Category: Generic

Gear Inspiration

Man, youtube… every once in a while you’ll see something and it will just click for you.

I just watched an episode of That Pedal Show where they talk about delay pedals.  I have a really nice digital delay on my pedal board right now, a Wampler Faux Tape Echo, and I have been using the crap out of it.  I use it’s tap tempo switch and it’s subdivision switch and I get dotted eighth note delays and I make all sorts of groovy The Edge style rhythmic patters and it’s just so much damn fun.

It’s a great delay pedal but it doesn’t really do oscillation.  Oscillation is when the pedal feeds back on itself and makes all sorts of glorious noise.  If you mess with the delay time control it changes the pitch of the noise and makes it even gloriouser.  I have a really cheap analog delay that I am not currently using.  It’s from one of those generic, low cost, Chinese companies.  Donner, I think?  A Donner Yellow Fall?  I think that’s what it’s called.  After watching this video I am going to put it on the board too so that I can have noisy fun and still have the digital tap tempo and subdivision stuff.

In all my years of playing electric guitar I’ve almost always had a delay pedal, but I’ve never been a delay pedal guy.  Now I have all this youtube silliness to inspire me to do new and different (and yes, goofy and noisy) things.

Thanks, That Pedal Show!

 

Driving Around Town

I took a leisurely drive* around the city of Methuen on this fine Sunday morning and snapped a few pics of some of the stone walls and random castle-ish looking things that are all over the place.

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This one is officially my pic for the photo a day thing.
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I stopped here once and took some pictures with my D90. I couldn’t find a way into the little building thingie, but it is two stories high. Why is it there?
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…and of course…
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*Okay, here’s the real story. My beloved wife asked me to go out and pick up some breakfast for her. I drove past some stone walls on Pond Street and thought I should snap a pic but I didn’t. I drove to the store, got into the line, got right up to the front, and realized I forgot my wallet. I had to drive home, pick up my wallet, embarrassingly laugh at my own doofusness with my wife, then drive back. On the second trip I had the camera open and ready.

Prep Work for Picard Episode One

The powers that be behind the scenes of the new Star Trek Picard claim that this show will not be Star Trek The Next Generation The Next Generation.  It’s going to be its own independent thing.  I can see where they are coming from with that, but at the same time it’s a character that existed through seven seasons of broadcast TV and four feature length movies.  He also made cameos in a couple of other Star Trek series as well.  In other words, the dude has history.

In post from a couple of days ago I mentioned that there are a few newly released items that serve as a sort of prequel to the new show.  There is the comic book series (two of three have been issued so far) called Star Trek Picard – Countdown, and there is an 8-9 minute episode of Star Trek Short Treks called Children of Mars.

Now that we have episode one of Picard we can look back to a few more things that could serve as prep work for the new series.  Two Next Generation Episodes and one movie.

First, there is an episode called The Measure of a Man, season two episode nine.  In this episode Commander Data is effectively put on trial to determine if Star Fleet should give him the same rights afforded to a life form, or if he should be considered property.

Second is an episode called The Offspring, season three episode 16, in which a bunch of punk rockers need to keep them separated even though they are pretty fly for a white guy.  No, that was a crappy band.  In the episode, Commander Data tries to create a child.

Finally, there are connections in the new episode to the final Next Generation movie, Nemesis.  In that movie Data does a ton of stuff and there are lots of Romulans.  It’s also the movie that was meh enough to pretty much kill the franchise in its tracks.  I think I have only seen it once and if my memory serves it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either.

While it is nerdishly awesome to be able to connect the dots between the old show and the new show like this, you don’t actually need to see any of the old stuff to follow what’s happening in the new stuff.  Picard episode one will give you any information you need from the old stories so you aren’t missing out on anything.

Still, if there is one thing Star Trek is good at, it is building up the universe.  This is just more evidence of that.

Now, given that my last 2300 posts have all dealt at least in part with the new show, you might have pieced together the fact that I am really, really excited about this.  Almost as excited as I was for Star Wars episode IX, though nothing will ever touch the hype I felt for that.  Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to episode two next week.

Hello There, Spicket

I have a couple of new pictures of the Mighty Spicket River in Salem, NH…

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These of course are taken from the Weight Watchers parking lot, which means I went to weight watchers today.  I don’t want to talk about weight loss on the blog anymore, for now at least.  Every once in a while I need to search for something here and I end up reading some happy post from years ago about how I lost two pounds or some nonsense.  When that happens it is really depressing.  It’s like saying, look how good I used to be doing before I started to suck again.  I hate feeling that way so I am not going to keep track of stats or anything,  My first week back was good.  Enough said.

Except that I also went to the gym.  I walked on a treadmill until my sore foot woke up.  15 minutes at a very slow pace.  That’s a good start.  We’re a month away from Disney and I need to be able to walk around all over Florida so I need to start practicing now.

Oh yeah… practicing… guitar… gig… Way to ruin the good vibe and scare the crap out of yourself, fat ass.

I’ve Seen It, Carry On

Okay everyone, I have seen the first episode of Star Trek Picard.  You don’t have to worry about spoilers around me anymore, I am up to speed.

How was it?  Episode one is better than episode one of The Manalorian.  It’s not even close.  I am completely, 100%, totally hooked.  Give me the next episode right now.

Right.  Now.

On an unrelated note, the NHL All Stars Skills Competition is on the tube right now.  In all my years of following hockey there has never been an all star game that wasn’t stupid.  When they started doing the skills competition is was a breath of fresh air.  The players clearly loved it, it was fun, it was exciting, it was infinitely better than the stupid all star game itself.

I haven’t watched a skills competition in a few years.  When did this become even more boring than the game?  I mean this thing is oppressively boring.  It is soul crushingly, disturbingly, boring.  The 3-on-3 women’s game is just starting and that should kick things up a notch, but the skills competition itself is just awful.  It is maximum snooze.

Panic Level: Rising

I HAVE A GIG IN EIGHT DAYS!!!!  SWEET CHRISTMAS, I HAVE A GIG IN EIGHT DAYS!!!!

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Here’s a bit of symbolism to demonstrate how I feel right now:

Yesterday I ordered some packs of guitar strings from Amazon.  I also ordered a little musician’s exercise tool.  It’s kind of like one of those things that you squeeze with your hand but instead of squeezing one thing you have four, one for each finger.  I was planning to spend the last week or so before the gig working out like a mad man in the hopes of not having the same problems I had back in November.

When I placed the order the estimated delivery date was 1/27.  When the order was processed the delivery date was changed to between 1/27 and 2/3… two days after the gig.  Yup, that sums up my current state perfectly.

Now that I’ve vented about that, let’s get back to Picard.  I found out this morning that there are a couple of prequel sort of things out there.  Tie in’s might be a better term.  The first is a three issue comic series called Star Trek Picard – Countdown.  I started my lunch break by reading it… well, reading 2/3 of it because issue #3 doesn’t come out until next week.  Admiral Picard, Romulans, and a predicted super nova.  Enough said.

There is another tie in too.  On CBS All Access there is a series called Star Trek Short Treks (I think… that’s the name, isn’t it?).  I was looking at it yesterday but I didn’t watch any of them.  Turns out the most recent episode, titled Children of Mars (again, I think) is somehow related to the new series.  It’s 8-9 minutes long so I watched that too.  Two school aged girls, both of whose parents work on Mars, are having a really crappy day at school and they really don’t like each other.  No spoilers, but it telegraphs the ending pretty clearly and it still hit Mr Overly Emotional in the feels.  I should also state that this clip proves that Peter Gabriel is literally timeless.  David Bowie too, but mostly Peter Gabriel.  If I were the director I probably would have passed on Gabriel’s cover of Bowie’s Heroes in favor of Genesis’ Return of the Giant Hogweed, but that’s just me.  Heroes made more sense in terms of the story but it doesn’t have an awesome riff like Hogweed does.  Again, just me.

Speaking of Genesis, apparently Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins were seen together at a NY Knicks game the other day.  80’s Genesis reunion confirmed?  What else could it mean?  I’m sure Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett were around too.  Were the Islanders playing that night?  Maybe they were there instead?  I’m sure we can count on a full reunion any day now.  The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway rides again?

Damn… I need to practice.

Picard Part III

This is the bummer part of the story.  Play some really sad music while you read this one, okay?

Harry just came home from work.  He had a Calculus mid-term and a Spanish mid-term and then he worked a full shift at the restaurant.  The man is beat.  He just wants to watch a Disney cartoon or two and then pass out from exhaustion.

Which means we’re not watching Picard tonight.

(Robert wipes away a tear)

Even worse… this weekend is a dad weekend, not a mom weekend.  That means I’ll see him when he wakes up tomorrow, but we won’t get to hang out again until Wednesday.

Wednesday.

(Robert wipes away a second, larger tear)

That means he’ll watch episode one with dad, and I’ll watch episode one tomorrow night while I’m at my mother’s house, nana-sitting.

(Robert is full blown balling his eyes out now.  Turn up the volume on the sad song)

It’s okay though.  We’ll watch episode two together next week.  I’ll just hold on to that.  I was looking forward to watching the new show with him.  We only got a couple of Mandalorians together, but I was hoping for a little more shared experience with Captain Picard.

We’ll always have episode two… I hope.

Picard is Here

Plot a course for my living room TV, maximum warp.  Engage.

I was up pretty early today, hours before I needed to punch in to work.  The first episode of Picard is out, and we actually have access to it.  I had the time and the means to watch the whole episode but I couldn’t do it.  My step son and I were talking about it last night.  He’s not that much of a Star Trek TNG fan, but he was definitely interested in the new show.  I said we’d watch it together.  That means I either had to drag him out of bed at a shockingly early hour on a day where he has two brutal mid-term exams, or I have to wait until tonight when he comes home.

Oh the waiting is killing me!

Jen and I watched some clips of Sir Patrick on a talk show and… well… he’s really old now.  He’s 79.  I have to admit that when I first saw him play Jean Luc Picard back in 1987 I thought he was old.  Captain Kirk was my Star Trek reference, and here is this middle aged bald dude… he’s just too old!  Well, Sir Patrick was 46 years old when TNG debuted… and that’s two years younger than I am today.  Damn it.

Anyway, he was on this talk show and he looked every second of his 79 years.  It kind of scared me.  They are already talking about a second season.  Is he going to be able to keep doing it?  (this next sentence is definitely colored by the passing of Neil Peart) Is he going to be alive a year from now?  It gave me this totally irrational need… if we are going to lose Sir Patrick, I have to make sure I see every episode of this new show before he goes.  That makes ZERO sense, but what can you do, right?

Step One: The clock needs to hit 5:30 so I can punch out.
Step Two: Harry needs to get himself home!

Make it so!