Some computer tasks are more of a black art than a science. CD burning is one of these tasks: sometimes everything works fine, but other times — even though you follow the exact same procedure — the gods of silicon evacuate their bowels all over your blank disc, rendering it fit only for decorative purposes.

I needed to burn the master disc for the HMS Falcon's forthcoming collection of sea shanties. I won't bore you with the details of trying to get an Enhanced CD made (we wanted to include a video shot during the recording session), but after a great deal of profanity last night and this morning, I was finally able to hack together something which at least resembles an Enhanced CD.

I popped it in the car stereo to listen on the way to work, to make sure everything sounded all right (and that a regular CD player would play it). About a minute into the first track, a short high-pitched tone came out of the right speakers.

Crap. I have to deliver the CD tonight! I jumped the player back a few seconds, but the beep didn't recur. Weird. Maybe a bit got written sideways or something, and a bump in the road made things wonky? I took the CD out, put it back in again and played it from the beginning. No beep. It was probably something outside the car, a truck backing up or something. But it didn't sound like an outside noise.

Fifteen seconds into the second song, the beep came again. Damn it! I backed up, but once again it played normally. In disgust, I shut off the CD player.

A few minutes later, I heard the beep again. When I hit a stoplight, I looked around, and there on the floor behind the front passenger seat was Karen's cellphone, beeping to complain about a missed call.

Arrrgh.