Like A Wheel, Gonna Spin It

I spent the weekend in that weird state that occurs when you stay awake so long that your body resigns itself that sleep is just not going to happen, and your mind is pumped so full of caffeine that it's going 100 miles an hour. The bad part is, the reason was that I was cramming for a mid-term, and it didn't even happen (it was delayed for a couple weeks). I was so wired that I couldn't fall asleep for hours after I got home, although I eventually collapsed and slept for 14 hours straight.

Some closure/addendums to previous issues:

I blew out the cords in another tire the other day, and it was the last straw - I've been going through a set of low-profile tires every year at $700 a set, and I could pretty much count on destroying at least two tires before their life expectancy was up. I got the factory rims out of the shed and had them put back on. They don't look cool, but I figure it's one less thing I have to worry about. After that, I spent the afternoon repairing the banister I ripped out of the wall the other day.

I finally got around to picking up the supplies to give the bike an oil change, although I didn't enjoy the trip - In my experience, there are two kinds of motorcycle dealerships: ones that are purely sales oriented, run by profiteers and staffed by idiots. The second kind is usually smaller, run by people who love motorcycling/powersports and staffed by people who genuinely want to be ambassadors to the sport. The shop I went to was part of a chain in my area that is firmly in the first camp - the salesmen eyed me like vultures as I walked in, and the parts guy, while friendly enough, was clueless. As a former employee of one of the helpful shops, it was like chewing on tinfoil.

Finally, as an amateur photographer, I recently came across unphotographable.com and was fascinated. It reminded me that while a picture may be worth a thousands words, it's no match for the imagination...

Little Baby Goes Ha! (All Night Long)

I was hoping to get the bike out during the great weather this week, but I managed to trip and fall down the stairs, ripping the banister out of the wall & tweaking my ankle pretty good in the process. Besides being gimpy, I had a mid-term this week and was pet-sitting for some friends while they took care of something:



Congrats, Scotty & Jen!

Indiscriminate? I'd Rather Be Elite

And you thought your rat bike was hardcore...

(via Make)

100 Miles 100,000 Miles and Runnin'

On the way home from work Thursday:


I guess the Honda's officially broken in. Here's to another 100K...

When She's Ten Feet Tall

I read in an article that Volkswagen will return to using the "Rabbit" badge on the (former) Golf:

"The reintroduction of the Rabbit represents Volkswagen's commitment to this market and is a nod to the passionate North American enthusiasts who have an emotional connection with the Rabbit name."

I found this amusing because, as much as I love Volkswagens, I only have two memories regarding the "Rabbit name":

-One of my friends had a brother-in-law with a disastrous history of Volkswagen ownership, from a Karmann Ghia that is probably still rusting into a pile of dust on his mother-in-laws patio to a silver Rabbit that was a gigantic shitbox. Unaffectionately referred to as "The Ribbit", It had to be pop-started every single time he wanted to go anywhere, passengers were sickened from the multiple exhaust leaks, and the odds of making it to the intended destination were about 50/50 at best. He quickly became the guy that, when he called your house, you had to coarsely whisper "Tell him I'm not here!" to whoever answered the phone - otherwise, you invariably wound up driving to BFE to rescue him from another breakdown.

-Another friend of mine tragically lost her mother at a young age after an extended illness. However, due to prudent planning by her father, as well as a generous life insurance policy from her employer, the family was left in a very good situation financially. After my friend graduated high school, she was excited to be attending Ohio State University in the fall. Her father gave her some good news: He was going to buy her a new car to take to college. She was thrilled; her head was filled with images of her tooling around campus in her new candy-apple-red convertible, getting looks from all the college hunks. Figuring that they would start car shopping soon, she was understandably surprised when her father, with no advanced warning, brought home her new car just a few days later: A brand new Rabbit. In turd brown. With no options - nothing. 4-speed, no A/C, vinyl seats, AM radio. To him, this was an immensely practical purchase (after all, this was at the height of the Carter's energy crisis). Trouble is, he forgot that "practical" is the last word in a 19-year-old-girl's vocabulary. Naturally, she hated the car, but cared about her father's feelings too much to say anything. She drove that fugly thing for years and, much later, admitted that it had actually been a pretty good car. But she still would have rather had a new Camaro.

I Like To Be There When I Can

Back to normal - it was a crazy week, but I got to catch up with friends & family & spend time with my nieces & goddaughter, so that was fun. I got some DVD's (a few that I'll probably talk about here, after I watch them) but since most of my hobbies revolve around tech or music and my family is brain dead in that regard, everyone just gives me cash, which I combined with some Rat Shack gift cards from a mail-in rebate (that I had given up hope on receiving) to buy these:

The headphones are Bluetooth, which I think is the one of the coolest technologies to come around in a while (I know it's not exactly new, but I haven't had much experience with it until recently). When I got my Mac I thought it was extremely cool that I could sync my Treo from anywhere in the house without hooking up any wires, and now I can plug a tiny transmitter into my MP3 player/Treo/home stereo/computer and not have to deal with any wires at all (handy when I'm out & about, or at work). I also bought some software for the Mac, and found some other apps that will hopefully allow me to convert video recordings from my computer (running Beyond TV) to watch on the go. Man, I'm a geek - hopefully I will be getting the bike roadworthy this week, that should get me more in touch with my macho side...

Take A Cha-Cha-Cha-Chance

Sorry for the lack of content folks, it's my birthday this week and I've been enjoying spending time & catching up with friends & family in the real world (something I don't get to do often enough). Plus, I haven't paid for a dinner all week - bonus! I order all of you to go out and have some fun of your own, dammit!

Keep Your Hands Off My Stack

I seem to be hemorrhaging money lately - Besides all the usual bills this month, I was hit with a $200 assessment from the condo association for a new roof, my books for next quarter cost me $198, $158 went to the BMV for new tags, my notary commission needs to be renewed at $65, and, for the first time in my life, I had to pay money to the IRS. This was mostly due to a small inheritance from my father that bumped me up into a new tax bracket - an inheritance that was just enough to bury him and pay for the central air system that crapped out two days after I got the check. All of this is even after I had them withhold 10% of the inheritance money towards taxes, plus I usually take zero deductions and have an extra $10 taken out of my check every week so I get a healthy refund. All in all I managed to blow through over a grand in unexpected expenses in about a week. Ah well.

I haven't had much time to devote to guitar lately, what with finals and all, but since I know some of you guys are interested in various ways to make noise, I thought I'd showcase some of my gear. I think I've mentioned all the guitars, so here are the amps and what has made its way onto my pedalboard, with my thoughts:

The Pedals:

1.) Rocktron Hush - Simple but effective noise gate.

2.) Johnson Switch - controls the clean/dirty channel on my Fender Champion 110.

3.) Boss FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz - The guy at the pawn shop threw it in cheap when I bought my amp. I've really only found it useful when teamed with a more conventional fuzz pedal like the Big Muff - together they can create a cool sludge-rock sound. otherwise it just sounds like static from a transistor radio added to the signal.

4.) Dod FX-30B Gate/Loop - I'm not using the gate side, I mainly intend to use this as an effects loop for all the dirt boxes, but I haven't gotten around to rewiring the board for it yet.

5.) Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi (Russian) - One of my favorites. I had a Russian-made model from the 80's a long time ago, I'm glad to say this one sounds even better. You can get everything from Hendrix to Brit-pop to metal with one of these.

6.) Guyatone MD-3 Digital Delay - actually sent to me by accident by an eBay seller that I bought another (much cheaper) item from, he decided to let me keep it rather than mess with shipping it back. Delays aren't real high up on my personal "useful" list of effects. but for free it's fun to play around with and get space-rock noises out of.

7.) Expression pedal for my Zoom 505.

8.) Danelectro DJ-14 Fish & Chips Equalizer - One of the cheapest pedals on my board, and probably the most useful. Nice for tweaking or as a clean boost pedal. These little Danelectro boxes are around $20 and are a great deal, just don't stomp on 'em too hard.

9.)Danelectro DJ-9 Surf & Turf Compressor - Picked it up on eBay for $10. Nice for stuff with a lot switching between clean and dirty sounds.

10.) Rocktron Silver Dragon - My latest addition, and one of my favorites. Actually two pedals in one case - a tube-preamp on the left and a solid-state distortion on the right. most opinions on low-voltage tube preamps seem to either be "complete & utter snake-oil" or "best thing since sliced bread" - I'm probably somewhere in between, but it definitely seems to add a nice warm tone to my solid-state amps. When teamed with the distortion, it can produce the sound of a hundred cats being set on fire in a steel dumpster - which is to say, I like it. The only drawback is it has a huge 14-volt wall wart adapter, so I can't use my 1-spot.

11.) Control switch for Behringer V-Amp2 - see below.

12.) Zoom 505II Multi-Effects - The first effect I bought, with the idea "If I buy this, I won't need to spend money on separate effects pedals". Yeah, right. Still nice to have to play around with effects that I haven't yet been able to talk myself into, like ring mods and envelope followers. Also nice since it fits in a gig bag, keeping me from hauling around the whole pedalboard if I want to go to a friend's house.

The Amps:

1.) Danelectro Honeytone - I remember when these came out and I wanted one but couldn't convince myself to drop $40 on it. I wound up finding this one on eBay for $10, and it would have been a bargain at the original price - gives really cool vintage overdriven tube sounds (well, as close as you're likely get for $10) at volumes that won't have the police at my door.

2.) Behringer V-Amp2 - I just got this, and honestly haven't had much time to play with it yet, but from what I've seen it's really cool. The V-Amp2 is an amp modeller, allowing you to get the sound of everything from a Marshall stack to a vintage Vox in a tiny digital package. The V-Amp is akin to the wildly popular Line6 Pod series, at a much lower price. The biggest gripe people seem to have with Behringer is hit-or-miss quality control, so time will tell.

3.) Fender Champion 110 - I've talked about this amp here before, basically it's your standard small practice amp, but it does a nice job with that legendary clean "Fender sound". Sometime when I get brave enough I plan to replace the speaker with one of the specialty models from Eminence, but that's a way down the road...