Holy mother of awesome!

I bought a new amp yesterday. Well, I put it on layway, at least. Hopefully I'll be paying it off and picking it up this weekend. Because, well, it sounds frickin' sweet! And it had better, for the price. This is my first foray into a boutique, class A amp and I couldn't be more psyched. Unfortunately I couldn't afford to go the Bad Cat route that I would have liked, that was just too much money. So, I ended up going with a Top Hat Club Deluxe, which sounds almost as good. A 1 speaker combo with 20 watts of badass.

And pretty, too. See:



Can't wait to get it home and start playing on it. Especially since the nre gear syndrome is much like the new sneaker syndrome when you were a kid. You know what I'm talking about, right? When you were young and got a new pair of sneakers, and you knew without a doubt that you could now run faster? Well, new gear is much like that in that when you get it, you are convinced you can now play better.
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Speaking of music, can I just tell you what I miss: the joy, the sense of fun that used to come along with playing it. Back when I first started playing, when I first got over that hump of extremely sucking to being OK, music becomes real fun. Your first band is much like your first girl. You never forget her. Usually, especially if you're younger, your first band is with friends. And playing music, writing songs, having fun with them is just such a rush and is precisely that: fun.

The problem is I remember that feeling, but I don't so much feel it anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still love playing. But years of attempting to get bands together, match personailties, match songwriting skills and ideas, conflicting visions, levels of playing, the "business" aspect, expectations of yourself and of and about those you play with, arguments, the scene, etc. These things all drag on me. I wish, however impossible, that I could just do a reboot. Forget all that stuff and just start fresh. No expectations, no pre-concieved notions. The excitement, the desire, the fun. It seems so hard to find these things nowadays that often I just want to say, "fuck it all," and constrain myself to just playing in my room to an audience of my roommate's two cats. Well, at least I'd have a cool new amp to do that with.

Not that I plan to go that route. I still want to get out there, I still want to rock. I just want it to be fun again. That's what I should strive for.

Four months later....

It's good to have a goal; it's better when you meet it.

On June 7th, I posted in a blog that I was going to try saving some money into my savings account for potential moving/short term living expenses if I ever decide to vacate the New England area. Now my goal wasn't nearly as much as would be recommended for this type of endeavor, but it was a damn sight better than what I had saved at the time I decided to do this. Anyway, as of approximately October 13th if my math is correct, (which it probably isn't), I should reach my goal amount.

The main reason I had wanted to do this was to remove "I don't have the money" as an excuse for someday possibly skipping town. However, oddly enough, now that I'm close to my goal, I'm actually in one of those periods where I don't feel the pressing need to be elsewhere. Oh, I still think I want to, but it's just not as urgent a desire as it sometimes is. This is usual for me though, as I tend to be manic about this subject. However, it is also beneficial, because with every paycheck, an extra $50 is automatically deducted into that account, so it will still continue to go up, even if not at the quicker rate it was over the summer.

Actually, I sort of like the place I'm at now. While I am still very interested with checking out the living somewhere else, I'm not currently obsessed with it, which if it stays this way, gives me more time to save and research. I've been everywhere on my list of considerations except Portland, but still would need to do a lot of research on any serious contenders.

And, to be honest, staying in Boston has creeped back in to my head as one of those contenders. It goes back to a conversation I was having with Andrew and Eric recently about one of the difficulties of moving anywhere is giving up the roots you've laid where you are. And I've got 31 years worth here. That would be hard to give up. But these are thoughts for later...

Once I hit my goal, it will be time to once again rearrange what I'm doing with my money. I could continue to save, but at that point I might be better served by trying to whittle back down my credit card bills, which have creeped up in that span so I'm probably going to go back to that.

However, one thing I have realized in my recent years of attempting to be somewhat financially responsible is that it's hard and takes discipline and goes a lot easier if you allow yourself rewards. So, once I meet the goal, I aim to treat myself to something or other. But what, is the question? I do have some ideas:

New sneakers. Gotta love a new pair of kicks.

External hard drive. I need somewhere to keep my music. The main reason I haven't gone utterly crazy with the bit torrent is that I don't have very much space left on my hard drive. I want an external, because that way I can associate my music with more than one computer if I want. Also, this would be the first step in eventually getting a new computer, as this one is getting slowly, but progressively, worse.

A tattoo. I think I actually have an idea I like finally. Only took me many, many years to figure it out.

Some new scotch. I only have less than half one bottle left. That just won't do.

And the biggie... Late winter trip to Europe. I saw some really good round trip fares for between January and March. Of course, if this were the option, I'd have to decide soon, because you have to purchase by the end of September. (Of course, if I miss it, I'm sure there'll be other sales, but it's on my mind now so it bears some thought.)

Of course I'm not going to go wild and get all this stuff, but one (if it's the big one) or a couple if it's the smaller ones will likely happen.

And then it's back on that boring responsibility horse.

Indie

It's no secret that I'm skeptical of anything that calls itself "indie". Indie rock, indie movies. .

Being short for independent, indie, at least in my understanding of the definition, was meant to be an alternative to what was being offered in the mainstream. But it's been about 15 years that these things have become, and stayed, mainstream, which would lead one to believe that the term no longer applies and should be changed, for a start.

But for me, at least subconsciously, when I hear the term "indie," I automatically think "bad." Well, I guess it's not exactly subconscious if I can voice the thought. But the fact remains, I'm immediately skeptical about anything that bills itself that way, or in my opinion puports to be that. What I've discovered through these last 15 minutes is that there are just as many crap indie bands and movies are there are mainstream. More, in fact, because it also appears that indie is also synonymous with accepting a lower level of quality.

I can understand this to some extent in filmmaking. It's is such an expensive endeavor, even on a small level, that without big studio backing you don't get the best equipment, the best people, the support to accomplish what you want.

Where I can't accept it as easily is in music. Rightly or wrongly, when I hear/think indie, a few preconcieved notions jump through my head:

1)Out of key singing
2)Bad sounds (which is subjective, I realize.)
3)Out of tune playing

I can handle any one of these things alone, and possibly even two, but when all three come together, I'm all set with it. The underlying song could still be good, but I want nothing to do with it at that point.

The thing that makes it all the more unbearable is that it is unnecessary. Good gear and home recording equipment is cheap, avaialable, and increasingly easier to use. The ability to make CD quality recordings in one's bedroom is here, folks. There's no reason to accept out of key singing or out of tune playing when you can take all the time in the world to get these things right. They are important. You also have all the time in the world to get better sounds for yourself. You're not spending exorbenant amounts of money on studio costs.

I realize I'm generalizing here. There are probably plenty of bands considered indie that I do, or would, like. I just checked out the Silversun Pickups album. That's indie; it even says so in my iTunes. That album's pretty good, it only has one of the three sins (Bad sounds, and even that's not all the time.) But with plenty of indie rock still being popular nowadays, I still hear this much more often than I'd like. Laugh if you want, scoff, but for my money, I'd still prefer Bryan Adams' "Reckless" over Panic at the Disco and I'll be enjoying the new Christina Aguilera album over here far more than anything off the Killers disc.

Eh, maybe I'm just being old and curmudgeonny, but back in my day....

Ahhh, time flies

Can you believe I've been on this blogger thing for more than a year? Sure, just like a guy, I went and forgot my anniversary, but it was back at the end of July 2005 that I started on this site.

Last year on this exact date, I was illuminating you all with my thoughts on the laundromat. And telling you about Yelling Guy. (Update: Although I still see him around, Yelling Guy no longer really yells at me. Now he's more like Head Nod Guy.)

Last year around this date, the price of gas was $3.29 a gallon for the cheap stuff. Which is what I get. My car can drink the Naragansett of gas so that I can afford to drink the Bass Ale of beer.

Last year on this date, my rent was $50 cheaper a month.

Last year on this date I was excited about my new project to rewrite our job description to hopefully get us paid more money. This year on this date I'm aggravated by it.

Last year on this date, T.O. was still a (relatively) model citizen for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Last year at this time I was not in any sort of structured musical situation. This year I sort of am. If you can call playing with one other person "structured" or a "musical situation".

Other than that, not much has changed. There's something to be said for consistency. There's also something to be said for growth. Ideally, you'd like a good balance of the two. Unfortunately I lean too far in one direction. Well, unless you want to count the pimple on my neck that's the size of a baby's head. I guess you could consider that a "growth."
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On to quickie movie reviews.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Really funny. Not Anchorman funny, but really funny. It pissed excellence.

Little Miss Sunshine. Overall a little dull, with a few funny scenes, (including one hilarous scene at the end, that if you're paying attention you should see coming.) Overrated indie crap. Let me tell you why I knew I wasn't going to like this movie. I read the description and it reeked of "trying to hard" indie-ism. You know what I mean? Where they filmmakers seems to be thinking way too much about how to make their movie indie and interesting. It's obnoxious and pretentious when people do this. There a phenomenom that I think of as the "indie stock character". By which I mean characters that are so skewed in some weird way as so not to be stock, that they become cliche in their own way. This movie had a bunch of them, and merely by reading the blurb I could tell they were Trying Too Hard. The father who is an inspirational speaker with his own 9 step plan he's trying to sell as a book (taken from Magnolia perhaps? Wasn't Tom Cruise an inspirational speaker in that?) The mother who plays the "straight" character, the anchor for the narrative. Her brother, a gay Proust scholar that had tried to commit suicide. The son reads Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence until he can get into the Air Force academy. The grandfather, vulgar and a heroin addict. And the daughter, around whom the action revolves, as a precocious contestant for a beauty pageant (for all that she looks like the bee girl from the No Rain video.) I can understand the desire to make your characters interesting and unique, but do you know any families like that? Name one. I sure can't.

Say goodbye to Sundays

It begins tonight.

You know what I'm talking about.

Oh, yes. Yes you do.

Football season.

17 Sunday killing weeks that take us from fall to winter.

4 separate fantasy teams. (3 regular, 1 salary cap league.)

A permanent indentation on my couch in the shape of my ass.

I'd like to welcome my laptop to the party this year. Now I can check my fantasy teams without all that pesky walking to my room. That should add about 15 extra sedentary pounds right there.

I remember when I used to be mad that people wanted to stay in on Sunday and watch the Patriots. Because I wanted to go out and do stuff. No more. The only stuff I'll be going out to do on Sundays is potentially go watch the games somewhere else.

Also, my alarm will now be set on Sundays for 11am. Sunday Countdown starts then.

Beer, meat, chips.

Bonnie Bernstein.

Hank Williams, Jr.

Are you ready for some football?

And today started out so promising....

I woke up this morning, feeling refreshed, surprisingly awake, and in a really good mood.

That didn't last.

After 6 hours, and after assholes in traffic, issues with systems at work (which has been ongoing for a long time and probably our fault), and the general intelligence level of people calling into the Help Desk apparently dropping, I'm pissed off.

I can't tell you how amny times this has happened in the past few months. I answer the phone"

Me: Hello, MIB Help Desk.
Them: Is this the MIB Help Desk?

Uhhh......

And then there's the people that can't, for the lack of a better term, READ FUCKING INSTRUCTIONS!!!! Probably a third of our calls wouldn't be necessary if people read that one line that said to enter everything in capital letters. It's even in there twice.

But, no. And even when they do, I often get calls like this:

Me: Hello, MIB Help Desk.
Them: I'm getting the passcode mismatch error when I try to enroll.
Me (Sigh): On the enrollment screen, are you entering your first and last name, email address, and passcode ALL in upper case?
Them: Yes.
Me: All four of those fields? First name, last name, email address, and passcode? All in upper case?
Them: Well, not the email address.

Uhhh.....

I need out of here. Someplace where the products that are supposed to be the future of the company work on a consistent basis would be nice. Someplace where the customerbase aren't so uniformly inane would be nice. Someplace where one of the benefits is Jessica Alba feeding my grapes and pepper salami would be nice.

Did I forget to mention the psuhy customers?

Right before I started writing this, a customer called to ask if our system was still down. I told him no, that we'd been back up for about 40 minutes. As I was writing this, he emailed the entire Help Desk asking if the system was still down.

Yeah, I'm sick of this place. Sick of the people who call in every day, the tools and systems that are full of faults and bugs, of what I percieve to be a lack of support in bettering one's position here.

But I know me. I'll bitch about it today, but I'll be back here tomorrow. Can't pay the rent and car payments and for beer and pizza and new gear on disgruntled expectations.
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Speaking of gear, and on a much happier note (of sorts):

I tried to get that Bad Cat amp on Ebay. Lost the auction. But then two days later got a note, supposedly from the owner of the listing, that the winner had backed out and would I like to buy the amp at my bid price? Well, hells yes I would! Of course.....it turned out to be a scam. The invoice I got didn't match up certain key points in the original listing, like the method of payment requested was Western Union money transfer, (which Ebay tells you not to use as there are no safeguards), and more importantly the location. The amp was lsited in South Dakota, the invoice asked me to pay someone in London. So no Bad Cat for me.

Currently I'm looking into a Vox AC30. The demo video I watched last night sounded awesome. And although still pricey, it's a lot closer to being in a price range I can handle. I'll probably stop by Boston Guitar works this weekend and see if they have any.

Also, ZVEX finally put up a demo video for their Box of Rock gain pedal. Holy crap did that thing sound awesome! Can't wait for those things to hit the stores at the end of the month.

Which reminds me, I have to list the rest of my gear that I'm selling on Craigslist tonight and starting getting together my money to pay for the new stuff.
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And of course the best news: Two days until football starts. I'll be happier then.