The Toys That Make the Noise

Some of you may remember that the last time I was in Japan I bought an MXR Phase 90 'EVH' signature model. EVH stands for Edward Van Halen.The paint replicates Eddie's famous color scheme for his guitars. The ' Script' button on the upper left changes the circuitry in the pedal to sound like the older models, whose "MXR" logo was written in... you guessed it... sc...Read more

足球小流氓服裝

I'm certain that the title of this blog entry is an atrocious attempt at translation that doesn't say what I want it to.

This probably doesn't either:  吹我Today I picked up what I thought was a wildly inexpensive kitchen towel. Well, not only does it turn out to be quite a bit larger than expected, it's also not really a towel at all! Look: It's a Chinese footie scarf!!I don't know anything at all about Chin...Read more

Swirling Colors

Ever seen a guitar with this paint job?: Ever wondered how they do it?

I always wondered.

Then I found out:

Pasty White Man with Pasties

The air in Hong Kong the last few days has been horrendous. You need a fork to breathe. A stainless steel fork, because whatever is in this air could eat the paint off of a bulldozer. 

Thanks to this Pollution Festival, I have been essentially housebound for two days. Still working, just not breathing.

I suffer from what I like to call Location-Specific Asthma. I never had asthma before I moved to Hong Kong. I leave it here when I go away; I have no asthma in Japan, or Korea, or Taiwan (though I bet I could), or S...Read more

Apologies to Zoe

While this entry will in fact contain that which the subject heading references, I just want to say that I really, really like thatphrase .It reads nicely. It has 'A to Z' in it.It just sounds nice, like something you can have done at a really expensive sauna: "Would you prefer our Scalding Mud Bath body cleansing or Apologies to Zoe?" See? Ahhhhhh...Maybe I should apologize for that paragraph.

But never mind. On to the realapology.

And since this is not a Patrick Kong movie, you can trust that it is indee...Read more

Don't take the bus

I don't even want to write this, but I feel I must.

I don't take the bus very often. It may be vestigial snobbery leftover from living in America, where only Broke Folk take the bus. But I've just been handed an unimpeachable reason to stay off the bus.

Now first, I ought to admit that I am often amused by things many people would find offensive. My favorite comic moment in Gladiator is when Maximus' son gets trampled by a horse. They used a mannequin, and I thought it was farking hilarious.

T...Read more

Insomnia Cured

I've been working on one of my guitars. It has a few interesting (to me and other guitar geeks) modifications and stuff, and I thought I'd share them with you because sometimes people need to be put to sleep through boredom...

The body style is called a Non-Reverse Firebird. Which, I admit, sounds like saying "Un-different."

When I got it, it was raw wood:So I stained it:Read more

Navels and Chinese and...

Recently, I pondered whether or not I should un-fan myself from people whose blogs/entries are in Chinese.

I can't read Chinese, and web translators are good for humor and f@#$-all else. So it seemed at least slightly pointless.

But I didn't want to seem like I was being... what's the word?

An @sshole?

It's a tough choice, sort of, because on the one hand I don't think it's terrible of me to not want to look at something I can't read.

Which in turn makes me ask m...Read more

Movie Review: The Sniper/神鎗手

I've seen something very similar.

In the bottom of a diaper.

Tokyo Tales II

By the time I finished that blog entry last night (this morning), I was too tired to keep adding to it.

But it is necessary, and important, for me to mention that I did go see Mai Shojising in Shin Okubo with Mio.

As I noted last night, it was nice to realize I have friends in Tokyo (or at all, but that's not my point).

Especially friends who look like Mio and Mai. It's nice to be ...Read more