Things change

It's kind of funny. When I was young there were things I thought I would get if I ever got a chance - the car I wanted was a Ford Cobra II Mustang (black and gold) with Cragar SS rims, I wanted a Kawasaki Spectre motorcycle, and I wanted a Les Paul guitar. I've never actually had a chance to get a mid to late '70s Mustang (much less a black and gold Cobra II), but when I bought wheels for a car, they weren't Cragar (OZ Racing 18" Record wheels, with Pirelli P Zero Nero tires). I actually did have a chance to buy a Spectre - when I bought my first bike, I had a choice between a Kawasaki 305 LTD, a 550 Spectre, and a Honda 650 Shadow. The Shadow (the one I should have bought) had been dropped and had a dent in the upper corner of the gas tank - the Spectre was several years old, so I got the nearly new LTD instead. Now I have a Harley - something I never even thought of owning until I actually bought it.

And now, when I spend a $1000 on a guitar, do I buy the fabled Gibson Les Paul - king of the rock guitars? No, I buy some semi obscure brand (Godin) loaded with all the features I've been trying to get on my guitar for the past year - HSH pickup configuration (my old Ibanez has that, and I like the sound), piezo electric bridge pickups (for that acoustic sound), and a built in Roland compatible interface (so I don't have to deal with that clunk box stuck to my guitar anymore).

I guess it pays to remain flexible...

Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

It's been kind of strange lately. Used to be my one email box would receive somewhere around 150 messages a day, nearly all of which were spam. Lately though, it's actually been drastically reduced. Now, I do recall legal proceedings against one of the nastiest spammers not too long ago - but would that be enough to cause my daily flood of garbage to disappear? I don't know, but I'm glad to see it gone. I was actually about to delete that mailbox because of the junk - but now I guess I can keep it around.

Until someone else starts spamming it...

Hardware joys

The tax refund check has arrived, and the economic stmulus check should be following soon (my social ends in 2), so I'm takiing the oppurtunity to upgrade some hardware. I already picked up this neato keen keyboard for my old Jornada (which I'm using to type this blog), and got the first part for the new PC I've been wanting to build for the past year - an 8800gt video card. I'm also planning on upgrading my guitar with a new Godin - same HSH pickups as I'm using now, but with a piezo bridge pickup, and a Roland GK compatible midi interface built into the guitar.

Just doing my part for the economy...