This dude is me, Andrew. I am pictured playing in the dirt with a domestic backhoe named "Scoopie".

What I'm doing right now is slouching in my supposedly leather "executive" style office chair (with the right armrest de-installed to facilitate seated guitar-playing), ass hanging precariously off the seat's front edge, back of my head where my spine is supposed to go. To the unaided eye, this appears about as comfortable as a luge. But really, I am relaxed. I have the neck of my "Converse (with satan)" T-shirt pulled up to my nose, held there by the one sided kiss of consideration.

Earlier in the day, my actions were more obviously productive-looking: I put a project into version control, dialed into a teleconference with my fellow corporate raiders (scattered across the United States like bad datums), submitted photographs to Ivey Seright (which now insists that its name is "Photobition". This is, in my opinion, a lousy word) for enlargement, mailed in a bug report to Elektron ESI, bought a whole lot of motor oil, changed my guitar strings, and went off to a five hour session of band practice. I have just returned home from this last, and am feeling a little run down and inexplicably upset.

Still, I'll sit at this desk and halfheartedly check the same three or four websites I always do, hoping that someone else will think of something I'd like to read, since I can't seem to come up with anything at the moment. I'll open and shut my various correspondence programs, hoping to catch a word or two from someone else I know in a similiar after-hours slump. Nope.... nope. Nope. Oh, wait. Here's a message from my little brother, Ian. He says, his car was broken into, and his CDs stolen. He once told me that his car's audio deck, which he specifically downgraded so he could play tapes (and thus use mp3 player->tape conversion adaptors), would never be stolen, since it was so feature-deprived and humble-looking. He was proven right, too: the criminal removed it from the console, got a better look at it, and left it there dangling on its wires, like an eyeball. I've been asked to help replace some of the stolen items, as well as assist with repair cost. Man, my OWN car still needs work. And earlier today, my Mom called to see if I could pay her back for the Kauai vacation she preselected for the family before we knew what we would be doing all reunited in Hawaii.

I can pay my debts off, of course, but I just spent a bunch on a power amplifier and speaker cabinet in anticipation of an upcoming show I'll be playing. (August 18, 9 PM, Hurricane Cafe). This set me back a few hundred bucks. I rationalized the transaction by reasoning that the combination of used equipment I had found was rare and effective, and that I should snap up the pieces from the marketplace before they were discovered by some other feckless musician/programmer. The power amp is a Marshall Valvestate Pro 120/120. The front face of the thing is a black steel frame around an inset brass plate featuring three heavy, knurled dials and three crayon-tip buttons. Then there's diagonal vent-strips anywhere not vital to structural integrity or taken up by controls or indicators. It contains circuitry to emulate the behavior of vacuum-tubes ("valves"), but uses only solid state transistors (Hence, "Valvestate"). It must use a lot of them, because it weighs as much as the coffee table. I guess it would, given its power rating. 120 watts per side is sufficient to cause permanent hearing loss. The speaker cabinet is a Peavey 5150 4x12 slant cab. It's black all over, about the size of the really big TV sets you can win on "The Price is Right". The front side is covered in a meshy black screen featuring a Buck-Rogers styled PEAVEY logo. Behind that hang 4 12 inch speakers, arranged like a stovetop (but sideways). The top half is slightly angled, like an ATM, so the top two speakers can point at your head when you're standing next to it. It is wired as two groups of two speakers, stereo. 120 watts per side pointed right at your head makes for some loud tinnitus.

I promise to only use it for good.