the other day, and in so doing and noting the details I realized that the previous install had worked tolerably well for eight months, which I'm sure for me is some kind of record. All together now - don't keep installing stuff, don't keep installing stuff. Cheap crappy router has also been up for an unfeasible length of time without a reboot. Maybe there's some kind of fortuitous planetary alignment?

The Luminox, which I attended on both Thursday and Saturday last week, was great fun despite a cold wind, and was a great hit with tiny godson and his ragged lieutenant. I took a decent clutch of pics, and they're on Flickr here together with recent ones from the Botanic Gardens and some gurning friends of mine on Saint Patrick's. Do have a look.

I continue to love the Flickr, Platonic of course, despite taking on board some of the downsides to ubiquitous photography.

I am still fairly busy here getting over illness and finishing up some projects, while all the while trying to keep the ancient gaff from falling down. Roll on the warmer weather, when I shall spring forth, camera in hand, and sort out the world and its ills once again...

Luminox

I'm going up to Broad Street this evening at seven to see the music and fire sculptures and all the other neat stuff. For those who are near Oxford and don't already know about this, details are here. It'll be transforming Broad Street into "an enhanted world", no less. Presumably this is a combination of enchanted and enhanced, and no doubt both will be true. One for the camera I'm sure!

I am the last man in the world to discover Skype,

but now that I have I like it tremendously. Eschewing a headset - not stereo, darling - in favour of some classy Sennheiser cans I've had for years, and loaded for bear with a table microphone bought from Maplin for a bargain £2 (ahem, spent £120 on a new graphics card while I was there though - well, it was silent. Like no fan silent, not like "silent fan" bastard noisy). I have to say that my erratic progress through Second Life, and we'll not even mention the first one at this point, is greatly facilitated by having constant voice comms rather than having to type everything. This leaves my hands free to do better things such as - quiet at the back - sailing my pretend dinghy, and so on. Oh that more of my SL acquaintances had the Skype. I gather that SL is going to have its own integrated voice comms at some point, but until then I have the next best thing.

In other news, current recording projects are reduced from three and a half to two and a half, allowing more free evenings to watch worthy stuff on the telbeast or whatever. I have a busy few weeks coming up with lots of things that other people would likely regard as fun and recreational. That I do not is doubly galling, as it reduces sympathy. Still, then I get to go on a long-overdue jolly to Amsterdam for five days with friend(s), and that will be very good. Until then it's half-grin and half bear it.

There is a distinct lack of body,

or low-end thump to give it its proper name, in every guitar amplifier I have so far tried other than the senescent Peavey Deuce I have at home. Is this just another example of declining standards? Why is there elusive distortion at strange points on some of the vocals I have recently recorded on my multitrack, when the signal has demonstrably not clipped? Why is my CD player getting funny about playing CDRs? This last one: because they're more demanding to read and after fifteen years the poor old bugger is worn out. Why is nothing built as well as it used to be? Am I getting old? And grumpy?

Why do I need to do a totally clean install of XP on this machine every four or five months to prevent it running like a slug after a stag night? Why does my washing machine emit high-pitched squeals, and not of joy, when it is pumping out? Why does the software designed to detect my sat-nav when I plug it into USB on this computer not, er, detect my sat-nav? Why do some of my USB devices work plugged into the USB ports on the back of the PC and some when plugged into the front - but not predictably? Why do neither of my, admittedly cheap and cheerful, DECT phones work and/or charge predictably enough to encourage their actual use?

I could go on at some length.

Who was it said that machines own you? Too right.

On a brighter note, watch out for Luminox in Broad Street, Oxford from the 15th to 17th of March, 6.30pm and on. This will be "a magical environment with fire sculptures", boasting "a giant pendulum" and live music. I'll be having some, or all, of that.