the new album is cursed

so i officially declare the new album cursed. after what seemed like the end of problems as the album had been mailed off and all necessary paperwork filled out. This is the last e-mail i sent out on Thursday, 11/15:

Hey Sam, The Proof Looks great. we approve! you can proceed with the printing. so assuming that the printing process starts tomorrow, given the 12-15 business days (minus thanksgiving) that should put us somewhere between Dec 4th-Dec7th. sounds great! I'll be out of town w/ no e-mail access from Nov 18th-Nov28th. but you can contact my bandmate Alex at the address attached if you have any questions/issues. thanks again, and let us know if you need anything else and when we should mail out the 2nd check (and for how much). -eric

a few days later we received this e-mail, Monday 11/19 ... title "Master Failed":

Eric, We ran into a snag with your audio master. It has failed and we cannot use it to replicate. My mastering guy sent me an e-mail detailing the reason:
"The CD-Text length field in the Size information block does not match the actual amount of data that is recorded. This error typically occurs when reading CD-Text from a CD. The CD-Text data is formatted into Packs, one of which describes the length of CD-Text information. This error occurs when the length specified does not match the actual length of the CD-Text data that is read by the CD-ROM drive. If we are to Fix, Please Provide what the CD-Text should be. Or we can Delete the CD-Text all together." Please advise as to what you would like us to do...........

Thankfully they sent this only to me, and since i was running around europe, i had little time to get to a computer. so i thankfully responded 11/26 (after using the computer in the lobby of the hostel). Why they chose not to contact Alex and continuously e-mailed me, i dunno. but basically printing has now been delayed a week and most likely it won't affect our deadline, but honestly. "Master Failed" what the heck?!

i'm fully expecting people's CD players to burst into flames upon the first listen. perhaps we'll do some promo "fire extinguisers with the first 10 copies" ... or maybe garlands of garlic to ward off whatever beasts come out of the subwoofers.

time to invest in disclaimer labels "if you die from listening to this cd, it's not our fault."

UPDATE: apparently the album made it through their last checks and all is well now. they'll be providing an update to me when the printing is completed. phew!