Tuukka Rask returned to the Bruins tonight and beat the Flyers 3-2. Pastrnak scored all three goals. A hat trick for Pasta tonight after a hat trick for Marchand last night. Sweetness all around.
Note to self: you opened a new jug of distilled water for the CPAP machine’s humidifier tonight. Try and keep track of how long it lasts, for future reference and stuff.
Patches is fully back to normal tonight. We can tell because she puked 17 pounds of partially eaten cat food onto Jen’s desk. Right as rain, feline.
I’m sitting up in bed for a little while. Should I rewatch episode 3 of The Book of Boba Fett or should I watch the first episode of The Peacemaker. Or should I just sleep.
You’re right. Sleep it is.
Possible car music in the morning. We will see when the morning gets here.
I get the impression that the guy from Nirvana saw Kiss meets the Phantom of the…. of the…. what was the phantom of? Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, isn’t it?
Anyway, the guy from the Foo Fighters saw Kiss Meets the Phantom and thought, I can beat that.
I started my lunch break a little late today. It’s now almost over. I need to dump the brain droppings so that I can get through the afternoon.
Eternals is out on Disney+. Hopefully we’ll get to watch it with Harry before he goes back to school. Did I mention that Harry’s going back to school? With all the drama over Bellana going to The Netherlands, I feel like we’ve been giving Harry the short end of the stick. We are driving him back to school on Sunday. Another drive to Vermont and back. I really enjoy that drive. I just wish he was coming with us for the return drive.
He did well in his first semester, obviously. He’s spent the last few weeks working for an internet based delivery company who shall remain nameless as he tries to build up his bank account while he still can. I remember those days. There was never enough money. I also remember trying to stretch $5.00 worth of gas across a full week so that I could stay on my budget. Ah, college life.
I am going to miss him, of course, but unlike his sister he is still close enough to us that if we need to get to him for whatever reason we can. It’ll take 3-4 hours, but we’ll get there. The Atlantic Ocean and the circumference of the Earth make that really tough in Bellana’s case.
What else is going on? I mentioned Jen going crazy in her office and in the living room by re-doing all of the plugs and extension chords and stuff. Basically she rewired half the house. It was amazing. This weekend… maybe… I will do the same to my office nook in the bed room. I have a big power strip that will replace all of the little once I have daisy chained in here. I’m going to have to take down the whole desk and start from scratch. Unlike Jen, I don’t mind working at a cluttered desk, but even I have my limits. I won’t say it will be neat when I am done, but maybe it will be a little more logical, and electrically safer. All of that because the love of my life inspired me.
What else? Car music tomorrow? Maybe. Depends on the weather. I would take a minute to check the forecast, but I have to get back to work instead.
May your afternoon be happy and productive and free of fascism and shit like that.
I forgot to post this yesterday, but I mixed the January song for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I guess that means I am done? We did the actual RPM in February, and then I had at least one song each month from March through January. Three of them were also part of the 50/90, and one was National Solo Album Month, and I forgot to submit most of them to the RPM site, but I still did at least one song each month. Hooray.
Sure it’s not Rush. There will never be new Rush. Even if they spend the next 50 years slowly but surely emptying the vaults, there will never actually be new Rush. Why? Because the universe sucks, that’s why. This, though… when you listen to this and hear a guitar, or a sound that doesn’t sound like a guitar but was actually played on a guitar, what you are likely hearing is Alex Lifeson.
I wasn’t planning on any guitar playing tonight. Mostly because I didn’t have songs ready for any guitar parts. So what did I do? I started a new re-recording just so that I could have something to play.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to have something to record to play. If I want to play I can just play. No big whoop, right? It’s just that I wanted to play and I wanted to record something so I came up with something to record, that’s all.
I didn’t play for long, and I didn’t play well, but I did play and that’s all that I care about.
I accomplished two things tonight with a little guitar playing. First, I made myself a tiny bit less sad over Bellana going away, even if it was for only a few minutes. Second, I think I may have convinced myself to not use retail therapy to make myself feel better even if only for a few minutes. Well… I avoided retail therapy again. I went to the Rush website earlier and bought a couple of t-shirts. As stated in a previous post today, I am in a rare period of my existence where I feel the need to resupply the wardrobe as it were. Whatever, I almost bought a new Fuzz Face pedal (the Joe Bonamassa signature. It’s supposed to be geared toward humbuckers where Fuzz Faces are more traditionally geared toward single coils even though I am pretty sure that is just bullshit based on Jimi Hendrix, but I digress) but instead I took the little mini Fuzz Face I already had and put it into the signal chain and used the shit out of it.
The only things I had ready for recording were leads on the two January Record Every Month songs, and on one re-recording. I decided that all tracks recorded this evening would be with great big gooey gobs of fuzz. The Fuzz Face on the two January songs and a Big Muff clone on the re-recording. I always always always have a Big Muff on every board at all times. I love fuzz pedals, and Muffs (despite their awful, terrible, horribly sexist name) are my favorites. They are the smoothest and the filthiest, both at the same time. Fuzz Faces have that spitty quality that really bugs me when I am playing chords (usually) but is okay when I am playing leads. Big Muffs are awesome for rhythm too, but only if there’s an overdrive pedal in the chain after them that boosts the mid range frequencies. Something like a Tube Screamer or (preferably) a Klon. So I don’t keep the little Fuzz Face on the board and only pull it out when I am in the mood. Today I was very much in the mood. Actually, I have been since before Christmas, which is when I started jonzing for a new one, but today was the day I decided to act on it.
So when the time came to play tonight, I gave in to the urge to go ape shit on the fuzz. While my playing was particularly shitty, the tones were pretty effin’ gnarly and they made me happy.
Here is a shitty little blurry (why?) pick of the Fuzz Face pedal. It’s a Dunlop Band of Gypsies Fuzz Face Mini that is supposed to be modeled after the pedal Jimi Hendrix used on the live album Band of Gypsies, which may actually not have been a Fuzz Face at all but instead a custom octave fuzz with the octave circuit removed that was just stuck inside Fuzz Face enclosure. If’n you believe the stories and all.
And here we have a picture of my very dusty Wren and Cuff Super Russian. It’s been sitting on that spot on my bedroom floor since February and I really should dust all this stuff before the knobs get all noisy and scratchy. This is my second favorite Big Muff clone. My favorite is on the big pedal board in the cellar. It’s a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70 and it’s probably pretty dusty too. It’s based on the original Big Muff Pi pedals that Electro Harmonix made in the early 70’s. The Super Russian is based on a Russian made Sovtek model from the early 90’s. They are both viscous little bastards and I love playing them.
The Bruins are spanking the Washington Capitals tonight and it’s glorious. I started watching season two of The Witcher, even though I am kinda over the whole fantasy sword and sorcery thing. This show’s not bad though.
None of this is making me miss Bellana less, even though she hasn’t even left the state yet, never mind the continent. It’s going to be a long six months.
And that, boys and girls, is what you call a long and rambling blog post that uses a lot of words to say very little. Enjoy.
Today I did the first car music of 2022 and now I also have the first new song mix of 2022. It’s a day of firsts!
Or thirds. This is the third time I’ve recorded this song. This one probably sounds the best overall, but I think the performance might be a little lacking. I can’t really tell for sure.
I did the first car music of 2022 today. Yippee and Hooray and stuff. I put vocals onto both Record Every Month songs for January and one re-recording of a song from 2010 or 2011 or something. I had to write new lyrics for that one because the original lyrics were garbage. The new lyrics are garbage too, but slightly less garbagey garbage if that makes any sense.
I hate to have to admit this but I have written the same song twice again. I sense a theme for the coming RPM Challenge. One song over and over again. The last time I did it, it was an E minor – A minor thing that I used in two songs. This time it was an E minor 7 – B minor 7 – A dominate 7 thing that I used in the chorus of both songs.
I suck.
I should also mention that the singing was pretty terrible as well. Also, there were two trucks. Ugh. We had snow two days ago and there’s been a little freezing rain this morning. There was a plow and a sander in the parking lot with me. I think the sander covered the entire lot at least twice. He kept driving by me while I was trying to sing and the mic kept picking it up. As if my own voice wasn’t shit enough. The plow… what the hell, bro? He kept plowing little sections of the parking lot even though the snow has been gone for almost two days now. What the hell was he plowing, and why did he have to keep doing it over and over?
No Methuen Center pics today. Instead you’ll have to settle for this one. It was cold out side and very shouty inside. Hence the foggy.
As I was writing this I saw a Tweet announcing that Michael Lang died. He was 77. If you don’t know who Michael Lang is, he was one of the guys who put on the Woodstock festival. If only he’d thought otherwise about Woodstock ’95 and ’99 or whatever the hell years they were. Pretty much the definition of too much of a good thing. Rest in Peace, Mr Lang.
Help Bellana with any pre-Europe tasks that she may need help with.
Laundry, I think. I ripped a pair of jeans on Friday. I’m down to two. I had to order more. I ordered some new shirts too. Hmm, does rush.com’s store have anything in my size?
Jen and Bellana are planning on cooking dinner together. Help them if they need help.
Play the guitar.
That’s a pretty attainable set of goals for a Sunday, right?
Inside the Red Head's Head 