Want this guitar

For some reason, I had a hankering to see the video to Genesis' "I Can't Dance".

And, from 0:28 to 0:45, I saw a darned cool guitar:



With assistance from Cynical Guy, I managed to track it down:  the Kay "Speed Demon".  It has "speed bump"-style pickups (never heard of; I learned something new), and it comes in single-pickup and three-pickup versions.

Here's a demo:




This guitar is definitely on "my list".  :)

So cool.


--GG

Fine art

This print of a painting by Monet is in one of our conference rooms at work.

And someone put a sticky-note underneath it.

So juvenile. ;)


--GG

Wise saying about pigs

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You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

Of course, now it's a **sexy** pig.


--Gye Greene (9/23/15)

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Love that movie

I often watch a DVD, or some YouTube clips, while I'm eating dinner.  I was in the mood to watch some of my favorite scenes from She's Out of Your League.

I ended up watching basically the whole thing -- although I skipped over a few scenes, here and there -- so more like half of it.  I guess I must like the movie.

Actually, it's one of my favorites:  it's sweet and funny and well-written and well-acted.  There's a fair bit of swearing, and a few fairly-direct sexual references.  But, I'm old enough.  :)


--GG

Make a wish

(Just a moment ago)

Boy #1 (lying in bed, supposed to be going to sleep): “Dad? If you do three farts in a row, can you make a wish?”

Me: “Um – I guess so, sure.”

Boy:  “Good. Because I just did that.”


--GG

From the ceiling

As I've mentioned, I'm rotating through a series of snapshots of my paternal grandparents' house:  I'm saving them to my PC "desktop".

This one is my late grandfather's workshop.  As we (mostly my dad!) were disassembling the contents of his house, I visited him in assisted living to ask him why he had a roll of toilet paper hanging from the ceiling.  Was it for when he had a runny nose -- e.g. during cold weather?

The answer is that he used it for when he was doing glue-ups:  he used it to wipe up the squeezed-out glue.  By hanging it from the ceiling, it was always handy.

The twists of wire in the ceiling, to the right, was for extension cords:  when he ran extension cords they passed along the ceiling, rather than along the floor (where they'd be a trip hazard).


--GG

Interesting knife

I receive this knife yesterday, for Father's Day, and I thought I'd share, because I think the construction is interesting.

(When I say "received it for Father's Day", it's because I saw it in an antique shop the day before and asked my wife to pick it up for me....)


It looks home-made -- which is what appealed to me:  note the un-polished wooden grip, for example.  But the construction also appealed to me.

There's an extra piece of metal that forms part of the spine of the knife.  But it's asymmetrical:  in the above photo, you can't see it from the right-hand side;  viewing the knife from above, you can see that the extra bulk is all on the left-hand side.

And, here's the other side:  it looks a little primitive or un-refined -- which again, I'm fine with.

Anyone know if the extra piece of metal has a purpose or function, beyond simply stiffening the blade?  Is is there a purpose or advantage to having it asymmetrical?


I like the knife, by the way -- but it won't see much use.  I'll probably end up using it in my workshop as a utility knife, such as bevelling the ends of dowels.


UPDATE:  My brother suggests:  looks like it was made out of an existing blade that had a flange on it.  for example, my scythe blade.  or a lawnmower blade.  grandpa t made a machete pout of a lawnmower blade


Yep; makes sense.  Funny, though, how they couldn't be bothered to grind it off -- or at least blend it in a little.

It's still a charming, quirky knife, though.  :)


--GG

To build

Yesterday we went to a local antiques mall, and I saw two pieces that intrigued me.

The first was a dishes cupboard that was vaguely like the yellow one that we had in our house when we first moved here.  Once we moved, the cupboard reverted to The Lady's mom, since it had belonged to her late mother.

I liked the "stained glass" look of the windows.

The second thing I liked was the "sitting bench", with cupboards at the ends -- maybe for shoes?

One of these days I might make a bench with cupboards in the ends.  And I **might** get around to making the cupboard.


--GG

Mod your tools

I just finished this mod yesterday.  (The butter knife is just to provide a sense of scale.)


My parents have two kitchen knives that are about the length of paring knives, but with narrower blades.  I've always liked them for coring apples, because the narrower blade allows you to make sharper turns.

About a month ago, I decided that I wanted one for myself, for when I core apples at home.  I had a look at various speciality cooking shops, here in Brisbane (Australia), but couldn't find these.  So I did a bit of a web search, and I think they're "boning knives" -- but because they're a little specialized, I couldn't find any at a price I wanted to pay.


So:  the red-handled and green-handled examples are five dollar paring knives, which I ground down the blades and then sharpened.

They work well. 


Mod your tools.  :)


--GG

Less smelly, anyhow

I'm always on the search for new songs and bands for me to like -- which is a difficult task, actually.  So I sometimes get onto YouTube and type in arbitrary phrases, or type in a band I've heard of (but don't know much about), and then open the various suggestions in the sidebar.

Thus, I was listening to the below song, which is interspersed with various soundbites from teens being interviewed.  And at 1:42, a girl says "I just wish that there's no such thing as farting -- that the world could just be, like, perfect -- and everybody could get along."



And I thought -- Whaaaa???  That's kinda weird.

I played that segment back quite a few times -- and it really does sound like she's saying "farting".

I'm pretty sure she meant "fighting".  Which makes more sense.


But my way is funnier.


--GG

Guitar geekery

Sheryl Crow -- I have a few of her albums -- talking about some of her Telecasters.




It's nice to hear a female engaging in guitar geekery:  too often, it's males.


--GG

Movie review of Lost in Translatoin

On Monday, 8/31, I finished watching Lost in Translation.

Bill Murray plays an actor who's in Japan for a week to shoot a few commercials and do some promotional activities.  He's feeling a bit lost in life, and lost in Japan.

He befriends Scarlett Johansson, who's married to a photographer who basically ditches her at the hotel while he goes off an a series of photo shoots.

So, they're both at the same Japanese hotel.  The movie is basically two lost souls, crossing paths.


It's a quiet movie.  Nothing hilarious, but a few mildly amusing bits.

The sort of movie you could watch at two in the morning -- it has that late-night kinds of feel.


Some cussing (I think), and a few sexual situations and some brief nudity.  No violence that I remember.


I think that if you're middle-aged -- or just feeling a bit lost in life -- it'll appeal to you.


--GG

Color of Seattle photographs

As I'd mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I'm slowly going through some snapshots of my (paternal) grandparents' house, and saving them as my PC desktops.

This photo is of my grandparents' back yard.  My grandfather built the chicken coop -- a long, long time ago.

This photo looks very "Pacific Northwest" to me:  the moss on the roof, the evergreen tree in the background -- and especially the lighting.  You can just... tell.


British murder mysteries often have the same kind of lighting.  Nice.  I've been told that I'd probably enjoy England, or Ireland.

Not sure what I'm doing in sunny, glare-y Brisbane, in Australia (some parts of Australia are overcast -- like Tasmania).  Besides, I mean, following my wife here.  :)


--GG