music and diamonds

I stripped my old computer down to its seperate components last night, and will build the new box on Friday. I wanted to do a POST (Power On Self Test) last night, but Deanne wanted her kitchen back :) So instead I picked up my guitar, plugged her in and sang some Church and Police songs for about an hour, which was great fun. I haven't done it for quite a while, and I'm pleased to find my voice is better than it used to be...at least I think it is :) I have an A4-sized ring binder of musical notation paper (it's got five-line staves on it) and between the staves I've written out chords for lots of songs. Here's the neat part, though. When I worked out the chords I also wrote the date including the year, so I'm looking at chords I did back in 1990 and onwards...wow...time flies, huh ?

Anyway, after listening to a guy on the radio, today's lecture is about NOT BUYING DIAMONDS !! They are *not* rare stones, the DeBeers diamond cartel has socially engineered us to believe we have to buy them if we really love someone. Read this article from The Atlantic Monthly magazine, and tell me you still think you want to buy diamonds. There are plenty of artificial, inexpensive sparkly stones in the market that didn't involve people being exploited. If you must spend a large chunk of cash, spend 10% on the cubic zirconia and send the other 90% to charity. Send your money to African orphans, not the people they work for.