Yesterday, I went to the Washington Department of Licensing and took my drive test. I am now the relieved owner of a Washington Driver's License. I had planned to schedule all license-related activities on Thursday. Fortunately for me, the driving school scheduled my test on Wednesday against my will, because it wound up snowing today. I probably would have been too busy watching the entering-hyperspace effect of driving through snow to be properly careful about my driving. I scored a 91, with points off for a) hitting the brakes a little hard, twice. b) straightening the car out after backing around a corner and c) stopping at a yield sign when I didn't have to a couple times. Boy, are they picky here. On the way back home from passing the test I drove SO BADLY!#%! HA

So today, since I've got the license, I put in the order for my car. iMotors seemed a little surprised that I already had deposit cash on hand and already knew exactly which car I wanted to get. The woman who contacted me was possibly the happiest human being I've ever spoken to; perhaps it is characteristic of used car salespeople. I am looking forward to the 6 am calls she warned me about, in case the dealers find a car with a strange option or two which wasn't on my list. That's the price I pay for being so specific, I suppose. "That's what you get," said my boss^2, "for ordering the equivalent of a Swedish hearse."

In other news, I discovered today that if you use an Emagic MT-4 with Cubase, you will experience a denial of functionality the first time you hit the "stop" button. The MT4 will register a frenzy of MIDI activity, then the transport bar will stop working. Then, when you try to exit cubase, the bar and project will disappear, but the blank cubase screen will stay up and you will have to reset the computer to restore function. Solution: Go to the Edit menu, under preferences, under "MIDI" and hit the "Reset" tab, and uncheck the options that refer to resetting things on stop. (I don't think this quick little explanation really conveys how many FRUSTRATING HOURS I spent tracing the problem to the MT-4 and puzzling out the fix. Deleting the whole windows/ tree from dos, piece by piece. Reinstalling. Ugh.) This totally annoying bug is still being investigated by Steinberg, but I'm sure they'll figure it out. Those Germans are a clever bunch.

Mindless Self Indulgence: London Bridge (yes, the lyrics are "london bridge".)(at first) 265k mp3