adrian is rad

For my upcoming South Africa trip:

• 3 X 2GB SD cards (in addition to the 2 I already have)
• 6 X Velvia 100 color slide film, 6 X Tri-X 400 black and white negative film

Just because:

• One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found
• one CD not to be named due to its embarassing nature (I’ll chalk it up to comfort music) [update: oh fine, it might be this]

[another update:] I also bought a few tickets to this year’s Noise Pop:

• Feb 28: Sebadoh (orignal line up) at the Great American Music Hall
• March 2: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the GAMH

This shirt is funny!

(via tcritic)

USA Curling hat to support their first ever medal!

Way to beat the Red Coats, Team USA!

1. drink
2. watch Lost in Translation
3. order crap online

it’s tradition.

this is the point where I assume that you want to buy me stuff.

my christmas list.

my parents ask for a christmas list every year. it’s gotten significantly different in the last couple of years since I’ve been earning money. I tend to buy what I want so there’s not a lot on my “wish list.”

My friend Jon is looking at buying some NYC subway memorabilia in the near future. There are some neat signs. Apparently there are high minimums and processing fees, however. If you’re interested in some stuff I can put you in touch with him.

Strangely, I’ve bought lots of things in the last 24 hours. First I got a call from African Hut to say that the goods I had ordered in mid-August had come in and they were sending them. Then, later in the day I decided to pick up that Mark Kozelek/ Sun Kil Moon Modest Mouse covers record from Insound at which point I found that you could answer a stupid quiz and get 25% off your whole order, so I got a few things there. Then, this morning, I read that there’s a new 7″ Half-Handed Cloud/ Sufjan Stevens EP out today so I decided to pick that up and noticed something else while I was at the Asthmatic Kitty website.

So, the full haul:

• a case of Savanna Dry Cider, originally meant to be consumed with Jon Werberg, but that will do just fine now.
• 1/2 lb of biltong
• 1 can of guava halfs (or as I call it, 1 can of pure heaven)
• If You’re Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian. I’m finally picking up a CD copy of this. ($8.99 minus 25%!) I now have all the B&S albums on CD.
• The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore by Saxon Shore. I liked their previous album and decided to give this one a try.
• Summer in the Southeast by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The first time I heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in any form was live at Club Laga. I’ve wanted a live recording ever since and now he’s coming out with one. Pre-order for November 15.
• Bodies and Minds by Great Lake Swimmers. I liked GLS’s debut when it came through the station. This effort is apparently good, so I thought I’d pick it up. (What was I thinking last night? I never buy this many “gamble” albums at one time.)
• Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon. Aforementioned Modest Mouse covers album. Pre-order for Nov. 1 though I think I’ve heard they’ve started shipping them.
• What’s the Remedy by Half Handed Cloud. Aforementioned collaborative effort with Sufjan Stevens. Vinyl 7″.
• Sufjan Stevens Illinois shirt. They didn’t have them when the concert tour came through here in July but they wore them on stage and boy were they hot.

So yeah, that’s me going crazy. I’ll be getting piles of stuff over the next few weeks though!

Dylan and I have started a crap buying contest.

The terms are:

• the one with the most and the highest quality crap wins
• there’s a $50 limit to all spending (items, tax, and shipping included)
• spending must be done by June 22. Items will be judged July 6.

What’s an example of good crap (and good crap density)? My autographed picture of Bob Villa inscribed “To Joe. Best Wishes, Bob Villa” for $3.

I felt bad because I’m spending $50 on nothing in particular when I could be doing something better with it, so I just donated $50 to Catholic Charities of San Jose as an offset of sorts.

I’ll let everyone know who won and what the haul was when we’re done.

I really want to get this shirt, but, alas, I’ve given up buying stupid crap for lent.

Those crazy mormons!@

to all the people who don’t care about Wurlitzer electric pianos at all, because it seems like every second post talks about them. As it turns out, I spend a good amount of my interesting, non-work time on them; that is non-work time that isn’t TV or making dinner or reading websites or whatever.

What do people think of the blog-title-continued-in-the-post thing that I did on this post and the last one? effective? confusing?

finally finally finally!

Wurlitzer Electric Piano 206A No. 1 has been shipped. To Andy Chadwick no less. It was the first that I powered up and I intended it to be the one I kept. But Andy got antsy for the one I’d promised him and this one had the most promise, so I got to work.

The mods and other things I now have done:

• rewired power
• cut a hole in the top for the new power socket
• tuned one of those crazy reeds (one of the G’s was a bit flat)
• detached the top from the base
• rewired the headphone jack so it didn’t go via the base
• wired a line-out jack
• cleaned off the scratches in the keys (many have been scratched with letters)
• replaced a fuse (not a trivial job, as it turns out)

Shipping weight? 64.2 lb.

Basically the only thing I haven’t done that I want to try is the vibrato kit, to make the sound identical to the 200A.

Now to turn this place into an assembly line and get nos. 2-20 out the door.

So I got to work on the final preps of what’s going to be Andy’s wurly. I’m going to ship it, so to reduce weight, etc, I’m going to take the bottom/ speakers off. I’m also going to add a line-out and re-route the power, of course. I’d done the power to this one already and the line-out seems pretty trivial so I set about trying to figure out how to take the bottom off. I basically spent 3.5 hours taking 8 carefully placed screws out. Now that I know where they all are and how to take them out without completely screwing up the hammer action of some notes to the point where I have to take off the pickup plate in order to fix my mistakes, I think I’d be able to do it in about half an hour.

I need to pick up a couple resistors and a capacitor to do the line-out line. should be fairly easy.

Other accomplishments of recent:

• went to Dittmer’s Wursthaus. got some boerewors, chicken apple sausage, weisswurst, thuringer bratwurst and ukrainian sausage for the game tomorrow.
• got some 40s and bad beer for the game tomorrow
• swam
• cleaned my room to some extent
• rehung my bike in the Jon Werberg-school of bike hanging (single-hook, by the seat)
• ordered a 50s reissue fender precision bass

Jon Werberg put it nicely on Sunday. Some teams just stick with you. The BoSox, the Steelers. It’s the history, it’s what the team represents and it’s to a large extent, the fans. What the team means to the fans. It became national news this fall what the Red Sox means to Boston and the Red Sox Nation.

Pittsburgh is more insular though. The flux of people in Boston, adding to the Red Sox Nation, is not common place in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t stop every home game to be sold out. That doesn’t stop the largest crowd to ever watch a Steelers home game from showing up in sub-10 degree weather to see their dream team fall.

I haven’t been to Green Bay or Chicago (and I was in Boston when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl), but it’s hard to imagine a city more devoted to its team. Or a city more crushed by their team’s loss. Pittsburgh doesn’t get a lot of good news. The city is bankrupt; the county will be too soon. People and jobs move away. My team—my boys as I call them sometimes—lost and I’m sad. But almost moreso I’m sad for my home town. I don’t think anyone that isn’t a Pittsburgher can understand how much joy this team gave them; the bouyancy that Pittsburghers had during the seasons; and the hopes that were rested on the team.

In the words of fans of the losers that always get so close “next year will be our year.” And I think it may be. Plaxico is leaving but it seems most of the rest of the team will stick around. Roethlisberger may come back from his only loss in the NFL and be better for it; he may have a sophomore slump. Time will tell.

Was I glad I went? definitely. I’d probably even do it again knowing everything I know now.

Mean time, I think it’s about time to put my name on the season ticket waiting list. In 10 or 15 years I may actually be back in Pittsburgh by the time I get them.

I’m bidding (and getting outbid) on ebay for tickets to the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh. It’s scary. I feel I could get screwed in so many ways. It’s also exciting.

Between this and my adventures on shopgoodwill.com, I’m starting to remember why I used to be hopelessly addicted to ebay.

I spent all day yesterday moving the twice aforementioned Wurly electric pianos.

They are 140 lb each. My back hurts and I’m tired.

But they will be undeniably sweet. Just as soon as I stop hurting.

That’s right. I’m the big winner. Andy, you should have jumped on it while you could. Instead, it will be hung above our toilet at the Purple Zone.

• Buy a new starter for my car. The current one doesn’t like me.*
• Buy surplus electronic parts to fix Wurlitzer 206A Electronic Pianos (21+ of them!!!!!!!!!) at HSC
• Call Uhaul to make sure they have my reservation for a truck to move aformentioned keyboards.
• Write and send christmas cards
• Write liner notes for lauren owens’ Lauren6 mix CD and send CD
• Add comment preview to blog for Andy
• Open up my receiver and find the loose connection (the speakers go between soft and loud as I move the receiver around)

*so Shad’s going to help me replace my starter and I was thinking it’d be funny if he comes over and is like “are you all ready to replace it?” and I said “almost” and I go inside and then come out in grease monkey jumpsuit, grease smeared all over my face and a big old monkey wrench hanging off my belt. “Alright, now I’m ready.”