A Life In A Day

Well, I have to say - in the oft repeated words of my daughter - I've not been having a good day.

First of all, my cafetiere broke. OK, I know that sounds knobby, but life is too short for shonky coffee. We all have our own little peccywotsits, lets face it, and half a gallon of super strength, dark and thick isn't just the missus' preference.

Anyway, I picked it up and the bottom fell out and that stuff makes a mess. Worserer even, I had to drink instant. Blend 37 - shocking stuff that is.

Next, I thought I'd give The Foxy Roxy One a final going over before she travels north and gets cold. I'd also suggested to young David of Gorman fame that I could put a P90 in at the neck for more tonal goodliness. I had a nice Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen and I thought it would go well with a bit of Velvet Brickedness.

So strings off, neck oiled, frets polished, it is all going well. But can I find my screwdriver?
Nope.

OK, maybe having more than one would make sense, but you know. I try to be minimal with the tools, one screwdriver, one hammer, one chisel (left) and guitars one-at-a-time. It is turning into a liturgy or maybe a litany, I forget which.

So instead I'm using methods of dubious nefarity, when I realise that I don't know where the P90 is.

Finally found it, spent half an hour looking for my multimeter, then batteries as it has been left on, then one of the probe things that was last used to get a splinter out of my hand, but finally. Sorted..

Test the P90 and it is totally dead. Wired it up anyway, in case it is the multimeter, but nope. Still dead.

I may have cried at this point.

So I put the Velvet Bricks back in, still no screwdriver and I'm back at square one.

Go and find my strings - feeling smug that I had some, having thought ahead, planned. co-ordinated and generally got-my-head-together and bought ten packs just last week. It is good to be organised, apparently.

Typically, the "10" string for the high e was missing in the first pack I opened.

Then the second,

Then the third and, and - and well, all of them.

Worse they were meant to come with a spare, so 20 strings missing from 10 new packs of strings. Man i love Ebay. Back to StringsDirect for me.

Not happy at all.

So I figure, this is meant to be going oop norf tomorrow so I'd better go and buy some.

That is when I locked myself out, keys cheekily smiling at me thru the letterbox.

A worrying three minutes later I'd managed to break back in, setting the alarm off as though anybody would do anything even if they did happen to notice, which they didn't and won't.

Got my keys and back out to the car, which totally refused to open.

Managed to get into my car in six minutes (I'm a one raspberry ripple crimewave today) and finally headed off.

Got stuck on the M5 for half an hour, went to the shop and it was closed.

Drove for twenty minutes to another shop and they only had acoustic strings or 8s.

Can you even play guitars with 8s?

Drove to a third music shop and bought some strings. Huzzah.

Hope he likes flatwounds.

Got home in time to go out and get the brats from school.

So there we are, the strings are about to go on and the sum achievement for the day is that I have oiled the fretboard. Which I'd already done once before and probably was just fine and dandesome as it was

I think I was wise not to play with any power tools today, after all.

So tomorrow, rises in front of me with a day of courier-baiting to look forward to, as no doubt does the day after.

In other news, I dropped my Gordon Smith - I never had quite gotten around to putting the Grolsh washers on it, and now it doesn't work. Should be thankful the headstock didn't fly off, I guess.

Oh, and I changed my mind about The Tatty Adonis One, and instead of going for the Jazzmaster/Gretsch combo, I'm going to do something else. (Making a mockery of my routing, but what the hell.)

The reason for this bank vault mush? Well, it struck me that there was no really good reason to do it. And a mirror image of The BDSM One didn't really do it for world peace, art or sustained interest. I can do better than that, methinks.

As for the butchered body - sorry, carefully crafted body, well I've bronze and copper basted the back and then gone for a two stage acid medley. I want more of a scratched wash corrosion with this, so I'll see what it looks like in the morning. As for the pickups, ah, I'll think of something, I'm sure.

La la laaa