If you can help...

It's going to take a long time for people to rebuild their lives, but we can help out now.

Donate what you can to the American Red Cross. Every little bit helps.

Katrina comes

I'm a little worried for my pals who live along the coast. The tally has people living from Houston all the way to Daphne, AL (it was through the Keys but somebody had to move) so this storm has threatened most of them at one time or another.

Please give your good thoughts to those in the path.

This is what DIY is all about

It doesn't matter how cool your guitar effects box looks, it's how it sounds.

Still, I like bright shiny objects.

3 boxes

I think I'm done building guitar effects for a while. It was fun and I learned a lot but it seriously gets in the way of playing music.

These'll go on my pedalboard tomorrow and I finally start playing through them.

You have no idea how accurate this is. It's uncanny!

What stupid celebrity are you destined to kill? by daydreamer8852
Name
Birthdate
You killed
With a
On	July 24, 2015
Quiz created with MemeGen!

It's about damn time...

"Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq."

When Dems or Libs suggest this they get skewered by the NeoCons. It's nice to see a GOPer with balls.

The thing I love is the whole "needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq" bit. Shouldn't that have been the 1st thing they thought of when they went in?

comments

After seeing that some of my blogmates have suffered at the hands of comment spammers I've decided to turn on word verification for comments.

Sorry.

obit

Biscuit was the singer of the Big Boys. They were the first skatepunk band and made touring bands they opened for piss their pants in shame.

After music, Biscuit turned to art. In fact just opened a new show.

He bled to death due to "chronic alcohol abuse".

Nobody else is allowed to die for at least a month, okay?

I don't care if you are living off the grid...

If you need to find someone you've lost track of, ZabaSearch is the place to start.


It's actually scary how well it works.

Nothing comes from nowhere.

Avant Garde was one of those second rate bands on the L.A. hair-metal scene at the end of the 80s. Nothing really ever happened to them and they faded away. Without ever actually hearing them I can only assume that this is a good thing.

So why would I keep a publicity still of a never-was metal band?

In celebration of Weezer being in the piTunes rotation I give you this picture to show that we all come from somewhere. The lion-maned guy in the middle is none other than Weezer's Rivers Cuomo.

Enjoy.

Cuz I don't have enough guitar crap...

I'm always interested in improving the guitar gear that I have, steal ideas here and there to make my stuff better.

After googling "pedalboards" to get new ideas I came across Trailer Trash Pedalboards. These guy's board designs are so cool looking that I don't even care how well they work.

Bad thing is that when you have black lights and tribal tattoo designs on your pedalboard nobody will even notice you or your guitar.

Soldering for fun and profit!

I've been working on the Rangemaster this weekend and for a moment I thought I was done.

I took it to my gear, plugged it in and... nothing. That is nothing when running off of a 9V battery, bigassloudmotherfucking hum when running off the AC adaptor.

So I kinda looked at the schematic to try and figure out what I did wrong but it didn't help because I don't know how to read a schematic. But did I double checked the layout and everything seems to be ok.

Hmmm...

I did something wrong but I know I can fix it given enough time.

On a totally unrelated note,APPLE'S JOBS KILLS APPLE LAWYERS!!!... not really, but you know he's plenty pissed.

No, really...

I played guitar today.

These people did not.

DIY Stompbox #2

Let me introduce you to the Rain Delay.

The Rain Delay is the build-it-yourself digital delay kit I got from BuildYourOwnClone.com a couple of weeks ago.

I was going to do a step by step thing about it here, but I got lazy.

On the whole it was a pretty easy build. There seemed to be be about a billion parts but I just went slow and it fell together.

My kit was missing the AC adaptor jack so I emailed BYOC to see if they could send it. Keith (the aforementioned "they") sent me the AC jack through the post and it came today with a little bonus.

This printed circuit board for an Ibanez TS808 Tubescreamer clone was also in the envelope! The TS808 is almost the Holy Grail of all pedals. If you've listened to music recorded in the last 20 years, there's a 97.3% chance that you've heard this box. If you do a search for a TS808 on ebay you'll see that they go for a big chunk of change.

So after a little work and less than $10 of electronic parts I get to have one of these.

Not a bad return for an email about a missing part.

obit

When I found out last week that Dixon Coulbourn had died I went through all the emotions that mourners have.

After a couple of days all I had left was anger. Dix deserved to die as much as any of us, but for him to die in what looks like a fuckup of a fuckup really did fill me rage.

A few days after that I mellowed. Dix was a really cool guy that affected everyone around him in a positive way. He wouldn't want me wishing harm on anyone.

As I was writing this I Googled Dix and found quite a few online obits for him. All of them good and heartfelt. I can't do them or Dix justice with my own attempt so I do something different.

I want you to meet Dix. The Idle Time Scrapbook is a chronicle of those times through Dix's eyes and is prolly the best way to meet him now.

1,800

The death toll for US forces in Iraq has now passed 1,800.

I can't imagine that anyone feels that we are better off since invading Iraq. Not the Iraqis and certainly not the family and friends of the dead.

I feel so angry and frustrated. I'm angry with our government for this war ever starting. I'm frustrated with the people I live and work with who think that this war is a good thing and for still not realizing how their emotions were used against them.

But mostly I fear for my son who becomes eligible in four years.

Four years is not nearly long enough for anyone to untangle the mess we are in.

I know some parents that voted for Bush in the last election who are looking for ways out for their kids. What the fuck did they expect? I want to scream at them that they voted for this so they can pay for it.

I know it's heartless but that's the place I'm at right now.

This will be my final post until my next one.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Stolen from my badass pal Lisa.