Nothing like a traffic jam at 10:45 PM.

I hate it when you go to a gas station to pump gas and the friggin’ pump has a friggin’ TV monitor that plays friggin’ commercials.  When that happens I hope to have my phone on me so that I can distract myself from the friggin’ crap.

The stay at home board still needs power, and a couple more cables, but it will end up looking something like this.

The next Lizardfish show is October 21st.  We have one more Sunday practice between now and then.  We missed yesterday’s scheduled rehearsal so three of us got together for a quick dust off tonight.  Just an hour or so to run through the newer songs.

There were a couple of items of note.  First, I am so loving my pedal board setup right now.  I switched from an Ibanez Tube Screamer boosting into either a Fulltone OCD or an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi with Tone Wicker and then volume boosting with an Electro Harmonix Soul Food to using a Keeley D&M Drive for the initial boost and the overdrive, or the Keeley boosting a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70 with a TC Electronic Spark Mini for the volume boost.  It sounds so good it’s just silly.  On a scale of 1-10 the Spark and the Tri Pi are maybe 8-8.5 while the D&M is a straight up 10.  That thing is so good sitting between my Les Paul and my Fender Deluxe Reverb.  Damn, does it sound good.

One  a more downer note, my occasional is-it-tendenitits-or-is-it-maybe-arthritis pain in my left hand was a steady companion for the whole mini-practice.  After our long break following the last gig, and our lack of opportunities to rehearse over the last few weeks, I am so far out of playing shape that it’s crazy.  I need to practice at home a lot over the next couple of weeks.

On the practicing at home front, I have finally made an attempt at finalizing my stay at home gear.  I bought another pedal train board.  It’s going to be delivered tomorrow (along with a very inexpensive analog delay pedal).  The new board will be the four dirt pedals that just came off the main board, a tuner, the cheap-o delay, the cheap-o phaser that’s a clone of the one I have on the main board, and the cheap-o uni-vibe that’s might be a clone of the one on the main board.  I’ll power it with the little daisy chain system I bought when I first started messing with the idea of having a stay at home setup.  Now I just need to get a new super loud combo amp to use with the band so that I can keep my Fender Deluxe Reverb at home.  That 40-something watt Fender Bassbreaker that costs about $1000 perhaps?  Watch as I hold my breath…

Lastly I ended a tradition that has been with me since maybe 2002 or so.  I pulled the “Vasectomy Prevents Abortion” bumper sticker off my Les Paul case.  It just stopped being funny to me.  Oh well.  More room for stickers from pedal companies!  Which boutique company should I buy from next!  WHEEEEEEEE

Pardon the weird crop.

The Red Sox are down 3-1 early in game 3. They can’t lose this one. They just can’t.

I mentioned in my last post that maybe the NHL’s difficulty setting was changed from Pro to Rookie.  If you wonder what that might look like, watch this…

20 minutes of Bobby Orr making the rest of the NHL look like a video game set to Easy.

Also note that a few of these clips show Bobby dismantling the Golden Seals.  White skates and all.

I’m watching this as I type this and I just saw the best clip so far.  Orr skated in alone against five defenders.  One on five, advantage Orr.  Goal.

I only managed to watch a few minutes of Thursday’s season opener for the Boston Bruins.  I watched just enough of the third period to have to be afraid that they were going to blow a 5-2 lead in the final minutes.  You know, like you do.

Apart from the glory of the Bruins and their 1-0 record, there are a couple of things that stand out as noteworthy here in the early days of the 2017-18 season.

First, the Las Vegas Golden Knights (the league actually refers to them as the Vegas Golden Knights on nhl.com.  Why is that?  What did the “Las” do to offend the league? Is it a Spanish thing?  Is it a Trumpish thing?) are undefeated, babie!  Two road games into their inaugural season and they are 2-0.  How is that for a feel good story?  The plucky underdogs from the gambling capital of the United States have come from nowhere (literally.  They didn’t exist last year) to have the best start to a season in franchise history (get it?).  Go get ’em, Golden Knights!  Maybe if you make the playoffs as an expansion team your ownership will let you change your team’s name to something that isn’t wicked stupid!

I might start referring to the Golden Knights as the Golden Seals.  Just for fun.  White skates anyone?

The other thing that is surprising here in the early going is Alex Freakin’ Ovechkin.  What the hell is up with this guy?  Did someone say something to piss him off?  Did someone in the league offices do something to make him really want to burn down the entire NHL? Maybe something like taking the Olympics away from him?

In the season opener for the Capitals, Ovechkin scored three goals.  Nice.  A hat trick to kick things off.  Cool.  Then in the second game of the season he scored four goals.  Do we have a cool nick name for a four goal night?  A hat trick with one to grown on?  No, that’s stupid.  Whatever, the friggin’ guy scored four times and now we’re two games into the season and he already has seven goals.  He’s on a pace to score 287 goals.  Should we logically expect five goals from him in game three?

I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but doesn’t it seem like Ovechkin was able to get into the settings for NHL 2018 and lower the difficulty from Pro to Rookie?  Not for the whole league mind you, just for him.  Russian hacking perhaps?  We may never know the truth.

Go Bruins.

I don’t want the upcoming Justice League movie to suck.  The first trailers looked great.  We just got a new trailer and…

I’m starting to get worried that the movie is going to suck.  Please don’t suck, Justice League movie.  I’m begging you.  Can DC just put the people who made Wonder Woman in charge of the whole franchise and stop being a bunch of morons please?