In direct contrast to my last update...I've been hit with a setback. Since Windows System Restore is, though previously 100% reliable, is honestly garbage because of its self-demolishing attributes, I now have to re-mix and re-master three full 10-20 minute tracks for the album. I also have to re-record. Not to mention, I lost all of my W.I.P's for my Graphic Design portfolio. Also, a song for a collaborative project with Carissa was completely done and just needed fine-tuning; that's gone too. Also also, one of the four movements for the classical disc was complete, and now must be completely re-written. Good thing I have a wonderful memory...

"Why didn't you back up your files?"

Shut up. Next person to ask me that is losing their throat. I back up my files on a monthly basis, in batches. I save two copies of each file, one on an external hard drive, one on a recovery partition of my internal hard drive. I recently built a new computer, which I have no problems with, and because of countless past experiences with trojans, viruses, malware, and worms, I've been extremely careful. I use an anti-malware program, anti-virus, I use CCleaner several times daily, and also a registry cleaner. These are all legit, trustworthy programs. This time, I had no infections of any type. I used Windows System Restore (as I have countless times before) to unistall programs in a batch before I went to bed. Well, it put my computer in a loop and kept Windows from starting. I tried everything; moving stuff in DOS, repair install, ME bootdisk... and now it's being reformatted. I was awake for 32 hours, half of that trying to fix the computer, and now I'm ready to cut my losses. Anyway, the reason my files were not backed up was because my computer has only been built for 5 weeks. The chances of something happening with zero infections in that small of a time frame were too small to care for. Well, apparently not.

Now, either some divine force is fucking with me, or my karma is so black that I'm getting the blowback, but my Nintendo Gamecube AND my NES/SNES combo systems have both stopped reading their respective game cartridges/discs. Hence the title of this update.

Alright. Since I haven't eaten in over a day, I'm going to go get Chinese food while my computer reformats itself. Also, even though this has infuriated and upset me drastically, I STILL plan to have this damned album done, in both versions, by December 30. It's going to happen.