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.