PigPog

We have been out today and bought some cool new toys. Musical toys. Guitar toys. We got a Line 6 Variax 500, a Line 6 Pod 2.0, a small acoustic guitar, a couple of leads, strings, a stand, and some picks. We’ll be doing some slightly better reviews of some of this stuff soon, but here’s a few first thoughts…

The Variax

I first found this thing a few days ago on Fox’s site. After a bit of research to find out what it actually was, I liked the idea. As long as it worked in practice, and it was far cheaper than it possibly could be. Of course, they turned out to be not cheap at all. Not all that expensive for the technology you’re getting, but too much for me to afford. Then today we happened on a second hand one in Fox’s, looking in good condition. It shows signs of having been heavily played, but well looked after. The finger plate is dull with tiny scratches, but there’s no dents or deep scratches. A play in one of their testing rooms soon showed that it really did work, too.

If you’re not familliar with the Variax, the idea is that the signal from the strings is picked up by piezo sensors, which feed into a signal processor that then outputs the signal that would be output by the guitar of your choice. If you want it to be a Telecaster, it’ll sound like a Telecaster. If you want a Gibson Les Paul, it can do that, too. Or a Rickenbacker. Or, if you’re so inclined, a banjo or a sitar.

I know, I know. I expected it to be terrible too, but it really does work. My last experience of anything like that was a digital guitar I bought many years ago, with strips of rubber to press instead of strings on the neck, and just some short lengths of string at the bottom for plucking. This isn’t like that. It’s a real guitar, it just does clever things with the signal from the strings.

The Pod

What the Variax does for guitars, The Pod does for amps. It simulates an assortment of different classic amps, mic’d up. So even through headphones, you can sound like you’re playing through a big chunky Marshall stack. It also has a selection of effects pedals built in, which was really our main reason for buying it, but the amp sims are by far the best part.

The Rest

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p>The small acoustic was only a toy, because Sam fancied playing about with one. It’s cheap and a bit crap, but it works ok. The stand is quite nice, as stands go. The Lynx cables are very nice. Rubber texture to the actual cable, and good strong metal connectors. I like good cables.

Oh, Bill… without your glasses, you’re an absolute dreamboat…

Just be grateful no-one kept the swimwear shots of Ballmer

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p>Thanks go once again to the splendid folks at boingboing

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Put up an intro page to Bill’s Blog:

Caution – this blog will inevitably feature strong language.

The most profane and vocal character from Sam’s book The MBLM Files is let loose into the blogosphere to tell his side of MBLM’s story and share some interesting observations along the way.

Another go at creative storytelling!

From a writer who’s so keen to write a book she’ll do anything but write a book, Bill’s story was originally going to be told in his ‘autobiography’, Stage Left. Those who have read The MBLM Files will remember extracts from Stage Left featuring in Julia’s scrapbook, and may even remember the ‘Coming Soon!’ ad in the back of the book.

Why a blog?

Why not? Over Christmas I was blogging about some dull subject or other (knowing me it probably had something to do with Kirk Hammett), and I remembered how much I enjoyed writing ‘as’ Bill. I write with more honesty, and of course, I get to swear a lot more often. I then pondered the possibility of writing Bill’s story as a blog, inserting the odd snarky remark or rant about current events to give it that extra ‘oomph’, as MBLM’s managers put it. I made a start on Christmas Day, and update every few days or so, as the mood takes me. Just as Bill would.

We now have a Productivity section in our HowTo section. It contains the old GTD articles from Michael’s Blog – Introduction, GTD Methods, and The PigPog Method.

This should be a more permanant home for these articles, and let us keep them up to date and link between them a bit better. More articles should follow soon, if any of the productivity tricks we’re reading about work well enough to actually extract some work from us

This started off as an excuse to play with ArtRage, then one idea came, then another, then another, and I ended up with this -

(Sorry – images lost when moving stuff around.)

Yet another piece of Beatallica fan art. I figure if I keep on churning out the pics and fanzines, I’m bound to get on their ‘fan art’ page eventually…*

I started by tracing basic shapes from the cover of Abbey Road in Art Rage, changing shapes here and there for outfits, hairstyles, etc. Then I opened the image up in Painter Classic (which, due to my computer’s decision not to install the English version, I use in French), and painted using the various oil brushes. I finished off the lettering in good old Photoshop Elements.

I’m rather chuffed with the results.

*The race is now on between Beatallica and Metallica. As a brand new member of Metclub, I decided to send off my other ‘Yellow Metallimarine’ into their ‘Eye of the Beholder’. So who’s going to get there first? Beatallica or ‘So What!’?

If you were listening very carefully just a little while ago to the World of Blogs (I can’t bring myself to call it a sphere), you’d have heard it go…

Apple evil! Apple bad! Suing bloggers! Don’t let them get away with it!

Ooooh, shiny thing! Er. Can I buy one now?

So. Apple are naughty. But they do make very cute toys. What’s a good blogging geek to do? Boycotting is easy unless the company concerned makes shiny toys you want

Update: Whoopsie – typo and spelling.

Man auctions ad space on forehead: “A 20-year-old US man is selling advertising space on his forehead to the highest bidder on website eBay.”

New HowTo section on writing – kicking off with a link to one of Merlin’s articles…

(PigPog) :: (Hack Your Way Out of Writer’s Block): “Merlin makes some great suggestions for how to get out of writer’s block. He may be the only writer to suggest talking to a monkey, but it seems to work – despite being plenty busy with actual work, he’s been getting plenty of really good writing out there recently on his 43Folders site.”

Update 2005-11-01: The writing section has moved again – it’s now over here.

Presenting the Moleskine Sweatband Hack.

Rather an innovative use for a panty liner (or, as the author of the hack puts it, "feminine hygine thingy"). And for the style conscious who want their ‘sweatband’ to match their moleskine, Always do a black liner.

This could start a new trend of feminine hygiene product hacks. Tampons as cat toys, perhaps?

Just a few thoughts on the Springer opera for.

It was a brilliantly inventive piece of satire, excellent musically and David Soul did a fantastic performance as Jer-ry.

And the devil was very sexy. Like Kirk Hammett in his black eyeliner/load years, only dressed in red.

More feedback on the show later.