all a dreams...

as usual at the coffee shop listening to a mix. it's ridiculously warm out. to be honest i'm a bit bummed- i wasn't aware that this was going to happen so quickly- i figured i had at least another month of winter, but it hath been snatched away! we went to evanston to see 'coraline' yesterday and the flip-flops count hit four. these damn chicago people whip those things out at the slightest warmth! grrrr.
tonight is kylie's birthday party. we're going to get a car and drive down there for a few hours. i'm looking forward to it. it'll be fun.
i have gotten zero work done in ages and ages. hopefully we will actually get some recording done tomorrow night in addition to practicing. the plan last week was to do that, but then stefanie got hungry and once she leaves the room it's over and i can't get her back in there. even if i can get her back in there i can't get anything good out of her.
not much else to say honestly. i'm not even sure how long i've been here now. i have a ton of errands to run. i sold my vintage big muff- just by posting about my gear on the mbv message board. i mentioned i was planning to sell it and some dude on there just pm'ed me about and then offered me $70 after i told him i'd sell it for $50. sweet! he already paypalled the money to me, so i figured the least i could do would be to ship it off immediately (read today). i think he's a pink floyd lover because i found out yesterday that the version i am selling is the same version as david gilmour used during the division bell tour in 1994 (remember that one kiddies?). kind of an in-demand article. i bought it for $60 at old town music back in about 2003 or 2004- not real sure because i went in there intending to buy a black russian one, but tried that one out instead. i do actually miss old town music quite a bit because they always had a giant selection of used pedals that they would sell for very cheap and they had some of the weirdest shit i've ever seen and i bet that they had some stuff i'm after right now within my price range. i'm not really looking into buying much more new equipment. i looked into buying another tube amp and checked out a few candidates and discovered a few things about my second amp- a fender princeton chorus that i bought new in 1998 or 99 (possibly even 2000). 1) it is indeed a 100-watt amp. i was always told that you were supposed to half the wattage on the back and when i would pair it up with my twin (which is 100 watts) i would always wonder how it was possible that i could turn the princeton up to the same number and have them be the same amount of loudness. 2) it's a fairly unique and desirable amp at the moment. a few things i already did know were that it is incredibly reliable and much louder than other amps that are the same size. it's a solid-state amp, but i have noticed that when i pair it up with the twin it basically compliments it very nicely and it's almost like having two twins. i would like to have two twins one day but i think that that might still be a ways off. it does fill me with a bit of anxiety having two tube amps- they do actually require some maintenance- whereas a solid state doesn't seem to require any. the princeton chorus has never been serviced or repaired and it works exactly the same as when i first bought it. what's more i bought it with my own money way back then. it's kind of the same reason i would never replace my acoustic guitar. i guess not exactly the same because that acoustic guitar was bought with a check that my grandmother wrote me from a hospital bed. i can't remember the circumstances under which this happened- but i am guessing that it happened in 1995 or 96- probably 1996 for my 17th birthday. she did it in a sneaky way that she used to do- she'd just ask me how my guitar playing was going, if there was anything i had my eye on and she'd get my guard down and i mentioned something about an acoustic guitar i had my eye on and she asked me how much it was and when i said $200 she wrote me a check for $200 right then and there. so despite the problems i've had with that acoustic (i think it needs to be fixed- it's possible that a new nut would amend all of its woes) i refuse to get rid of it. it doesn't sound as clear or bright as a martin (but then what does for god's sake) but it's getting to the point where i just don't care and i love the tones that it makes- a lot of them are fairly flat and dry. when i was thinking about this yesterday it also reminded me that my grandmother is responsible for helping me buy the earliest acquisitions in my little arsenal- i know that i bought my jazzmaster with money that i had saved already and a check that she wrote me for christmas. the same goes for the bass amps that i bought. i used to be really good at haggling when i was a teenager. there was one time when i went to trade in my 50-watt bass amp for a 100-watt one (which i still have and use) and there was a tear in the speaker and mike and i put duct tape on it and painted it the same colour as the speaker so once we put the grill back on you couldn't tell it had been taped at all and i went and haggled and got the 100-watt amp for $200 and the trade-in. nice stuff. where is that skill these days? m.i.a.
basically i normally have such a never-ending drive to buy more and newer stuff all the time, but that desire is starting to dry up as i am realising more and more that i pretty much have everything i 'need.' there are a few pedals i'd like to try and get my mitts on before the tour in september.
i think that's good for right now.