Echo Says, "No More Hymns"

DA, DA DA-DA DA DA DAH-DAH-DAH! DAH, DAH-DAH-DAH-DADA DAH, DAH, DAH! DAH, DA-DA-DA-DA-DA DAH DAH DAH at CAL--VA--RY!


Echo says it's time to stop hymning for the day. I'm seeing that guitar become grungier and grungier, and not in the usual grungy way. It's hard to explain.

Regardless, (and regardless is a word I am beginning to love), I've been hymning a lot in the last two days. The last time I hymned like this was perhaps eight months ago. Then, eight months ago, I spent nearly seven hours creating the original The Probably Inaccurate Compilation of Guitar Hymns. It took a while, that's for sure. And that was just finding the chords; to find the hymns for which to get the chords took five to six more hours.


Half of what I did was unusable.


Anyways, onto my point. Echo says no more hymns for tonight. I know what you're thinking; guitars can't talk, Kev. Is Echo magical?

No, no humble fool, he isn't magical. Let me explain what he said through interpretive picture:



Get it? A string broke! The first string I've had break. Wanna hear the action-filled tale?

No! Because it actually happened while I was tuning. There is no action to tale about. Tale...tell...whatever. It kind of made a muffled/muted "twik" and went limp. Broke right at the tuner, where I was busily tuning it.

That's all there is to the story. I bought an extra pack of strings last time, so I get to replace them tomorrow. Joy.

After that, I'm buying a 10-pack- I'll never want for strings again!

Flue, the Republican Elephant McCain Lover

Claw machines are usually fun things.


But sometimes they aren't. Ever since we got this guy, the house has been filled with what could be described as "elephant calls" every time someone political shows up on the television. His name is Flue:

Yep. A pink and silver, McCain-loving, stuffed elephant. He's suffering through a non-McCain moment in the picture. He only watches Fox News, but he'll sometimes switch over to CNN (the Clinton News Network, he comments) or MSNBC (Monotonous & Stuporous National Barack Channel) to hopefully catch a glimpse of McCain or Palin.



Flue (flu): A pipe, tube, or channel for conveying hot air, gas, steam, or smoke, as from a furnace or fireplace to a chimney.



And that's just what the little guy does. With his elephant trunk. Anytime he sees a democrat (especially Biden) he freaks out, shrieking all manner of ostracism and usually accompanying that with some "off with their head"-flavored banter. And he only speaks in caps.


Now, when he sees McCain, he goes elephape. (He prefers that over 'ape'.) I never knew that elephants could howl like wolves. Especially talking elephants. I thought there was a tradeoff between the ability to howl and the ability to talk...



Here's the fun part: We are going to burn him to death at a stake if McCain loses. If he wins...I guess he will live until the next election. So vote for McCain, save an elephant named Flue. Do the right thing. He is depending on you.


He just doesn't know it.

That's it!

Yeah! I'm having a trouble: I'm restless, but not in the typical way of being restless. But I think I figured it out: my computer's messy!

Surely this is the cause. Let me example you:


In my Blog photos folder, (which is also the Blog videos folder), I have 178 items; 19 are folders for organizing the photos, 159 are photos. That means there are 159 unsorted photos.

This happened because I had a May Blog Pictures folder from 2007, but then it was May of 2008 and I wasn't smart enough to add a "2007" to the previous May, so I made May Blog Pictures 2, but I got so confused that sometimes I'd put new pictures into the archival folder. I know that's a silly way to become unorganized, but I sure did it.

I actually almost sorted them in this post, but I didn't. There were too many for me to worry about at the time and I'd probably never use them again anyway. So I suppose I'll sort my blog pictures over the next few days...


Also, my desktop is a train wreck, but that's a more conventional problem.

I must sort the desktop items into folders on the desktop...and if I have any trouble (i.e. not knowing where a file goes), I create a folder that will ease that certain trouble. In the end, I should have about 10 folder categories that will fit any file. Then I can slowly move those folders to locations other than the desktop...or, more likely, create a "Hub" folder to...uh, hub all of these folders.


I still have 3.4 GB left on my hard drive; I estimate that there are 5-6 GB of pictures- recent pictures- that I don't have, and at least 2 GB of elder pictures that I don't have. (All I know is that my mom has about 40 backup CDs from the dark days, so there must be at least 2 GB.) The lack of hard drive space could certainly be driving me mad, as well. And then,-

-

Time to make the Taffy

Remember when I first mentioned making taffy in passing in this post? That was actually one of the first times I'd ever made taffy. And I haven't made much since. I'm by far no pro. That sounds grammatically choppy, but I'll go with it.


Regardless. For some reason, I decided it was time to make some again. Maybe it's because tomorrow is the first day of Fall (according to the ever-authoritative Spiderman 3 calender my mom uses), or maybe it's because in two days it's time again for my Metroid Prime 2: Echoes birthday run. Yeah, that's definitely it. It's the...it's the brooding instincts.


OK, get your liquid glycerin. This stuff is...sigh...yes, it's the bomb. There, I said it, I hope you're just giggling yourself into a coma.

Now get your vodka. I mean vanilla. I totally meant vanilla.


Yeah...do I use the new stuff...or the old stuff? How many batches were made? I forget. But I'll use the old stuff. I guess it's so old that it didn't need a year designation. Which means it's really old...and I call this Vanillae Taffy. Vanilla just won't describe it. It's almost poisonous. I don't give this to humans, only to animals that I want to die. Oh...I might need to qualify that for legal reasons. Ahahahaha, I'm joking.

There. Boy, I'm feeling dry tonight.


Now add your water, corn syrup, sugar (I got the specialized C&H out), and salt.

One of my worst recurring waking nightmares- I hope that describes them sufficiently- is to accidentally set the thermometer to Celsius and boil it until it's, um, dead. So, cook it until it's done. Then pour it onto a pan to cool a bit before stretching.

There. It's cool enough. I suggest wearing gloves for a few reasons. That I don't need to go into. Let's just go with one reason: They totally keep your hands from burning too badly. Not that they'll help. But I don't want to go into the other reasons. Not this close to Midnight, at least. Now get to stretching.


Hey! We're done! That was quick.


Muahahaha...now is our time, Taffy Army...yes, follow me, your beloved, fearless general-leader...heh heh heh heh heh heh.





Nobody tell them.

Just Waiting for to Kill Me

So I was minding my own business a while back, trudging my way through my miserable existence on this here planet Earth, and I came upon THIS monstrosity, eagerly awaiting my arrival for to quench my life!!!


Thank goodness for 911. He was here before I knew it!


Officer Marv. Still putting in the good word.

The Moon IS Made of Cheese

I always heard that moronic nursery rhyme or whatever it was or wherever that thinking came from, and I always thought it was stupid. But awhile back, you wouldn't believe my surprise as I saw the huge ball of cheese hanging low in the sky.




I didn't even use a tripod. Did I ever mention that I love my camera?

It's dandy.

Lightning Hymning

If you can believe it, I got to drive in rain a few days ago- at night. Victory is mine! I was singing The Old Rugged Cross, Holy, Holy, Holy, At the Cross, Saved by the Blood, Amazing Grace, and Are You Washed in the Blood? at the top of my lungs on the way home. The Lord must have rewarded me with rainfall. Just imagine if I were also playing my guitar. He'd probably pull a Genesis 5:24 on me. (I'd better still my tongue before I get too sacrilegious.)

Once the rain stopped (i.e. once I pulled into our property), I started taking pictures of the lightning. They're not fabo, but they look not a little neat to me.









I need to sing more hymns.

Echo Box #2: What Ducts Are Made Of

Act II

Hi, Rach!


Time to continue. By "ducts" I mean air conditioning ducts. And they are made of sheet metal. We begin by putting a sheet of metal into the shear. It shears the metal.


Then we took that piece that we cut off and marked it. Then we took it back to the shear.


And this is what we get for our laboring:


Now we take those to the break. The break bends the sheet metal. It's hard to explain, but it's a very necessary tool.


And we are left with this. Isn't it pretty? If you look, you can see the "cross-break," which adds strength to the metal. It's most visible near to the point. It's actually a double cross-break.

Remember that paper I made in the first post so that Echo wouldn't know what I was up to?


It fits! Good. Yeah, sure, I kept it a secret from my guitar. I thought he would be able to tell, y'know. Then I read 1 Cor. 2:11 and now I don't think Echo can understand what I'm doing.

Alright, now to make the sides. Take a strip of metal. Hey, look...you can see the cross-break/cross-brace really good now.


Then you mark said piece of metal, like thus...


Then you bend it up and it should look like this:


Now dry-fit the pieces to make sure they fit.


Good, they do. Now to get the point piece done. Get a small piece of metal...


And mark it up. See the icepick-looking thing? That's called a scribe or a scratch awl. You scribe the metal with it. Then you cut or bend the metal. But we'll be breaking this piece into...


Duh duh duhh! The point piece. Here's the other side.


Then we made the end piece for the non-point end. I won't show that, because you already know how it goes. So now it's time to rivet it together.


We used washers to make it extra strong:


Yes! Here it is with the two sides on:


And then the point piece...


Then we attach the back piece, and here it is:


Act II is complete. The next part is cool, but tedious.



Act I: 4.5 hours, designing the case and measuring Echo.
Act II: 6.5 hours total: 3.5 hours to make the sides and the bottom; 3 hours to make the front and end piece.

Echo Box #1: In The Beginning...

I received all kinds of flak. "Kev, you're stupid. Get a hard case. Your guitar isn't safe in a soft case. If you love your guitar, you'll do it." I stood fast, not having my morals or manner corrupted by they who claimed to be my friends. Job 2:9-10. I lived it. Except it was my friends. I have no wife.

I faced the humiliation of playing a song at a wedding out of a gig bag. I endured more than five months of literally seat-belting Echo into the back seat of the car because I was afraid he would get injured in a crash. Every latching of the seatbelt was a labor of love, a badge of honor.


Is a man not entitled to buy a guitar case?

Yes, says the man in Washington. It's good for the poor.
Yes, says the man in the Vatican. It's good for God.
Yes, says the man in Moscow. It's good for everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible.
I chose...

TO MAKE MY OWN.

Act I

I began by designing it. I will spare you most of the details; I searched for pictures of guitar cases, finding different designs and different ideas. I went with what I had previously planned.

I begin the actual work by putting together three pieces of paper with double-sided sticky tape. I didn't get pictures of that, but the below picture should give you the idea.


I put dots on the paper around Echo so that I'd have an idea how much space he needs. Then I marked the paper, and cut it out.

That's a dandy electric scissor. It works well. OK, here it is!


Ta-da! That is the shape of the box. I like it. So, I measured that paper to let me know the dimensions of the finished box. I wrote them down, then I folded it up.


And so the designing was done. See you at post #2. The next part gets fun, boys and girls.

It gets real fun.

Robber Bird and a Sunset

Yesterday, me and my dad did some work for some acquaintances of ours. I mercilessly and efficiently disassembled in a violent way a counter that was probably worth $800 and is now scrap.

It was built on-site into the wall, so it would have cost just as much to move it as it would have to hire the mob to burn the place down. I went to a Burning recently in the middle of a crowd of very dry, extremely tall trees. It was great...muahahaha!

On the way home my mom had us pick up a copy of Quicken - she lost her 2001 version disc. It was on sale for $40 from $60.


On the way home, I saw an EAGLE. But it wasn't an eagle, it was a robber bird - looking like an eagle is their primary defense. I don't know what they're actually called but I am calling it a robber bird, and if you want to fight about it, meet me at the Eastern Stairs tonight.


Here it is on a telephone pole. It was "chillin'." LOL!

There it is at the top. And there's my enemy...the ever-watchful Sun.

Below, you can see it flying away.


Now that I think about it, it wasn't that funny to say that it was chillin'. Sorry.

Here it is sitting on another pole. We chased it down. "Oh, great, they're back." See what's in its talons?

Tis a fish. Where it got a fish around here, I don't know, so I must assume it robbed from someone, thus its name, Robber Bird. We have no lakes or ponds, just a picture of The Grapes of Wrath that's a mile high and about 800 miles around, encompassing us. I'm so dramatic.

Anyways, then I got a picture of a sunset. Pink sunsets are my favorite, but not all of them look good, and even less come out in picture form. For some reason, the search "pink sunset" only brings up the post: Bad picture or bad NightShot? I took a video of a pink sunset in it.


I like how the whole sky has shades of pink around it.


Well, now it's turning orange. That's OK, because orange is a primary color of The Hatchling, but orange sunsets aren't as awenem as pink ones. (For you new fools, awenem is the base, concentrated source from which awesome is derived. It's like awenem is the syrup, and awesome is made by adding the carbonated water, in soda terms. Thus the term, "raw base awenem.")

Time to go. I have calculating to do.

Excessively High Cheese Prices: Dad Has the Details At 9

It started about a week ago. My dad went into a Walmart. "Oh my gosh, cheese is $8 a pound!" was his shrill scream. I'm going to enjoy this blog post. >:)


Then he went to a Bashas. It was $14 a pound. This was apparently a sure sign for him that Armageddon was right around the corner, and I think George Noory had something to do with this thought. He promptly filed into a Fry's and bought 25 (twenty-fire) pounds of cheese while it was "still" $3 a pound. A guy asked him, "Do you know something I don't know?"


Then it was confirmed (there's a story on the word "confirmed," I'll tell you some day) that cheese prices were astronomically high, comma splice, when the stores didn't send out their ads. That is, that the stores didn't send out their ads was proof of his theory. "Hah! I told you!" he bragged. "They didn't send out their ads! Stupid!"

I said, "You're telling me that they didn't send out their ads just because they are charging more for cheese?" "No, fool!" he replied. "It's all dairy products - farmers are just now buying their Summer feed, and the gas prices have driven it all up, up, up to the moon!!!" he rattled off, as his eye developed a progressively worsening twitch.


I decided I should leave it at that. Maybe he's right for once, I thought. It does make a lot of sense...could he be right for once?


I should tell you a story about a "gift." It "keeps on giving." Actually, I shouldn't. I want to keep this post short. Ideally, I should have posted about this story before. It'll come up again, I'm sure.



Anyways...a few days ago he told me that...well...turns out, cheese prices didn't remain $14 a pound. And gas is even down a little. And today I found the ads for all four major Arizona stores. I guess one of us brought them in but forgot. I called him and told him. He got real busy real quick and had to go...strange.


The only thing going for him now is that apparently they changed their pricing structure. Now they're charging per yard!


Picture circa January 2008.

When It Rains...It ...

Well, I don't think the monsoon has shown up in force, yet. As we all know, the monsoon is the time of year that God loves most. Therefore, if God loves it, we should love it. Amen.

I remember back when...it rained and hailed and the wind blew so hard that I broke down crying because I thought a tornado was going to kill us all. I was like, 13. Or 8. Yeah, let's go with 8. That was the time that we watched a movie to calm me and my brother down. (My brother, to this day, is afraid of storms.) Dude, Where's my Car? must have seemed like the perfect thing to watch with us children at the time.

Would that my parents had known of Metroid Prime, and that I was able then to bear the awesomeness! But that would have destroyed my previously smaller feeble mind.


I digress. But how did I get here? Oh, yeah! Today I got water. Lots of people were there, but not really. We were in an order that made wait times low, I suppose.

Check it out!

Rain! Rain! Rain! Wooho...uh...

Oh, it was just the water pouring down off of the hose. Drat. When it rains, it doesn't rain. Grr.


But...so is life in the desert country. There's a reason that no thing pleasant exists here.

Hey, I also saw this little pal again!