The mother of a small boy asked him whether he had changed the water in the fishbowl. "Why, no, mommy," he said. "They haven't drunk what I gave them last time."

Ahem.

Well, I can't afford a new version this year, so it's moot. And dissatisfied with my lack of progress, I pulled out the manual for 2009 and started reading from the beginning.

There were something like 80 features added since 2008. Also academic, since my last version was 2006. I have no idea how many had been added between the two. And I updated to 2009.5, so there's more. Anyway, there's a lot of new stuff that I don't know anything about.

I decided to start listening to demo songs. Although the thought started churning last night, I started writing this while the song list was building just now.

Ahem.

There are 4,876 freakin' songs to listen to! (Well, some of them are mine. I haven't been completely idle.) So I'll be generous and round it down to 4,850. That's a lot of listening. At 3:07 for the average pop song, how long would that take? (I'll tell you: 10 days of solid listening to the jukebox.)

I've never listened to one with a multistyle, which is where I started last night. I have no idea where or how to find them. Can't find anything in the manual about filename protocols (which will be the subject of another post). It's probably there, just not indexed. (AHEM.)

I've poked a stick at Real Styles and Real Band. I've recorded an audio track into BIAB precisely once. I've never used the ACW. Didn't know about the chord editing feature, something I've wanted for a long time.

Gee, I wonder what else is in here?

RYFM, indeed.

So, no. We haven't drunk what we were given last time. Got a lot of catching up to do. Listening and stuff. Find out what I've got my hands on. Won't be needing 2010 just yet.

R.

P.S.: If you do get 2010--RYFM.