Category: Generic

Happy Anniversary 

Today is our seventh anniversary!  The love of my life and I said, “I do” to each other seven years ago today.  

When we went out to dinner, they gave us complimentary champagne and dessert!


Happy Anniversary, Jennifer!  I love you so much!

Sparrows

I’m sitting on the patio watching as dinner cooks on the grill.  I was just invaded by an army of sparrows.  Like 20 of them.  Most were buzzing around the bird feeder, but about five of them actually landed on the patio about 10 feet away from me.  The noise right now is insane!

NHL Stanley Cup Predictions

You are all really impressed with my hockey playoff predicting skills. Six of eight in the first round, two of four in the second round (boo), and now two of two in the third round!

I picked the Penguins over the Lightning even though I hate the damn Penguins and I was right. I picked the Sharks over the Blues because Joe Thornton is winning the cup this year.

That’s 10 out of 14, I think. Let me do the math again… 6+2+2=10 and 8+4+2=14. Yes, 10/14. That’s 71.4%.

Now for the Stanley Cup finals. I think I gave my prediction away two paragraphs ago. When the playoffs started I said the Sharks were going to win the cup. Then after the first round I backed off a little and said they’d get to the Cup but they might lost to Washington. After the second round I doubled down on the original prediction. San Jose, Stanley Cup or Bust!

Joe Thornton was the first overall pick of the Boston Bruins in 1997 and then they traded him away to San Jose in the middle of his MVP season. It’s the second worst trade in Bruins history. At least the second worst that I know of. Only the Seguin for a bag of pucks trade was worse.

Then in San Jose Thornton played for a string of great teams that I always picked to win it but who choked their seasons away during the early rounds. I vowed never to pick them again. Then the Bruins puked away their season yet again and I was pissed off enough to pick San Jose.

And now here we are, with Joe Thornton and the Sharks poised to play against the Penguins. I hate the Penguins. I loathe the Penguins. Last round I picked with my head instead of my heart and I felt scummy every second of every game. Now my head and my heart are in sync and I get to pick against the effin’ Penguins again, and it feels good.

So I say the Sharks win it all, and Jumbo Joe Thornton finally gets his drink from the Stanley Cup.

Game one is tomorrow.

GO SHARKS!

Bass Fuzz?

Why on Earth would I ever buy a Fuzz pedal designed for bass guitars?

Because my current obsession with Muff pedals is just out of control and I can’t stop scheming to get the craziest sounds for my band’s gig in July.

The other day I read this huge webpage documenting the history of the ElectroHarmonix Big Muff Pi pedals, including the stretch of time in the 1990’s when the company was out of business but a new company based in Russia, called Sovtek replaced it.

Since then I’ve been listening to demos and perusing ebay and reverb.com checking out prices on old pedals. The first few versions of the pedals are selling for massive amounts online. There are some monstrously wonderful sounding clone pedals that are also incredibly expensive, but not as expensive, that not only are more attainable, but are actually more consistent. One beef with the old Muffs is that there are so many variations on the circuitry that two identical pedals might sound very different.

The Russian pedals though… that’s something I hadn’t been considering. The resale on those is much more manageable. They are expensive, but not bank breakingly so. There are also some really good sounding clones. Again, more reliable and less expensive. I guess the beef with the Russians had more to do with the quality of the hardware. The pedals themselves are built like tanks, but the input and output jacks are plastic crap and fall apart easily. I don’t really want to spend the money on a pedal just to have it crumble when I plug into it.

Then I started reading about the current pedals. ElectroHarmonix came back to life and started selling new versions of the old pedals. They never put out a reissue of the Russian models, but they did start selling a Bass Big Muff that is supposed to be really close to those Sovtek Muffs. I read some reviews and listened to some demos.

This one sort of sold it for me…

So the idea is this… on the band pedal board. Take off the NYC Muff pedal and bring in my Nano and one of these Nano bass Muffs. The two pedals next to each other on the board. The Communist with the volume knob matching the amp’s clean volume, the tone at about one or two o’clock, and the sustain at about 12:00. right next to it I’ll have the non-bass pedal. The volume up a little higher than unity, the tone a little higher than the commie, and the sustain cranked. The Rusky will be on for rhythm parts and the American will be on for leads. The two pedals are small enough and close enough together that I can switch them both with one foot.

Then, just when I get into the swing of awesomeness things I will replace them both with this:

Then eventually…