Unless I'm reading the clock wrong, it's the middle of the day. I woke up this morning at 7 am and couldn't figure out whether I had gotten only a few hours sleep or slept through the whole day. Surprise! I had woken up at a conventional time. I made breakfast, of all the crazy activities, and started mixing music. (Which I'm still doing.) Mixing is another application of delayed gratification. (I'm starting to think that success in most activites is dependant upon the ability to delay gratification) in that the right thing to do is often not the thing that affects the most immediate problem. Mixing based on what is currently too quiet ("I can't hear the drums") results in "volume inflation". The volume of one track is increased because it isn't audible, which winds up masking another track, which gets a volume increase, which makes these two things louder than something else, which gets turned up, and so on until everything is maxed out and you STILL can't hear the drums.

Right in the middle of writing, my laptop decided to lock up. This is not terribly unusual. After attempting a soft reboot, I resorted to holding the power switch down for 5 seconds, forcing a power down. Then, after a short pause, I hit it once more. Nothing happened. I hit it again. Nothing. Hmm. I took out the battery and removed the AC adapter. I replaced them and hit the on switch. Nothing. I had no more time to deal with it, I had to get going.

I got back home from band practice, having left the battery and AC disconnected in hopes that the computer would forget whatever state was keeping it from turning on. Plugged it in. Put in battery. Hit Switch.

Nothing. Stupid computer. You better watch yourself, or I'll use you as a percussion instrument.

One instrument used in Afro-Cuban rhythms is the "hoe blade". Yup, really a hoe blade. I'm thinking a laptop probably makes a reasonably good clunk when you hit it with something. I will use my laptop to practice 6/8 bembe rhythms.