Entertainment

Found this while surfing the web today:

I started playing my Simon & Patrick acoustic guitar a little more frequently lately and I got to wondering why I ever stopped playing in the first place. There’s something about playing beautiful music that seems to drown out everything else…. all the stress and problems of life melt away when I get into a groove playing a favorite song.

Since I haven’t changed out the strings or done any maintenance work on the guitar in six years, I decided to do just that by bringing it to Guitar Center and having a setup and restring done. The setup is necessary because over time the stress created by the string tension can cause the neck to bow and thus the section of the strings closer to the guitar body elevate further from the neck.. making those notes much more difficult to play. A setup puts the guitar back into alignment.

I made the mistake of having this work done at a really nice guitar (and band) shop (as opposed to a someone who does this on the side). Walking into the store has a way of sucking me in as I look at all the guitars, drums, keyboards, and other instruments sitting out ready to play. They beckon, and I submit.. and wind up spending a few hours playing around. This isn’t always a bad thing, but when I found out I’d need to drop the guitar off and would be without it (gasp!) for a week, that didn’t set well.

You see, even if I didn’t play the guitar every night (or even every month), knowing that I could play it if I wanted to kept me happy. Now I was without any guitar to play… and that first night was very hard. Of course it didn’t help that I was reading through guitar tutorials and beginner riffs (such as Layla by Derek and the Diminos). Without thinking about it, I went back to Guitar Center the next day and while I was playing around, I noticed several value packs. The value packs include everything you need to get going with an electric guitar – something I’ve always wanted to do someday. I thought about it for a while and asked one of the employees how they rate… they said you could do much better quality-wise by spending just a little more and skipping all the extras like a tuner that are included in the pack. I headed back to work.

After work I went… where else but Guitar Center. I spent another few hours playing and fell in love with an amplifier by Fender in the G-DEC line (G-DEC stands for Guitar Digital Entertainment Center). It’s basically an amplifier with lots of special effects processing and sound loops for both drums and bass so that the guitarist using the amp will never be “alone.” Turn on one of the many drum beats and add a bass progression and you have an instant support group to play with. That sold me since I don’t have anyone else to jam with most of the time. Now I just needed a guitar.

Since I was looking at Fender amplifiers, I gravitated toward the Fender guitars. I’m a brand guy – I’ll admit it. I like getting caught up in the whole brand loyalty thing even if thorough research points out that it’s a marketing trap. Looking at the Fenders, I knew I didn’t want to get the Squire line but rather the full-fledged Fender line. To me, that’s like getting the Volkswagen instead of the Audi (sorry Kellie!). The skill level I’m at doesn’t afford me the knowledge to know the difference between one guitar and another so I got some advice from the employees again and then chose a color and pattern I liked.

Now I’ve picked out the two main components… wait, how did I get from just playing to picking out components? I’m still not totally sure… but I ended up getting the Fender G-DEC 30 and a Fender Standard Stratocaster HSS in Brown Sunburst. It is as beautiful as it sounds.

So anyway, now I have something to play while I wait for the acoustic. And for reading all that, I present to you a video of Henrik Berger playing an older Stratocaster on the smaller G-DEC amplifier model. I hope that I can play even 10% as well as him someday…

Anyone who knows me reasonably well shouldn’t be surprised I found this youtube video quite humorous.

Orange Juice… wait… 9mm handgun… wait… butter knife!

The low-end of the home theater received an upgrade last week with the arrival of a Polk Audio PSW505. I had previously owned and employed the PSW404 – a great subwoofer – but an opportunity presented itself to upgrade to the bigger brother. The PSW505 features a twelve inch woofer (versus ten inch) and a 300W RMS BASH amplifier (versus 200W). Initial impressions are extremely positive and this speaker definitely fills the entirety of the basement better than the PSW404 was able.

I also purchased a DVE calibration disc and a Extech SPL meter to set up both the picture and sound to cinema specification levels. I’m especially excited to do the sound set up because I’ll finally know how loud my system plays and will make sure it’s well balanced for the ultimate in movie enjoyment.

I’m filing this one under both fitness and entertainment because this video employs some great sound effects. Don’t tie granny knots!

I’ll be the first to confess that I really don’t understand what this is but it seems to be some sort of tribal dance. The big guy front and center is Uwe Lange, a very nice gentleman from Rosenheim, Germany who I work with on a pretty regular basis. Enjoy!

Let’s get back to the basics…

Prior to seeing this video, I never knew of animosity toward the font Comic Sans.  If you have a few minutes and enjoy insight into some of the details of typography and interpretation of messaging, this is a good video.

I found this while surfing this evening and found is somewhat humorous. These are pictures captured and used on the Google Street view mode.

http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/top-15-google-street-view-sightings/