Guitar Appreciation

I appreciate guitars.
It seems guitars also appreciate.

This is from my order history on Musician's Friend:


My sister will remember me waiting anxiously for UPS to deliver this guitar.
I opened it up in the hallway with the grin of a kid on Christmas morning.
I was in college, had no credit card (only a VISA check-card), and no credit. I had to argue with my bank to increase the transaction limit of my check-card temporarily and then call Musician's Friend to "Run it now! Run it now!"
It was a big deal for me.

My buddy Steve (I didn't know him at the time) purchased the same guitar (with the Montego Black finish, not Sunburst...because he lacks taste) and he recently told me our guitars are worth significantly more than what we paid for them.

From Musician's Friend this morning:


Note: when we purchases them in 2004, they came with an iPod Shuffle (the first generation - they looked like USB thumb drives).

I'm not a mathemagician, but $500 is like, 1.5% increase or something!
Hell yes!

Portal 2 Ads Deliver

Ads for the sequel to Portal are awesome.
Saw this one around Valentine's day this year, but I didn't share. I will do that now...


"Women love diamonds for their wide range of industrial applications."
That killed me.

That's 65% more bullet, per bullet

April 19th. Get ready.

Post lunch meeting battles

In this corner, measuring in at about one square inch, we have, the hardened, TERIYAKI SAUCE!!!

And in this corner, an impulse buy from the Target checkout line, touting to remove stains instantly, TIDE TO GO!!!

LLLLLET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!!

Frugality works

I gave up cable a while ago and watched streaming video quality improve over time, but little was done to deliver high quality surround sound audio.
When I heard Netflix streams HD video encoded with 5.1 Dolby surround sound through the PS3, I was pretty excited. I have one of those.
I took the plunge on the free one month trial and have thoroughly enjoyed my subscription.
However, I am also a cheap bastard. $7.99/month is fair, but almost eight bucks more per month than what I was spending...what to do...
I thought back to my college days, that time when I was smart ("S-M-R-T, I mean...").
I loved In-n-Out cheeseburgers, but eating out became expensive and hard to justify with an on campus meal plan.
When I heard employees get free meals with each shift, I put in my application.
Bam. Free cheeseburgers and a job wearing a paper hat.
Store #69 baby.

Back to the point...free Netflix subscription for employees?
Bam. New job for slobscot.
Thanks to friends and family who've had to listen to me talk of little else while interviewing.

Ideas are born in the clouds

Bioshock Infinite will not be set under water because of this doodle from a developer at 2K Irrational game studios.

Libya has no bearing on filling up this tank

New coral up in the left quadrant.
Also get a closeup of the pulsating xenia coral.
It might look like it's just going with the flow of the water, but each polyp actually pulses in a pumping kind of motion, similar to your hand if you were to hold your palm face up and touch your thumb to your fingers (assuming all you monkeys have opposable thumbs - I don't think my readership has expanded to the non-evolved, yet).

Remember to select 720p


As is often the case, some hitch hikers (as they're called in the hobby) were living on the rock that came attached to my new coral. Not sure of the exact species, but at least two small bristle starfish (I think that's what they are, someone else got a picture) came along with the coral.
Bonus!

Reading
How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
The Master and Margarita

Hearing
Glassjaw - Coloring Book EP
The xx - xx
Dropkick Murphys - Going Out in Style

Viewing
Dexter
The Office (BBC version)