We might be moving back in with my parents. There's plenty of goods to it... I can access my instruments again, I can access the gym across the road again, I can quit my part time job...

But the whole topic fills me with despair. It is so good living downtown. I can get to anything I need as long as I have my Metropass. As opposed to my old lifestyle of spending a major chunk of my day just sitting on buses. And having to rush home to catch the last bus instead of hanging out when I'm with my bands. Nevertheless it's probably going to go down this way since we're in this together. I can deal with constantly removing bleeding rodent carcass and smelling strange smells, but the woman can't deal with it and we're both to weary of this to go find a new apartment.

Moving back in with your parents is shit though I'm looking to move out in the new year, I found a flat with a balcony not the most amazing area.... but it has a balcony.

Ugh. Best of luck to ye.

I saw my parents for the first time in a couple years, and they threw some money at me without my asking- I wouldn't dare have asked; too proud. There was an issue, call it a clerical error- with the state and my unemployment (my industry is not a good one for jobs, especially here. I was cautiously optimistic about the ad agency one that would have allowed me to fund a real studio, but alas) so I had no income for a month. What savings I had were gone years ago, and I wound up hocking some of my pedals to guitar stores (for a huge loss, obviously) to have cash on hand while I tried in vain to contact the state. (My phone, also, conveniently is dead. I have not had a land line in years, and none of my friends do.) The actual local Dep't Of Labor office could do nothing about it- it was not within their authority, though they could find nothing in their records that would explain why, exactly, things did not come through. Things are settled, now, but I am minus my Timefactor, Cathedral and Mothership. Not having the foresight to know in advance, I did not Ebay them. Once Monday rolls around and things clear, I am going to call and ask if I may buy them back. (I tried pawning them; I have never pawned anything before. The pawn shops would not take them; too hard to move. This is an economically depressed area, and they're apparently too dumb to Ebay. And I got hosed on the Mothership; that at least I think I could re-acquire.) What income the band makes goes to band expenses; the only things I've ever gotten from it were free drinks at the venue. And it's still usually a money sink.

That being said, it is making me reconsider my rig. I'll borrow back my Pod XT from my friend- who only had it for a bit so he didn't have to drag his AxeFX/Triaxis/Crybaby rack wah/Mesa 2:90/guitar synth/rack drawer rack back and forth when we had a drummer to jam with; he took the AxeFX home a while ago- for 'verb and delay for the next couple Garda rehearsals (I rarely use the Mothership, truth be told.) and then, we'll see. Ideally I'd like discrete pedals and a switching system, but I never did get around to building that when I had money. I am considering a used Line 6 M9 or TC Nova System. I would like to play through both first. Having everything- or most things- instantly recallable would be a big plus, as I have to switch settings manually between songs. I make notes on my setlist, though I could do it from memory at this point. I built time into the backing tracks for the sets, which play through the whole time now unless there's a serious error and someone stops them. All the changes are rehearsed, all the transitions. Some of the switching is a pain in the dick though, and either necessitates I play the part differently live, or get really good at making the changes, or finding where no one will notice. During Promise, I have three or four beats- not one measure as I don't come in right away and I'm being pedantic- at 142 BPM to make all the switches on all my pedals from a clean tremolo slapback spring 'verb sound to a dry dirty one and back, and switch pickups, while singing harmonies, and then back again. I can do it; it's not a hard song to play, but seriously, fuck that.

But I digress.

Oh man, hocking gear is the worst of all. Mojos. What if you just get any-old-job in the meantime?

Okay so gross story coming up.

On Monday I was so pissed at the rodents that I bought this big fucking machine which electrocutes them upon entry. It hasn't been killing shit meanwhile I got like four kills via the old school snap-traps. But this morning things were different. The light was flashing and inside...? A big motherfucker. THE big motherfucker who's chewed holes in the walls and such.

Fucking yeah, victory. So I'm taking the box outside to dispose of his carcass but it won't come out. It's stuck in there. Rigor Mortis? I grab my mouse-carcass gloves and yank on his tail, yank again, and the skin comes off his tail, revealing his gleaming white vertebrae. Oh fuck, GROSS. And he's still in there. So I look closely and he fucking died with his mouth locked around a wire inside the device. He is for all intents and purposes stuck there, unless I can remove a jaw or teeth. Fuck, fuck fuckkkk

I mean if I gather the courage and yank his entire bulk I might end up with a decapitated mega rodent. And then my friends, I won't be able to stomach food for a week.

That shit cost eighty goddamn dollars. Am I going to throw the whole thing out?

Aww, thanks. The problem with any old damn job, though, is... Well, the economy. Wages here are very low, even for the skilled professional end of things, hours are poor, and industries are few. As an example- swear to Cthulhu or whomever- I know someone with an EE degree and a full-time job in electronics and actual specialized skills who makes less than $10 an hour. They live on their own in the ghetto; they are not a drug addict or any sort of reprobate. Pretty much, par for the course. No one has a job here. I know people with master's and doctoral degrees working retail or in positions far beneath them or not at all. The only things here are poverty-level, unless you are lucky or skilled- and I've been both- no money, no benefits, not full-time. A very economically depressed area. My résumé and client list is A-list (American Museum Of Natural History, HSBC, major league baseball, etc.) and I can't find a goddamn job; I've worked at both the prestige firms in the city that have serious non-local clients- and I'm one of the lucky ones.

Funny thing is, it's not really a bad place. Some of it's downright beautiful. There's a lot of preserved/restored 19th and early 20th century architecture- a lot a lot; it's sorta known for that. A lot of green space in the city proper, never mind outside. It is not an ugly place; the cost of living is very low. A good art scene, an excellent orchestra, etc. It's not a backwater, as much as people here like to bitch. There is culture and beauty here. There's just no money to be made. It is a bit provincial, and the sort of place people are from (and often return to), but it has its merits. At the same time, were it not for my band and my roommate, neither of whom I want to screw over and the former is doing well for itself- I'd leave here in an instant with whatever I could beg, borrow or steal. Well, not the last bit. (Hell, my mom even floated the idea, and they're very Cold Places In Europe family-oriented, where I am not. I've never seen Iceland or Poland in person. I am an urban creature by preference though and it is also the nature of my work.

About the mice- eew. Leave it sit for a bit and it will go limp; it will not permanently stay like that. At the same time... Yeah, there's a chance. You may need to get in there with something to pry open the top bit that's holding the head of your dead rodent in place. I don't think you would decapitate said rodent before you would give up trying to remove, but, still, this is outside my area of expertise.

Also, the tail would be bad; there's no leverage there. It is not a pull-string or a handle. This is why you are not supposed to grab domestic critters by the tail (though in a less dramatic fashion); you can hurt them very badly. It's a fragile portion of the anatomy. If you can get to the body, your ex-pestrodent should remove fine. This may require an object to pry said loose, depending on how much room you have.

ugh fuck. I would throw the whole fucking thing out.

I shall make sacrifices to BELT so that hopefully things go better for you both. Well also for Mr Metalfan as well who has had a beyond bad year.

Throw the whole fucking thing out I did. I was not prepared to try to pry open the jaws of a stiff rat corpse, nor am I to wait until it decays soft (wtf?), so basically that was the worst eighty bucks I've ever spent.

Dude, I didn't mean let the thing decompose, I meant get back to it in a couple hours if you were concerned about re-using the trap! I didn't realize it was trapped by the jaw either; somehow I missed that responding? I thought it would be like a normal trap and that the trap itself could be opened to, y'know, remove the dead rodent.

If it makes you feel any better, one year I spent a lot of money on trees for my back yard. $1400 They all dies within 2 weeks and the company that put them in, went out of business.

Oh I see heh... the only way I could foresee its deathgrip on the cable loosening was actual decay so that's what I thought you meant. :p

Yeah, that would be, er, pretty disgusting. Not being an expert on the mechanisms of rigor mortis in rodents, I figured the beast would go limp in short order and could be slid out of the trap if there was a random useless/washable object to open the trap with. Bastard was stuck in there right good, though.

Seeing as this is not an isolated incident, I do think you have a bit of a rodent problem. Leaving might be... Advisable.

ToS just told me that my bass was in his basement when it flooded during the hurricane.

Aw that sucks. Was it expensive? Personally cherished? It looks like it had mad mojo.

Major bummer, Rob. Mojo.

Eh, it was less than $400 I think, but it was my first bass and was hard to find that explorer shaped bass. Despite it's weathered look it played pretty well. Apparently though, ToS said it didn't look too damaged. (Besides how it already looked lol) He said the neck or body wasn't warped but he isn't able to plug it into an amp and test it out or anything so who knows if it's all fucked up on the inside.

Another one of my favorite hangouts and places to see bands bites the dust. It's a pretty big blow for live local music, and touring bands, too; I'm going to see Future Of The Left there later tonight. Its last show will be New Years' Eve.

My shit is haunted. Was running a test, checked all inputs with a 2001 (all worked) and proceeded to check the other 2001 and M179 (mics that had previously not worked on me, and were working now) and went to check a couple cables I had put aside thinking they were busted, and they indeed passed no signal, then I go to test one of my newer cables that I'd yet to test. SHIT DOES NOT WORK. So I go to test the original cable I had used to check all 8 inputs with the first 2001 that got me success, shit ain't giving me nuffin' next go. So I reboot my computer and shit is kinda half working again, and then is not. So I go to reboot again and then NOTHING works. I now have it rebooted yet again, and had the Oktava MK012 setup with the M179 on an acoustic guitar, all setup before loading up Reaper and only the Oktava is working. SO. WTF.

That's jacked up, yo.

Two thoughts: if it'll work in standalone mode- work as a line mixer without being plugged in to the computer- try that. If it does, czech for driver updates; delete and re-install the drivers.

If it still doesn't work, I'd start hassling the folks at Tascam.

Yeah, shit is weird. Still recorded what I meant to though, so it didn't ruin my day thankfully. Ah fuck, I will do that, I didn't even think to just check what the interface is doing.

Rob, let that shit dry out for a while, nice and slow. take the strings off, open up all the cavity covers. It ,ay be just fine after drying out for a while. That is an Ibanez bass right? 85-87? Nice basses. A friend of mine still has one I think, although he was trying to unload one a while back on HC, but not sure if he ever did

Snaxie, sorry for your loss of venue... shit is terrible for us working folks when clubs start closing up.