Jammin' Practice

Bina's over in the UK with Jodie at the Birmingham Clothes show, so I've been having some guitar fun in the lounge (will put it all away soon dear)

On Thursday, I booked a rehearsal room at the Mezz, one of our local concert halls, for a guitar jam session. I was joined by several students and colleagues from work, nothing too mad, but it marked the 1st time I've really played with other guitarists/bass players and we had an awesome time. We deliberately restricted it to beginners/intermediate players to avoid anyone overshadowing anyone and the tactic worked well. Quite a lot of incoherent noise was made with an occasional recognizable tune popping up from time to time.

We're definitely going to do it again and perhaps regularly, its not often I get a chance to get my guitars playing at full tilt, and I think it pushes you forward.

Oh a few pics from the "event" on my crappy samsung....so don't expect too much








Ahthankyew

Ransom demand!!!

Lucille is not lost....but she is in the hands of bad people...Dutch Customs.

They sent a letter today asking for details of the contents and value (gulp) and of course they want to charge me for her...

phew....at least now we know where she is...I'll have to fill out the form and send it back, hopefully next week she'll be where she belongs.



Ahthankyew

Unaccustomed as I am...

To wearing a suit in front of 3 or 4 hundred students, parents, faculty and university management...I had to give a short speech last night as part of our student foundation awards ceremony. Wow that was nerve wracking.

I was aware that I had to give a speech but thinking it was going to just be a hello, thanks for coming, here are the guys type of thing, I never wrote anything down. So when Rob from work got up to give the 1st speech and proceeded to have the whole crowd in stitches with his long and slightly mad but very funny speech comparing IGAD survival to getting through WWI, I realized I was in deep shit.

I got up, improved a bit about how I'd started at the same time as the guys on stage with me and this was as much an event for me as it was for them, so if no one minded I wanted to take note of it...and then tried to take a picture of the crowd with my camera phone....this got a few giggles I'm happy to say, but my damn stupid samsung camera phone refused to take the pick so while the gag worked well I didn't in fact get the photo I wanted to post here. That would have been awesome.

Never mind, there were a few photographers taking pics of me for the event so I'll try to post a few when they go up.

I cocked up the presentation a bit too, I didn't realize the certificates were all named specifically, and the lads had come on stage out of order so I gave the 1st 2 to the wrong people....more laughs..this time for my idiocy ;) But I got my revenge; The school also gave every student a small (and a bit tacky) snow globe as a reminder of the event...I gave all my lads a pink one...bwahahaha

ahh... some links to pics




no....there is no news on the Lucille front.




Ahthankyew

I love this

The chap who does this is called David Thorne, and he's either the most irritating annoying prick in the world or a comedy genuius who has discovered a whole new use for the interwebs....I suspect the latter.


The site has many many of these real life exchanges as well as musings on life and whatever from the viewpoint of a man with a mental age of 4....brilliant (especially the spider drawing)



no...but he said he's check...and he hasn't and no it hasn't

dont' ask!!


Ahthankyew

insomnia returns

probably caused by worry.....no Lucille, no contact from the seller and the track and trace site has not updated since the 20th...grrr

nah not too worried, its just taking its time in typical post style. Bina had some tickets sent to her by her mum in the UK and that took 2 weeks..So I can easily see how a large parcel, possibly traveling surface mail could take quite some time


Just not able to get to sleep unfortunately, I had a nap on the couch this evening and its buggered me for getting to sleep proper. will have a bit of a mooch on t'internet and try again in a bit.

A slightly belated happy thanksgiving to any 'merkin readers out there. I'm going to a thanksgiving dinner myself tomorrow. An american friend of mine (from my poker cronies) has been cooking for weeks in preparation. There will of course be poker afterwards so will be a good night. Bina is having a witches coven meeting....I mean a girls night in with work colleagues so I'm well out of that ;)

Ahthankyew

not going to mention it

nope, not going to mention that my Lucille is still "in transit" somewhere

But in other news my 1st year students this year have passed their 1st block with and 84% pass rate...Thats awsome, last year I didn't take a note but I think it was around 60% so this is a huge improvement. Our fasttrack program really is paying dividends.

Ahthankyew

keep calm keep calm

5 days now with no word, the track and trace website simply states it was despatched from NJ, it has said the same thing since the 20th.....now....New Jersey has a port I believe...I wonder if its actually travelling by boat...grrrr

I hope to christ they detuned it before shipping. The AC25 might have bee able to tolerate tight strings but a Lucille is a little more delicate so cold strings could have a much more detrimental impact.


bah...bah bah bah.....this is really putting me off buying things from the US and shipped USPS now, what a slow delivery system... Fed ex every time or no deal in future.

Bina's sax playing is already starting to sound less strangled cat and more honking sealion now, a big improvement, at least Harvey does not want to go running into the bed room to save/attack the cats any more.


Watched the Peter Green Man of the World Documentary last night (you tube), very moving, sad and also in the end uplifting as the Green God appears to have made a significant (but not total)recovery from his mental illness. He was much brighter and more coherent and playing the guitar with a degree of style again. Would be amazing if he were to capture some of his past greatness and make some real blues albums again. There is even talk of a Fleetwood Mac original line up reunion (Danny Kerwin excluded of course..another sad story). I dunno, it could never be as great but still...I'd pay to see that.



Ahthankyew