Whammy bar is the term usually used, or tremelo arm as Fender call it, even though it produces vibrato, not tremelo. Anyway, Page didn't use one. He had the minimum of distortion needed, keeping all the edge a dynamics. Once you crank it past a certain point it smoothes out and the dynamics are gone. Add a bunch of electronic processing and voilà - hair metal!

But if you like guitars to sound like lions and other creatures native to the savannah, check out Adrian Belew. He had a track called Lone Rhino, full of terrifying guitar Rhino noises. That was before he found out rhino's don't make much noise at all.

It is only dangerous if done incorrectly. As someone who has used it on choking victims I do agree that three sharp back bows work just as well. It is one thing to talk about somethings and quite another to find yourself on the spot having to do it.


As for the injuries, CPR can be just as dangerous (broken ribs and more) but it's better than nothing.

I really should learn to play guitar - I have a hard time pulling my piano out and playing around the campfire!!

I can recommend a ukulele for portability and ‘fireside-ness’. I have an 8-string tenor Lanikai which gives a great sound for little effort. Guitar chords I find difficult, but uke chords are (mostly) easy. Except for B. B is a bitch. That might be why I play so many songs in G-C-D or C-F-G. 12-bar blues on the uke … it's not as bad as you'd think.

Guitar cords are even more nonsensical to me than advanced algebra. :(
Giving them better names would've been a better way to go: “this cord is Dave, this one is Jim and this is Sarah. This cord is called Arse Bastard in the Well.”

I forgot my apricot bar today. :(
I have no snack at work! Dammit! I'll just have to drink more tea. Boo.
Bugger! Bum! Dicks! Great hairy balls of fire! :( :( :(

ozoneocean wrote:
Guitar cords are even more nonsensical to me than advanced algebra. :(
Giving them better names would've been a better way to go: “this cord is Dave, this one is Jim and this is Sarah. This cord is called Arse Bastard in the Well.”

Phonetic alphabet is your friend. It doesn't have to be Alpha code, or the Able code. There have been ones that were all names. I think the RAF used one like that in WW 2. A for Adam and the like for the squadron codes.


I can see me finally getting back to producing comics. I am still carting around my laptop even though I haven't set it up in weeks. Killing my shoulder for no reason. But work has been a killer of late and the only thing I have wanted to do upon getting home is sleep. Lots of running around getting the blood pressure up. So if course it'll be a prescription when it should be “slow down,and relax!”

Playing chords is like drawing figures. You either remain in the dark and treat each one as a fresh nightmare, or do yourself a favour and learn some anatomy.
The musical equivalent is harmonic theory. Learn the rules of harmony and throw away the chord books - so much easier in the long run.

And Gunwallace is right - uke is your perfect fireside companion. Get a uke bravo. Much easier on the shoulder!

I don't have a uke though not for lack of trying. The last thing I need is another thing to waste time with.

Yes you do Bravo, you really do.

If only I had money to spare for a nice electric guitar… that I know I will never learn to play any more than I've been about to do with my acoustic one -_-

So I've “rented” the force awakens on the Android play store. Tonight I will watch it on my old comp on the nice big screen with surround sound that I finally bothered to get working again.
This better work! I feel some trepidation because that comp is old and unreliable now, but it's the only on with really, really fantastic sound. -_-

ozoneocean wrote:
Yes you do Bravo, you really do.

We're losing people at work so sixty hour weeks are looking pretty definite. No time to spend on any pursuit other than checking the photo ID of the weak, lame and lazy idiots on parade I deal with day in and day out. I really feel like Diogenes looking for an honest man. I merely seek someone with a modicum of manners and consideration for the poor dumbass security guard forced to make sense of government issued id's for 12 hours a day.

Imagine if you were playing jaunty tunes while at work though, how much happier everything would be :D

So what do you guys think of the over-exposed under-acting Scarlet Johanssen playing Motoko Kussanagi in the live action version of Ghost In The Shell?

People are mainly annoyed because of the “white-washing” where ethnicly European actors play the roles of characters of different ethnicities. I don't see that part of it as a huge aspect here because it's not like Japanese actors have too much of an issue with proper representation (apart from Keanu Reeves…).
Where I take issue is that the Japanese ethnicity of the character is an essential part of the story- She's a Japanese war veteran who has gathered a team of highly skilled soldiers from the surrounding nations. She represents he leadership of Japan going into the cyber age. her body itself is a metaphor for the changes that have happened to her country and her culture, are happening to it and will happen to it.

I'm only sad at the way it ruins an essential part of the story. I don't care about the film. It's a highly intellectual story that sells itself through exciting action and cool cyber concepts. The choice of Scarlet means it'll be dumb action fare.

Maybe they've changed the setting to america? If she's supposed to be Japanese in the live action film it's bad casting, but if they change it up… I can live with it. Not like the original is going to disappear because of the live action remake.

How do you guys manage being fit and active with being creative? It so often feels like an either or situation for me. I've been creative again for over a year but I've also been very unfit. Now I'm getting more active again I find I cannot get into a creative frame of mind. This happened before a couple of years back which resulted in my becoming much less active in comic making.

Genejoke wrote:
Maybe they've changed the setting to america? If she's supposed to be Japanese in the live action film it's bad casting, but if they change it up… I can live with it. Not like the original is going to disappear because of the live action remake.

How do you guys manage being fit and active with being creative? It so often feels like an either or situation for me. I've been creative again for over a year but I've also been very unfit. Now I'm getting more active again I find I cannot get into a creative frame of mind. This happened before a couple of years back which resulted in my becoming much less active in comic making.

This is a struggle for me too, and being fit and active is really important to me. Last summer I hardly updated at all because I was focusing on getting into shape for the summer (I am a girl after all, so the “bikini ready” mentality really hits me) and then this past fall I really focused on being creative and working on my comic/art.. which meant I updated frequently; but wasn't as active. I am really trying to balance both right now. I try to go to the gym or HIIT classes about 3-4 days a week, and by time I come home, shower, eat etc.. I can work on my comic about an hour or two. My updates have slowed to about 1 page a week, with me working on the page an hour or two each day through out the week. And I need to get social life stuff in there too haha..it's kind of difficult, I don't know how so many artists can work on multiple projects, update frequently or work on amazing paintings/pieces of art that literally take hours and hours to complete. I have a hard time with my 1 comic, and I don't even have a family or kids or anything, which would make it even harder! If you guys have any tips please tell us your secrets haha

I'm doing neither right now, haha. Hopefully when school is over in a couple of weeks that will change! I find that my fitness level varies drastically with the seasons. As soon as it gets warm enough I'm out on my bike every day, but during the winter I do almost nothing. The exercise bike just isn't the same feeling. The unfortunate thing is that I live somewhere where it's winter an awful lot of the time.

—

I just finished the Dostoevsky essay I've been working on for forever! The first half is definitely better than the second and there's one source that I really should have used and didn't, but I'm feeling pretty pumped about it anyways.

Exercise is hard to keep up with. I'd love to develop more muscle tone, but I just don't have the energy required to do that much extra work…
And ironically if you change your diet to something that GIVES you the energy you need (more food basically) then that becomes habit forming, so if you stop exercising you have a habit that directly makes you fat XD
Exercise leads to bad health! Ahahahaha!

It's true though. Look at ex-athletes who've stopped exercising in middle age and later life, dancers too actually.

It takes more effort to maintain my shape than it did when I was younger- if I eat a lot of crap than I get soft in the middle. That didn't happen when I was younger, I could eat what I wanted and not change.

At least I'm not a stick insect now like I was back then though! I found an old pair of jodhpurs in the bottom of my cupboard that I got when I was about 15 for riding school. They fit much better now than they did then, which is nice- tight on my legs. Back then they were embarrassingly baggy in places, I hated them for that.

At the moment I'm thinking of taking up dancing to get my exercise. Except I'm really terrible at it (I trip myself somehow). Still, at least I won't look silly dancing by myself. :)

I took hip hop classes recently for fun/exercise and I tripped so much and looked quite ridiculous. Oh well, it was an intro class and I just hung out at the back, so I don't think anyone noticed me. (There were some crazy dancers who were obviously way to good to be in intro at the front of the class)

Anyone else bumed about Judge Dredd dying?

Just me then.

Okay. I just learned that Harriet Tubman will be replacing Jackson on the the American $20 bill. I'm pretty sure a lot of people might be angry over this…


And apparently Prince is dead… you know, the guy who sang about purple rain… :(

I'd love to learn to dance for exercise.

Judge Dredd is dedd? When did that happen? Unless you mean that horrible British Ska singer? But that was ages ago…

Pretty sad about Prince. Always a bit of an enigma. I only just learned his last name from the news reports now: Nelson.
Funny how we make people gods after they die… I used to like his music and his image, but people were always a bit ambivalent about him. That will totally change now though :)

I his later years David Bowie became a much bigger icon than he was when he was in his heyday and way more respected- and you start to falsely believe that he was ALWAYS that respected and as much of an icon- ALWAYS that nice and good natured of a person… But from what I've read of how he was back in the 1970s he could be a bit of a dick and a silly diva.

My doctor gave me a higher dose of the meds I take for anxiety attacks, and I took one of them on a trial run today just to see how I felt. Man, I have been feeling GREAT all day. Slightly spacey but not enough to affect my work too much, and it's really awesome not being a cluster of nervous energy for a little while.

Lonnehart wrote:
Okay. I just learned that Harriet Tubman will be replacing Jackson on the the American $20 bill. I'm pretty sure a lot of people might be angry over this…

Why do you think people will be angry? Because the people who argue that the U.S. is run by white males almost exclusively (it is) will have an iota less of evidence?

ayesinback wrote:

Lonnehart wrote:
Okay. I just learned that Harriet Tubman will be replacing Jackson on the the American $20 bill. I'm pretty sure a lot of people might be angry over this…

Why do you think people will be angry? Because the people who argue that the U.S. is run by white males almost exclusively (it is) will have an iota less of evidence?

The US has already tried the woman on currency thing with the dollar coins that I wish had banished dollar bills to the Slag heap of history. By putting a woman on everyone's favorite bill hopefully it will stick this time.

HippieVan wrote:
My doctor gave me a higher dose of the meds I take for anxiety attacks man, and I took one of them on a trial run today just to see how I felt… Soooo grooovy! DUDE, I have been feeling GREAT all day. Slightly spacey but not enough to affect my work too much, and it's really awesome not being a cluster of nervous energy for a little while you know? So chill.

This is how that should have gone.

——–

People are very conservative about changing money and the US is one of the most conservative countries EVER… about money and other things, so you can see why certain people would have an issue.
I mean, like Bravo says with the coins; you guys have had dollar coins for years and years but most people seem to think they're fake or counterfeit and the only place I could get any was the ticket machines on train stations.

Whereas the most successful counterfeiter in American history made singles. The most counterfeited bill is the 20. I refused a few in my time. Several retailers refuse to accept 50 and 100 dollar bills considering the frequency they are counterfeited. The safest currency from counterfeiterseveral is coins. They never get the weight or edges right. This isn't the Middle Ages where anyone could make a die to stamp out coins.

By the end of my first trip I had so MANY of the bloody things I had to carry them around in a little bag. No one would take them.
I gave them all to a homeless guy. He thanked me as normal till he looked closer and saw they were all dollars, then his eyes widened and saw how much money it really was.

-Probably not that much, I dunno, I stopped counting. But more than he thought he was getting anyway and he was really effusive thanking me after that so maybe it was? I just remember they were heavy and I didn't want to take them home with me aaaand I thought he could use them a lot more.

Since most soft drinks are over a dollar, most of those machines accept dollar coins. Even the older Susan B Anthony coins.

When in Britain I liked having a few bills and a pocketful of pound coins. Made making exact change so easy. I held the money for once because my wife could not understand the currency.

Aside from the weight of the coins, the problem with the Anthony dollar is that it's too close in size to the quarter and mistakes are easy and frequent. Hence the recipient's surprised delight at Oz's charity.

As you probably know, several countries' airports have containers in their international terminals where travelers can discard the local money, and purportedly help individuals in need. I wish the US had these, and if they do already, I wish they were more visible.

As far as the US being the most conservative, probably yes about many things. But I think the prevailing issue is that we're probably more careless and take way too much for granted; we're more about innovation and less about maintenance. In fact, in the area of maintenance we probably deserve bottom rankings.

It's rather stupid making broad statements about the US (which I just did, so draw your own conclusions) because one area of the country can be radically different than another, each exhibiting their own level of diversity tolerance. But there are so many assumptions in place no matter where you go, and they aren't doing us any good.

But every country has their s**t, the US is just so obvious about it.

As recently as ozoneocean was in the USA he got mostly those golden dollar coins like the last time I took the train. I loved that coin, made counting out the drawer that much easier. Counting coins usually went faster for me than greasy ,grimy, worn out singles that were less than six months old.

I still keep around some for use in soda machines. Better than trusting to unreadable singles.

Canada has it best with their loonies and toonies! :)
Here we also got rid of our 1 and 2 dollar notes back in the 1980s and replaced them with coins, but they're pretty small and light and everyone accepts them. They're both gold in colour. We tried a $5 coin but that was going too far…
The original dollars were all coins of course! We have Spain to thank for the origin of the “dollar”.

Im prtty sure that the tipping culture in the US keeps the dollar bill alive. That and strip clubs.