Category: Tech

Non-Lunch Post

We’re coming to the end of another work day spent in the office. How many more will there be at this desk? I don’t know. A few, probably.

It’s been a hectic and stressed out day. I’m not sure how, but I managed to do everything right as far as the weight loss surgery prep steps are concerned. I’m up to date on my vitamins (still have one more to take with dinner), and I tracked all of my food, and I stopped drinking more than 15 minutes before eating, and I didn’t drink again for over an hour after eating.

My exercise ring is half closed. That’s due to the long walk from the car to my desk, and the long walk from my desk to the kitchenette and back, and the long walk from my desk to the bathroom and back. I think wearing a mask contributes to the increased heart rate as well, but I don’t have proof of that.

The building recently switched from masks required in all common areas to masks optional for vaccinated folks. I think it’s too soon for that, but I have to deal with it. My mask was on in all common areas but I was in the minority. Will peer pressure eventually remove my mask? I don’t think so but I can’t say for sure. The Covid numbers are way down for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I would like to take approximately 1/6,893,000th of the credit for that. At least that much. I kept my mask on and kept those around me safe from the virus that I don’t have. That’s not sarcasm. That’s honesty. Wear your effing mask.

Anyway, I was able to eat lunch today, but I was not really able to take a lunch break. That’s why there’s no lunch post from today, and that’s why I titled this post the way I did.

I might look into a new theme for this page. It might be time. Maybe something black and gloomy. Yeah, that would be cool. Black and gloomy is tight.

Now I need to get my exhausted ass home so I can eat dinner with the love of my life, check out how far the paint job got while I was out, watch the new episode of Star Trek Picard, and then finally get some of that sleep that I didn’t get any of last night.

Almost quittin’ time, babie!

Tube Amps are in Trouble

Didn’t I write something about this recently?

We’ve been saying that the days of the tube amp were numbered for decades, but now the end might be in sight. Well, if not the end of the tubes then maybe the end of reasonably affordable amps. Reasonably being a subjective term as most good tube amps are already seriously expensive.

There are only two factories on Earth that still manufacture vacuum tubes and one of them, the one in Russia, is no longer shipping to the United States.

Here’s hoping the tubes in my amps last for another 50 years or so. Also, I was thinking of trading in that Fender Bassbreaker 18/30… now? No way in hell.

It’s worth it, politically speaking. It’s also worth it environmentally speaking. It’s also been inevitable for ages and it’s been a long time coming.

So the question is, solid state transistor amps or digital modeling amps? Those Fender Tone Master things are supposed to be pretty good. Maybe we can talk them into making a tweed Bassman version?

I Friggin Hate Facebook

One day back on the bookfayce and I want to punch it in the fucking throat.

I left most of the groups I was in and unfollowed a bunch of pages. I kept a couple of guitar groups and a a couple of podcast groups but that’s it.

The first thing I saw after I refreshed for the first time was a post in a guitar group bitching about politics.

Fuck facebook. Fuck it right in its fucking ear.

International Women’s Day

I don’t feel like I did enough to honor International Women’s Day today.

I spent the day with my wife and spend a long time on the phone with my step daughter. That’s about it, unfortunately. No offense. Sorry.

I did pull off the Activity App’s International Women’s Day challenge though, so that’s something, right?

The Phantom Mouse Click

I am sitting at my desk in the bedroom watching yesterday’s That Pedal Show VCQ Live when I got a pop up on my screen saying my track pad was connected. Sure, I knew that already. I’m sittin’ here using it. Then a bunch of things popped up on my screen; The Vivaldi browser’s help window, and a download prompt, and then my YouTube window started scrolling.

I have a second wireless keyboard and track pad in Jen’s office for when I hang out at the second desk in there. I wonder if Jen put something down on the desk and it landed on the track pad. Jen came out into the kitchen and I asked. She had no idea what I was talking about.

That’s when we figured it out together. I went in to the office and sure enough there is Patches, sitting on my backup track pad.

No, kitty. You cannot take over my computer. You can’t read.

Tubes

It’s all about me. World events? The Russian invasion of Ukraine? It’s all about me.

No it isn’t, but this is partly about me but also about guitar gear in general.

Vacuum tubes, right? The best guitar amps are powered by tubes (valves if you’re one of our British friends). The technology dates back to 1904, according to Wikipedia, and the guitar amps many of us like date back to the 50’s and 60’s. Suffice to say it’s not exactly cutting edge stuff.

The only industries that still use tubes are guitar amps and effects and hi-fi stereo systems. That’s it. Tubes used to run everything but now it’s down to those two hold outs. As a result there are only three factories on Earth that still manufacture vacuum tubes. Three.

One factory is in Slovakia (I think… or is it Slovenia? No, pretty sure it’s Slovakia). Another factory is in China. From what I hear, that factory recently had a bad fire and they have been offline for a while. The result of that is that tubes, already in short supply, are in a full blown shortage. Thank goodness for that third factory, huh? Hey, where is that third factory anyway?

Russia.

Shit.

I haven’t heard anything specific but with the sanctions the entire world is leveling at Russia to convince them to stop being evil and get their military out of Ukraine it’s safe to say that we won’t be seeing any tubes out of that Russian factory any time soon. That means that we’re effectively down to one factory. One. Let’s all send as many happy and safe vibes we can to JJ Electronic in the hopes that they keep rolling at peak efficiency with all of their staff being exceptionally happy and healthy and satisfied in their professions.

I own four tube amps. Three Fenders and a Vox. I haven’t been a tube amp guy for long, but in my very teeny tiny experience I have never had to change a tube. Please, guitar gods, let the tubes in my amps last forever. Pretty please.

One other guitar gear thing I want to mention is petty and pointless and exactly the sort of thing that the trump ass cult ranks on people like me ceaselessly for. I can’t help it though.

I really like using fuzz pedals. Of the three classic types of fuzz pedals, Fuzz Face, Tone Bender, and Big Muff Pi, my absolute favorites are Muffs. They are just ferocious and I really love them. In the last two years or so I have used a clone of a Big Muff pedal for probably 80% of the lead guitar parts I have recorded. Most of those tracks were recorded using a pedal by a company called Wren and Cuff that is called the Super Russian. Big Muffs were originally made by the Electro Harmonics company back in 1970 or so. That company fell apart in the late 80’s or early 90’s (not sure exactly when) and a new company was formed from the ashes that was called Sovtek. That company was based in the newly post-Soviet Union Russia. Many of the EHX pedals were redesigned to use Russian components and manufactured and sold by the new company. The Super Russian pedal on my board is based on a Sovtek period Big Muff.

The pedal sounds amazing and I love playing through it. It’s pretty much perfect. Still… when I was posting my RPM stuff to alonetone.com I was adding notes about what gear I used (so that I can know what I used when I listen back years from now). I kept having to type the word Russian into those notes. Even though the pedal and I have nothing to do with the evil spewing out of Moscow right now, I felt kinda dirty every time I wrote one of those notes. It is totally irrational and makes zero sense, but that’s how I felt. Feelings don’t need to be rational, after all. I mean we aren’t Vulcans, right?

So I guess what I am saying is… I might be in the market for a fuzz pedal that isn’t based on a Sovtek circuit. It is entirely possible that this might just be my Gear Acquisition Syndrome trying to trick me into buying a new pedal, but let’s not think about that.

Whatever. I should just send $200 to a Ukrainian charity instead and just get over my irrational self. I should also start hoarding vacuum tubes.

Ban Me, Please

So we know that Donny the nazi cheeto started a social media thing that’s just a twitter clone because the big mean old twitter people banned him for inciting violence like the evil, treasonous, nazi piece of shit that he is. They took his binkie away so he started his next failed business to get back at them.

I have read a couple of things saying that the new site is so riddled with bugs that it’s effectively useless. Is that true? I also heard that the waiting list to have your account creation approved is gigantic so even if you want to join donny’s nazi crusade you can’t.

Now I hear that NPR reviewed the terms of service and found out that users are prohibited from disparaging the site’s backers. In other words, if you say bad things about snowflake cheeto donnie the nazi, you’ll get banned from the site.

Never before have I wanted to get banned from a social media app more than I do right now. I want very much to sign up for that idiotic site and just blast that nazi piece of shit over and over and over and over again until they ban me. That would be some serious social media satisfaction right there.

Stormy

I knew it was supposed to be warm and raining today. Did we know it was supposed to be stormy? It’s like a hurricane out there. Our Poland Spring delivery is today so I put out our empty bottles. I have to believe that once the wind gets hold of them they are going to end up in Maine*. I’m glad I drove to work yesterday and not today. It’s nuts out there.

When I came home from work yesterday there was a new wireless Apple keyboard on my desk. Santa came early! The one I was using was old and well loved and whatever coating they put on the keys was long gone. This one actually feels knew under my fingers. Sweet. It also has a finger print scanner and that’s pretty cool too. Welcome to the 2020’s babie!

I’m hoping for a quiet day at work today. I doubt I’ll get it. One of our buildings has a power outage already. I think some of our Inhouse environments live in that building. It might be weird for a while. Hold on to your butts.

Happy Friday.

*I live in Massachusetts and the New Hampshire border is in the woods behind my house. I wrote Maine as an exaggeration. Had I said New Hampshire it would have been because it is a literal possibility.