Achieved nothing this evening.

Good progress: Synctracks like the stuff and the variation on "far away" so that's a relief. Will do some edit versions of "nonvox" and then look at starting the new stuff. Today I'll do more with Omnisphere as I was really getting into the granular parts yesterday. First priority is to unhang the iPad. Bizarrely it froze on my at 20:55 yesterday and every time I touch it all I get is the same screen flickering; won't respond to anything, can't take the battery out. Dearly hope when I connect to iTunes it will be restorable. I don't think I want one.

Pat still hardly speaking, she's starting to worry me a bit. Carrying small things on ain't good and I think this hassle at work has hit her harder than she admits. Another disciplinary meeting isn't a good sign.

Good seeing Isgar again yesterday.

Pebbles went home this morning, has been nice having a cat around. No sign of any mice at all.

iPad arrived, new phone arrived, Pat's on a downer (partly my fault), gotta learn the iPad and get it setup for Orb. Airport pickup later, not looking forward to the drive but must put on a brave face and not let it show. Feeling a bit stressed which isn't like me. Just don't seem to have any chilltime at the moment and for the forseeable future.

Cool, review and screenshots sent in. I think it's OK and balanced, took a bit of effort but happy with the results. Gonna look at Omnisphere in more detail today and consider the iPad thing. If a new one is due, can I get an older one cheaper?

May also try and polish those two shorter reviews in case a deadline appears. Actually, should try and get some of those tracks moving. Jeez I'm shite at multitasking! Tasking, even.

More coffee. That'll sort it. Wednesday already. The sand never stops pouring.

Good day. Apple are lending me an iPad, which is excellent news. I ploughed on with the edits, more tomorrow but I also did a "nonvox" version of Far Away, adding piano to replicate the melody of the voice, ish. Some of the edits are proving difficult but the weird ones, at least, are easy. In the evening I had a good Cirklon session, new OS adds a few small but important enhancements. May get Tony A to fit new screen cos of my flicker. Have a few reasonable tunes for the gig I think, now considering having Cirklon do the patch and volume changes of the two synths I'm gonna be playing. It would make quite a lot of sense as stumbling around looking for patches when there's just me juggling plates already is prone to too much wackiness. Good discipline to get into.

Phew, airport trip is to Liverpool not Manchester. But have acquired a second trip on Tuesday. How to tell my friends I'm not actually just hanging around the house all the time but working, pretty much all the time? Reviews and music to do, gig prep will have to wait. Latest review done, will send in morning after final read. Then it's Omnisphere 1.5 (can I borrow an iPad?) and also get those masters to Synctracks. When will I get chance to write some "science/technology" tracks? No idea.

I should stop saying yes. Seem to be living Leaf By Niggle and hope I ain't got a journey any time soon. When will I get time to go get the Synthi? Again, no idea.

Funny old day. An Ikea trek to get a chair that didn't look how the shop version did. Of course we didn't discover that until I put it up. So I took it apart and it goes back tomorrow.

Managed to get a good chunk of the review done. Should get the polish on it tomorrow ready for deadline Wednesday. Might even get a look at Omnisphere and perhaps start some of those edits for Synctracks. Can at least upload some of the main 24 bit files. And ponder iPads.

A bit bog-eyed now, that's it for the day I think.

Musta been busy or something. Well, pressing on with review and hope to have something decent by the end of tonight. Last night I got a fair bit of the donkey work done, didn't do much else though.

Got my first draft done, it's getting there. Taking a break now. Tomorrow night I'll polish leaving Tuesday night to do the final licks and checks. New Ck OS changes from 17% to 41% free. Groovy.

Lovely day but I'm waiting in for lino man. Pat in bed after nightshift. Hopefully this evening I can start repopulating the library, get the shelves in and CDs/books.

Will continue with review later, see if I can get any decent sounds out of that thing. And Cirklon 050e adds pattern rotate, which should help a lot in Scene switching. That just leaves instrument def level CCs as the main thing I really need pre-gig.

The sky sure is blue but there's nothing I can do.

Started new tune last night, getting easier to work with Cirklon but still some rough edges and bits awaiting attention. Think I've sorted some video for gig, hopefully Tim can take some fresh and we can use some of his earlier things too but Steve of Magic Lantern was in touch and can do some nice swirly colourful stuff. Most excellent!

This evening Pat is working again so I'll do more review stuff and sequency stuff. What a life!

Darn, just looked and realised this gig is in Huddersfield. Dunno why I thought it was closer. Ah well. Review keyboard coming next week so gonna try and tidy up the two smaller s/ware reviews so they're out of the way.

New neighbours have moved into that little house and they have two kids. :(

Gig was good, ears still ringing (forgot earplugs). Good to see Harvey again, it's been too long. Must buy Satnav, I'm bloody hopeless in strange places in the dark! Hopeless generally actually, but you knew that of course.

Sent "Far Away" to Liz cos even though it's an odd tune I think it has something. She liked it too and has promised to let me know where I should deploy my energies next. No reviews in so worked a little on the Ethno World 5 review. I have a fair bit of stuff written for that and the other now so could get into shape reasonably quickly if asked. Pottered with Cirklon. I find that removing the JV from the live box was a good thing, have more than enough instruments already so it was a distraction. Could flog it I guess but no hurry, all those expansion cards worth more than the synth.

Still nothing from Tony about my Synthi, will it be ready for gig? I now have two mixer channels free and would dearly love to try Synthi through new Eventide Space pedal, whenever that arrives.

Must push Colin for instrument-level CCs as that, at least, I need for gig for Repeater control. I have compiled yet another TBI, a "me priority" one as usual. Got new PSU and no flickers yet, hope that's solved.

Mice eating poison. Don't feel good about that but has to be done.

Pat's horse OK, made miraculous recovery once at vet's for x-ray. Typical! Still, relief all round.

May try Pascal again today and see what he's up to. Would be good to get together. Starting to feel like playing again.

Gig Saturday, Dave Gurr and Harvey. Looking forward, really must get together with H for music sometime.

Hmmm, must've been busy or just not interested in blogging for a bit. Sunday morning and feeling worse for last night's curry. Have trashed two rooms chasing mice, will continue today. Cirklon making good progress, lots of little bugs found and squashed. Have yet to install the latest OS that arrived at 03:26, Colin burning the midnight oil.

Oh dear, 20 underscores to redo and remove all percussion. Previous instructions were to replace kicks with toms etc. and my last project was done like that. This one I did exactly the same but the goalposts have moved. Ah, the vague and woolly world of working for folks as vague and woolly as me. :)

The three new tracks to Liz all OK, her fave being the one where I basically hold a note for 2 and a half mins. I'm learning, albeit slowly. Paul right, as usual. :)

Wrote a little Monotron Q&A but very generic as the person who asked didn't give any details at all about what he has.

GenoQs are no more, which is a real shame. Mind you I've had a Nemo here for maybe a year and haven't bothered to touch it, lovely though it is to look at. If only they'd listened...

Did a couple of ambient pieces, still not convinced by Epic World and the company are ignoring my basic questions about automation which might give the drones at least a tiny bit of usefulness.

Killed two mice last night, heard them in the kitchen and decided it was time. Felt a little bad but serves the feckers right for chewing my speaker wire. Will have to stop Pat leaving bird seed all over the place as that's where they were living.

Council no longer replying to me, sod 'em.