A Sad Anniversary

Today is the 6th(?) anniversary of losing my Best Friend.

When you spend 13 years with someone and see them literally every day, their sudden loss is one of the most painful things you can imagine.

Marshall the cocker left us, due to cancer. He far outlived the expectations.

He never suffered.

He also never suffered for attention or cookies.

He had an international following online, with a Canadian wanting to visit just to walk him.

He came to work, where my boss took him around to introduce him to everyone. It was absolutely surreal.

I even put together an 'ad' for Marshall amplifiers that compared my Marshall with theirs.

Marshall became particularly adept at removing the lids from Dunkin Donuts styrofoam coffee cups.  Mrs. lefty would be driving down the road, coffee in its holder, and the next thing she knew, the cover would be missing and Marshall was nose-down in the coffee. After she replaced the lid, he'd just remove it again. He never broke anything, just took off the lid. He loved coffee. All 4 rescue cockers loved coffee. Like the rest, he also loved the couch and the bed. He had so many talents and weird habits, it endeared him even more to us. When he was sick, Wife would drive him around at strange hours, which calmed him down. The police stopped her one night, and she explained what she was doing. Within days, most of the local force knew him and would ask how he was doing. He was a force.

Marshall was huge for a cocker - about 42 lbs, none of it fat. He had his own cat, Ren, who would torture him, but you'd find them both sleeping next to each other on the couch. Marshall grieved when Ren passed.

When we first brought him home, he launched into the house and jumped right up on the couch. He was Home. While all of our dogs gravitated to The Cocker Whisperer, Mrs. lefty, Marshal and I shared a special bond. He also made friends wherever he went. When he found a really good person, like my father or BFF, he was all over them. The only thing he didn't like was high-pitched women. We figured he was abused by one.

The vet loved him, but the feeling wasn't mutual. When he passed, the vet made a donation to the large animal university hospital locally, and we got a card, signed by the entire staff of the vet. They said he was like a little human with fur. 

When he got his diagnosis, he saw the vet, as well as an acupuncturist and holistic practitioner. We feel this extended his life considerably. But the most important thing he taught me was to consciously love and appreciate. I did this during his last months. Every night in bed, he'd walk up to me and I'd scratch his ears for a bit, then he'd pick his spot and go to sleep. It was our time.

Marshall passed quietly one night and now sits in a special place, where he can watch over his people.

I will miss him forever.

Dogs (and people) shouldn't get cancer.

Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp, Red Bank, NJ 10-11-22

 For some reason, the driving directions were excellent. It was, as they say, the nut behind the wheel that was the problem.  Well, that and the Neighborhood Beautification Program, that cleaned all those nasty street signs from view. Garden State Parkway has a new program called PAY TOLL EVERY 100'. There was one cash lane, 70 cents, coins only, and you BETTER have exact amount or the Staties will stomp on your vital parts. Route 173 goes East to the show and East coming back. They call it The Magical Highway. And yiz betta not ask why. if you knows what's good fo yuh. You watched duh Sopranos - you unduhstand.

The Count Basie Hall, renamed to Large Corporate Writeoff Count Basie Hall was very nice, in an old school kinda way. Comfortable seats, no bodies on the floor, and the absolutely horrid Cokes were only $3; we were almost better getting one of the 53 beers or wines. In fact, soda wasn't even listed on the menu boards. They like to keep it a secret. It was a nice, medium size hall, similar to The Keswick (Glenside, PA), with a balcony and generally good seating. After the better part of 3 days, we finally hit jackpot: 11th row, slightly left. That's Jeff's main area. If you sat right, he didn't visit you too much.

For the geekballs like me, Jeff's stacks had changed a bit. Where it used to be primarily Marshalls, the Magnatone was up front, sitting on a Marshall turned backwards(?). There were 2 small cabinets facing out, 1 mic'd. He played 2 Strats: a rosewood board and a reverse headstock rosewood board. On the other side of the stage was a tiny Marshall combo. It was roughly the size of the "5". Rhonda Smith, bass, had an Aguilar stack. There was a small keyboard spot and a monstrous drum kit, so large and shiny, it looked like a Judas Priest show was ready to break out. Earlier intelligence had the Irish lady on cello, who toured with him years back, and Vinnie Coliauta on drums. Jeff has had a lot of serious drummers, but Vinnie is in a class by himself.... he wouldn't have played with Frank Zappa if he weren't. Funny, that. As the first note sounded, the first thing I said out loud was, "That's NOT Vinnie Coliauta," and it wasn't, unless he lost much of his mass and adopted a huge head of long blonde hair. I don't know what the keyboardist's or drummer's names were, but I called the drummer Hurricane. She was a mass of long blonde hair. The fan behind her had her hair blowing all over the place and she was more than animated, hence Hurricane. The Cheap Sunglasses would make Billy Gibbons smile. Hurricane was a mass of hair and hands, using sheer physicality to play. In other words, she beat the living hell out of her drums. And she was good. She was a little over-the-top heavy, but definitely a good drummer. She also mimic'd a drum machine several times. Fun to watch and listen to.

Speaking of watching, the audience was old. Gray hair everywhere. And why not - Jeff's been around since the 60s. But there were also some really high maintenance ladies, whose main occupation seemed to be selfies. and strutting up and down the aisles. A few rows ahead, I spotted a tall, pretty lady, with long hair. Wife was having a blast, people-watching. She counted the number of times a couple of them were up and back (There and Back). There is nothing like 50-somethings in black leather, except maybe 60-somethings in black leather. There was one particularly.... different,... fellow who could not keep his butt in his seat. I was thinking about asking Security if he could be temporarily stapled there for the remainder of the concert, so everyone around could see. Minutes later, Wife asked me if 'tranny' was still acceptable. Uh-oh. Whatever the accepted term was, there was a gaggle of them in front of us. How does she spot this kind of thing? I had to ask where. They didn't have it tattooed on the back of their heads. Ever the people-watcher, she said there were a lot of ladies with Adam's Apples. Oh. Just to make the night more interesting, one of them was the tall, pretty lady I saw. Good for her- she's obviously doing it the right way. Very fortunately, I'm married. Because you don't want to find out about that the hard way, so to speak. All in all, it was great to see a sold-out show, with all sorts of people, except perhaps young'uns. 

Jeff did most of a set. This wasn't my favorite Beck concert... it felt a little.... loose. But his worst day is still miles above anybody else. He was mugging it up, pointing and smiling. The playing was pure Beck. It sounded a hair different, probably due to the amp change. Not a ton of pedal-play except for a Leslie-emulator (at last read, it was an H&K Tube Rotosphere - I love mine), a trem, and probably some gain. The keys were a minor concern, at least according to the sound guy. They came up a bit more when sequenced bits were needed, whether or not they were sequenced. I have some video of a few tunes, including my favorite: Cause We Ended as Lovers. Funny, my phone has no trouble with blasting audio, but good luck with pictures. In the 11th row, we had an unobstructed view (except for staple-ass) and it was clear and crisp. On the camera, it looked like we were across the street. I'm glad I got the phone with the good camera. Everybody around me had no trouble.

Jeff then made a rare trip to the mic, mumbled a bit, and Johnny Depp came out. The audience went apeshit and stood throughout the rest of the set. His performance was pretty close to the album - he's not a bad singer. Unfortunately, this was a Jeff Beck concert (for us), so this was an interruption (sorry Johnny, it's your (pl) album). He had the whole bandana, hat, rings, stances thing down, which thrilled the audience to no end. It was kinda like a Springsteen concert: Bruce could stand there and defecate, and his fans would scream in joy, then faint. Depp left after a few songs, and the focus went back to Jeff. The stupid buggers in the audience only stood when Depp was on the stage, not when the master of the strings was solo. A Day in the Life was wonderful (won a Grammy!). Eventually Johnny came back, causing the ladies to go apoplectic, and stand again. Mrs lefty can't stand long, so we sat and watched the concert through everybody's phones. There was a single encore and we were off, once again touring New Jersey, due to lack of street signs. They played the previous night too, which was a first for Jeff, but I wonder what he thinks of his 'new found fame' now that he has a famous acting/divorcing/musical cohort. I think someone screamed a marriage proposal to Hurricane, the drummer, much to Jeff's amusement. After they left, a poor roadie came and collected everything that was lobbed up to Johnny onstage. This is probably his only function. In the Tom Jones tradition, there were probably hotel keys and phone numbers. And condoms.

Johnny Depp is the luckiest man on the planet. Good actor, lady-magnet, and now gets to play with Jeff friggin Beck. They'll probably write him in for president in the next election. And it was nice of Jeff to play in his band.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening. Great seats, great musicianship.

Songs were spread throughout his career, starting at Blow by Blow (my favorite album), 2 from There and Back, Guitar Shop, nothing from Wired, and a few more recent tunes. If I were better with names, I'd list them. 

We will not miss him whenever he's near. It was a 2 hour drive. I might've stayed home, but Mrs lefty insisted. When non-musicians will do anything possible to see great musicians, there's something there. Eric Johnson is her favorite and she loved Robin Trower recently, without knowing a single song of his. I knew she was mine at her apartment, where I found a Jeff Beck album in her pile.

the mighty Rhonda Smith, soloing

"Hurricane" with Cheap Sunglasses

isn't that the pirate guy?

Jeff Beck, playing in the Johnny Depp band

Eating Pizza with a Spoon

 

Your love is like  cyanide chocolate bars, also available in a child-friendly juice box

The recovery of thousands of heart attacks and various cardiac and nerve maladies has been greatly helped by the announcement that Elon Musk won't be buying Twitter. I'm kinda disappointed... not that I'd wish an exploded cranium on anybody, but it was kinda funny to watch. Twitter has announced that they will continue their mandate of only allowing the speech they deem correct.  I mentioned this was coming. The second funniest and first most hypocritical part is that Twitter is suing Musk for not buying it.

Today I identify as  an abortion pill

Werk has another interesting course: discrimination training.

I have never discriminated against anybody, and I'm not going to take training on it. Nor am I going to take sexual harassment training: I could teach the damn course. I am frequently reminded it is not a HOW-TO.

Quite frankly, this pisses me off. Quite frankly, it will have to stand at the end of the line of things that piss me off. It's a frightfully long line. I don't need these stupid courses, nor do my workmates. It's insulting. I have never worked at a more integrated company and have seen zero negative interactions over my years. People are actually capable of getting along. Save the classes for those who don't. Unless this is one of those ridiculous mandates or Wokeness. I freely admit I only discriminate against the Stupid, but thus far, there's no woke term like 'stupidist.'

Today is the 4th anniversary of Marshall's passing.

If it can be said that a dog is man's best friend, then Marshall was definitely mine. He wasn't so much a dog as a force of nature. He didn't do a lot of dog things, though. The vet referred to him as a little human in a dog suit. He had friends in other countries. He was a best friend and pet-by-proxy to our neighbor: she would garden and he would move around and lay near her. It wasn't even because she threw hot dogs over the fence. He could remove the top from a styrofoam Dunkin cup faster than you could look down from driving, and he'd be face-down in the cup, sucking up as much coffee as he could. If you put the lid back on, he'd just take it off again. He sent social media posts to Marshall amps and Sass Jordan, among others. He was a star at the vet's, where everybody would stop what they were doing to come say hi to him. He knew who the good people were and would jump in their lap (all 44lbs of him). He was our 3rd rescue cocker. You can read more about him via the Marshall button up top.

He succumbed to cancer, much later than the vet gave him. He was never in pain.  The vet made a donation to the UofP Vet Hospital in his name. One of the things he taught me was to consciously appreciate what you have. His remains sit up high on a shelf, so he can overlook things. I miss him all the time. 

I shoulda known.

I have this little usb dongle for my mouse. When the laptop is sitting on my (wait for it...) lap... the dongle irritates me. Now I simply take it out.  Unfortunately I don't remember to remove it when it's in the office - I remember it when it's in the living room. Sooooooo.... it winds up alone on the coffee table. This is the worst thing I can do, unless I have a gross of dongles somewhere. A gross of dongles... heh. Try saying that in polite conversation sometime. Try polite conversation sometime. 

The coffee table, like many places in the house, has extremely negative magical powers. It's like taking the dongle, wrapping it inside a disappearing sock, putting it in the car's gas tank, and giving it to a manic shopper. I thought simply unplugging it and putting it on the table, in a very wide, empty space, would ensure its safety. I am a hopeful idiot.

So here I am, on a delightful Monday morning (seriously?), back in the office. Naturally I don't remember I removed the dongle until I'm well into work. You know what comes next, right? I keep grabbing for the mouse, that doesn't work because there's no dongle plugged in. Then I remind myself I have to locate the dongle and grab for the mouse all over again. It's like a Disney movie, except funny. Venturing out to the coffee table, I look in all that uncluttered space (2") and of course, the dongle is not there.

This requires explanation of Coffee Table Dynamics. In theory, a coffee table should not be a territorial acquisition game, like football or divorce. In practice, it is, but there's no scoring and the NFL gets nothing from it. It's not done in graduations - it's all or nothing, and it's never nothing. Stuff expands to take all horizontal space. I have (attempted to) carve out a space the size of my laptop, so I can always put the laptop down if I'm temporarily done with it. Over the years I have asserted my right to a small, laptop-shaped space on the table. Unfortunately, one does not simply acquire space, one must also defend it. Just because the space is there, does not mean it shall remain, sacrosanct. The open space is simply too much of a magnet for Shit, which simply gravitates to it. This is my explanation for it: I'd rather not think that anyone else in the house piles Shit there when I'm not looking. It's frequently remotes, which is odd because someone's always asking 'where's the remote?'  In fact, sometimes I put the laptop on the table and find a remote on top of it. I'm thinking about a way to electrify the keyboard so anyone touching it gets a nice little ZAP. But it's pie in the sky thinking.... nothing will keep Shit from forming in empty space. Sometimes it's mugs or glasses, which presents a different problem: you cannot simply push a mug in this house. Physics dictates when you push the mug, it will move. Not in this house. The Scientific Method has proven that when you push any mug or glass, it immediately tips over, generously spreading the goodness of whatever was in it, all over the table and things it shouldn't be spreading into. In thinking about it, we should put a paper towel dispenser on or under the table, for our many accidents.

I guess we could discuss the issue, but first we must figure out who's at the heart of it. Penny can probably be ruled out; she's only interested in the table when there's food on it. She will stand on two legs and walk around til she finds it. I jealously guard my small laptop fortress, so I'm hoping it isn't me. That leaves one person - Wife. She would be a great person to speak to about this, but I must balance the need for empty space with the need to have my ass not chewed out. Besides, when I tell her I need the space, she agrees, then the remotes pile up there anyway and she doesn't remember the conversation. This is when dissociation comes in handy.

I finally got tired of grabbing a mouse that didn't work and got ready for an intensive search of the table. I got my miner's hat with the flashlight, a small LED flashlight that can show you what's going on on the moon, and a big old magnifying glass. After a few cups of coffee, I was more or less sort of awake and had my nose really close to the table. This was extremely brave of me, because one never knows what may jump up and bite. Thank God remotes don't bite. After a few hours I found it! The joy was palpable. It was two feet away from where I put it, which makes perfect sense. Perhaps it had migrated for the season, to a part of the table that has a nicer climate. It was more difficult to find because it was between two pens. Of course it was between pens... we seem to collect pens. We have 457 of them on the table, none of which work. This is where it gets weird(er).. in my office I have one pen. It works. I have a small box of new pens that I assume work. And that's all. They take up precious little room and do nothing to hide dongles. Let me brag by saying there is much (3") clear space in my office and when I remove a dongle (ouch), I find it immediately.

In a few hours, Wife will wake up and ask me what's happening. I dare not explain. It's nice outside and broken bones will not help me mow.  HEY... it sounds like a decent tradeoff....

It's worse than before. Because of the Flying AIDS, businesses have closed. The only relatively new ones are E-cigs and tattoo parlors. Why nothing else? And why is there no pasta in the supermarket? You couldn't buy any spaghetti for any amount of money the other day. They had everything else, at twice the price it used to be. It was sickening. $25 for dog food, and it wasn't the 40lb bag.

People of good conscience are asking themselves why the invasion of Ukraine is still going on. One company has taken the bull by the pancreas and done something: Lego pulled out of Russia. I think this is the turning point.

After its assault on the sovereignty of women's bodies, the Supreme Court is going after gay marriage. At this point, you start to see why the libertarian party is gaining members. You Own You is my contribution to this fracas. People are allowing a body of appointed people to infringe upon you owning your own body. Then they're going after the insane concept that people need the state to marry. I propose a registry where you can record your union, regardless of sex, because it's no one's business, especially the state's.

Why do you need to register your car? You're paying the government to use your own property. It's time we start to question the status quo.

• BMW has stripped a gear and is selling heated seat subscriptions for $18/month (South Korea only)
• odd.. my seat warmer requires that you push the seat warmer button
• BMW also started selling turn signal subscriptions but gave it up when nobody wanted them.

The president of Sri Lanka, Gotabay Rajapaksa, fled the country on a military jet. Asked for commend, Biden said, "Am I still getting my ice cream cone?"

The large amount of outside noise led me to believe it was the Street Refresh, wherein every year the city tears up our street and repaves, accomplishing nothing except work for the contractor. No, it is a junk hauler. They're removing stuff from the (ex) Crazy Lady's house. Putting aside the lack of love we had for each other, this is what her life amounted to.  I watched for a minute, as my 13th cup of coffee was being made, and realized I'm experiencing Existential Agita. Have you ever experienced it?

Diversity in Cybersecurity: Fostering Gender-Inclusive Teams That Perform Better

Stop it.

1. There are many (stock) problems for which diversity will not help
2. If you demand certificates, odds are there's less diversity there. Qualified candidates may not make it past HR
3. There is a terrible shortage of security people. Maybe you need to spend more time hiring than on diversity studies and quotas and Chief Diversity Officers
4. Once again: Hire the right person for the job, regardless of any other criteria

[This is is one of those videos you see after someone dies and everyone is gathered for the reading of the will]

If you're seeing this, I'm dead.

Hi, Mom, siblings, nephews and nieces. Wife too (unless she killed me).

The funny thing is that when I made this tape, I had no idea how my exit was going to occur. Would I be shot at age 92 by a jealous husband? Would my no smoking and no drinking lifestyle lead to cancer? Had I finally managed to hitch a ride on a nuclear device? Did I simply trip, causing my own downfall? Did my emotional support elephant, Iqbal, fall on me? My parents told me I was an accident. I wonder if my death was too.

The smart money should be on me saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Live with no filters, die by no filters. Wife is also a good bet: with the amount of true crime books she's read and shows she's seen, the mafia comes to her for tips. So the answer depends on whether or not my body showed up. I'd prefer a closed-casket funeral anyway, as most who know me would. With my luck, I'd get wheeled around on the retarded casket wheels, just like the shopping carts I always got.  Screech, screech, bump bump, stop.

My wife specified cremation when she goes. She used to specify it a lot for me when I was alive. She made sure our ashes would be in different places, so she wouldn't have to put up with me for the rest of eternity. Cremation was only a warm up, pardon the pun, for where we were going anyway.

I lived a good life. No I didn't. I lived a tortured, depressed artist's life. The saddest part was that I never went anywhere with my (alleged) art. I didn't even cut off any of my body parts. I spent every day over 25 sick about my hair loss. They say it comes from the mother's side, but she had a full head of hair. Medical science could make penises useful for four hours, but not hair grow where it stopped growing.

I don't want to mislead you into thinking there was nothing good in my life. I had some damn fine pizza. Some guitars. And... uh.... you know....  other stuff. I was married once, but multiply. How do you phrase it when someone with multiple personalities has multiple orgasms?  (YAY?)

Is my hand attached to my junk for some reason?

Now, to what you greedy bastards are all here for:

I leave my collection of nose hair to the IRS, who never knew I had it. The joke's on them - it's not all my hair.

[laughing] You thought I had money? Here, have a hoagie and a soda.

It is truly sad I won't get to see everybody fighting over the guitars.

I leave my house to my nephews, with the proviso they let Wife live in it til she needs diapers. Wait til those little bastards find out how much it costs to run a house -even when it's free.

my Telecaster goes to Keith Richards. He's a lot older than me, but refuses to die. 

To my wife, I leave the greatest present of all; my death. 

Will someone please let the dog in? Thanks.

Yearly Appreciation

 It's been 3 years since Marshall the cocker left us.

We still think of him all the time.

You can't be with someone every day for 13 years and not have an attachment.

He was named after the famous black amplifier stacks you see behind a ton of musicians. 

He walked in the house, jumped on the couch, and was ours. Someone had abused him but he had an incredible life with us. Sometimes he'd come to work to pick me up. One day my boss grabbed his leash and took him around, introducing him. It was delightfully surreal. He had lots of fans.

He loved his house and family, slept in the bed, and was almost physically attached to his mommy. He sometimes slept like a parachute over her head, on the pillow. Like all cockers, he was nuts and had abandonment issues. Like his parents, he had his own style. Every night we had our 'routine'. In bed, he'd come up to me, I'd scratch his ears for a bit, then he'd go to sleep.

He was very fond of Dunkin coffee and figured out how to get the lid off the styro cups. This was somewhat frustrating while driving because you'd put the lid on, hit the gas, and he'd take it off. This would go on until the cup was hidden or he finished it. It never affected him.

One day he paid a visit to a psych ward. The change in the entire ward was stunning. People with serious problems came running to pet and sit with him. Everything quieted down.

He had aunties online, including one from Canada. She wanted nothing more than to come to the US and take him for a walk.

Like all of our pets, he followed his mommy around. If she had a bad day and had to be in bed all day, Marshall was in bed all day. I didn't take it personally. She's the cocker whisperer. All of our dogs are like this.

He had a brother, in the form of a cat. I thought he didn't care, but it turns out he did. When his cat died, he went into mourning. It was so sad.  

Shortly after, he was diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months. We got him all sorts of non-invasive and not painful treatment. He got acupuncture, which he was good with. He stayed with us for another 2 years. He was never in any pain - that was the main criterion.  He was a celebrity at the vet's office.

The world seemed to stop when he did.

We were stunned when the vet made a donation in his name to the UofP Vet Center, the vet hospital in Philly.

He resides in an honored place, where he can watch over the house.

It's not enough.

The Dude pedal [Guitar Content Only]

A very popular and incredibly expensive amp [Dumble] is sought out by many guitarists, until they learn the price. The last one I saw was listed at $50k, but I've heard that's not the most expensive. Users include Stevie Ray Vaughan (not anymore), Robben Ford, Larry Carlton, Ben Harper, and others. Dumble did some magic with the preamp to make a tone that's distorted at lower volumes and sounds great. You're not likely to get a new one these days, so others have stepped in, including Bludotone, Two Rock, and others, including Ceriatone, where you can get yours in kit form or magnificently built.

Carlton and Ford realized it was expensive to tote amps around Europe, so sometimes they found other ways. Ford used the Zendrive pedal, which is available in a few different forms and versions. There are so many Dumble-like pedals, it's near impossible to decide. Even the very cheap knockoffs can be had for well under $100. Here's where your work comes in: you need to research the pedals, whether locally, loan, or YouTube. YouTube is indispensable for hearing equipment. Whatever it is, someone put several demos on YouTube. The best video, in my opinion (it's my damn blog), is That Pedal Show's shootout of 7 pedals claiming D-tone. Let's ignore the fact that none of us have Dumbles and we may not be able to identify the tone. The guys thoroughly go through the pedals, that range from about $140 to about $600. The funniest/saddest entry was the combination of the Blues Driver and GE-7 Equalizer, which got them into the general neighborhood. The pedals were all pretty good, but I liked The Dude; for its similarity and tone in general.

At this level, we're subject to the 80/20 price/performance triple-tone Special Rule<tm>. This is where all the pedals sound great and close to their mark, but how much more are you willing to spend to sound the closest? I couldn't rationalize $600 for a pedal, so I waited for a good deal on a Dude. The Mad Professor Simble is another winner, to my ears, just from listening on YouTube. The aforementioned 80/20 price/performance triple-tone Special Rule<tm> also demands you look at the input and output jacks. You have to see whether they're on the front or the side of the box... this determines part of the tone*. I'm not going to give it away - do the research.       * I made that up

Special mention to Wampler. Everything I've seen of theirs is high quality and sounds great. Their entry was the Euphoria.  Let's not even speak of the Marshall pedals... tons to sound like every version of Marshall. Hint: listen to the MI Audio Super Crunch Box.

The first thing I noticed was The Dude was a lot smaller than I expected.
I have no idea why I expected a larger pedal, but there it is. I like big pedals - they're much harder to fit on pedalboards, and cause other guitarists to have fits. If you can't cause fits with your pedals, you have to do it with your playing. I am doubly talented, in that I can cause fits with either.  The pedal is also very solid, which is great as a weapon if the crowd (or other band members) attacks. Because The Dude traveled so far to get to my house, I let it sit in its box for 24 hours, to settle in and adjust its mojo to my house. If you play it too early, it may not have its mojo set yet, or use the mojo from its prior owner. Do you really want a pedal with mojo from Utah? Well, maybe you do... Utah is run by the Mormons, but consumes the most traffic from Pornhub of any state.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, Duding.
I assume you can power the pedal with a battery, but I wouldn't bother. It could take a week to get it open. Who uses batteries anyway? Ok, Eric Johnson prefers his batteries at 7v, but we're not Eric Johnson, are we? [If we are Eric Johnson, send me a message - we have things to discuss.] The pedal is black.. I hope I don't offend anybody by saying that. The writing is white, and I don't imagine it will show up well onstage. Since I rarely get onstage, it's a moot point. My wife would prefer a mute point.

I've been playing guitar since after the Moon landing, and I've collected huge amounts of Goodies. Naturally this means there is not a 9v adapter in the entire house. I think they hid when they heard I needed one. I just bought some other pedals and I know they needed adapters too. Nope - not one. So I discovered The Dude accepts a 9v battery, because I had to take one out of a different box, because we have no 9v batteries either. Do you see where this is going? I keep watching stuff leap off shelves at my wife. We're calling an exorcist later this week.

Fortunately The Dude works. I know this because the green light glowed. I never paid attention to LEDs until I got a Danelectro pedal with a piercing blue LED. The blue ones sound better than the green ones. Don't let anyone know I told you so. It will be our little tone secret, ok?

The YouTube demos get you the general idea, but you really have to play with something yourself (NO, don't do it) to get a real idea of how it handles. Let's start with the SRV fans: if you're buying this pedal to keep the gain all the way down and the volume up to overload your amp, you are going to be very disappointed. The volume control is heavily dependent on the gain control, so by the time you get much output, you have too much gain to cleanly overdrive your amp. This is the single warning I can pass along, but if you were that concerned, you'd have already bought a Tube Screamer, or one of the 666 variations of it.


Now for the fun part: the moment you plug in til the moment you have to be torn away from playing. This is a seriously fun pedal. Again, I have never played through a Dumble, but this pedal stands up well on its own. It has a very wide range of tones and way more gain than I thought it would. Forget using it for clean stuff or backing your guitar's volume to 2 - you'll just get less grit.

The Dude has 4 knobs: volume (volume), treble (treble), ratio (boost/gain), and deep (thick). They do more or less what you'd expect them to do. Deep is something you will need to play with. After playing around, I kept it at 9:00 because the tone got too 'large' above that setting. It probably wouldn't record well any higher.  Most of your attention will be focused on the ratio control. It goes from Smooth all the way to Too Much. I wound up with it around 9:00 too. It starts with a smooth, silky tone, which the treble control can do very little to ruin. I test stuff out through my Marshall Code 25 because it's tiny, solid state, and some of the presets are anemic, to be polite. If it sounds good through this, it will love my real Marshall and Fenders. The tone is large, brown-ish and smooth overall. It gets larger and way distorted as you turn it up, but still brown-ish. I think the key is not to crank the treble knob. In fact, it's almost too heavy (for me) past 12:00. It's fat and chewy at all levels. It doesn't sound like any pedals (or amps) I have, and I have a few. It's hard to give you a 'sounds like.'  It's more of an overdrive than anything else, with gain to spare.

Bottom line: buy the damn thing, used or new. If nothing else, it will give you a large, smooth tone to add to your palette. With a little tweaking, it will make you Larry Carlton and Robben Ford (assuming you can play like them). It's reasonably priced (roughly $140+ used, check Reverb) and music to my ears. I hate everything, so when I say something nice, it might be worth checking out. In the meantime, check out the reviews on YouTube.  I want to make my own channel, but video isn't my specialty and I'm too ugly to appear on video, so I'd have to find a good looking person to front for me (Sofia Vergara, anyone?).

If you have any questions, ask in the comments.
I'll post further observations as I play with it more (don't you dare).

At some point, I'll A/B it with the Lovepedal Superlead (dimed Marshall tones). If  I'm feeling particularly prickly that day, I'll A/B it with a phase shifter and a washboard.

Tech 21 Fly Rig 5 [Guitar Content Only]

Through a very silly, long trial, I purchased a used Tech 21 Fly Rig 5.

This thing looks monstrous.
It's absolutely tiny.
This will cause a problem for large, flat-footed, extremely clumsy guitar players like me, who could trip over a wireless.


That aside, I have some friends who love these things for a fly-in gig or a backup. I don't fly in, but who can't use a backup? Especially the kind of guitar player who isn't playing out currently?

This technology  was a problem for me from the start - I only want to hear it if it has tubes in it and runs into real speakers. But the truth is the truth: this little guy sounds good. It might sit well in a recorded track, especially at 2 in the morning when even your Marshall is yawning.


Features:
DLA - delay (duh?)
Sansamp - their main product, clean to a good sounding classic rock grind, plus reverb
Plexi - their version of a Marshall Plexi
Boost - a variable boost button that works on Plexi or Sansamp

I don't have a Plexi (mine is a Slightly After Plexi) but I like this channel. They have a separate Plexi box available too. It's a hot Marshall type sound. One of the impressive features of this box is that you can crank the pedal up and ease back on the guitar volume, to crank it for leads (either channel). When both channels are off, you're hearing your straight signal.

I tested it with my #1 Strat through a Marshall Cube 25 at living room levels. It sounded good. While I haven't tested it at club levels, I think this will do the trick as a backup, in the event of Total Catastrophe (or tripping over all your cords at the same time). It's also a cool little toy for the living room. The knobs light up when activated, so that should keep you blinky light guys happy too.

To be clear, this device can be used as a pedal, like all your other pedals, or be used right into the board/p.a./recording board.


End of Helpful Review.

Now I will review it like the YouTube guys do:

Oh, look, a box!
Let's open it.
Don't cut your fingers, lefty - you may need them.
Isn't that some box? Built to stand the rigors of the USPS.
Very well-packed.

That was the unboxing.

The 2nd video describes the unit.

We have here a Tech 21 Fly Rig 5. The 5.2 is out now, but this is a 5.
5.2 is prettier, but we use what we gots.  Thanks to Bob's Music for Flying out this rig, ha ha ha.

Setup is easy, right out of the box (see my unboxing video).
The first issue is size. It's so small, my python boots can hit most of the footswitches at once. Because of this, I'll be going to the Footie Socks - the ones with a spot for each toe.  They make the tone better, plus they freak out the dog.

For our test today, I am filming this with 4 iDevices, spread around the house, because iDevices are special, and so am I.

My signal chain is nothing special: a  left handed 1977 antigua Strat, with 2 custom-wound Duncans, and in the rear, a JBjr, wired for coil drop. The trem is blocked with ash, due to density. I always use 2 different cables: a crappy coiled cable and a Music Maker $95 ROCK cable. I always put the crappy cable first, for acoustic reasons. I ran it into my Marshall 1987 from 1974, with the channels jumpered, a post phase-inverter master volume, and Jose Arredondo's fingernail, taped to the output transformer. This goes into a 4x12 Marshall cabinet, with all original greenbacks from the early 70s. I use a SM57 and Telefunken U47 (with leather) to mic the cabinet, then take it through 2 discrete Neve channel strips, where I send half the signal to a Studer 24 track analog machine and the other half to Pro Tools, run on a Cray supercomputer. I'm telling you this because everybody has this setup at home, so you'll know exactly how it sounds.

I'm going to add a little phase shifting, to confuse your ears and completely screw up the demo. When I turn the phaser off, I'll turn on my Dan Armstrong Green Ringer, which will have the effect of making you think the video is broken.

Most importantly, I will smile vacuously and use my whammy bar to excess. Your girlfriend will come into the room and ask when he's always wanking on that thing. Your pets will flee.

And that's my demo.
Thanks! See all my other demos. Follow me for more inanity.
And unboxing videos.

The AntiSports Speaks

The BLM-ites have been very busy lately, knocking down statues, whether by demand or by themselves. Some cities have taken to removing statues themselves, in the middle of the night, to avoid violence or cow mutilation.

The statues themselves are very angry and meeting this moment at an undisclosed location, under a mountain, in Colorado, where the president goes in the event of a threat. The statues are in the process of getting together their demands, but at this point, they wish to throw stones back at unruly mobs and to spend some time traveling in Europe.

Meanwhile, next on the hitlist is Mt Rushmore. BLM demands all of the existing presidents be removed and replaced with Kanye, Beyonce, Chairman Mao, and Tupac. They say the existing presidents probably thought about slavery once and  they also represent the White Patriarchy, so they must go. Today.



A 30-something man has died from the Flying AIDS after attending a Flying AIDS party.  I keep thinking there was some way he could have avoided this.



I was let loose the other day. My keepers thought it would be good for me to get outside and offend people in-person, as opposed to online.  I took the opportunity, in spite of having to get off the couch to do it. I had only had 2 or 3 naps, so I wasn't in great shape. We were off on a mission of peace, to see Mom and take her out for a milkshake or something, as it was 97. Since it was 97, Mom had taken most of her heavy gear off and was down to a parka (Mom is always cold). Her latest fashion accessory is this... thing... it looks like something out of the wild west, and functions like a mask. Or at least that's what we think it does... Mom's known to do Odd Stuff from time to time.

It was a real treat. We were treated to pouring rain, 50' lines, no chocolate ice cream, the dog and I protesting via barks and lack of masks, and Mrs lefty's ice cream melting down her hand so badly it looked like she just thrust her hand in the ice cream and was turning very white.

And this is why they let me outside today?


A group of 83 millionaires, including a Disney and Jerry from Ben&Jerry's, are calling for higher taxes on the rich to cover the Flying AIDS. In other news, 83 millionaires have been found dead. 83 billionaires are persons of interest



I was just asked to move the thingy thing in the bathroom.
Is it just me?



There is yet another reality contest show, this time around construction. These bright lights have to build something by a certain time.
Construction is extremely important, except when these people do it.
It's only a matter of time til the shows feature getting on the subway, walking to the corner, calling an Uber, and who can get to Faceyspaces first. Let's look on the positive side: none of these shows involve Kardashians. The Kardashians will lay anything but bricks. Or caucasians.



The New York Times says the Flying AIDS lingers in the air.
The WHO is skeptical of this.
Pete Townshend has no opinion.
The Washington Post says it remains in the air but ascends as a 90 degree angle, then bounces off buildings.
Pornhub is skeptical, but always had a thing for masks, mainly of a rubber variety.
The president has wished it all away.
The vice president has prayed it all away.
Amazon will happily sell it to you, along with masks and those little plastic things that hold your shelves up.
BLM says it's racist.


The Wall Street Journal says 'Quit Chrome. Safari and Edge are just better browsers.' Editors say the tech columnist is very sorry and will never again post without his meds.



Pro Tip: if your wife, or any woman, shows you a picture of a newborn baby, the correct response is not "Oh look, a baby." I know this now.

Cutting out these sorts of phrases is a new goal of marriage mine. In order to cut them out, I have to know I'm using them. This is very close to a filter, of which I have none.  Tonight I listened to the stuff I say and managed to avoid phrases like this. Some of you will say 'then you didn't say anything the whole night', but I managed anyway. The point here is that holding this stuff back was painful. It hurt, like watching tv in the bathtub.  I need to find an easier goal and work my way up to being less normal nasty.

What do you say to someone you spent literally every day with for 13 years?
We miss you, Marshall.
Gone 2 years.

It Was 365 Days Ago Today

we lost our best friend, Marshall.
It hasn't gotten any better - only a little less shitty.
We miss him daily. The neighbor misses him daily, as do his aunties, extended family, and far-flung internet folks.

We're thankful for all the good will and wishes sent to us.
I'm still without words for his vet making a donation to the UofP vet school in his name.

I miss our Quality Time, before going to sleep, when he'd stand on my arm and I'd scratch his flaps til one of us got tired.  He was named after the Marshall amplifier. We made up a flyer comparing him to an amplifier, which the Marshall people liked.

In 13 years, we were never apart for longer than my work hours.
The moment we brought him home, he jumped on the couch and it was his. Someone dumped him. They said he was 6 but the vet said 18 months.
He had the normal cocker traits: abandonment and a great personality. Sometimes he'd sit behind his mom on the couch. Sometimes he'd sleep above her head on the pillow. Sometimes he'd walk on my chest while I was sleeping and curl up. If I told him to go back to his spot, he would, but wait til I was asleep and try again. He was way too smart for a dog.

When Mrs lefty picked me up from work, he'd walk through the huge place to my office, stopping to meet his fans along the way. One day the boss took his leash and introduced him to people around the office. It was surreal.

He'd lay outside, where the neighbor would have long chats with him, while gardening. When she moved spots, he moved. He taught her to feed him on command, but didn't understand that going out and barking after midnight was not good. He'd hide in the bushes so we couldn't find him to bring him in. This worked less well in winter, when the bushes were just sticks.

He loved my parents. My mother did energy work with him and he used to sit next to her and relax. He crawled all over my dad, which was rare.

He had his own cat, who'd annoy the hell out of him. When the cat died, he went into mourning for a while. After that, he got diagnosed with cancer and wasn't given long. In spite of that, he went on for a few years, endearing himself to the vet staff and everyone else. When he walked in, the entire staff said his name, like Norm entering Cheers. We received a card with everyone's signature and a few sentences from everyone at the vet's office.

We swore he would not suffer and he didn't. He passed quietly in the night.

I don't feel we'll ever get over him. He was not so much a dog as a little person with fur. And his own cult.


His ashes watch over us from the center of the room
(in case we have tuna or cat food for him)
He thinks Penny is a handful.
He is right.





* no offense at all to Penny, who brought life back to our home. She's a dog, through and through. She will not develop human behavior, but has developed her place and her people. She is the most relentlessly happy dog I've ever met, and a complete sweetheart.

Marshall CODE 25 - further reviewed

I've been playing with the CODE 25 a little more lately, so I thought I'd share my impressions. This begs the question who I'm sharing with, but let's ignore that for now, shall we?

In case you don't get guitar magazines in your cave in Outer Lower Cockerspanistan, you know this is a recent series from Marshall, of solid state modeling amps, available in (I think) 25, 50, and 100 watts, with different speaker configurations. The test box (this makes it sound like Marshall sent it to me for review, even though I bought it just like everyone else) is a CODE 25, which is 25 solid state watts (tube watts are louder [I'm making this up]) into an 8"(?) speaker.

Let me get this out before I continue: Real Men<tm> use tube amps and combinations of 12" speakers. Now my testosterone will remain intact, hopefully til the end of this segment.

DISCLAIMER: this is my opinion; you will disagree. Put your opinions on yer own blog, Chief.  Better yet, leave a comment and we can discuss it like guitar players (children with expensive toys). I have some expensive toys, so my opinions are informed by them and a long time listening to tones. I am not comparing this amp to a hideously expensive vintage amp unless that's what it claims to sound like.

FEATURES
It's small and light. This alone is worth its weight (sorry).
There's built-in effects.
You can control more than is apparent with the Bluetooth app, via your phone. This is both handy and a gee-whiz, blinky light feature. If you have kids, let them play with the volume control on your phone, so that it makes your amp louder - they'll love it.
You can play with quite a few options, including basic amp, several cabinets, and lots of stompbox effects. I have not studied anything, so my experience is just twiddling knobs and seeing what the app could do. The variety of controls is pretty cool, and in theory, should be very helpful in setting up your tones for studio and gigging.
There's an MP3 player input, a headphone output (both 1/8"), as well as an USB connection.
Very bright, easy to read orange display

Warning: 25 watts is waaaay too loud for the living room


APPLICATION
The amp is used as a living room amp, so I'll see it there and continue to play often. The real amps are in the Amp Vault<tm>. There is no such thing as an Amp Vault<tm>, and even if there was, I couldn't afford one. The last amp to sit in its spot was a Fender Mustang I, an earlier version and Fender's offering of the modeling special. It will not leave the house or sit anywhere else.

TEST EQUIPMENT
C'mon - I plugged a guitar or two into it (mostly a Strat). WTF else do you want from me - see how it sounds in the bathtub? With the toaster?

SOUND
This is where the excrement hits the rotating device. I don't have an equal with which to compare it, so I have to put it up against what it claims to do and how it claims to sound.

The amp suffers from some sort of tonal adjustment malfunction throughout the presets, of which there are 99. It's very trebly, to be polite. You'll have no trouble cutting through the din. Unfortunately I don't like this, so there was a lot of playing with the Bass/Mid/Treble knobs. Perhaps it's different with a different speaker in the 50 or 100 watt models, but I'm not going to find out.

There have been serious advances in digital sound and tones over the years. Don't forget - the first digital devices suffered horribly from latency... it took an amount of time for your signal to get from the guitar to the amp (or MIDI device), so there was an appreciable delay. The delay is gone, thankfully.

The amp models in the presets are largely Marshall simulations, as one would expect. They have some resemblance to their namesakes, but not a lot. Usually the presets are the most gee-whiz, over the top sounds you can find, which wasn't really the case here. I have to admit there are some really cool heavily saturated tones, for sitting in the living room and plinking away.

I suspect this would be a good amp to have when you're recording at 1am and have to get some sound to 'tape' with moderate tone. Some of the tones might fit well into tracks, but I haven't tried as yet.

Does it like effects?
No.
Correction: it likes its own effects just fine. I tried a Hughes&Kettner Rotosphere (Leslie emulator pedal) and a Lovepedal Superlead. Ironically, the Superlead is intended to mimic the tone of a cranked Marshall, which it does pretty well (better than some of the amp patches). Gain pedals are just not going to work, whether using a clean or dirty patch, because the amp distortion is all generated digitally, inside the amp, which doesn't operate the same way we're used to with our 'regular' amps. The Rotosphere fared better. I guess if I were into the whole low weight, high convenience thing, I'd use the internal phaser instead, and leave the pedals home.

Is it sensitive to input? Can the guitar's volume make a big difference in tone?
Not really.
I tried a heavily distorted patch that I liked, then tried backing down the guitar's volume. I had to back it down really far and the tone just got skinny and plinky. A less-distorted patch had greater success, but not what I'd prefer to hear.  Some of the patches are sensitive to which pickup you use. Let's say that when you use the front pickup of a Les Paul and the amp sounds like an icepick, you might want to avoid the rear pickup. You also might want to re-engineer the patch.

The amp has a noise gate, which is very tricky to adjust. With a high gain patch, there will be high gain noise (it's physics). The gate starts out adjusted to shut down the signal pretty early, which is a good thing. It's worth playing with, though, because you don't want to shut down too fast.


How does it SOUND, stupid?
For sitting in the living room, it's just fine, thank you.
Against any of my tube amps - NFW.  The amp needs to be more responsive. There's a certain 'give' in a tube amp, where you can alter tone with the way you play and by adjusting the guitar's volume. This is missing entirely. There's no give, no air. If you were to put this amp up against any of my regular amps, you'd hear and feel the difference. There's no dynamics... just a patch. Stated differently, it mimics amps but doesn't do the full impression.

The above is my complaint about non-tube amps from day one.
You can call me a Tube Snob all you like, but why do you think all the manufacturers are trying to make their modern, non-tube amps sound like tube amps? It's part of their advertising pitch - "You get all the tube tone with none of the heat and weight."

Mind you, they've come a long way, and it's perfectly suited as a living room or basic practice amp. If you like the tones, it's just fine for you, even playing live. Make sure you have your patches set up on a footswitch, because you'll need different ones for lead and different songs.

It has long been said that the most difficult tone to emulate is a slightly dirty tube amp - between all out stack and clean. This is absolutely correct and you cannot make that happen with this amp.


LIVE
Would I gig with this amp?
Are you out of your f#&@ing mind?
Obviously I'd need the higher watt version, but that's less a problem than the sound.

I did gig with this amp, sorta. I did one song as a special guest and didn't want to bring a Serious Rig. I instantly regretted it.  The top end emphasis didn't translate well through a p.a. (or onstage).


If you're interested, play one. Your opinion may differ from mine. It may be a godsend to you (and your back).

Don't Let Them Tell You It's Not Personal

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...


Penny the English cocker went to the vet for the first time, and was discovered to have a bump on her butt. According to the biopsy, she has cancer.

Of course she has cancer.
Marshall, our boy of 13 years, died of cancer.
Penny, our girl of 5 months, has cancer.

In case you ever wondered about PTSD, looking at Penny and seeing Marshall and going into a panic would define it.

The English cocker people didn't wait for an explanation and told me exactly what and where the cancer was. Hopefully a removal will stop it.

This poor girl, a stray, doesn't deserve this.
She'd been waiting for a home for a while and has settled in wonderfully, setting things up to run the entire house soon.


C'mon - what are the odds?

We're not through paying off Marshall's healthcare loans yet.

Tech 21 - Guitar Content Only

GUITAR STUFF - read at your own peril


Tech21 is the manufacturer of the famous SansAmp no-amp rigs that plug right into an amp or console. The current series is the Fly Rig, available in basic or different artist flavors. Without even touching the tones, the concept is tremendous. An amplifier/effects rig in a small (12" ?) pedal. A lot of my fellow guitar players keep one of these in their bag in case their amp lets out the Magic Smoke and stops working [Magic Smoke makes all electronics run. If you let the Magic Smoke out, the device won't run anymore]. Some people use these as fly rigs (stop it), where they go to small or hastily put together shows without their amp - they just fly out with one of these boxes. Amp moving costs a lot of money too, especially overseas.

Richie Kotzen has a signature model, which he uses in his everyday rig, into an onstage clean amp. You can't get more authentic than that. He spent a lot of time developing it with Tech21, to their credit.

Tech21 has a page of videos on YouTube, as is mandatory these days. It's great because anyone can hear what they sound like before auditioning one for themselves or ordering one. They're reasonably priced too. And here is where I have a few issues (other issues, thank you). I want to reiterate that these are great pedals and incredibly useful. You're getting my opinion only here.

In the Pete Thorn video, he does a good job demoing the pedal. I'm with him right up until he starts saying it's a great sounding pedal. Pete is a phenomenal guitar player, with a ton of unbelievably good sounding vintage and custom amps. I don't see this kind of comparison as valid. It's not that I don't think the pedal sounds good or works well in a track... it's just the comparison.

In some of the videos, additional pedals are used. I didn't watch the videos to hear how the device sounds with other pedals; I want to hear it by itself. Show me what it can do. Putting a DS-1 in line to sound like Joe Satriani is like putting a Fuzz Face in line to sound like Jimi. Want to impress potential customers? Create the sound with the Fly Rig itself. No, you won't nail Van Halen's Unchained without the external flanger, but that's completely forgivable.

Now that I've given my personal opinion, let me give my personal opinion (on the viability of a Fly Rig in my rig) (sorry). I'm not what you'd call a working musician, as most musicians aren't. However I'm a pretty well-equipped non-working musician. Instead of buying Nice Stuff all my life, everything went into gear. My amps run from a real tweed Champ to a 74 Marshall half stack. I have some concept of tone, and it tends to line up nicely with general consensus.

Quite frankly, the boxes don't sound like or as good as amps. Nothing's wrong here, as one cannot reasonably expect a pedal to sound like a Fender tweed Deluxe or tan Bassman. I'm not all that crazy about the sound. However, I agree with many who carry it in their spares case. I also think it's very valuable for recording, in that the tones will sit nicely in the track, as well as not needing to crank up the Plexi at 2am. Further, I would rather hear the amp behind me, blowing sound at me onstage, not through monitors.

Suggestion: you did a great job on packaging the pedals. They're ideal because they're very small, and that's my issue.. I was not born with balance, grace, or the ability to see well on a dark stage. I'd make the pedal wider, so Stage Ballet isn't necessary. As for width, 12" isn't enough (STOP IT!). I'd give it another 6" or so, to comfortably get my huge, flat feet to hit the correct switch. My feet are so flat (HOW FLAT ARE THEY?) they're so flat that NIST uses them as a standard.

***********************************

The Character Series pedals are designed to sound like a specific amp, available in Blonde (60s Fender blonde amps), British (Marshall), and Liverpool (Vox AC30/15), among others. I'll save us a lot of extra reading and say my opinion of these is the same as the Fly Rig: they don't really sound like their name, but they get you in the ballpark and are great as a utility, spare, or recording pedal.

**********************************

The future will bring us pedals that sound really close to the original tone. This is happening in software these days, at least in terms of improvements. Software is somewhat (incredibly) difficult to use in a live setting, so it lives in the studio for now. Well.... not entirely... these Tech 21 products are analog (discrete parts, like they used from the first ever pedal). Digital pedals use software to manipulate the bits and bobs to achieve the desired effect (sorry again).

A big problem in any emulator is emulating vacuum tubes (valves in the UK). It's not easy, but if ads are any indication, tubes are important, Most emulators, pedals, and amps use the phrase "Sounds just like tubes". Another bump is emulating 'sag', which is the positive effect of tubes squashing their power supply. One of the best tones ever comes from tubes operating close to their maximum specs.  So TURN IT UP! has a sound basis in electronics, as well as tone.

If you can't get, can't afford, can't tell the difference, or don't want to schlep large, heavy tube amps, buy pedals. This is probably one of the weirdest non-reviews Tech 21 has ever come across.



As one would expect, cheaper clones, made (way) offshore, are available in many flavors, and have their own YouTube videos.





** go ahead - accuse me of being a dinosaur. If using close to the original amplifiers the pedals attempt to emulate is being a dinosaur... if being very picky about tone is being a dinosaur... if Jeff Beck, Jimi Page, and Frank Zappa are still using/used the originals.... I'm a dinosaur. When El Becko and Page hit the stage without their Marshall tube backline and sound seriously good, it will be time for me to give a serious listen to what they're using. When Frank Zappa hits the stage without his impossibly complex tube rig, I will seriously start to question reality. After the show, of course.

It's January Already

I'm getting a new phone at work.
I found this out today, while completing a software update. Because everyone knows that when you update the software, it becomes moot because you're getting new hardware. I found this out from the Software People, because the employees apparently don't have a Need to Know.

The last new phone I got was an iDevice. I begged my poor boss to get me an exemption. He's gotten very good at humoring me, like my wife and parents. He said perhaps if I got a doctor's note. Since I couldn't forge get a note in time, I got stuck with the iDevice. It's a silly little phone with only one button, which inevitably does the opposite of what you're looking to do, that could be accomplished with a second button. Like... ummmm... what's that called.. oh yeah - android.  Credit where it's due: it has a nice display and the charge lasts a long time (especially as it sits there, not being used). The first time it rang, I was so shocked I couldn't figure out how to answer it.

Now I'm getting a new one. Either that or we're changing carriers or the color we bleach our nose hair. No one seems to know. No one also knows what kind of phones they will be, although most Techie-Types are hoping for androids. The people who have personal iDevices get 'that look' in their eyes, signifying they're about to go full Judge Judy on me. Knowing the way my employer works, it will be a Windows 10 phone (sound of people leaping off tall buildings).

• Speaking of phones, our darling dog is displaying all sorts of new, interesting behaviors. She now whines when her mom leaves, which is turning into screeching. No bath poofy scrubby thing is safe from shredding. This is a little strange because we didn't know we had any poofy scrubby things.
• Her first vet appointment is this week. Her first day of obedience school is next week. I can't go because obedience school is afraid of me.
• Recently Penny saw her first snow. She came in, shook herself off, and declared she wanted to go back to her foster mom, where it never snows.

Perhaps because of the weather, the inside of the house has been free of ants.

Perhaps because of the lack of ants, there has been a lack of polar bears and the rare Elephant Squid. 

Further chats with our good neighbor have been enlightening. She talks about the time she used to spend with Marshall, even when she wasn't feeding him. Apparently both have cataracts, although hers are getting fixed (and he doesn't have them anymore). They used to sit outside and keep each other company. I had no idea. She misses him too. She was shocked to meet Penny, who isn't black  like the last three. And she has a longer snout, as English cockers do. She says Penny's really nice, but not 'her Marshall.'  I don't even know what to say.

• After the Australian universities banned sarcasm, the Special SJW Squad came out, in no uncertain terms, against mince pie. They threatened to take the bones out of their noses if the world continued to sacrifice the lives of those poor minces.

Colleges, Identity Politics, Victim Culture, and Safe Spaces
If you think professors are liberal, try school administrators. Op-ed in the New York Times vs microaggressions, understanding white privilege, and the right not to hear anything that upsets you, Victim. This is some sick stuff, and it's happening on your local college campus.

• The shopping season is here! Remember these tips before you shop online: Don't.

There is something very tasty about network cables. I have no idea what it is: ask the dog. This also applies to phone charging cords.

Speaking of charging cords, newer phones are coming with USB C jacks, which won't allow you to use your old cables (USB micro). Some clever person came up with adapters that use your existing cables. Even better, they come with little attachment bouzokis so they won't get lost. Sheer brilliance (thanks to the Linux People for the idea).

While you're shopping for adapters on Amazon, remember that you can buy products from Oprah's Favorite Things. Because the horribly wealthy ex-talk show host who gave away cars obviously knows what you'll like. You have so much in common. I kid - you just reflexively buy what she recommends, like her book club. This woman is so rich, every time she farts, it comes out as money. She lights her daily breakfast birthday cake with $100 bills because she has to get rid of the small ones. Oprah had a tiny complex built in California (she called it Los Angeles). There was some controversy over the city paying her $100,000 each time the sun came out, but it was put to rest when she assured them it was ok.

• Black Friday has either come and gone or will arrive early, depending on which retailer claims when. The trend seems to favor the early, with Black Friday being moved up a week, followed by Puce Weekend, and Chartreuse Monday. Christmas decorations went up the day after Labor Day. Next year, Black Friday will see another minor bump, to the first Friday after Valentines Day.

A British gang member started shooting out of an apartment window, declaring he'd never be taken alive. The police and the UK version of SWAT - PWAG (Police With A Gun) arrived and surrounded the building. The bullhorns bellowed and negotiations broke out - "Come out or we'll ask you to come out again!" By the end of the day, negotiations stopped, while all agreed that it was getting dark and everyone should go home for the night to sleep. This continued for two weeks: the British are a patient people, who avoid bad publicity at all costs. Finally the gang member fired at the police, who became slightly miffed, which is the most dangerous state available in police, and ordered him to stop it, this minute. Eager to make a point, the gunman set the apartment on fire and died of a 'self-inflicted' gunshot. The police congratulated themselves on a peaceful operation. At no time did they mention guns, because whenever you say guns, the entire population of England runs around in mass panic, puts a bucket over its head, and says how much safer they are with no guns.

Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, America, city employees wet their pants with laughter, because they'd remedy the situation by dousing the apartment with gasoline and dropping high explosives from a helicopter. Ah, the good old days.

• I like to watch UK and Canada tv, to make fun of the accents, yeah? Eh?

It's fun to hang out in special interest groups on the net. I belong to a vacuum tube group full of people who are old enough to have invented tubes. I'm kidding, but they were early adopters. There is a lot to learn and no shortage of genius in the group. Having achieved age, there's a ton of other wisdom. Recently there was a discussion on how to make Bakelite, complete with several methods, cautions, and what happens over time. The current topic is heating the room in which you listen with a tube radio. Yes, it started as a joke, but the full engineering crew was out, working on this Serious Problem. They got out their calculators and punched buttons for all they were worth. Someone asked whether heating the rest of the room kept the temperature steady. Not to be outdone, someone else suggested that for the questioner's area (he looked it up), the temperature was 58 degrees, so geothermal might be the way to go. The plan involved digging down 12 feet, running copper tubing, filling it back up, and running water through it to both heat and cool the room. The only small consideration was the hole had to be larger and deeper than a swimming pool. This was simply out of my depth (Pun Alert), as is most tube information.

• Bulletin for anybody going to Ireland: leave your countersink drill bits at home or they'll be confiscated. Makes perfect sense: you could get on the plane and put it in the drill you're also not allowed to carry. Remember: if you can bring countersink drill bits on planes, the terrorists win.
• Also prohibited: clear tape dispensers with plastic cutters, personal lubricant, artificial body parts (leave them at home), round food, and Sinead O'Connor.
• "Ireland: Even Sillier Than the US"

Speaking of Ireland, a civil war is brewing, after the Irish government passed legislation mandating pronouncing 'th'. For example, 'three' must be pronounced 'three,' not 'tree.' Violence was immediate. The IRA changed its name to the IRS. The US State Department strongly discourages travel to tis area at tis toyme.

(Tis is why I don't have more readers)

• A judge has asked Amazon to hand over home recordings of their Alexa device in a double murder case. 

The court finds there is probable cause to believe the server(s) and/or records maintained for or by Amazon.com contain recordings made by the Echo smart speaker... 

• In a previous case, Alexa recordings were handed over. They were not conclusive of a murder.
• The article is remarkable for what it doesn't say: what Alexa records. It is only supposed to respond to “Alexa,” “Computer” or “Echo”.
• It is absolutely shocking that a listening device installed in your home listens.

Somewhat of a really long time ago (high school?), I fell in with a good crowd, to the surprise of my parents. I met my best friend, who is with me to this day. He was a songwriter and I came onboard (because all the applications for Rock Star<tm> had been filled out). We practiced at his house, where I met his family. His house was a great place because of the people who lived there, most specifically Mom. We spent a lot of time there, because we needed the practice. Mom became a second mom to me; a truly delightful person. Through the years it's always been great seeing her. 

I just received word she was hospitalized and passed today.

Peace, 2nd mom. 

And thanks for all the cookies.

This is a Different Post, Just Like All My Other Posts

Over in England, the Ministry for Measuring Things has noted a 90% increase over last year's sales figures for cassettes. Yes, those things you couldn't wait to get rid of after you got a cd player for your car.

Every now and then I come up with an amazing idea and here's one: I am going to put my entire collection of Vintage Original cassettes on the market. They're worth a fortune! I will even include a few Vintage Original blank cassettes. The reason the Vintage Original cassettes are better is twofold: firstly, they have Vintage and Original in their title; secondly, over time, the magnetic particles have aligned with each other for smooth Vintage Original sound that one cannot approximate with New Non-Vintage Non-Original cassettes.

I won't be able to count my money fast enough. Either the tone of this blog is going to change or I'll stop blogging entirely. On the other hand, the guilt of abandoning the six of you would be too great. I will stay.

Just wait til I whip out my 8 tracks and reel to reel tapes!

• I like my neighbor the schizophrenic. He's a genuinely nice guy, who manages to spend most of his time on the planet with the rest of us. After he told me about the lasers shining on our house the other night, that looked like gun sights, he said he's really sorry and he knows we must be missing our little guy. 

It's a bad time to be an administrator or citizen of two municipalities in Alaska. The Alaskan Borough of Matanuska-Susitna (Mat Su) and the City of Valdez have both been hit with some really nasty ransomware. Let's say a few systems are down, like the electronic door key swiping system, nearly all of the workstations, 120/150 servers, email, property querying, library system, landfill weights and fees application, and animal shelter’s computers. The saddest part of this is that they had to dig out their typewriters. I'm sure there were courses available for the kids who had never seen one before. "Most" of the data is safe and credit card data was not stored there. Over 200 organizations have been hit.

The IT Director said:

I will tell you is that this isn’t some kid in his mother’s basement. This is very sophisticated and well-funded.  It would come from somewhere I believe outside the US. When we call it ransomware, that’s not its purpose. I believe its purpose was to disrupt our way of life.

ThermionicEmissions has done some digging in some very dark places and came up with some information: it's the Chinese, messing with the Russians. 

• Seeing a .DOC, .XLS, .PDF, .ZIP, or .7Z "paperclipped" to an email message should always tell you to proceed with extreme caution. These are the most dangerous extensions potentially used by malware authors.
• Remember: Don't

A Security Dood on Twitter has one smart bulb in his house. He found out the company went out of business months ago. The last settings he made are now permanent because the app no longer works. The Internet of Things became The Internet of Things That Don't Work.

• John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, is in Deep Doo Doo because he used the word 'poof' on British radio (poofter: slang for homosexual). Apparently this is a terrible thing to say. In response, Cleese said Graham Chapman was a poof and dead, so he's a double minority. Terry Gilliam, Python and filmmaker, said he identifies as a black lesbian in transition.
• The BBC has dedicated itself to finding comedy of color, so it's not six white guys, like Python. Because non-white comics are genetically funnier than white comics.
• Hopefully we'll all be alive to see this stop.

If you're a Gmail user, you shouldn't be.

Having said that, they offer a new feature called Confidential Mode. It should be called, more accurately, Sometimes Confidential Mode. Let's say that its somewhat confidential from most, except the biggest culprit last time: Google. Google can save and read all your email. Again. Still. Protonmail.com

• Just heard on tv: Don't put your penis in the cooking stove.

Folks... I hope you don't feel like I'm bleeding all over the blog, but I have to try to get this out somehow. Losing a 13 year member of the family you saw every day is traumatic. We're trying everything to get back to (ab)normal, but only time will help. There hasn't been nearly enough of it yet.

Dear Marshall:
I don't know if you read blogs wherever you ended up, but I'm putting this out there to the Universe.  There's a lot of disruption in the wake of your leaving. It's been 4 weeks but feels like forever. We miss stuff... stuff like..

• not being able to go on vacation. We now have the freedom to go anywhere (which we haven't)
• keeping doors open a little
• your food lady misses buying hot dogs for you and jumping when you bark
• tripping over you in the bedroom
• the shrieking to go out, in, or when you didn't get what you wanted
• Quality Time: when I got in bed and you'd come up and lay next to me, demanding attention til one of us got tired. The best time of my day. Mom was jealous. Was the extra cuddling because you knew?
• hell, we miss running to vets and paying the bills - we'd gratefully do it again for you
• the supervision and assistance we got whenever cooking or cleaning the kitchen
• looking at you and scratching your itches

I wanted to tell you how much we miss you but I think you know; you probably miss us too.

Eels Are in My Head, No Great Surprise to Me

She keeps seeing him out of the corner of her eye.
The kids leave the back door open, in case he needs to get in.
They both keep filling up his water bowl.
The house is quiet. It has only two occupants.
He is mostly functional, until somebody starts talking about him. There is a whole directory of pictures he looks at longingly.
People have been very good at respecting privacy.
The response from online friends is heartwarming.

There are two actual snail mail condolence cards. One is from the good neighbor's adult children. She was the one who he taught to feed him upon command. They sent their best and thanked us for watching out for Mom.

A card came from the vet. The staff who knew him each wrote a message.

It's amazing how one 40lb dog caught so many in his wake.

• Nearly a half-billion Internet of Things devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks at businesses worldwide because of a 10-year-old security flaw, according to a new report. The web exploit is called DNS rebinding, in case you really needed to know.
• Only half a half-billion?
• If you've got a Dongguan Diqee connected vacuum, a vulnerability will allow hackers to eavesdrop, perform video surveillance and steal private data from victims. Pro Tip: don't get your Dongguan Diqee caught in anything.
• Do not put these things in your house or business!
• I told you so.

If the Department of Justice finds out that a business or you are being hacked to influence an election they will let you know.

Make no mistake: hacking of any type is unacceptable.

But if your vote is caused or swayed by social media posts, perhaps you shouldn't be voting.

• Google's ("Do no evil"), new email interface invites all sorts of nefarious actors to send all sorts of nefarious emails. Even the DHS warned them about it. Read and note, please. Get off gmail.

I want you to know that I do not exaggerate the weather. Although it was sunny recently, things have gotten back to normal. From my weather app:

• Google ("Do no evil") registered duck.com.  Why? So anybody who made a mistake going to duckduckgo.com would get redirected to a google search. After Duckduckgo protested, Google removed the autoredirect.

Dear Science: why does Coke taste weird after eating food like chocolate? Can you please do something about it? Thanks.

• There is something outside that sounds like a duck. What does a duck sound like? It sounds like those things you blow to call a duck. Since it's unlikely there's a duck outside, I want to know what it is. The last time I asked Wife what a noise was, she said squirrel. I wonder if squirrel is just a default answer. To keep me from asking other questions.

A Virginia bank was hacked twice in eight months via phishing emails. The bank is suing its cybersecurity insurance for refusing to fully cover the loss. Godammit - we're stupid and you must pay for our stupidity!

• The Wendy Show is coming to Philly!
• Totally unrelated: Did you know that most people slit their wrists incorrectly? They slice across, when they need to slice along.

Let's get to know each other: send me your likes.

Here's my bio, as it appeared in Playboy:

Name: lefty - with a small l

State: Confusion, Chaos

Age: older than you

Greatest Strength: sarcasm. Like I care.

Ambition: yes

Aspiration: Big Rock Star<tm>

Hobbies: disturbing people

Favorite Food: pizza and Mila Kunis, pizza delivered by Mila Kunis

Favorite Activity: sitting

Favorite TV show: Marty Python - I know him

Favorite Car: 1970s Cadillac land yacht: trunk fits 12, 24 if you slice them thin

Pet Peeve: most animals (except polar bears) are right handed

I'm allergic to: mowing

What Really Bothers Me: everything

One Thing I Regret: blogging

Regret Missing Out On: Conical bras and free love

Favorite Sayings: No good deed ever goes unpunished, Don't

Favorite Song: "Sit On My Face, Stevie Nicks"

Favorite Artist: The Anal Intruders

How I Would Change the World: the illuminati would hire me as a consultant

If I Could Be a Tree, I'd Be a:  #1 - the Larch

Coworker Follies #37
ME: I'm forwarding this email because I can't read it.
HIM: I'm not sure what you're asking.
ME: I can't read this email. Can you?
Him: No.
ME: Thank you.
Him: I still don't understand. What are you talking about?
ME: Ask your doctor for medicine.




Two New Jersey radio hosts are suspended until further notice for referring to someone as a rag head. It's not what I'd do in the same situation but I have to step up for the sake of speech and gains.

There's a lot of history here.
Up until roughly the late 70s, radio was pretty sterile. A few hosts were trying to break the mold and get away with things. The big breakthrough was Howard Stern, like him or not. Howard fought like mad to get things on the air that had never been there before. He did battle with his own radio stations as well as the FCC.  He eventually won and went national. Howard broke through and got to say and do things never done before. He won a lot for radio hosts. While he was in trouble with the FCC, there was an unlikely coalition of hosts and others who volunteered to help in the fight. He really pushed the envelope.

For some reason, freedom of speech does not apply to radio and television. I strongly disagree with this policy. George Carlin satirized this in The Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on TV. The FCC is a completely ineffective organization that has proven that they speak for broadcasters, not the people.

While this fight was going on, the place to hear all the really good stuff was watching comedy at clubs and colleges. It was radical and hysterical. It started comedy's heyday. WTF is a heyday?

At the end of the 80s, my band played classic rock and comedy. Then we decided on comedy and achieved success nationally on radio stations, clubs, and colleges. We even appeared on the Howard Stern Show. Things were going well, until we noticed that colleges were pretty weird. No, really? At the end of one show, a 'concerned' student came up to talk to us. He was upset we were picking on women. And Jews. And Jewish women. Oddly, he didn't have any complaints about any other group. He accused us of all sorts of things. We were witnessing the start of Political Correctness. This was pretty odd in colleges, once the forefront of edgy comedy.

You know what happened with Political Correctness. It worked as diligently as possible to make sure all fun was canceled.  Words hurt. They probably kill too. Yes, the Social Justice Warrior was born. It only got worse, and continues to this day on social media and in person.

Now two disc jockeys have gone and offended the PC crowd. Again, I don't agree, but it's important to stand up for free speech, because free speech includes speech with which you do not agree. They went and said something offensive. They ran afoul of the PC crowd. Whatever you think about this, this is taking back all the gains Howard Stern made. Soon we'll be as sterile as radio til the 70s. If this is to be cyclical, we're wasting a lot of time and energy. My wife was trying to take the side of the listeners, saying that making fun of this person's turban was like making fun of somebody wearing a cross. I said that was just fine. No sacred cows. After some thought, she agreed that freedom of speech shouldn't be abridged. She's right, aside from the fact that she agreed with me.

• Last and definitely least, there's a dangerous new drinking game on college campuses. Parents are being warned, as are the children themselves: it's called the Ancient Aliens Drinking Game. You watch Ancient Aliens and take a shot whenever they say "ancient astronaut theorists believe...". Thus far, no one has made it to the second commercial break, 45 have wound up in the hospital, and thirteen are dead. Warn your children. Do not post this on social media or more people will die.

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