after a year and a half of being unemployed, marginally employed, and contractually-but-not-permanently-employed-at-cut-rate, i am now FULLY employed by the university of maryland as an engineer technician looking after a lab complex full of mad scientists. i run the equivalent of the terrestrial death star minus the planet exploding beam, that i'm currently aware of. my compadres are awesome. there's a pond and a greenhouse, and about 450000 geese. i think they're all droids.

i have insurance, retirement, a commute through rurality, and i can ride my bike through said rurality with my boss, who is also a hoss bike racer. my desk overlooks a pond full of droidgeese.

it feels weird to be an economic entity again after NOT being for so long. life IS NOT buying stuff- but it can be pretty stifling to feel guilty sustaining basics.

i can't even quite wrap my head around the idea of allowing myself to buy nice things for myself again, nevermind the stuff i NEED.. like brakes for my truck or tires.. i want to go find a 504 and destroy some small building with it... and fulfill my dream of owning a BK5a. and more channels of interface. and building my garage into the drum recording paradise of the east coast... and and and.... just glad to be employed though. what a mental clusterfuck to NOT be able to find sustaining work for 18 months..

Dan, all that shit sounds wildly fantastic. Working at a school seems an interesting prospect. Any place that is magnetic towards smart fired-up motivated young folks would seem to be a potentially inspiring/healthy place to put one's self.

I fear you may be correct.

11 sleeps til I get on the (currently one way) plane to Canada

Will I have to start saying aboot and eh?

At metal gigs here it's usually a given that bands will share some equipment. After all, metalheads are poor and often don't have a vehicle. Plus it's good camaraderie, the metal scene etc. This band that is playing after us this Saturday won't share shit, not even a goddamn mic stand. So I'm going to be getting my entire drum kit, some guitar cab, some backline, out there... somehow...

They'll get what they deserve. They're a shitty band driving an hour and a half to play last. No one's going to stick around for them.

I need a car! I need a car so I can join a band! I need a band so I can pissed at the singer, best buds with the drummer, and annoyed with the bass player.

PS: I'm expecting a slight drizzle tomorrow

Yeah, probably

Changing the strings on my Floyd Rose for the first time in my life.

This might take all night.

I now have a proper picture response any time any of you bitches are throwing me attitude;

Yo, just do them one at a time! Anything else is madness.

That's the plan. :thu: Sometime though I really should take them all off or something, because the bridge pickup hole needs some drilling still...

When I helped my mate change his floyd rose strings it wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it'd be.. blocking off the trem helped a lot.

Well, it's done. Now my practice sessions will turn into recording direct to interface sessions once I have achieved 'warmed up'. I'm talking about that Dimensions Divide shit.

Finally made some songwriting progress...by staying up until 7 AM.

Stick a 9V battery under the trem.

Wire up 3 9v batteries to the trem in series.

I always found my trem to be less abrasive when I wired up the batteries in Parallel.

Also, FR trem and not as bad as they seem. I used them exclusively for about 10 years except for recording rhythms, once you get used to it, it's not so bad. (I did use the wonderful Ibby Edges...)

Will. Not. Make. Joke. Here. For. Multiple. Reasons.

I never had an issue re-stringing the things; I always did the cut-the-ends-off flip-'em-backwards thing. It's setting the goddamn intonation that I still have no buggering clue how to do. That and I hate locking nuts with the fire of a thousand Hells. Aside from that, I think Floyds are at least worthy enough, for, say, the Taliban.

Okay, it's really just that I managed to make the things go out of tune anyhow, and between the nut and the fine tuners they were a pain in the ass. I exaggerate for dramatic effect.