Gear Acquisition Syndrome hit me really hard tonight.

I was watching a video demoing a multi-effects pedal and they were using a rotary speaker emulator and the G.A.S. hit me like a barbed wire wrapped wooden baseball bat to the head. The desire to have a rotary speaker pedal on my board went full classic Negan on me.

Somehow that turned into a need for a good pitch shifter too, and an expression pedal to pair it with. Where did that come from?

My wallet tried to assert some sanity and steered me toward two Electro Harmonics pedals, the Lester G and the Pitchfork, in the hopes that they would be reasonably priced.

I suppose they were, when compared to the competition, but together they come to about $400. Ouch.

This is going to be a tough fight. I think I’m in trouble. Crud.

Can you picture a Thanksgiving dinner on this table?

I was an R.E.M. nut for a long time.  Monster was the first record that didn’t slay me.  It was good.  Parts of it were outstanding.  Overall though… it just didn’t do it for me.  I mean, none of their records were perfect… well… Pageant and Document and Reckoning and Automatic were kinda perfect, but it wasn’t all that unusual for an album to have a weak moment or two.  Monster didn’t have any duds per se, nothing awful like Stand or Shiny Happy People or Radio Song, but somehow as a whole it didn’t stand up for me.

They just released a 25th anniversary edition, which in itself is terrible because 25 years?  Are you kidding me?  I’ve been listening to it and maybe it’s the passage of time, or maybe I’m just not as critical or cynical as I used to be, but it’s working for me much more than it used to.  The outtakes are all fluff.  There’s nothing that makes me think it should have made the cut.  In fact, I don’t think any of them are even close to finished.  How many had vocals?  One?  Two?  I haven’t gotten to the live stuff yet (actually, the first live track just started playing in my headphones as I write this) so I have no thoughts on that.

The remixes are pretty different than the original release.  There’s probably a good story there, but I don’t know it.

Give it a listen.  Pretend you’re 25 years younger than you are today and rock out to R.E.M. at their most rawker.

PS: I don’t know why I embedded the Spotify player.  I don’t think it will work unless you’re signed in, and why on Earth would you do that?  I keep doing it though… and probably will do it more in the future.  Jerk.

Another rough sleep.  I was dead tired by 10:00 and zonked out completely.  I woke up around 12:30 and thought it was 5:00.  I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was.  What a relief when I realized the actual time.  I was able to fall back to sleep quickly and all was well until around 2:30.  That’s when the weird noises the CPAP mask was making woke me up and kept me up.  It was a high pitched squeak and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it  I don’t think it’s the mask itself because the first thing I tried was using my old mask.  I think it’s the connection between the hose and the harness, and it might have something to do with the humidifier.  There was a lot of moisture built up at the connection point.  I took it apart, washed it and dried it, and lowered the humidity a click.  I also put the newest mask back on.  It was fine until just before 5:00 when it started making noise again, not nearly as bad as it had been but enough to wake me up.  I’ve been awake ever since.

The numbers say I had just under six hours of sleep, but less than four of it was restful.  I pretty much always hit four hours of restful sleep.  Strange.  So I got almost an hour more total than each of the last two days but I will probably end up being more tired.

Information is great and all, but sometimes I wish I didn’t know the numbers as well as I do.  I could just not think about it and get on with my life, you know?

I followed up Monday night’s bad sleep with more really bad sleep on Tuesday.

I went to bed around 10:00 again and things started out okay.  I didn’t wake up until a little before 2:00.  That’s when it kinda went to hell though.  I actually took off the CPAP mask in my sleep before that, but looking at the numbers I think it was only a few minutes before.  Once I woke up though it was about 40 minutes before I could fall back to sleep, and then I was awake again an hour later.

This time I woke up and took a swig of water and then tried to go back to sleep again.  There was something wrong with my mask though.  It was making a squeaky, hissing kind of sound as if there were a leak.  I couldn’t find where it was coming from though.  I broke it all down and put it back together but it kept making that sound.  I couldn’t get back to sleep and I just gave up and got up before the alarm went off at 5:00.  I’ve been awake ever since.

The Apple Watch data shows that the sleep I got was pretty good, there just wasn’t a whole lot of it.  That’s two days in a row.  I don’t feel too sleepy right now as I take my lunch break so maybe the good sleep I got was good enough?

Here’s hoping for better sleep tonight.

The Bruins keep coming back and tying the game and then the Canadiens keep jumping back into the lead.  It’s 4-3 after two periods.  I need a come back in the third, big time.  The universe depends on it!

This is from Sunday’s band practice.  I am posting this song for two reasons.  First and foremost, it is brutally easy and yet every. single. time. I. play. it. I absolutely butcher it.  Like… you can’t even believe how bad I screw this stupidly easy song into the ground and stab it until it bleeds to death.  This time though, I only missed one note.  That’s it.  It might be the best I’ve ever played it… which isn’t saying much because as I said it’s stupidly easy.  Second, one of the other guys said something nice about how I played the solo.  Aww, thanks.  Also, can you hear the new effect Mike was test driving on the bass?  I think it fills in the gaps nicely.

Fail.  Traffic.  Urgh.  I didn’t make it to the polls tonight.  I didn’t vote for Mayor or City Council or School Committee.  I am a bad American today.

The Bruins are playing the Canadiens tonight.  They are down 1-0 with about six minutes left in the first period.  I could really handle a Bruins win tonight to make me feel better about sucking at Democracy.

I was just going to write that I want Pastrnak to tie the game and wouldn’t you know it, Pastrnak just tied the freakin’ game.  I think that’s 15 goals in 15 games for him.  Ya know, nothing major, right Gretzky?

Oh well, the Canadiens just scored again.  We’re down 2-1.  Damn.  Depression rising… rising… rising.

It’s election day around here today and I might not be able to vote.

There are a handful of races in Methuen, including the office of Mayor.  I have a vague idea of who I want in each case, but for some I might not decide until I’m in the ballot booth… assuming I can get to the ballot booth.

I had planned on trying to vote before work this morning.  The polls opened at 7:00 am.  I was running a little late to begin with, but then something came up that pulled me away.  I would like to try and vote after work, but the polls close at 7:00 pm (why isn’t it 8:00?  Isn’t it always 8:00?) and if the traffic is bad I might not get back to town in time.  It’s going to be a mad rush hour race.

I know that my evening commute doesn’t start for another 3.5 hours (approximately) but it is pouring rain out and rain equates to traffic hell.  It’s too early to call it, but it’s not feeling like a win for this red head.

I went to bed at 10:00 last night, looking forward to a solid seven hours before the alarm went off at 5:00.  No chance, fat boy.

I woke up at 11:30, fell back to sleep about 10 minutes later.  I woke up at a little before 2:00 and fell asleep again around 2:30.  I woke up again at 4:00 and I’m still awake.  I got 5:15 of sleep when I was hoping for seven.  Crud.

I had to bump up the humidifier on the CPAP machine twice.  I had it set to 3, and now it’s 5.  Each time I woke up I had a bad case of dry mouth.  After a swig of water I was fine, but it was annoying. My numbers today told me that my heart rate dip (whatever that is) which on average is between 10-20%, but greater than 20% is marked off as really good was a whopping 1%.

Crud.

Early to bed tonight?  Probably not, but I should.  We’ll see.