Oh, how I hate mobile phones. It's not the concept itself, because I think it's cool to have the flexibility of a phone that moves with you (and the instrument to rant at your friends if you're so inclined and don't want the people on the street to think you're nuts). And everyone else must think so too because let's face it - you can find the damned things in damn near EVERY shape and size imaginable.

But alas, they DON'T make them like they used to. My dad's first ever mobile phone was an Alcatel. Two row display, by today's standards it would be a BLOODY HORROR, but way back when, it was considered opulent to even have one. The thing was nothing short of a brick - and it had battery slots. I mean AAA batteries. You could slip batteries in the fucking thing so you wouldn't run out. And it was impossible to run out anyway.

I hooked up a MIG to the phone, and it ran for several days. My first phone ever - another gay Alcatel - lasted FOREVER. Never broke. Used it for a year or so.

My current phone is one that I've had with me for a while now (I believe around 3 or 4 years already) - a Nokia 6230i - NEVER failed me. The headphone port is FUCKED and I can't hear in the left headphone, but I use a Bluetooth handsfree when I'm driving, so what the fuck does that matter? It lasts for a fair bit, even WITH Bluetooth on, the quality of the sound is fairly good (and the microphone isn't a piece of shit) - which only became a factor after I started traipsing about in crowded areas and needed a phone that wouldn't distort after every bloody ambulance siren - and I did get tired of not being heard on the other end.

Sadly, I can no longer use it as a music player (which is why I wanted a new fangled thing-a-ma-jig in the first place), but it's solid. They do NOT make them this reliable anymore. I even have a nice wallpaper of Dante on the thing. It's not huge (at least not as large as my now SMASHED TO BITS Nokia N73) and it will fit neatly into my pocket, resembling a modest erection. O NO I WENT THERE.

Ever since China dug into these, they became crap. I swear! I used to love that N73, music player and all. It had really nice features on the thing, and I probably have some notes I couldn't do without but fuck it. It's worth settling my nerves with the smashing about of crap technology.

Now they keep selling these CRAP Sony Erikkkkksons, w350i or whatever, the walkman. Thin and stuff. It's great as a walkman, and the headphones it comes with are COOL, but as a phone, it's rubbish. I can barely hear the other guy talking, and everyone complains how I'm barely heard myself. And I do talk rather lightly whilst on the phone, because I really don't want to risk looking like those people who want to look important talking on the phone.

STOP IT! IT'S A FUCKING PHONE! Make phones be phones again, with the shitty displays, and the batteries that last for months. My N73 used to last a fair bit, before it became afflicted with wear & tear, and I lost the urge to splurge money repairing an already slow and shitty phone. Yeah, it's nice at first, but it gets slower over time. My 6230i DOESN'T. Beat that.

Now if you'll excuse me, my headache has somewhat subsided, and I need to file and polish my nails. I think one is breaking. And I might have a psychotic break. And invent a titanium-grade keratin bond so my nails won't break and I can skin cats with them.

AND NOTHING ELSE MATTEEEERS, YEAH! *insert solo*

Trivia, because it's food for the mind, and fun to know.

Changing the strings is a WONDERFUL occupation; but that's if and only if you're using a hardtail guitar, i.e. one without a tremolo arm (whammy bar, correct name is vibrato arm, but whatever, let's run with it).

Here's a few pictures, for reference (that I stole off some websites I found on google, but I'm sure they won't mind, I'm just making my point in an educational sort of way, and expressing my frustration at the same time).




These things have 6 little pieces of metal/steel/titanium/whatever that help keep the string in place (called saddles), and nothing else, really. Maybe some screws and stuff, but it's not relevant to the discussion. They help intonate the string, and they tie it down at one end, whilst at the other, the tuners help... well... TUNE the string, quite obviously. This is all well and proper, and great for drop tunings (for various reasons, there's various tunings, standard being EADGBE) - since at any given time, the strings exert a certain tension on the bridge, and the body of the guitar - obviously, they need to, to vibrate fast enough to produce audible sounds. Obviously, for DROP tunings (i.e. you loosen the strings or tighten so they that vibrate at different frequencies to produce OTHER notes, than the standard tuning, for example what's known as Drop C that is CGCFAD, known in heavy metal, and also the tuning responsible for the kick ass aggressive sound of metalz )

One more detail - the truss rod - to add insult to injury. In effect a simple metal rod that exerts a certain amount of tension to oppose the one from the strings. Yes, wood is durable and shiny, and they make guitars out of it, but it's not a hunk of a wood after all. Neck bends from different gauges (the thicker, the more horror you must endure) and requires certain adjustments - obviously, thicker gauge, more tension is required to keep the neck straight so it doesn't buzz or become uncomfortable to play on (yes, the neck CAN look like underside of a ship if you don't have it set up properly, and obviously it's a horror to play). So that's one automatic adjustment you have to do, whether you change weather conditions (oh yeah, wood reacts to temperature and humidity changes), you might have to adjust it, without doing anything with the strings. So, basically, the truss rod's NOT an instrument of torture if you're a bedroom rocker who changed string gauges every so often, because you'd only need to adjust it when you change string gauge, unless your house is either a furnace or an igloo. Or a place where the humidity changes like I change my undershorts when it's hot out.



Anyway. Someone thought (you know who you are... you clever bastard!) that it'd be nice to have a bar that lowers and raises the pitch of the sound, at the bridge, and at the convenience of the right hand. The effect itself is called vibrato (lowering and raising the pitch of a note), but as opposed to standard left hand vibrato, it's a much more defined sound, as it can turn a plain harmonic into something from a fight with the ex when she shrills your brains out, or you can do a dive bomb like it's time to run for cover - so it basically covers a wider range of sounds). But how can you raise and lower the tension on the strings without a bridge that moves? Well, let's make the bridge float then! How does it float? To keep it simple - ...ah, screw it, I'll just show it to you.



Fancy thingy, with all the saddles, and everything, fine tuners (as it's double locking, it has a locking nut, and the strings lock into place in the saddles, as opposed to just being pushed through holes in the actual block). It has a much wider range than the standard tremolo (there's quite a large hole in the body for it to move in, as opposed to vintage tremolo systems which have a rather small hole, and not so wide a range for pull ups and dive bombs).

This, being a pretty cool system, sound-wise, is pretty much a NIGHTMARE to have to fiddle around with. Since on the one hand, you have to equalize the STRING tension, with the SPRING tension, ANYTHING that affects the tension will screw it up severely. You lose a string, you have to restring immediately, because the whole thing will go out of whack. It's a very precise sort of machine, and due to the fiddly nightmarish nature of it, strings have to be changed ONE AT A TIME, unless you wanna curse your very existence by the end of the process. Let me put it this way - every subtle tension change will mess it up - the strings go out of tune even slightly, the tremolo block starts screwing around. Granted, due to the locking nut, it shouldn't go out of tune that much, and you can probably fix any slips from the fine tuners on the right side.

But if you do something crazy like drop tunings (less tension, requires messing with the springs, to put it simply), or string gauges (less or more tension, again requires messing with the springs), or BOTH (unless you actually enjoy this sort of stuff, iz not for you), it's quite an unfortunate process of slowly and minutely adjusting the tension, and since you've adjusted the spring tension from the block, the STRING tension goes screwy, and you have to retune the strings again, which messes with the tension AGAIN, and on and on and on and... that's all I did today, and I don't even have a double locking trem, I just have a simple Ibanez FAT10, which is sort of like a vintage Fender trem, it doesn't lock, it just... floats and eats my liver. Nightmare to tune it up, especially since I don't like to do it, or enjoy it. I tore a low E string doing it, and I hate it to Hell and back. Plus you can't find spare strings here (oh, SHUT UP, I can only find elixirs, and they cost about as much a dunlop SET!), so I had to buy a new one... I detest wasting money on anything unnecessary.

So yeah, that was pretty much my day. Fiddling with the guitar, running after new strings. It's much harder when you hate doing it, but I suppose I'm pleased. Just the tross rod to mess with, if there's anything else to do with it, and stretching the strings for about an hour.

Wonder where I can find the 1970 Isle of Wight Concert... I love it to bits. Do they still sell copies? I should google it. In the mean time, some chillax music links I shall provide.

[link]
[link]
[link] (skip through the opening, shreddy stuff, not really interesting to anyone)
[link]

P.S. Apologize for any inaccuracies in the information provided, I might be tired. But I doubt I screwed up. Anyway. Bonne chance. Gotta sift through my guitar pics taken today.

I recognize that while I don't particularly care for promoting other deviants, it's mostly because out of so many people, most of them are utter failures, and fall well below the line of mediocrity; and they do this to the point where my brain takes it personally.

Myself? I'm not great artist. Sure, I can make a shiny 3D object people will stare at in amazement, but I'm very far from making anything meaningful. I guess although I enjoy it, it's just a hobby, and I don't care much for polishing hobbies to a mirror shine at this age; much better things to do. And now that I'm in medical school, I suppose that at some point making posters of shiny 3D scalpels will be of some use. Don't know for sure.


There is however a ray of hope and passion, even though it's in a rather unusual direction.



Now this is talent! And yes, even gruesome things require talent and imagination. If they didn't, we'd all be staring at headless barbies, and those dumb, grinning Chucky pictures. Take a look, and feel some of the shivers from my spine when I saw this kind of talent at work. And yes, whilst pretty, perky things are good, and ugly, misshapen things are bad, there's a place for the bad as well. (And no offence to Mr. Undead Ed, I was merely making a point, and using ugly as a compliment )

I am a bit annoyed, actually. Turns out my new guitar has some fret level issues. Bit of a nightmare if you ask me, since it's not something I can fix. I've tried adjusting the action, via the truss rod, and by raising the tremolo block, I've tuned the thing to perfect pitch, let it set, tuned it again, and the low E still buzzes a bit, as well as the A and the B. And it only buzzes at certain frets, which is an absolute nightmare because I don't know how long fixing it will take.

So far, I've spoken to the PR manager, and apparently I have to take it in for a setup. Hopefully, they'll agree with me, and take it to a luther for some fret adjustments. I'm quite sure it's not the nut, otherwise they'd buzz whilst open, and the frets are brand new and shiny, as far as wear and tear goes (again, BRAND NEW guitar), so... from what I know the problem is with the frets not being level. But I lack the tools to make such claims, so all I'm left with is the vague hope that they value their professional responsibilities toward the instruments they purvey.

But it's not all bad, I'm also getting some money in tomorrow from selling my Guitar Hero plastic implement of doom; I also get to walk a fair bit. But then walking is good for you. Beyond that, all that's left is waiting for my guitar to be back from the "place", and hopefully it'll be in tip-top shape.

Essentially, I'm still alive. I'm always lurking. I just don't write journals. I don't need to, at any rate.

Also practicing guitar all day, or studying.