“Alice” the computer’s “virtual PC” program—which I dubbed “Old Alice” since it’s running Windows 98—is no longer working, and I don’t know why. I’d set it up over a year ago to do the conversions from PageMaker to Acrobat. (Almost everybody has the Acrobat Reader program, because it’s free, but nobody except professional graphic designers like me has or uses the several-hundred-dollar PageMaker program.)

I have the Windows 98 version of both programs and have refused to upgrade; I can make them run in Windows XP (a trick I picked up from another programmer), but I was never able to make them talk to each other in Windows XP. The “virtual PC” running Windows 98 was my work-around for the problem—but now it no longer works. (I was kind of surprised it worked in the first place. According to the specs, it wasn’t supposed to.) A Windows XP version of the program hasn’t been made since 2004, and I was lucky to find this one in 2007.

In the meantime, I do have a less professional work-around I can use. For the Thirsty Lion posters, which I have to deliver Tuesday, I printed and scanned the PageMaker poster, converted it to a photograph (*.jpg) file, and dumped that into (uck) MS-Word. I can e-mail that as well as an Acrobat file. So we’re still in business. I just don’t like being told I can’t do what I want to do the way I want to do it.

The “joelist” has been notified of the Thirsty Lion gig, and there’s notices on Facebook and MySpace. Musesk, too; there are some Portlanders who hang out there, and there’s a chance they might come. On Tuesday, when I travel to Portland, I’ll leave some posters with my daughter (boyfriend Eddie said he could post them around the college), plus I’ll give some to Music Millenium and the big music store on Hawthorne. There’s a little Portland coffee house, the Airway Café, that I’ve solicited a gig from (and never got a response from—dang Craigslist); this’ll be an opportunity to remind ‘em who I am, and drop off a CD—and tell them if they really want to hear what I sound like, they could stop by the Thirsty Lion in a week. (Never stop selling.)

I have gotten well-wishes from a lot of people already (the Internet is a fast place at times); to all that may be reading this, thank you. I appreciate your confidence and support. I realize most of you live very far away and wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be coming to a 25-minute audition of me playing solo in a little tavern (and I wouldn’t ask you to). One of these days, we may yet get to meet in person.

John advised he has maybe four tracks salvageable from the Failed Economy show video that could be material for the CD we promised everybody; we’ll try, when we practice this week, to record “No Good Songs About the War” and “For Their Own Ends,” and if they come out good, both will be fodder for the CD, too. (And one of those songs—don’t know which yet—is going to that Dylan contest in England.)

If we’re going to do an album—either of my songs or Failed Economy Show material, or both—I think it’s going to have to be done here, by us, with this band and John’s recording equipment (supplemented by mine to the extent necessary). If there are commercial studios on the North Coast, I don’t know where they are or who’s running them (or how good they are). Besides, there’s no money.

UPCOMING: Besides practice this week, there’ll be music Friday night at City hall, and Saturday afternoon at the Library. Not one call from any of the jobs I’ve applied for (but the deadlines for some of them haven’t happened yet—I checked). Still applying for more, though. What else can I do?

Joe