Jeez I’ve been having a hard time recording.  Not the actual making music part of the deal (although I still can’t ever seem to play the same part the same way twice) but I mean the techie end of things.  I have a Roland multi-track digital recorder that I paid, like, $1,400 for in around 2001 (which makes it worth probably $50.00 today) which works great when it works (about half the time; the other half it loses data and whole songs, never to be heard again).  Now I have a digital box thingie that plugs into my computer and multi-track recording program so I won’t lose stuff like on the "old" Roland. 
Only thing is, I haven’t yet been able to monitor sound through my headphones while recording, and the playback is all full of pops and crackles.  There is no manual for how to run the damn program, only a bunch of tutorials and hints on how to change the settings on my computer to alleviate the aforementioned problems.  But now my computer seems to have a mysterious virus stalking around in its innards, and the whole enterprise feels like it’s grinding inexorably to a halt.
Makes me wish I hadn’t given my old cassette tape 4-track to Teacher Thomas when I got the Roland.  True, I did exchange a bit of tape hiss for "digital clarity,"  but that 4-track never gave me any trouble.  It worked like a mule, and it seems like I sure spent a lot more of my "recording" time actually focused on recording the music instead of trouble shooting high-tech gizmos. 
I better stop before I start ranting on about cell phones and blackberries and such.  I suppose I’ll give the Roland another try...