We are past the autumn equinox. The night reigns supreme. Fortunately these WEAK NOTES were born in the dark. Molded by it.

This week I have mainly been lusting after Fender Jaguars. It didn’t start that way, it just happened. I’ve been looking for something a bit quirky and offset-y to replace my Baum Wingman (which is an amazing guitar, but I just can’t seem to get on with Bigsbys, ideologically speaking).

After looking at a few cheap and cheerful options (like the Rapier 22) I decided to stop beating around the bush and work out how to finally get a proper Fender Jaguar. At which point Fender immediately announced the Vintera II series.

Nearly £1,300 for a MIM Fender? Ouch. And only in black and white. But it got me considering the previous Vintera models which are under a grand and the turquoise one has a lovely painted headstock.

Then there was a sign from the universe.

A Vintera I Jag cropped up on eBay, about a year old but pretty much mint and for a couple of hundred below retail. So I pulled the trigger and it should arrive midweek. The Baum is now on eBay. All very exciting.

And because it’s not new new I’m going to treat it as a bit of a project. Already making a list of bits… that tortoiseshell pickguard has to go, and it’ll need a Mustang style bridge at least. Some Creamery Dark Line pickups perhaps?

The NME is coming back to print as a premium format small circulation rag. I’m not against this as a concept (I very much enjoyed the Eleven guitar mag that came out a few months back) but all things being equal I wish it was Melody Maker doing it. NME was always a bit up its own jacksie.

Rishi has dialed back the Conservative’s previously respectable environmental pledges, which was their one saving grace policy-wise. This is one area where we need a more left-wing party in power, frankly. There’s no way the Tories “small government” mentality is up to the challenge we’re facing in dialling back emissions, just in the same way they weren’t able to face up to the health crisis among the poor in the early part of the 20th Century.

We (humanity) need to invest in this stuff. We need to be ambitious with targets so that those who can meet them have incentive to do so. No new fossil cars, no new gas boilers… instead subsidise building an industry installing charging points and community heat pumps and all that infrastructure stuff we need to hit the net zero goals. It’s very anti-Tory thinking, but the government has an opportunity here to create an industry, create jobs, etc… ones that it can tax for generations to come. With the tangential benefits of clean air, energy security and maybe stopping the air turning out like the Venusian atmosphere.

In the meantime everyone in Europe (just about) is breathing toxic air.

Yay.

There is now a WordPress plugin to present your blog ActivityPub which is interesting, although I suspect it might be a tad clunky for many. Blog-as-fediverse-profile feels… weird. There’s an ideological difference (to me) between this type of long form screaming into the abyss and the shorter form “look at me screaming into the abyss” of social networks. One is for your output, one is about you.

Mastadon launched search though. Which is probably good? Honestly, the server I’m on I mainly browse the local timeline.

I suspect I’m not very good at “internet”. But I fought in the Mosaic trenches. Now get off my lawn.

Titanfall is back!!!1! Except probably not. But even that article had me checking it’s Steam Deck compatibility… I’ve had it in my library for ages with a view to a replay of the single player campaign (pretty sure I played it on PS4 originally).

That said, my gaming backlog is full. I’ve got to finish Shadow of the Tomb Raider (which isn’t as good as the first two so it might get abandoned), and then I was going to finally plug some serious hours into Cyberpunk 2077 which I’ve owned for about eighteen months and not really progressed more than a couple of missions into. But they finally finished it and by all accounts the V2 update removes a lot of the jank. I’ll be leaning into the PS5/Steam Deck crossplay because it’s a bit much to play when the fam are around though. Plus my son and I are enjoying Duos in Fortnite at the moment, and he’s grinding the battle pass… “PlayStation contention” is a thing…

And that’s before Spider-Man 2 comes out. And there’s a new Assassin’s Creed too. And and and…

There’s a lovely little article on the Beeb about Henry Diltz’s accidental rockstar photography.

I think I need to get my camera out. Ever since I got the smaller iPhone (to help with the RSI) I’ve been suffering from it’s relatively poor camera.

Hmmmm.

Goals achieved from the previous week:

  • Work stuff yup
  • Accountancy stuff (ugh) done!
  • Keep everyone alive (req’d by law) yep

Goals for the coming week:

  • Finally get the project I’ve working on for months actually signed off by the client
  • Don’t get too excited about the Jaguar

You merely adopted the dark. Until next week.