What's everyone up to right now?

[Fireball]

Getting ready to roast a chunk of beef my wife bought. It's a lousy xmas for her; she has a terrible cold and is mostly sleeping.

[Silver]

Playing DA II on my laptop.

[vorlon13]

+4F outside. Humidity indoors is negligible now so house feels especially cold to EABUC#2. I turned on electric blanket for him. He won't sit under it, regardless of the chill, but he does 'nest' in it. And he definitely can tell when it's on.

I'm somewhat chilled but was active enough today not doing so badly.

Fried some steaks for lunch, managed a medium rare for me, a burnt (well done) for a friend, medium for older sis, and a thoroughly cooked pork chop for another friend who stopped by. (never serve a celebrity Chopped judge raw pork !!) Steaks/chop was from a gift box from seed corn supplier. What I spend on that they'd better send me a spliff once in a while, LOL!

Steaks were good, garlic powder, fresh ground pepper, seasoned salt, zorched in a little oil/butter mixture and served with a pat. Fresh corn on the cob would have been nice, but beyond my ability to invoke these days. Settled for haricot vert, steamed and served with a pat.

A holiday staple, the butt of many a joke, canned cranberry jelled sauce, had a place of honor at the table. A fresh pan of homemade (no mix!) cornbread rounded out the meal. Skipped desert, other than some store bought cookies (Hy Vee M&M) and chocolates, Russel Stovers, all milk chocolates.

Did well enough at lunch not remotely hungry now.

[Edwardo Piet]

Today I will be AT LEAST: Cleaning, drinking hot chocolate and making music. Maybe I will also watch some House and maybe even an Xmas movie

Gonna do my cleaning tomorrow "BECAUSE IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!"

And I haz a sad because only one store was open today and there was no hot chocolate. So I had to just have some snacks and treats and stuff.

Also means nowhere was open to buy an Xmas movie! Haha.

Dunno if I will bother to watch House or not.

Maybe one episode later. Or finish watching the one I half finished last night (I got too tired) . . . and then one more.

Or maybe not.

But one thing is for sure: I HAVE LOVED MAKING MUSIC TODAY!

And I might make more tonight

[Seraphina]

Watching Bizarre Foods and trying not to click on a news website as I'm on a news diet this week.

-Teresa

[Astreja]

For no apparent reason other than "Meh.  Might as well do this," I declared today to be Patch Day.

First I put a layer of plaster on a patch on the living room wall, which had been opened up to run some wiring conduits.

Then I went to the sewing machine and finished turning a T-shirt logo into a patch, which I then put on my knapsack.

Finally I went up to the third floor and did some final-coat patching around 2 new outlet boxes.

Anything else need patching around here?

[KevinM1]

Gazing appreciatively at the Rogue One Y-Wing LEGO set I finished earlier today. Got it for Xmas. Took 5-6 hours to build. Pretty straightforward set, but a ton of little, fiddly detail parts to build and place just so.

It looks pretty cool sitting next to the Poe Dameron X-Wing LEGO set I built a year or two ago. If I had room, I’d get an A-Wing and B-Wing to round out the set... or, maybe, the Rebels’ Ghost.

[Rev. Rye]

Well, I just got around to moving my new amp to my room. And here’s a mock-up of my rig I shot just before I moved it. And yes, the instrument on the right is a new instrument Dad and I just got finished building earlier in the week.



Sadly, my thumb and forefinger were recently burned in a potato-mashing incident yesterday afternoon and still sting (although at least it's no longer hot), so I can't really put my Jazz III between them and pick on my guitar and enjoy it at the moment.

[Astreja]

Good heavens -- Is that an electric cigar box banjo wired up to all those effects?

[Rev. Rye]

Good heavens -- Is that an electric cigar box banjo wired up to all those effects?

Yup. It's a cigar box guitar with a piezo pickup tuned to open G (like a banjo minus that little drone string that doesn't work for me, but it sounds more like a guitar due to the lack of a resonating skin) and it's hooked up to a preamp (built from a cheap preamp that's meant to be built upon a guitar), phaser (for those Leslie tones), an overdrive, and a reverb pedal (which may be redundant since the  amp does have its own built-in reverb, even if it does have to be switched on).

It took a while for me to find a good, cheap, overdrive that still worked well with both acoustic guitars and Vox amplifiers, both of which are picky with the sort of overdrives that work with them. I think I found it with the TC Cinders overdrive. $50 normally (though I got mine for $35 at a sale), transparent (it appears to be the same type of overdrive as a Boss BD-2 for half the price and is even true bypass to boot), and built like a fucking tank.

It's all an intriguing mix of materials that were either homemade or stuff you can easily buy at your local Guitar Center. And also a pentatonic kalimba with a cheap-ass clip-on pickup and just enough notes that it can hold its own on something like "Smokestack Lightning" or "The Twa Sisters."