I took "Midnight" (my PRS SE single cut) into the shop yesterday to have some work done. She's got an awful buzz on the high E string that makes her sound like a sitar. It's probably going to cost me a small fortune to fix but considering the ridiculous price I paid for her it will be worth it. It is the most amazing sounding guitar I have ever owned so every cent is worth it.

But while I was there I bought some more toys to play with. I finally grabbed these beauties:

I already have a floor tuner but it is the noisest pile of crap I have ever had. I ended up having to run it off an A/B so as to keep it out of the signal chain. Just plain pathetic. The TU100 however is pure silence. I grabbed the tremolo because I love the subtle movement you can create with it. I go for the sort of sound that you don't really realise it's there but you notice it when it's missing. And the EQ was simple so I can reproduce one of my favourite studio tricks, the "telephone sound". Great for using in song intro and breakdows for great dynamic effect.

I've got four of the Behringer pedals now, as well as two Behringer mics, a tube preamp and headphone mixer. I love the Behringer equipment. The quality is great and the prices unbelievable. All I have left to get now is the TO800 Vintage Tube Overdrive. I have a TS808 Tube Screamer but it's not mine, and I know the rightful owner will want it back eventually. The TO800 apparently uses the same capacitors and diodes that the 808 uses so it sounds very similar. I hope so as I love the sound of Honey (Telecaster) through that thing.

But now that I have the pedals here I'm going to start laying out my new peal board so I can work out exactly how much space I need.

I think I'm now on a mission. That mission, if I choose to accept it, which I do, so the question is rather pointless is: find the coolest or strangest or both, guitars on the planet.

This is a good start. Ampeg have re-issues their acrylic guitars from 1969. I love it. Guitarists as a breed are allowed to have pretty things. And lots of them. Guitars are a sexual instrument. While a girl may go weak at the knees watching some hunk on stage playing a guitar solo, I could be going weak at the knees over the same hunk's guitar. Or amp. Or effects board. Shit, possibly even his cables. I don't know off the top of my head any other instrument that can have that sort of hormonal effect on people. It's almost like cars (not that cars have that effect on myself but other lower life forms maybe).

And speaking of effects boards, it's time to go DIY crazy again. I want to build a new pedal board to replace the gigantic wooden box I've been using for years. I'm going to base the designs off one of these babies :

Now I just need to find a bad to begin with. That will be tomorrows shopping mission.

Was it easy to say goodbye
To all your dreams you left behind
Did you turn around and smile
Or did you die inside

Is it hard to keep on walking
When you’re where you want to be
And the rainbow ends where you begin
To change your destiny

Did a cloud come down to greet you
And take you to the sky
Where it leaves once more like you before
With you stranded high and dry

Can you make it any easier
But giving up on truth
If you’d stay awhile you see that you
Have nothing else to prove

And if the road was easy we’d having nothing to talk about
If we never stop we’ll never see what never is all about
To exist in every moment is to touch what you can feel
To breathe a little easier….

It has been a long time since I have written any lyrics, and for some reason I got two full sets out one morning this week. I have no real idea what they are about. I never do, I just seems to write. I get this over whelming feeling that I need to say something and next thing I know it pours out with almost no effort on my part.

It's good to have something to say again.

Footprints in the Snow

All you have to do is say thank you
All you have to do is smile
All I needed was a memory
To stay the worry for a while

I guess we all have our secrets
Our little things of consequence
Our broken dreams of adulation
Where reality’s in check

Not sure if I am who I thought I would be
Not sure if I even have the right
But I know I’m gonna make it
In this thing I call my life

There were times I would be lonely
There were times when I was not
Other faces seem more satisfied
By the faces I was not

Even now I don’t remember
All the details of the show
I guess I’ll wander on regardless
Leave my footprints in the snow

Some days I justdon't get to play as much as I would like. Some days I don't get to play at all. But I just had to pick up my new PRS and crank out something simple and primal and that is what I did.

I just spent the last 20 minutes jamming with "20th Century Boy" by T. Rex.

Mark Bolan was all about groove and attitude. "20th Century Boy" is a great example of that. The music may be simple blues based rock, especially tracks like "Baby Boomerang", but he makes it sound so glam and sleazy it's amazing. I guess it is the blues base that really appeals to me. I've been toying with the idea of a blues band for a while and I keep stumbling upon great tracks that most "traditional" blues acts would shun, yet are still undoubtably blues tracks. Songs like "Baby Boomerang" could be done as a "straight" blues song and most people would not realise it was by one of the godfathers of glam rock.

Porn.

Now that the smooth segue is complete I have a public notice to all computer users:

When you take your computer for repairs technicians will find the stuff you wish no one would.

I'm not kidding. I'm my day I've seen it all. It's like picking your nose when you are driving, you don't seem to realise that people can see you doing something you would normally keep very private (unless you have a public nose picking fetish). Softcore, hardcore, teen and granny porn, fatty porn and vertical porn, the works. But the best stuff is the self made variety. I've had to work on a PC that had the owner naked sucking a bong on set as the desktop image. I've looked at PC's belong to girls that contain images of them giving head. Anything you can think of, I've seen it.

So why am I bringing this up? I've gone to the next step and have been contracted to build a website for an adult establishment. A legitimate, real deal escort agency. The thing is, it doesn't even register a blip on my moral radar at all. Is that a reflection on me? I don't know and I don't really care. All I know is that I'm getting paid handsomley for the work.