We did go ahead and practice last Wednesday, less than thirty-six hours after the World Trade Center fell down and went boom. We thought about canceling, but Mayor Giuliani says we need to get on with our lives, and who are we to argue? It was a little subdued. For some reason, watching planes fly into the biggest skyscrapers in New York seems to take some of the fun out of being in a band called “Krakathoom.” Or maybe that’s just me.

Meanwhile, we were having some problems of our own. I had a Band-Aid on my right thumb, which was supposed to hold down the hunk of it that I’d nearly hacked off with a cheese slicer the previous Saturday. Richard had some technical problems with his guitar/amp rig, but that was resolved after a bit of troubleshooting. The magic bullet seemed to be when he shined a flashlight on the back of the speaker. Next time you have a sound problem you can’t pinpoint, try that. It works wonders.

We spent most of the evening concentrating on new songs. Richard’s jaunty new tune in D now has not only words but a title: “Revolution Day.” It’s not what you think. Jeremy also has words for a song that I can’t remember right now. I’d feel worse about that, but until he heard the tape, Jeremy couldn’t remember the song either. His poignant song is still awaiting lyrics, but at least it has a firm bridge now.

We’re still discussing the logistics of getting a CD printed. I know a guy at the Electric Fetus (that's the local “hip” record store, for our fans in Australia), and he advised us not to run more than 200 in the first printing. He knows people who have stacks of unsold CDs in their basement. We don’t want that to be us.

Anyway, we have practice again tonight. Pete won’t be there, since he’s in Illinois for school this week. So Richard and Jeremy and I will probably spend the evening recording our parts on songs we haven’t finished recording yet. I’ll try to let you know how that goes tomorrow. Not that the website is up. Actually it was up, for like a week. It seems to be down again, though. I can’t say for sure, since I’m writing this at work and they’ve shut down our Internet connection out of paranoia over the Nimda virus. And you thought rock bands operated in a vacuum.