when I don’t know what to talk about. There’s a lot going on, but most of it is the same old shit that we’ve had to endure for it seems like forever. The world is fucked, yet there are some bright spots here and there. I can’t think of any right now, but it’s Wednesday morning, and it’s a slow day so far. It rained most of last night. The previous day I had gone on to the roof and patched up the part at the front where the water pools, and causes problems in the winter time when it freezes. I was thinking of getting a new roof, but I didn’t think it was necessary. There are plenty of roofers around here who will all invariably tell you that you need an entirely new roof when you don’t. They like money, and who is going to argue with them? People don’t want to get up on their roof and take a look themselves, so they get gouged by the “experts”.
You can see your roof from outer space.
Around here I’ve largely stopped using tradesmen to fix things. A lot of the people I’ve paid good money to, had no idea what they were doing. I’ve had plumbers come in and do things that I now know were completely useless. They shouldn’t have even called themselves plumbers in the first place. They were criminals who were robbing people. If you don’t know anything about plumbing, which I didn’t at the time, you’d get ripped off.
I started to pay attention finally, and now there isn’t a plumbing problem I can’t solve. It’s just gravity most of the time. Being able to buy and use PVC pipes has made it easier to be one’s own plumber. Before that, plumbing involved heavy iron pipes which had to be joined together with some archaic process that nobody in their right mind would consider. Youtube university has also been a giant step forward. All the “black arts” of home improvement and repair are now available to everyone as long as you are prepared to wade through 20 videos of people who don’t know what they are doing to find someone who does.
Ladies can do plumbing too. She looks competent, I’d totally hire her.
I’ve written two paragraphs on plumbing and home improvement today. Who am I, Bob Vila? I’m not doing any of that house fixing stuff today. I have to put some casters on my amplifier. It’s a Fender Twin and it’s very heavy. It’s an iconic amp that has been around in various incarnations since 1952. There is a whole wikipedia page on it. if you’re interested. Mine’s a fairly recent version. A ’65 reissue I think. I’m not sure, and I don’t care. It’s plenty loud, that’s the most important thing. I want to be the loudest person in the band. Not all the time, but I want to be able to get above the drums and bass if I need to.
Twin Fender Twins
If it breaks down I can’t fix amps or anything electronic unfortunately. Perhaps the most basic stuff, but it’s not easy or fun to replace small electronic components like resistors. I’ve tried, but I just don’t have the patience. I’ll take it to the amp shop, like I do with my guitars. Would a surgeon try and repair the operating room equipment? What do you think? This is very serious stuff we’re doing here. It’s almost brain surgery.