What's everyone up to right now?

[arewethereyet]

Just got home about half an hour ago. Started driving at 8:30 this morning with a short side trip to The Field of Dreams. Dayam….Wisconsin is a long way from Texas. But the trip was definitely worth it even though I probably won't be able to move tomorrow.

[Rev. Rye]

At Ravinia watching Steely Dan. I wonder if this would be more awesome if Walter Becker was still alive to perform.

[Rev. Rye]

While checking up the So Bad It’s Horrible Film page on TVTropes, I found a curious addition:

Interestingly, musician Peter Gabriel was said to have enjoyed it, but he was under the impression he was watching a rough cut of Say Anything.... note Gabriel asked to see said rough cut after Cameron Crowe asked him for permission to use "In Your Eyes" in the film. Crowe's assistant sent Gabriel a copy of Wired by mistake and Crowe didn't find out until Gabriel expressed concern over the main character dying of a drug overdose. So, it's entirely possible the movie could have worked if it had been about a Belushi Expy instead of being presented as a biopic on the man.

I’ve actually seen Wired and the only things that prevented it from making my Deep Hurting Project list are that A) it was only released on VHS, but never on DVD or Blu-Ray, and B) Since my local library no longer has VHS tapes in circulation, it’s not in circulation at all. It is, however, on Youtube, and I think I may make an exception to my “rent from the local library unless you’re on vacation” rule for this piece of shit at some point.

[Rev. Rye]

Went to American Science and Surplus for their annual warehouse sale. I didn't find a lot of interesting shit this time around, but I did get two Bluetooth speakers. One two-watter that looked like a compact, and another 3-watter that looked like a Marshall amp. If only they had one that looked like a Vox AC30.

And because I spent quite a bit of time looking for the Blu-ray remote downstairs and it was just sitting under a rocking chair the whole time, I decided to get some strips of reflective tape to stick on remotes and things I keep losing. Maybe it might help things, maybe not. Apart from that, we just found a spring scale, some canvas straps, duct tape, a tactical flashlight, some kind of button switch, a HDMI adapter, and a resin iguana. Not much else this year.

And this week in the Deep Hurting Project is Kiara the Brave, a movie that's basically a fake mockbuster of Brave. When I say fake Mockbuster, I mean the film doesn't even try to seem similar to the movie it's supposed to be ripping off.





Also, one Youtube channel I follow has been working on a new video for the last four months. The only thing I know is that it's "the story of a person who's given up and destroyed themselves, and the buzzards of the internet took notice" and it's likely going to end up about two hours long. He says it's going live sometime in the next few days. And then I saw this.



Really? Fucking really?

[Rev. Rye]

Here’s something for the slide guitar players on the forum:

As we know, there are three main materials used for guitar slides: I call them the Hegelian triad of the Thesis (hard and heavy) brass/steel, Antithesis (light and warm) glass, and Synthesis (best of both worlds) ceramic/porcelain. I have examples of all three, but as a rule, I tend to only use metallic slides for one simple reason: glass and porcelain are fragile as shit. One alternative has intrigued me, and I’ll let Ry Cooder explain:

"Don't like the sound of [brass or chrome slides], sounds awful. Glass on steel strings sounds a certain way. Steel on steel cancels out so much but it makes a more direct note. It's a more penetrating note that is less harmonic, less textural but it is louder. If you're playing your Les Paul and have your brass slide, you're gonna sound a certain way - like a truck horn. It's kind of interesting, But you can get the same sound I found with a glass slide by equalizing and what that meant to me was that certain harmonic values were being canceled out. I'll tell you a beautiful sound is bone which is an old blues technique-polished bone like a cow leg bone. Whew! That's pretty because it is soft, harmonic and the note doesn't have a center at all. Very spooky, bone gives slide guitar an almost Oriental sound"

There is one maker who uses real bone for their slides, but there’s one key problem: THEY COST FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS APIECE!

So imagine my shock when I looked up what was new on C.B. Gitty and found this. One fifth the price and in my size! I bought two.

So, in less than a week’s time, I’ll be trying this:

---

On another note, am I seriously the only member of AF who does anything interesting in the flesh world? I’m the only one who’s posted in this thread since Labor Day.

[Little lunch]

On another note, am I seriously the only member of AF who does anything interesting in the flesh world? 

I met a lovely lady two days ago and we've been fucking like rabbits ever since.

[Rev. Rye]

Okay, I went to the first session of my Business Law class. Looks good, except, well, here's the thing: I'm going over all the classes that could help me with accounting degrees. Here's the thing; the course I signed up for was BUS-222. The one I needed to do was BUS-221. The teacher was shocked as I was that the head of the counting department singled out BUS 221. Why my college decided to have two courses WITH THE SAME FUCKING NAME is a riddle for the ages.

After a few minutes' worth of wondering what I should do, I chose to stay the course. I'm thinking of going through BUS-222 and presumably, 221 will still be available in the future. Also, those slides made of bone are everything I expected, just with the inside a little dustier than I expected. The sound is warmer than my brass slides, and it's a hell of a lot less fragile than glass or porcelain (yes, I impact-tested them both, and by impact-tested, I mean dropped them from above my head to the wooden floor, with good results). And if we can have something like my Edge Slide in bone, that would really be something!

[Jackalope]

I haven't been around much.

I've been really ill. I'm having a bad flare up of a chronic neurological condition. It's been aboit three weeks since I've been able to do much useful work at my job, I've been off about half that time. I nominally worked today but tbh I spent half the day in bed. Work is aware of my condition and I have an office at home, but I am only able to pit in about two hours of work a day before I'm too goddamn screwed up to think. I'm questioning my ability to continue doing this. How long can I keep up the charade that I can do my job? I think about suicide, more in the abstract, but it still bothers me.

Other than that I'm actually pretty good. I have plenty to be thankful for. I really do.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Prepping for a bookstore blitzkrieg in Chicago.

[Rev. Rye]

Today at Restorative Yoga, while I was putting my shoes away, I heard something that sounded like a duck screaming. As soon as I was done, I was disappointed to hear this was just a woman showing a video of her toddler playing, and not watching Lars von Trier's new movie on her phone.

On a related note, why the fuck is The House that Jack Built not available on R1 DVD and Blu-Ray?