I spent most of today doing something that is quite boring to watch, and tedious to do. I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it, or how to tell if I was doing it well; further, I couldn't predict what a good outcome would be, except in the most general of terms. What I was doing is called Performance Tuning, and it is as much voodoo as art, and as much art as science. Steven King once said something to the effect that if you couldn't describe exactly what you were creating -- what the effect of your words would be -- then whatever else you were doing, it wasn't writing. Similarly, it's likely true that if I could not precisely describe how to do what I was doing, and what exactly the outcome should be, then whatever else I was doing, perhaps it wasn't Performance Tuning. Messing around, maybe. Nevertheless, it was great fun. Have I mentioned that I'm sort of a geek?