(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

image
...am here to tap through the walls.


Mon Jan, 02 2006

HillaryWatch

I look through it, and I can barely believe that people are talking about some of this stuff seriously. Well, it's a lot more Perlmutter than Kaus.

Kaus hits on Der Rodham's "character" and how it'll grind on the blogs, which, I think, will be spectacular. That woman's sense of mission is exactly the vehicle for her deliberation of will, and she is simply not built for dancing. The things she has to do are far too serious for playing to the contempt-breeding familiarity of blogging as people out in the digital weeds feel it. (The substitution of "feel" for thought, here, is specific for its referent in the sort interested in a Rodham presidency.)

The very idea of Rodham "blogging" is just hilarious, except that it -- I can't help it -- conjures the historical image of Stalin lighting a cigarette behind the upstairs screen at Zinoviev's trial. That's the part that I find ridiculously incredible in Perlmutter.

However, the bits about the commie grassroots are sorta not-bad. He posts a letter to Hillary! from one of the staggering proles slaving away in the vineyards of social justice & all that rot. Naturally, Kos gets a lot of play for to & fro: if that guy really is a driving force in commie politics, then everybody's got some pretty serious waking up to do; on the other hand, I might bet that Der Field Marshal Rodham is only too acutely aware of the ferocity of sentiment in the streets and alleys, with pro-actical net.abetting of massing around cause and issue coming up on about ten years old now. If she can only make the play for power, then there is real hot energy out there to drive with once she's in the driver's seat. The question is whether she can turn the right angles off the "netroots".

Jan 02, 06 | 1:28 pm

Wanna Know How Lame I Am?

I didn't even get around to blogging the arrival of a new Beck in the world. 'Twas December 30, 2005, when Lori, the woman who my youngest brother, Stephen, had the good sense to marry, was delivered of seven pound two ounce Chloe Catherine, reportedly to minor upset of her older sister Gabriella, whose car seat position in mom's van was not given up without dispute, and also to the generally good-natured composure of big brother Jacob.

Reports from the scene are generally joyful some three days behind the event eminently suitable for blogging, which I dropped like a guitar pick on my desk, but it ain't like anyone's burning down my hard disk with photographs of the the brat or anything, either. So there's that.

Jan 02, 06 | 11:42 am

Ditch It

I just uninstalled Google Desktop.

Here's why.

In the months that I had it installed, I never used it, and I sure don't need any of that. You might want to think about it.

Jan 02, 06 | 11:23 am
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AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}