The stale chips are up and the hope stakes are down.

It's way past my bedtime as I write this. Precisely, it is 0507h. I've just walked home from visiting some very close friends. To-day has been the perfect temperature for snow and ice, and my HB Spezial are meant for handball courts -- not snowy winter days. Thus, it took longer to get home than I expected.

A nice amount of Wild Turkey and two 24oz beers took the edge off, though. Plus, I had the presence of mind to put on some base layer (thank you, Falke). I wish I would have grabbed a scarf, because the wind blowing through the vent holes in the back of my hood was a bit cold. All in all, though, not a bad day this one.

What did we decide during our visit? Simple. We decided that the world has passed us by. One simply had to be there to get the entire scope of it, but boiled down, that statement encompasses all of our thoughts and feelings.

This has been an interesting period since the last posting. I have finally scraped up enough money to buy a Dave Smith Instruments Desktop Evolver. I've had it for about two weeks and I'm still learning to program the sequencers, but my initial experience tells me that for old school industrial and power electronics you aren't going to find anything better for the price. Amazing. Review of sorts to come. Sound familiar?

Roy Keane left Sunderland AFC. Sunderland AFC are very important in my life. I would like to say thank you to Roy and the fantastic job he did bringing us out of the Champions League and basically inspiring the club to be the best they have been since 1974. You will be sorely missed. With this horrible losing streak going on, I now fear relegation again. Buck up, lads, and don't let the bastards grind you down!

On the other side of the coin, Columbus Crew captured the MLS cup this year by edging out Chicago Fire. I have never been happier and I'm proud of the boys on the pitch and the lads on the streets. Come on then, who wants it?

And for my good mate Burek so far away in distant Croatia I would like to say that all the material is together and I have started the final mastering. I still need to build the packaging and we are many months behind what I considered to be the release schedule, but this split will happen if it is the last thing that I do. :)

For all the great lads over at Terror Noise Audio, please rest assured that I am not gone. The drive that holds my iTunes library is full and I need to get a bigger one. After that, I have about 250 albums to process. I will resume posting soon.

Other than a snag or two at work and the usual other problems, I got nothin' for you.

Be seeing you.