Special back-to-school edition WEAK NOTES.

Ah, the psychological benefits of wishlisting.

Getting my car through it’s MOT cost a fortune, and with the summer holidays cutting into my billable hours, plus being in a pre-production phase of a job (which is more bitty meetings than nine-to-five) I haven’t earned very much in the past couple of months. My disposable income is somewhat… diminished at the moment.

In the meantime, the autumnal GET EVERYTHING IN THE SHOPS FOR XMAS!!!1! retail wave has begun to crash and there are new guitar bits and new books and 1,000,000 new games and just new stuff in all the feeds that I want to buy.

And also there is school uniform and food and stuff that I have to buy.

And ggggngh.

As such, my Steam and Amazon wishlists are presently growing out of control. Which is perverse because I already backlog anxiety when it comes to almost all media consumption and luthier projects. But… it somehow enables me to close the loop in my brain about the thing. Adding stuff to the wishlist is marking it “done” somehow.

I should be very easy to shop for at Christmas this year.

Not all crass consumerism escaped me; There was a Rapier 22 (the Chinese-made JHS/Entwhistle remake of an old British Watkin’s Rapier guitar from the 60s) going for about 60% of RRP on Andertons. It is not a guitar I’m curious enough about to pay list price for, but for £265 it’s probably flippable with only minimal loss on eBay if I’m not keen, and I’d get to see what a “Hi Lo” tremolo is. (Looks Jazzmaster-y?)

I went to buy the guitar after a couple of days umm-ing and ahh-ing, only to discover that someone had already bought it. But… I’ve been thinking about it enough that I might have to look elsewhere for one. Stupid brain.

To be clear: I do not in any way need a fiesta red Chinese copy of a 60s guitar. At best it fills the same use case as my Epiphone Crestwood and that’s had some serious upgrades and is officially a “keeper”. It would be entirely surplus to requirements.

STUPID BRAIN.

In other news, hell is other people(‘s CSS). That’s all I’m saying about work this week, other than to note everything took more time than I wanted it to and it’s been like wading through swimming pool full of treacle with landmines floating in it.

Articles of interest:

This week I learned that Patricia Quinn nearly dropped out of the Rocky Horror movie because she wasn’t allowed to sing Science Fiction Double Feature as the Usherette. It’s easily the second best song in the musical so I can totally see why.

This week I learned that Bobbi Gibb ran the Boston Marathon, which obviously shouldn’t have been controversial but it really was.

I just read a Guitar World article regarding the Robert Fripp/Toyah concert series in which Robert Fripp states: “I don’t like B as a note… it’s unsound.”

It has never occurred to me to have opinions about individual notes.

Goals achieved from the previous week:

  • Remember it’s a bank holiday tomorrow. I actually worked that day
  • Don’t forget to do week notes. Barely

Goals for the coming week:

  • Write that post on minimal travel rigs, and do some Listening Room posts (2nd time rolling).
  • Debut the Duo-Sonic to the world (rolling).
  • Make it around the Kew Garden’s 10K

Enough. My wife has been back at work for a week after her summer hols, but the kid isn’t back yet. Even though he goes to one of the handful of schools in the UK that isn’t crumbling into dust they’ve put a bazillion inset days in front of their autumn term. He doesn’t start back until the middle of next week. That means I’ve been spending my “free” time playing co-op Fortnite Duos with him instead of getting my shit together (or doing proper parenting). And frankly, right now I should be doing my invoicing instead of writing this. Ho hum.

I’m actually craving getting back into the routine of it all. I miss my post-school run walk.

See you next week. Be nice to each other, and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.