Did you ever want a custom coin with your own awesome image on it? Maybe your own face? King or Queen of your own castle? Sounds pretty awesome, doesn’t it. Maybe you should look into making your own money. Stop being a super wuss pants. Make your own money now. Today. Coin based. How is that not the coolest?
For real. Don’t you need to get on that?
All my recent ruminations about keyboards and digital pianos and such have me thinking about my amazing new guitar. Well, new to me. It’s a Starfire Special from the short-live but amazingly high-quality Dearmond line put out by Fender right after they acquired Guild in the late 90s. I have several different Dearmond models, all that I love with great passion, but this new super hot and sweet Starfire Special is just awesome. Great action. Great sound. I’m so happy.
Now, pulling the perfect tone from this almost perfect tool is just so much freakin’ fun, but
I have to admit there are some add-ons that could help. Hey, I wouldn’t complain if someone threw a new Boss compressor my way. Sometimes everyone needs a little boost for their lead line jackin’.
Right?
Hmmmm… who needs a synth when you can grab a 76 key almost grand piano along the lines of the good old Yamaha YPG 235 at Musicians Friend. Damn. I mean, I love my solid (and inexpensive) 88 key Williams allegro (even though, as an Amherst graduate, I should have personal issues with any instrument that has Williams in its name) but a digital GRAND piano for less than $250… hmmmmmmmm.
As I ramp up my middle-age mega indie rock recording project, I can’t help but wonder if my digital piano really was the right call over some sort of crazy ass synthesizer like the Korg R3 at Musicians Friend. I mean, I am generally an old school guy with old school needs, so I wanted a digital piano that would sound more or less like a real piano. When I got it, I was going for inexpensive piano sounds, not thousands of bucks worth of synthetic top-40 bullshit sounds. I’m not a fan of autotune and massively synthetic sounds – at least in the sense of reproducing otherwise acoustic sounds (like that of a piano or a human voice). But every once in a while I get a She Blinded Me With Science vibe and wonder about a good ol’ super synth.
All the rain we’ve been having lately has been putting a big hold on my outdoor big screen movie parties. Damn damn damn. The grill cover has a hole in it so the Char-Broil is sweatin’ like it’s Richard Simmonsing the oldies. The cushions on the patio are just sopping. It’s a mess mess mess and we should all be concerned. Seriously. There’s like a pond worthy of 15th century explorers in my front yard.
So I lost my wedding ring a few weeks ago.
I know. I’m a very bad person and I don’t deserve the love of my wonderful wife who puts up with my ridiculous shenanigans.
In my defense (sort of) I am 99% certain the ring is in my house, though 50/50 as to which of two possible locations I put it down. And there’s the defense part. I’m pretty sure (and my darling dearest concurs) that my PITA kittens knocked it off the kitchen cabinet/basement desk where I left it (again, not sure which). It is most likely enmeshed in a tumbleweed of cat fur in the deep recesses beneath a piece of very heavy furniture.
Now I offered to buy a replacement, even if it is temporary, but wife shook it off. There are inexpensive silver or tungsten rings that would do the job, right? I mean, as long as my finger is naked, and the ring-finger suntan is even and dark, I’m a free agent, right? You think she’d want to reclaim her 238 pounds of prize masculinity before some neighborhood milf starts throwing me the lordy, lordy, almost forty glance of beck and call.
Yup. I’m a very bad person.
On my recent trip to Kansas City, I stayed several nights in a Westin Hotel with a cool program. The globe trotters among my readers have surely encountered this before, but I think it is worth noting. They actually offer an option for no room tidying while you are there. No one comes in and makes your bed or refills your soaps. It is a way to reduce washing linens and towels while you’re there, waste fewer cleaning supplies, and overall reduce housekeeping costs.
There was a daily discount to their lobby restaurant as a perk which was nice, but I would have jumped at this opportunity. I loved not worrying about running to the gym and coming back to find that housekeeping cart parked outside my door. Really, I can make my own bed. And if I needed anything like extra soaps or coffee, I just had to ask.
They refer to it as a “green” program, and in some ways it surely is. But for me, it was also a bit of added convenience.
Actually, just back from being on the road. I was in Kansas City for about 8 days. And before you ask, let me tell you – I was in both Kansas City, Missouri AND Kansas City, Kansas. I know… breathtaking wonder in every word.
What do they take very seriously in KC? On specific order, these are some of the points of distinction I uncovered through observation and conversation with the natives:
– Barbecue
– Fountains
– Statues
– War Memorials
– Mexican and Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall Restaurants that are “actually really good.”
Who knew?
I mean, besides the millions of people who live there.
I’ve been hearing about a lot of canine corruption lately. A number of friends with dogs have been dealing with flashing teeth and claws. It seems like there’s a growing market for the good old San Diego dog bite attorney these days. Maybe we’ll see the Puppy Police in action, storming the walls of Greenwich puppy palaces and Cancun canine resorts where the mutts just can’t keep it civil.
Me? I’m happy with the cats. Sure, one of the kittens makes a run outside every couple of weeks and we end up slogging through the woods after her indoor-ass for a half hour, but at leats we don’t have to worry that she’s going to lay the biteth down on another pup or a kid.
It’s the little things.
That’s not a typo. We didn’t have any beef and bean-related frights if that’s what you were thinking. actually, it’s our fridge. A bit over a year ago our old fridge died a horrid death. It was Memorial Day weekend as I recall, and we had to do some work to find the replacement. And replace it we did!
In fact, I have absolutely loved the replacement (despite the refrigerator-sized price tag) for more than a year. Until the freezer temperature started skyrocketing last week. All the alarms and readouts and other lovely electronics on the inside door panel suddenly started going apeshit. For reals.
I was all goedekers.com, here I come (or here I .com for the lighthearted among you). Luckily, though, it was all related to the frequent power blips we experience up here in horse country, and the little beast just needed a good old fashioned reset. That being the ol’ pull it out and push it in of the power plug.
And once again… we have ice.