Tuesday 27th of March, 2001
Potter around doing bits of work - for example, finishing a cover for Ness (soon not to be) at Scholastic.
The servers of my ISP go down. Eventually I get throught to company, and a techy rings me back and confims that, yes the servers are down sir and we can't promise any time when they'll be back up, sir. In that very British way that makes the word "sir" half a term of abuse and half a statement of superiority.
We have mastered the art of servility with contempt.
Scrabble around and get Microsoft Explorer and Outlook set up to a free ISP and its mail and Netscape (which I usually use in any case) set up for my normal ISP, with accompanying Locations and Configurations, all whilst in a mood of semi-reverie, so I'm not exactly sure what I've done.
For lunch I manage to do a vegetarian fry-up - vegeburgers, fried mushrooms and onions and pasta. The pasta isn't fried, obviously. It's certainly filling, and dissuades me from eating anything for the rest of the day.
I finally manage to download the work - some flow chart graphics that need to be translated into eight languages. I try opening the layered file in Photoshop and Fireworks before deciding to open up a flattened one in Photoshop, match the type and make my own layers.
Once that's done it's relatively easy to copy the different translations by cutting and pasting from Word into the text boxes of the layered files. Richard has sent me four languages to convert and sent Denise the other four, and when I have done mine, I suggest that Denise sends over her four for me to do rather than me sending her the layered version. This is what happens.
At 6:40 I try to beat the post - 7:00 - with the fliers for Woodstock Taylor for Sunday. I would have done it, too, if I hadn't have run out of paper, since I had the envelopes and stamps all ready. No A4 paper anywhere. Darn.
The Plan is that we all meet at a central location (just round the corner from the Houses of Parliament - you can't really get more central than that), tomorrow, so that we can all get an overview and be briefed properly rather than continue to labour in the demi-mode of shadows and fog which is the world of teleworking.
I try out keyboards on the stuff I recorded with Peter yesterday - now I can hear the guitar, vocal and accordian together (there were only two headphone sockets, so I was working deaf, as it were), the wole thing comes alive. I experiment with some Hammond and string samples - a possible problem is that I am so steeped in post-ironic nonsense that I might go for a sound that is horribly cheesy because it is cheesy, and Peter (not being post-ironic) might not go for it. Alternatively, he may be so pre-ironic that he wouldn't necessarily hear the sound as cheesy. or perhaps it isn't cheesy. I don't know.