Category: Uncategorized

MLB Playoff Predictions — World Series

I swear, Medium readers, my baseball playoff predictions are usually much better than this. I was one for two in the Wild Card round and two for four in the Division round for a split 50% at three right and three wrong. Somehow, sadly, I continued that through the two League Championships. I picked Toronto to beat Cleveland and Cleveland won, and I picked Chicago to beat Los Angeles and Chicago won. One out of two, for a post season total of four correct and four incorrect. 50%. Again. Still. That kinda sucks.

Now we come to the World Series. Only one prediction left. Will I finish above .500, or below. Let’s find out.

Cleveland vs Chicago. I said in my first prediction post that the Cubbies were going to win it this year. My brain is telling me that is still the case. My heart, however, has gone all in for the Indians (racist name and all). Something about the way those plucky underdogs beat two teams that should have been far superior just won me over. So which do I pick? My head or my heart?

The answer is kind of both. I really don’t see the Cubs losing this series. I officially predict that their 108 years of suck futility will finally come to an end. Having said that, I am going to root for the Indians. It would be nice to see their 68 year championship drought come to an end. Also, admittedly, it would be really nice to see the most pathetic team in baseball history continue their century plus years worth of complete futility. Yeah, I’m picking the Cubs but I’m really hoping they have to wait until next year.

This is in no way reflective of my baseball love for Jon Lester, John Lackey, or any of the other former Red Sox now playing for the Cubs, and that includes his Royal Highness Theo Epstein the General Manager who brought the Red Sox’ 86 year championship drought to an end. It also doesn’t have anything to do with Andrew Miller* or Coco Crisp, or even His Royal Highness Terry Francona the Manager who brought the Red Sox’ 86 year championship drought to an end. I just prefer rooting for Cleveland, even though I know deep down that Chicago is going to win.

So I am actually hoping that my playoff predictions finish below 50% for the first time that I can remember. It’s okay, though. I’ll survive.

*okay, it kinda is about Andrew Miller. That guy is freakin’ amazing. Jon Lester is amazing too, but Miller is his own brand of amazing and it’s been really fun to watch. Why couldn’t we get players like these, am I right?

It’s Going to be a Long Night

The season premier of The Walking Dead starts in a touch over one hour.

We don’t have cable in the house anymore, so I will be downloading the episode from the iTunes season pass. Unfortunately the episode does not become available until around 3:00am tomorrow morning. Amazon video and the AMC iOS app are on the same schedule.

That means I am about one hour from turning my house into a spoiler free zone. I will do that by taking all of my connected devices off line until tomorrow morning. I hope to be able to sneak a viewing of the new episode before work tomorrow, but until that happens I can’t be anywhere near twitter or facebook or instagram or myspace or friendster or anything.

…and I just ran out of episodes of Rick and Morty on Hulu.

It’s going to be a long night, friends. A long ass kicker of a night.

Poor Sick Little Baby

Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with my step kids, niece, nephews, family, or any actual people. Don’t let the next sentence or the title fool you.

My poor baby is in the hospital!

Translated from guitar nerd to English, I put one of my guitars in the shop today. I have used a soldering iron in the past, but I have no confidence in my abilities so when I want work done I have to outsource it.


I took a ride over to Guitar Center in Nashua, NH today and dropped my Les Paul off at the repair desk. I was nervous, but the repair guy put me at ease by telling me my guitar looked exactly like his. Hopefully he will treat it with the same respect.

*Robert wipes away a tear*

I took it in for two things. One repair and one modification.


(Why did this picture bring out every spec of dust?)

First, see the little switch in the bottom left? The one labeled Rhythm on one side and Treble on the other? That switch selects which pickup is active. The pickups are the two gold rectangular things with the six flat head screws. When the switch is on the Treble side it’s the pickup on the right, next to the bridge (commonly known as the bridge pickup). When it’s on the Rhythm side it’s the pickup on the left, close to the neck (commonly known as the neck pickup). When the switch is in the middle, both pickups are on. I bought this guitar in 1990 and through all that time the switch has never gone into the Rhythm position. You can push it there, but it doesn’t catch. I am getting the switch either fixed or replaced. Whichever gets the job done.

The second thing they will do is just a modification. I am getting the bridge pickup replaced. When I bought the guitar in 1990 it had two after market pickups. From day one I had wanted to replace them with the closest I could get to the stock pickups that would have come with the guitar when it was made in 1978. That would be Gibson Classic ‘57’s. I think it was 2006 or so that I finally did it. Larry installed them for me (he also fixed the bridge pickup’s tone pot which had never worked. He tried to fix the pickup switch but was unable to. That’s why when I dropped if off at the shop today I had a new switch in the case). The pickups sound okay, but they were a little disappointing. The tone is a little on the trebly side, and the output level is pretty low. The stock pickups on my ES 335 Pro are Gibson Dirty Fingers models. Those suckers sound incredible. I am replacing the Classic ’57 Plus pickup in the bridge position with a Dirty Fingers.

Those are the two reasons I brought the guitar to Guitar Center today. While I was there and talking to the repair tech, I added a third job. This one is a repair.


See the hole in the finish there? That’s been there since the day I bought the guitar. As I was looking at the guitar sitting on the counter while the tech was filling out the work order, I couldn’t take my eyes off the hole. I am 100% positive that it is much worse than it was in 1990. What I am not 100% sure of, but what my gut feeling is telling me, is that it is worse than it was three weeks ago at the last Lizardfish gig. I feel like the pace with which that hack in the finish is growing is accelerating rapidly. The tech is going to do a repair on it. It won’t look the same as the finish surrounding it, but it will stop it from getting worse. That’s all I care about. That repair is going to take a couple of weeks and it will cost about as much as the other two combined. It will be worth it though. For some reason it jumped out at me today as something that needs to be taken care of right now. No more waiting.

So my poor baby Les Paul is going to be at the doctor’s for two weeks or so while it gets all fixed up. I am going to miss her, and I am going to worry about her. I wish she had a cell phone so I could call her and check in on her every couple of days.

Please please please please please let my baby come home in one fully functioning piece.

Full Blast

Tonight I did something I’ve never done before.

I had always wanted to do it, but prior to last March I didn’t have the means. Since last March I just didn’t have the guts.

I played guitar through a tube amp at full blast.

It was Glorious.

I have been reading up on overdrive pedals lately. Specifically the Klon Centaur. To me, the point of overdrive was always to make my guitar sound distorted without sounding like a heavy metal wanna be. I think I was sort of missing the point. Maybe an overdrive pedal isn’t meant to make you sound like a rock god, but instead maybe it’s just supposed to make your low volume amp sound like a loud, broken up tube amp. That made sense to me.

That was all well and good for a solid state amp, but what about a tube amp? I bought a Fender Deluxe Reverb last March, knowing that if I cranked it I would be able to overdrive the tubes and thus distort the sound. Of course that would require a huge amount of volume which even with my little 22 watt sucker would be more than I want to deal with. I read an article that suggested using an overdrive pedal with the volume knob up all the way, and the gain knob down all the way. The pedal isn’t going to distort your sound (much), but it might push your tubes up to the point of distorting for you.

The other day while I was getting my stuff together for the Lizardfish gig I tried it out with my Fulltone OCD pedal. It sounded pretty good. Not exactly broken up, but not exactly clean either. I planned to start using that setting after the gig. (no changes like that will ever be made without being used in rehearsal for a while at least)

Tonight I decided to try it with my Joyo Ultimate Drive pedal, which is an OCD clone. I wanted to see if the clone sounded as good as the real thing. It did. I was pleased, and spent about 45 minutes just noodling.

Then I just did it. I looked at my amp. I looked at the volume knob. How high do I have to turn that sucker before the sound starts breaking up? I had no idea at the time, but now I do. You start getting some nice overdrive at about 7. When you’re up to 10 it’s pretty sweet. It doesn’t sound heavy by any stretch, but when I kicked on the overdrive (volume at 10, gain at 0) it sounded really cool.

As for the volume level, when I got to 3 it was loud enough for me to want to turn it down. 10 was significantly louder, but the volume level seemed to stop going up around 6. Extrapolate… volume ceases to increase when the tubes are over saturated? Sound logical.

When the volume knob hit 10 though… oh it was glorious.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the World Series

I’m a Red Sox fan. Through and through. I live and die by the Red Sox. That can never be doubted.

Still, something weird has happened over the last few days.

I think… I think I am rooting for the Indians.

I should be violently opposed to any success for the Cleveland Indians. They swept my Red Sox in the division round, I hate them I hate them I hate them!!!

But then… Let’s just say they had no business beating the Red Sox. Boston should have nuked them until they glowed and then shot them in the dark. Somehow they won. On to the AL Championship Series against Toronto. Toronto should have flattened them the way a Sherman Tank would flatten a dandelion. Earlier tonight though, the Indians eliminated the Blue Jays in five games.

Terry Francona. Mike Napoli. Coco Crisp. There are ties to the Red Sox past on this Indians team. I think while listening to game five as former Red Sox pitcher Andrew Miller was once again making a super offense look like little leaguers I actually started rooting for these asshole Indians who beat my team.

Can you imagine the storyline of an Indians vs Cubs World Series? 2004 Red Sox manager Terry Francona vs 2004 Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein.

That’s assuming that the Cubs don’t blow it in the NL Championship Series, which they are probably going to do.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but… Go Indians.