Did you hear maracas?

All is right with my 1up people lurking. They all have twitters and there's plenty of podcasts. This is were I let out a sigh of relief. (let's out a sigh of relief).

Futile Pimping (because nobody reads my blog):
Eat-Sleep-Game
Area5
TalkingOrange
Geekbox

So, recently I sold a bunch of stuff, including my crappy LP Junior, to buy a guitar. Specifically an electric hollowbody with a bigsby. I found a 1960's Univox "coily" on Ebay. I remember seeing one on craigslist for an outrageously low price a long while ago. I always regretted not buying it then and there. Maybe I didn't have the funds. Anyways, I put a bid on the one I found on ebay and as I tend to do, I clicked around and found some Univox guitar reviews. I heard lot's of mixed opinions. Some said "yeah I've had this since '68 and it's never failed me." One that really scared me, though, was a more objective sounding one. It sounded like the guy was knowledgeable. He exclaimed to, and I quote, "not get caught up in the whole vintage thing" and "these guitars were made of highly varying quality, questionable woods etc." I concluded that the people that gave these guitars glowing reviews were probably wearing rosy, nostalgia tinted glasses. Needless to say, I retracted my bid.

So, about a day later I went to Rondomusic. Every review I ever heard about Rondo's website had been great. Good return policy, fast/good costumer service, etc. Keeping in mind what I'm looking for, I checked their site out. I have before, but they never had quite what I was looking for. This time I found exactly what I wanted (almost). A Douglas hollow body with a bigsby. Gretsch orange, gold hardware, Grover tuners and those sexy "toaster style" pickups. Recklessly, I ordered it. I didn't like the pointy cutaway, but I said "hey, it'll grow on me." Sleeping it over and looking at the picture every 10 minutes for the past couple of days, it's not growing on me.

What a beauty. Still, that pointy cutaway! Omg... and it only has 20 frets wtF!

I read reviews on it, or rather it's Bigsby-less counterpart, and they were all good. Something has to be wrong with me. Do I just have commitment issues? Am I not a strong decider? Or do I just make frivolous decisions? Maybe all three.

I wanted this guitar because It's not a strat, or an LP or any of these other big name guitars that have an image and legend's "stank" on it. Epiphone Casino: Beatles written all over it. Fender Strat: Jimmy Hendrix, Doug Marsch, Buddy Holly and that Malmsteen jerk (he's so good) etc. Les Paul: (do I even need to give examples for this one?) Slash, Jimmy Page, Mick Ronson, Randy Rhodes, etc. (I know there are way more models and more companies, but I like those body shapes.) This guitar is sort of a mix between a Gibson ES-335 and a Gretsch something or other (I don't know the Gretsch models). and yes, I know there are big names tied to those guitars too (see Chet Atkins for Gretsch and Bernard Sumner for the ES-335) but the Douglas is not those guitars. It's merely their bastard child.

Ugh... In other news:

For almost a year and a half now, I really cooled off on my skateboarding. I've been on and off (mostly off) because of school, other hobbies (music, podcasts, video games, web 2.0), and my dog. I'm really missing it, though, but I found the root cause of the hault. I'm fairly certain I stopped because of the lack of "core" skate friends. (Yes, I said core and I put it in quotes. Laugh now.) I enjoy... no, thrive in smaller groups in every social aspect of my life and that included skateboarding. My "core" group consisted of me, Marwin, Moises and sometimes one or no other persons. Sadly, things change and life happens. I consider those the golden years of my skateboarding life.

Me and Marwin looking at something.

Moises, Marwin and I made these playdough
guys for the, ever fabled, Disabled video.

A picture of Moises. It looks almost iconic.
Eventhough it's digital and eventhough
it was only a few years ago,
this picture already looks very aged.

This picture kind of sums it all up. This is a
sunset on my street. The culdesac infront of
Jack in the Box. For some reason I wish I
knew the date on this.

After digging through all those pictures It really
made me regret not taking more.

After some thought I've decided to start skateboarding again. I want to complete that "final" (would be first too) part that I never did. Even if the Disabled video never comes out, I want to know that if ever these guys decide to put up their dukes and finish the video, I'd have a little section tucked away in my archives all ready to go. I'm going to start "training" again at the skatepark. I'll try to head up there 4-5 times a week. Hopefully I get my groove back, and then some, within 6 months or so. Then I'll go on a 6 month romp out in the streets with a filmer and knock this thing out. It might not take exactly 6 months (these things usually take longer than expected) but atleast now I have a goal.

Wow. An epic blog post. That's enough for now.

Goodnight.

Oh, one more thing. You can blame this song for making me want to skate again. (Tammy Wynette was so freaking hot back then.) It WILL be the song I use for my section, should I finish my part and live long enough to edit it.