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Jan. 30th, 2005 12:43 pmOkay, forget all that I wrote about this being used as a Spanish translation of my Xanga. I've finally tired of Xanga. The features are limited. It's been down two days in a row now for "scheduled maintenance." They refuse to add threaded comments because they're afraid of "flaming." It's not a service I feel confident I could pay for, while LiveJournal looks more like something I would want to pay for. So my Xanga account will now become the account I keep simply for the ability to comment and this will be where I post my entries. So please spread the word. I will be at LJ from now on.
Having said that, I have to say I had a great time yesterday hanging out with Steve and Chenoa. We talked for a while. Then we watched Hero (the Mandarin version with English subtitles, thank you). What an incredible movie! The visuals were absolutely stunning. The story was so compelling, too. Kathy must have cried at least a couple times and I nearly shed a tear, too. Steve and Chenoa brought up a copy of Last Man Standing for us to keep, but we'll have to get it buffed before we can really watch it. I can't wait to see that! I think I'll drop it off at Moonlight Video tonight! Caleb also sent up Hellsing with them for us to borrow so we'll start watching that series soon.
Then Chenoa got me hooked on her Nintendo DS. It's so cute! Apparently they're going to be releasing an organizer program for it, too, so you could use it like a PDA. At $150 I'm thinking it's an affordable PDA solution and I'd get the bonus of being able to play a metric ass ton of games on it. Way cool! I think I finally found a portable game system I can buy. That is when I have spare cash. First things first, like buying a new mask for my CPAP and paying for my new iMac, whenever PSU actually gets it ready for me to pickup.
We all figured out a time and date to go see Blue Man Group at the Charles Playhouse in Boston. I can't wait for that! It's not happening until mid-March but we're in Section AA, Row C, which pretty much puts us in the poncho section. Yeah!
Then Steve and I got into a discussion about guitars, their construction and the realization that all of the guitarists we remember for their distinct guitar sound played semi-hollow bodied or hollow-bodied guitars. Brian May's Red Special? Semi hollow. Trey Anastasio's Languedoc? Hollow. Tom Scholz Les Pauls? Semi hollow. Slash's Les Pauls? Semi hollow. George Harrison's Rickenbackers? Semi hollow. His Gresch? Same. The only exception I could find was that I enjoyed Billy Corgan's sound and he uses a Stratocaster, which is a solid body.
Steve then reminded me of the depressing time I had to sell off my '68 Gibson ES-335 to pay the rent when I first started college. I know. I'm still beating myself up inside for that. What can I say. I had to survive. The kicker is that I had just finished refurbishing the electronics so everything worked right and sounded fantastic. It was still worth a pretty penny considering the finish had been stripped long before I bought it and it had a non-standard coil tap on the bridge pickup, in essence allowing one to turn it into a single-coil for some bright, funky sounds. I also had to sell my old Fender Rhodes. Sold it to pay rent years ago.
I'm left with Susan, my trusty Squire Strat (modified with the Texas Special pickups for added midrange and punch, the switch to connect the bridge and neck pickups for seven tone selections instead of the standard five, including all pickups on, and the copper lined wiring compartment to reduce hum); Big Ben, my Washburn twelve string acoustic; Satan, my wine red Alvarez six string dreadnaught acoustic; my Yamaha classical that has no name that I remember; and Ozzy, my emerald green Ibanez Gio bass. And my Roland Blues Cube amp and an assortment of stomp boxes including my two second digital delay that I love so much.
Speaking of guitars, I've got almost the whole solo from Yes's "Starship Trooper" figured out. The tab I was working with was just plain wrong or clumsy in parts so I had to figure half of it out by ear or re-finger some of it so I could easily play the two guitar parts on one guitar with smooth transitions. I'm still trying to smooth it all out, but I'm confident I have all but the last two measures figured out note for note. This makes me happy.
I decided that since I had yet to pull out the Kitharologus, The Advancing Guitarist, the Modal Techniques book and the Syncopation exercises that I would set up my music stand and place all four on it as a reminder that I need to spend time with at least one of these every day to improve my technique. I am really itching to do something musical lately, but I feel so embarrassingly out of practice. I know I'm not horrible, but I'm not great either. I need to be great. I need to push myself to be great. There was a time when Heather would compare me to Randy Rhoads. I need to be there again.
Today I'm finally getting alone time, which is something I treasure. The past couple weeks I have been working a great deal so I haven't had time to myself. All I have to do today is bring Kathy to work, swap a couple videos at Channel 3 and then later on in the night pick Kathy up from work. And shopping for dinner. I don't need the dog. You can keep the dog.
So now I should get washed and dressed since I actually have to go out in the public briefly.
Having said that, I have to say I had a great time yesterday hanging out with Steve and Chenoa. We talked for a while. Then we watched Hero (the Mandarin version with English subtitles, thank you). What an incredible movie! The visuals were absolutely stunning. The story was so compelling, too. Kathy must have cried at least a couple times and I nearly shed a tear, too. Steve and Chenoa brought up a copy of Last Man Standing for us to keep, but we'll have to get it buffed before we can really watch it. I can't wait to see that! I think I'll drop it off at Moonlight Video tonight! Caleb also sent up Hellsing with them for us to borrow so we'll start watching that series soon.
Then Chenoa got me hooked on her Nintendo DS. It's so cute! Apparently they're going to be releasing an organizer program for it, too, so you could use it like a PDA. At $150 I'm thinking it's an affordable PDA solution and I'd get the bonus of being able to play a metric ass ton of games on it. Way cool! I think I finally found a portable game system I can buy. That is when I have spare cash. First things first, like buying a new mask for my CPAP and paying for my new iMac, whenever PSU actually gets it ready for me to pickup.
We all figured out a time and date to go see Blue Man Group at the Charles Playhouse in Boston. I can't wait for that! It's not happening until mid-March but we're in Section AA, Row C, which pretty much puts us in the poncho section. Yeah!
Then Steve and I got into a discussion about guitars, their construction and the realization that all of the guitarists we remember for their distinct guitar sound played semi-hollow bodied or hollow-bodied guitars. Brian May's Red Special? Semi hollow. Trey Anastasio's Languedoc? Hollow. Tom Scholz Les Pauls? Semi hollow. Slash's Les Pauls? Semi hollow. George Harrison's Rickenbackers? Semi hollow. His Gresch? Same. The only exception I could find was that I enjoyed Billy Corgan's sound and he uses a Stratocaster, which is a solid body.
Steve then reminded me of the depressing time I had to sell off my '68 Gibson ES-335 to pay the rent when I first started college. I know. I'm still beating myself up inside for that. What can I say. I had to survive. The kicker is that I had just finished refurbishing the electronics so everything worked right and sounded fantastic. It was still worth a pretty penny considering the finish had been stripped long before I bought it and it had a non-standard coil tap on the bridge pickup, in essence allowing one to turn it into a single-coil for some bright, funky sounds. I also had to sell my old Fender Rhodes. Sold it to pay rent years ago.
I'm left with Susan, my trusty Squire Strat (modified with the Texas Special pickups for added midrange and punch, the switch to connect the bridge and neck pickups for seven tone selections instead of the standard five, including all pickups on, and the copper lined wiring compartment to reduce hum); Big Ben, my Washburn twelve string acoustic; Satan, my wine red Alvarez six string dreadnaught acoustic; my Yamaha classical that has no name that I remember; and Ozzy, my emerald green Ibanez Gio bass. And my Roland Blues Cube amp and an assortment of stomp boxes including my two second digital delay that I love so much.
Speaking of guitars, I've got almost the whole solo from Yes's "Starship Trooper" figured out. The tab I was working with was just plain wrong or clumsy in parts so I had to figure half of it out by ear or re-finger some of it so I could easily play the two guitar parts on one guitar with smooth transitions. I'm still trying to smooth it all out, but I'm confident I have all but the last two measures figured out note for note. This makes me happy.
I decided that since I had yet to pull out the Kitharologus, The Advancing Guitarist, the Modal Techniques book and the Syncopation exercises that I would set up my music stand and place all four on it as a reminder that I need to spend time with at least one of these every day to improve my technique. I am really itching to do something musical lately, but I feel so embarrassingly out of practice. I know I'm not horrible, but I'm not great either. I need to be great. I need to push myself to be great. There was a time when Heather would compare me to Randy Rhoads. I need to be there again.
Today I'm finally getting alone time, which is something I treasure. The past couple weeks I have been working a great deal so I haven't had time to myself. All I have to do today is bring Kathy to work, swap a couple videos at Channel 3 and then later on in the night pick Kathy up from work. And shopping for dinner. I don't need the dog. You can keep the dog.
So now I should get washed and dressed since I actually have to go out in the public briefly.
