…as you've never heard them before. Take this stunning performance by Jake E. Lee ![[YouTube]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
with Ozzy, for instance. YouTube contributor StSanders has done a marvelous job with this collection of… "performances"... by famous guitarists.
These are the most hilarious videos I've seen on YouTube. Even funnier are the comments from idiots who didn't get the gag.
Caught on Dan's blog
At 7:30pm, I decided that I wanted to record the new Ken Burns documentary, The War, so I could watch it later. It airs at 8:00pm. My Comcast DVR was mostly full, so I spent 15 minutes tediously clicking through the abominable user interface menus, deleting one recording at a time. As any experienced Comcast DVR owner knows, the more you diddle with the menus, the slower the box gets, and sure enough, my DVR started to slow to a crawl.
I managed to delete everything I wanted, and opened the Guide to plan the recording. I found The War on KQED's HD channel, clicked on the info button, and tried to click the "other times" button to see when all of the series episodes are airing. Nothing. The button simply wouldn't work no matter how many times I clicked it.
I decided to take my chances and set a "series recording", hoping that the DVR will pick up the other 5 parts of the series. I clicked the "record series" button, examined the useless options, and clicked "record".
Pop! Click! Whizzzz!
The DVR spontaneously reset itself, and after 4 minutes of rebooting and authorizing itself, the entire channel guide was "TBA". Which, of course, meant that I couldn't schedule any recordings. Such as The War, about to air in 10 minutes.
At 7:58pm, the channel guide reappeared showing all of the program info. I clicked at fast as possible, and managed to get the series recording scheduled just before the clock rolled over to 8:00pm.
For reference, the most basic functions that allow a DVR to function are:
After neglecting my Takamine acoustic guitar for a few years, the frets became tarnished and dull. Many guitarists would recommend rubbing steel wool against the frets to polish them up, but that's a fairly barbaric way to treat an axe. Not only will it booger up a nicely finished fretboard, but you'll get a million microscopic scratches from the filthy steel wool dust.
A better way is to use a Dremel rotary tool with some polishing compound, as recommended by this web site: http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/fret.htm. I already own a Dremel, so I bought the Dremel Polishing kit and some of the least "sticky" blue masking tape that I could find. The polishing process couldn't be simpler:
The results are excellent, and the shiny frets on my guitar play totally smooth.
Note about tape: My guitar has an ebony fretboard, so the tape didn't leave any residue. However, the back of the neck is varnished, and some tape residue did remain. A simple Dan Erlewine trick removed it easily: a little saliva on a cloth rubbed the stickum right out.
I originally added Google Advertising to this blog simply to have some more dynamic content on the site. The blog is cheap enough to operate that I don't need ad-supported revenue.
However, I dumped Google ads last year as I was seeing too many unscrupulous advertisements. I've now replaced the Google ads with Amazon Associate widgets. I'm using the "Omakase" type, which basically customizes the ad panel based on what you, the reader, have recently browsed at Amazon. Hopefully, this will create some meaningful, and less shady, content.
And for those of you who read via the RSS feed, the feed remains ad-free.
I've seen a lot of creative and sometimes hair-brained schemes for publishing PowerPoint files to a web site. But if a timed sequence of static slides works for your presentation, a simple animated GIF is a cheap and easy way to go. The free ImageMagick command line tools make it straightforward.
convert" to convert the images to a pixel size suitable for your web site. Ex: convert -geometry 540 Slide*.PNGconvert -delay 1000 -loop 0 Slide*.PNG presentation.gifThat's it! Upload the GIF to your web site and add it to your page normally.
If you're in to the Tube Screamer sound for your guitar playing, the bargain pedal from Ibanez is the Tone Lok TS7. At around 40 bucks, it has the same circuit and IC as the more expensive $100 TS9 Tube Screamer and the ridiculous $170 TS808 "Tube Screamer Reissue." (I'm personally not a big Tube Screamer guy, but at $40, it is a nice pedal to play with.)
20 years ago, I used an Ibanez distortion pedal called the FC10 Fat Cat. I preferred it over the Tube Screamer because it had the same gutsy feel but with over-the-top distortion.
The Tone Lok TS7 has a "hot" switch on the top of the pedal, and when activated, it sounds exactly like my old Fat Cat. I even A/B'd the two pedals in my rig tonight, and the similarity is amazing. The Fat Cat is long discontinued, but it appears to be alive inside the bargain TS7 Tube Screamer.
I went to the Steve Vai show at the Fillmore last night. Most self-respecting guitarists can't pass up the chance to see the spectacle that is Steve Vai. And a guitar spectacle is was, but not just from Vai.
As the roadie crew was setting up the stage after the opening act, a tall, lanky, cowboy shirt-wearing Joe Bob Briggs of a young man bounded out on to the stage, grabbed a half assembled mic stand, and under a mop of Texas-sized hair said, "Hi, I'm Zach, and I'm going to play some guitar songs for ya." Without any stage lights, PA, or sound mix, and with the Vai roadie crew wandering around the stage with cables, stands and such, the kid plugged a strat into a twin on the right of the stage and proceeded to rip out the most wicked amazing ultra-energy chickin-pickin' electric blues imaginable. He must be seen to be believed.
With his no-frills all-energy stage performance during the Vai setup, I think half the audience was wondering, "Where did this kid come from?" The other half of us were in awe, wondering, "Where did this kid come from?".
Watch out for Zach Wiesinger. Wow.
I watched the Tenacious D in The Pick of Denstiny DVD last weekend. Funny flick, if you like the Jack Black rocker shtick. And if you have a dts-capable sound system, as I do, you must hear the dts audio mix. Wow! As usual, the dts mix sounds incredible compared to the DD 5.1 mix, with hefty, well-rounded bass coming from the mains and surrounds in addition to the sub.
Whenever I get a new DVD from NetFlix, I always hit the options screen with hope of finding a dts audio option. I sure wish the list of dts DVDs was longer.
I received a much-coveted MXR EVH 90 Phase Shifter pedal as a birthday gift. Wow, this pedal really rocks! You can totally get the Van Halen Atomic Punk sound, as well as crank up more modern "spacey" phase shifting. And more, the phasing is so clean that I've decided I can use this pedal instead of another rotary speaker emulator for clean jazz playing. I only wish the power indicator light wasn't so thermonuclear bright blue.
But finally, with the pedal on, I can play Eruption perfectly!
Yeah right… ![:-\](/images/blog_buttons/disappointed.gif ":-\"){kind=small}
