Andy Summers vs Michael Greenfield

Fender has made an Andy Summers tribute telecaster guitar. It comes complete with all the scars, dings, and dents of Andy's regular guitar. Except the price is a little different. Andy paid one of his students a few hundred dollars for his guitar.

Fender is only asking $10,500 for a copy of it.

Sounds good to me. I will take two. Since Andy and I are such good friends. I could buy a few other Fender guitars for the price of one Andy Summers.

I own two Fender guitars at the moment. One Custom Shop Stratocaster and a Reissue Telecaster. I bought the Strat because it sounded and played well. The Tele I bought because very light weight ash is hard to find. The lighter the ash the better the sounding the telecaster. That is just my opinion. A heavy telecaster is easy to find. A light one is near to impossible. I only strummed one chord on it and I bought it from a friend of mine who works in a music store. He had set it aside for me when it arrived in the store and he had a chance to pick it up. He immediately called me.

They are the only two fenders that I have not sold a few months after i purchased them. And I have owned at least twenty or thirty Fender guitars.

$10,000 for something that you can make in your shed. People this is not and archtop or acoustic guitar that take months to build and large amounts of skill. It's a slab of ash or alder and some maple for the neck. The necks are bolted on for christ sake. Bolted, not even glued.

Michael Greenfield is an artist and you can buy one of his guitars for about the same money as the Andy Summers guitar. Please, buy one of Michaels before you buy anything like the AS guitar. Please. At least you will have something that was made by a craftsman.

Xmas gift crap

I got a game called "20 Q Music - Rock and Pop" by Radica. It should be from Crapica!

We have found it to be complete and utter crap.

Almost every time we think of a band name it answers Styx.

It has only gotten one right after asking 25 questions. The Eagles was the answer. Such an obscure band.

I didn't think that it was going to get that one at first. It has missed everything else.

So we have taken to asking each other the questions and guess what. We are able to guess the answer in less than 20 most of the time.

Other than that....it's perfect.

My little Martha Stewart

We made our annual trip to Kmart this morning to get the jump on the 50% off sale on the Christmas Martha Stewart stuff.

It's better that buying her a present. Just watching her go through the piles of stuff is worth the trip. She finds all kinds of things and makes her plans for next years Christmas.

She won't buy anything unless it is on sale for at leas 30% off. 50% off----bonus.
70% off--------double bonus!

This year she scored and I save over $150 bucks baby.

Simple Trip

Shamoopie didn't want much for Christmas.

- New Kitchenaid 6 quart mixer -------------------------Check

- Under the counter player for her IPOD ----------------Check
- Trip to Target to use the bloodpressure machine-------No

Seriously---a trip to Target to use the blood pressure machine.

She is a funny one.

Disappointment

Shamoopie is pregnant and since she is pregnant she has invented many new, well Shamoopyisms.

One of my new favorites is her new feelings toward fruit. We got a case of oranges and grapefruit for Christmas. Shamoopie has only eaten two pieces because "she can't handle the disappointment".

The disappointment if you bite into it and it's bad. Bad fruit has been linked to depression. Not. She knows it's not logical but there will be no convincing her for a little while at least.

Not being alone

My new buddy does not like being alone. At all. Last night we left him alone for four hours to go to a Christmas party. He had his own party in his crate.

It was not a pretty site. He pulled Shamoopie's favorite comforter into his crate. It was not pretty. He also got my sweatshirt, a pair of pants, and his own blanket. He was mad, frightened, and crazy.

He bent the crate. pretty badly. Good thing we bought the strong one. Once we were home he was fine. He tried to act like nothing had happened. Looking at us like it was burglars that broke in and did it.

Black Dirt

Growing up my grandfather had a farm. I worked on it from the time I was eight years old. The dirt was black. He grew onions. Lots and lots of onions. On the farm we also had animals. We had dogs. Mostly retrievers like Gibson.

On the farm I almost lost my left middle finger in a belt on some farm equipment. Luckily I still have it. All you can see now is my split finger nail. I almost lost my life while driving a dump truck and the brakes went out. Mostly I weeded until I was old enough to go into the packing house. Then I drove a forklift or any other vehicle that I had to to get the job done. That was by far the best job. Driving. Until I was old enough there was no driving.. just moving onions.

In the winter we would get railroad cars of onions from Texas and Arizona. My job was to dig down to the bottom of the cars and pull one bag from the front of the car, the middle, and the rear. The FDA inspector would then open the bag and slice open a few onions to check for rotten onions or mold. If everything was fine I got to unload the whole car, one bag at a time. Remember that these are 100 pound bags. If I worked late my mother would bring my dinner to the packing house so I didn't starve to death. My grandfather acted like he didn't care if you lived or died. It took me a while to figure out that that was just an act.

I didn't figure out that it was an act until he had a really bad third heart attack. That's when they replaced his heart valves with parts of the veins in his legs. He was back on the farm in one month. He wasn't allowed to lift anything so my uncle sent me my grandfather. I was instructed to make sure that he didn't get into any trouble. Some job. He decided that we should take over the peeled onion deliveries. He would drive and I would .....well...move all the onions. The year before he had purchased a couple of onion peeling machines and wanted them to be used. They peeled the onions and put them into large fifty pound plastic bags. Again...my job was to move all the fifty pound bags. I was twelve. And I was told not to kill Pop. Everyone knew him as Pop.

My dad...Papa

My dad is not a difficult man to understand. Shamoopie and I took him out for his 74th birthday this past Sunday night. Papa likes him some food. If you put a plate of good food in front of him he can't talk or listen to a word that you say. All he can think about is the food. Until it is gone, you get nothing. He doesn't like fancy. We tried that last year and all we got from him was "what is that again?". He wanted Outback Steakhouse. Regular vegetables and meat. Big slabs of meat.

Shamoopie knows this and loves my dad. She is able to work around the not talking and not listening during good food time.

The man remembers every good meal that he has ever had. He can tell you about the Lobster Bisque that he had in Maryland and the Bloody Mary that he had in Maine. He also can tell you in excruciating detail, the best steak, best prime rib, best chicken, potatoes, green beans, yadda, yadda, yadda...

The best onion soup comes from ye Jolly Onion Inn. He loves the place. Hasn't been there in 20 years but according to him it's still the best.

That's my dad and you are not going to change him but who wants to?

Birth Center visit

Shamoopie and I went to the birth center. She informed you about the re-spite and my error in just looking at the pictures and not reading the captions. I was board anyway. She also talked about the teamster who kept asking food questions.

He was all over how he was going to eat. He did ask how long this usually takes and if they allowed smoking. The answer was "It's depends" and "No". Shamoopie and I both were happy about the smoking answer. I think she asked when they were due? Luckily it was soon. It's their third child. Thankfully they are reproducing because we need more people like that.

The teamster also spent the whole movie filling out a union complaint form. (They sat next to us)

The rooms are new and the whole experience really depends upon your nurse. The nurses were all too busy to give the tours so we had a Papa clone give ours. He mumbled and told us stories about how bad all his other tour groups were.

Pee present

Shamoopie told you about the tree pee. She failed to mention that Gibson also whizzed on something else.

He whizzed on the Smelse. Twice. She didn't move while he was doing it either. I guess he has claimed her also! :)

This does not make for a happy Shamoopie.

Now I have to admit that trying to house train a dog while you are praising him to pee on trees outside and scolding him when he goes on the trees inside might be a little confusing to the poor dog. Peeing on the Smelse is not being tolerated by the Shamoopie at all.

I had to clean the tree skirt and look for any missed pee. It was difficult not to laugh while I was doing that. He didn't pee on all the presents. He missed mine and Lovelys. What an awesome dog!

Chocolate Lab

Gibson is a great dog. He is catching on quickly. I have been walking him every morning and so far I have been able to stop him from just hunkering down and pulling on the lease until he chocks himself.

He is walking like a normal happy dog.

Today there was a first. He pooped on the walk. I did not have any bags. Not that anything other than a Hefty trash bag could have been used to pick this thing up. He did it in the road and it looked like a horse left it.

There is one small problem. We changed his food and he is a little stinky right now and when I say a little, I mean that he can drive a pig from the room. Guess who's chair he likes to sit buy? Mine. He is so sweet and just wants to be my little buddy but there is no warning, no sound. He just fires a deadly missile and it's coming straight for you.

Wow! He just fired another SCUD. He has is own weapons of mass destruction. I shall go walk him again. This time I shall grab a few Hefty bags.

My new buddy

I have a new buddy. We picked him up today at the local Petsmart. I usually don't like to pick up animals of any kind there but the local shelter had brought them out. When he looked at me I could not resist.

We named him Gibson after the guitar company. They had named him Baldwin after the piano company. Gibson owns Baldwin pianos. Which are not very good pianos. But that is a whole other story.

He is a chocolate lab and it looks like he ran away from a hunter. We think that he is four years old and he loves the couch as you can see.


He is big, 90 lbs at least. He is a sweet as he can be. The girls seem to like him. The Princess thinks that he is fantastic . The Smelse is not so sure about him. She has informed him who is boss and so far he has complied. We will have to keep an eye on that relationship. The Smelse has been giving me looks like "I can't believe you did this" and "How could you?".

Smelse is the old lady of the house and has seen her share of dogs come and go. I named her Smelse because of her butt and breath.
You see Smelse is a poo eater. Sweet delicious poo. And the poo eatin affects her butt. It's silent butt deadly and will curl your nose hair. Other than that she is the perfect dog.

Lovely has the Princess. She sleeps with her on her bed and has been a great dog for her. Shamoopie has the Smelse. I now have Gibson. Awesome!

I feel bad about the fact that Smelse has issue with him but he follows me everywhere and I finally have a dog. Lovely has not seen him yet. She will go crazy when she gets back and sees him.


He has a crate and we are going to keep him in there since they were not sure if he is house broken. We will need to keep an eye on him. So far so good. Crate training it is.

He is such a pretty dog.

Holiday Santa

It that time of year when the world falls in love...

Wait that's a different post.

It's holiday santa time. Creepy holiday santa time. Take a look at this picture on the left. That little girl just looks worried and Santa looks creepy. Why would you want to be a holiday santa? I mean really. The pay is not great and you must deal with children. Other peoples children.

The guy on the right has learned how to deal with it. Drink. Drink until your drunk and then let the kid poop his pants on you.

You can't tell me that this guy doesn't look drunker that Randy Parton before one of his shows. Randy should work as a Santa this christmas. He looks the part in his news paper photos.

Guitar Center

Pretty soon Guitar Center will own all the internet music stores.

Musicians Friend = Guitar Center
American Musical = Guitar Center
Music 123 = Guitar Center
Guitar Trader = Guitar Center
Instrument Pro = Guitar Center
Guitar Tree = Guitar Center

How many stores do you need? I mean really. Where is the competition?

You should read what Mixerman has to say about Banjo Center. The story is quite entertaining.

Puppies on display

You have to love a woman who, while pregnant, points out another womens boobs. While the Shamoopie and I were out eating tonight she says "Hey, look over you left shoulder, check those puppies out".

Was she ever right, those puppies were on display. They looked like a small boy carrying two giant water balloons in his hands to a water fight. All smooshed, funny shaped, and looking like the boy might drop them at any moment.

What a woman my Shamoopie is and to think I almost missed that.

The Man Store

Many of you know that Shamoopie and I have been working on the house. Well most of the tools came from the Man Store. It's real name is Harbor Freight Tools but Lovely our eleven year old calls it Daddy's toy store or the man store.

It is truly heaven on earth for manly men who like tools and know how to use them. Now granted if I were doing home repair or construction for a living I would buy better tools. The nail gun that I have purchased for the floor is showing it's ge after only five floors. Is it dead yet....no. It was having a little trouble with the last two floors but we are done now. Five floors complete and we didn't pay $500 for a flooring nail gun.

The finishing nail gun is another story. It might not make it. We have had to replace all the molding in this house and only the downstairs is even close to being done. The gun is jamming and leaking air. It's not doing so good. But for $40 I can buy a new one and have it last at least through the work in this house. I bought my finishing nailor with a 25% off coupon that came in the mail from Harbor Freight. Even with coupons and discounts from Home Depot their nailer prices don't even come close.

You decide Home Depot vs Harbor Freight.


The one thing that I didn't skimp on was my air compressor, Porter Cable contractor grade. Awesome.

I have my eye on this crown molding stapler, Shamoopie.




Shamoopie will tell you that I have big tools in the Man Shed.




To quote her "I am surprised how many tools it takes to do this." .

She's cute.

Got skills

I have blogging skills. Two people have given me an award --MadSkillz

Thanks Bubbllewench.

PBR. A shamoopie favorite.

I also finished the floor in the babies room. It looks awesome. Also got the changing table put together. The baby is due in January.

Kicked out

Randy got kicked out of his own theater today. There was no Randy Parto show at the Randy Parton Theater (RPT). The RPT has lost it's name sake.

Don't know who Randy Parton is? He's Dolly's brother. Thaht's who. He had one 45RPM record in the 70s. Don't you remember?

He's a star!


In 1981 he had another 45 called "Don't cry baby".













Not to be confused wih a cry baby. Which is something completely different and much more popular than Randy Parton.

Punjab and Lahore

This is a term for something that shall remain nameless. I thought that it was just a reference to something that someone made up. Apparently I am wrong again. It is also a town in Pakistan called Lahore Punjab. The city is named Lahore and is part of Punjab speaking province. Yes it is pronounced "La whore Poon jab" or maybe "Poon jab la whore". I get confused from laughing so hard.

I can hear the conversations now "where are you going?" "I am headed to see what is going on with Lahore and maybe talk some Punjab."

"Punjab" by the way is the name that Shamoopie gave to a a woman that thought that I was cute.

Stocking Stuffers

For Shamoopie xmas is all about the stocking stuffers. Last year she complained that all is did was buy some stuff and literally stuff them into the stocking. I need new ideas for this year. Stocking are small. Where can you get stuff?

Thirty nine dollars

If you use the white pages online to look up phone numbers and they can't find a listing for the name you typed in the will send you to a search page.

I was looking for Shamoopie in the white pages and I informed her that is was only $39 for me to find her. She looked at me and proceeded to inform that that for $39 she would wave her hands and shout at me that she was right here. :)

She is one funny Shamoopie.

Old friends

So...this weekend stated weird. Sort of. Friday night Shamoopie and I ran into my old college roomate "Pain in the Bass". I said " Hi, Pain in the Bass" and he said " and you are?". Well that was a shocker. He figured out who I was after a few moments but it was a shock to me. I introduced the Shamoopie and asked if he still lived with his mother. He did not live with her anymore, she was dead. He now lives alone in the house and is fixing it up. That's why he was in the store.

Shamoopie could not believe that he and I were the same age. That's when I told her that I was older than Pain. Shamoop enjoyed the stories that Pain told about me.

So the next day we went to a high school bazaar and who do we see there? Hoss. He is an old guitar playing buddy of mine. When Hoss got off the road with BJ Thomas we formed a country band. Shamoopie said you played "Country". Shocking I know. Hoss asked if I was still playing, I told him yes. The last time Hoss saw me was at a record company party where he and I played with some Nashville producers and others. Hoss used to play in a band called Heartwood before he played with the "Beege" as he called him. Hoss would say that he played with him during the limp wristed years.

I enjoyed playing with the Hoss man and his brother B the bass player. It gave me some funny stories. Now Hoss has a new band. We got to hear all about it. I am glad to hear that he is still playing.

Shamoopie quickly figured out that Hoss is a character. Since he told the story to her about the time he had a vasectomy and asked me to come over and mow his lawn because he was laid up, in pain, and had lost his manhood. The funny part is, I did it. I mowed his lawn because he had a vasectomy.

Hoss kept asking me why I haven't called. Maybe I will now as long as he doesn't need his lawn mowed. Come to think of it, my mower is broken, I wonder what Hoss is up to. He also informed Shamoopie about his addiction to Reeses Cups and how they are just like crack.

So far it has been an interesting weekend. I can't wait to see who we see tomorrow. :0