Why I don't own any vintage guitars
There's a mystique surrounding vintage electric guitars that I've never been able to fully understand. When I hold an old electric in my hands, I don't feel the magic it's supposedly imbued with.
When I see vintage, I see old and problematic. I'm thinking, "Uh-oh.. I wonder what's wrong with this thing.." because chances are several things are seriously wrong with the instrument because of age. Weird-feeling neck? Probably. Buzzy pickups? Almost a certainty. Tuners that are either really difficult to turn or have lost almost all tension and will move with barely a touch of your pinky finger? Oh, you'll definitely find that going on and a whole bunch of other crapola. Creaks here, weird noises there, crumbly parts, rust, etc.
I see nothing good about vintage electrics, save for one thing - style. Yes, I will admit openly that something like an old well-used Stratocaster does have that desirable old-world appearance to it, but that's where the goodness of one ends because everything else about the thing is busted-up crap. And even if not busted up, it's still old and uses several-decades-old (even up to a half-century or more) parts that I can't trust to be reliable.
I don't collect guitars, I play them. My guitars get used. To own an authentic vintage electric would be a step backwards because I'd probably destroy the thing just from the way I play and how often I do it.
As far as gear lust is concerned, I have none for vintage electrics and really never have. For new guitars, sure. But not for vintage.
I am more than happy to play my Squier guitars because they do the job in fine style and can handle the punishment of being used often.
If you like vintage electrics, I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is so many guitar players that say the ONLY way to get that sound out of an electric is to use old stuff only. That, summed up in a word, is nonsense.
I will admit that prior to 2000, it was tough getting that vintage sound out of new gear and I don't deny that. But these days you can get just about everything they used back in the 1950s and 1960s. Same guitars built exactly the way they used to be to precise dimensions made by the same company, same amps, same pedal effects, same everything. Heck, you can even get cloth-coated wiring for new vintage-spec guitar electronics if you wanted. It gets that period-correct specific.
My deal is that I don't see the point of owning vintage electrics other than pride of ownership and nothing else. If you own a vintage electric and are proud of it, fine. More power to you. But you know as well as I do that as a stage instrument it's complete crap.
big monitor
Every Christmas I buy a present for myself, and it's usually something good but nothing too crazy because, well, money's tight as always.
Being the practical bloke I am, I don't usually buy things that serve as nothing but trinkets, ornaments or whatever because that's just wasted money. What I bought this year does serve a very legitimate practical use and is something that will make my computing life a little easier.
This year, my to-me gift was a 24-inch computer monitor, the ASUS VE248H. Price paid was $169 with free shipping. And as I've just learned, the priced jumped to $199 the day after I made my purchase, so I definitely bought it at the right time. NewEgg had the best price because I searched this particular display on eBay and nobody is selling it for under $199 at the moment, so $169 was the best possible price there was. I guess it was in the cards that this was the right time to buy.
The last time I bought a monitor was almost 5 years ago on the nose on 2-Dec-2006, and it was the BenQ FP202W. The price paid for that 20.1-inch monitor was $276.71, and I do distinctly remember feeling I spent too much on it. In retrospect, I should have bought a standard-aspect 19-inch, but whatever. Lesson learned.
The FP202W's display has never been quite right since day one. Yes, it works, but I really noticed how washy the colors are and how fonts fuzz on it when I got my cheap little Dell mini 10v netbook. Everything on the 10v's display is so much clearer compared to the BenQ.
I will give the nod that the FP202W has always been bright and black does show as true black, but there's just something about the way it renders certain things that just doesn't seem quite right, particularly in the font department. Very tough to explain, but believe me, I notice it. My eyes literally start to blur after staring at that monitor too long where I'm more or less forced to use the netbook just to read on-screen stuff properly. There's an option to adjust the sharpness with 1 being sharpest and 5 being soft. I use setting 2 because 1 is too sharp, but on 2 I still don't get that happy medium between 1 and 2. If there were a 1.5 setting, believe me I'd use it.
My now-ancient 17-inch Sony SDM-S73 (which I paid a whopping $500 for in the early 2000s) that I use as my secondary display has always had a better picture, better color and has never had a problem displaying fonts properly whatsoever. I'm actually amazed the thing still works given the abuse it's been through, and it just goes to show that at one time Sony made some awesome stuff. Even on eBay you don't see SDM model Sony monitors for sale often because people refuse to give them up; they're that good. In fact, I'd say it's the best 17-inch LCD VGA monitor you could buy.
Back to the Asus VE248H, it is a matte (meaning not glossy) display, has built-in speakers which I won't be using, the controls are in the correct area (right/under) and has LED-backlighting which is far superior compared to the old incandescent backlight system.
I watched a video of a guy who paid $220 for his last year and said it was a great deal considering what it is.
On the negative side there are reports of ghosting issues with this particular display, however it's said that the reason for this is a specific ASUS monitor feature called "Overdrive" and that it can be disabled completely to rid the vast majority of the ghosting issues.
I don't have the monitor in my possession yet as I just bought it and it'll take a few days before it gets here.
The big risk here buying from NewEgg is they have an 8-dead-pixel policy for monitor returns. Unless there are 8 dead pixels, you can't return it for a replacement. However there was nobody selling this display anywhere near NewEgg's low price point, so I took the risk and went for it. The BenQ was also bought from NewEgg and it never had any pixel issues, so hopefully the ASUS won't either.
dazed and confused
Dazed and Confused was released in 1993. I first watched this flick in the '90s and recently re-watched it.
D&C gets high ratings, but that's only because most of the people who rated it as such attended high school during that era. Many reviews say what the movie shows is exactly what happened in '76 and that it was all awesome, but I'm pretty sure that's wishful thinking more than anything else. It's like me saying the early '90s were totally awesome when I know for a fact they totally weren't.
When I watch D&C, I'm reminded a lot of the small town I grew up in. No, my little town didn't have hazing/initiation teen rituals like the film shows (or at least not that I know of), but it did have the exact same boring-ass feel which causes a lot of people to drink and smoke weed simply for the fact there's nothing better to do. In fact, several times throughout the movie you'll hear people say they're bored out of their minds, which is why they do what they do in the first place.
The thing to know about this movie is that it's not about high school but rather teen culture of the era. It's actually pretty interesting how mid-'70s teen culture parallels with early-'90s culture. The music, clothes and hairstyles might have been different between the two times, but the boredom that was abound was identical. Many things that happened in D&C happened in the town I grew up in, so I can somewhat relate to it.
A friend said to me recently that I have an 'old soul' since I know so much about cultural stuff of the '70s, and I think that's why I watched this movie in the first place. However after watching it, my thought is, "Eh.. glad those times are over."
why i won't be pressing CDs
My collection of songs is nearing completion and will be released relatively soon, but one thing I won't be doing is pressing any CDs. The distribution method I'll be going through does offer it as an on-demand thing for those that actually want the disc (I think?), but as far as actually buying stock, no way.
Any artist that presses CDs these days is an idiot for the simple reason that nobody wants them. Nobody carries around a portable CD player. Both kids and adults either use iPods, cell phones, their computer of a combination of all three - but no discs. The only time anyone listens to a disc anymore is in the car, and only if the car does not have an AUX port for an iPod or cell phone.
If I was touring (and who knows, maybe I will?), the only merchandise I'd be selling at shows would be t-shirts and vinyl records. 45 RPM speed, specifically. Why vinyl records? Because it's way more attractive than a CD, is an instant collectible, people will buy them just because it's vinyl regardless of whether they like your music or not, and most importantly they actually sell because of their special and unique nature.
Anyway..
Back in the early 2000s during my previous life, there were several regional "scene" web sites along with a few crappy "labels", all of which went under. The reason they all failed is because the only audience those sites ever attracted were musicians and not actual fans. When you have a site that's all-musician and no-fans, that's a recipe for nobody-cares stew.
Before everyone had iPods and cell phones that could play MP3s, all these scene/label sites were hocking CDs from various bands, the vast majority of which were metal bands that just plain sucked. Very few people actually bought discs even back then. Heck, I even knew bands who pressed CDs that literally had piles of unsold copies, and again, remember this is before the whole iPod thing. If they didn't sell then, what makes anyone think people would buy them now?
In the end, if you really want a CD of my stuff, I'm pretty sure the distro method I'm using will have an option for it, but otherwise it's all-digital first and foremost.
anything looks better if it lights up
What I bought today was a 7-port USB hub, an external card reader, and an internal USB card for the PC.
I found I didn't need the external card reader because the internal card had an extra pins that I could connect my front card reader to. However I'm keeping the external card reader anyway because it was cheap and it's useful for my netbook.
Speaking of price, everything put together after tax was $51, with the hub being the most expensive of the bunch at 25 bucks.
The reason I went with a 7-port is to accommodate for all the USB ports I lost because of the lightning strike, which is 8. Six in the back, two in the front.
How it works is like this - and this is technobabble but there's no other way to describe it.
The internal card is a 7-port. 4 external outs, 1 internal out (there's a port on-card), 2 pin-outs on-card. The 4 external outs connect my mouse, keyboard, scanner and 7-port external hub. The 1 internal out isn't used because I have nothing to put there. One of the pin-outs connects my internal card reader on the inside of the case.
The hub connects whatever I want to put in there, which varies depending on what I'm doing. The ones that will be "permanently" connected are a webcam, headset, 8GB stick and cord for my cell phone.
In the end I'm left with 3 free ports, and that's fine.
I was amazed at how much stuff I connect with USB, which is basically everything except for the monitors and sound card connections.
One thing I lost was the ability to use USB 3.0, but that doesn't bother me because I have nothing that uses 3.0 spec, nor do I intend on buying anything 3.0-capable. USB 2.0 is something I'm pretty sure is going to stick around a good long while yet, so I'm not worried about it.