I've been on another madwild spending spree lately, this one mainly inspired by my rediscovery of eBay, which was inspired by my desire to get myself a new amp. My current amp is a wonderful 80 watt Marshall, but it's solid state (as in transistor) and I'm wanting to upgrade to something with tubes... but lower wattage (50 at most, really). My research has led me to the conclusion that I want a JCM 800 combo, and I keep finding them available, but never for a price I'm willing to pay...

In the meantime, I end up finding other things. And spending money inspires me to spend money. I am not a man of moderation, and in money as in so many other things I have only two modes. In the case of money it's hoard vs. spend. So I've been in spend, which means buying all kindsa (largely useless) crap. I got myself a new (used) distortion pedal (when it was the last one I got that made me realize I needed a tube amp in the first place...), and a whole buncha CDs...

And two of those deserve special mention. I am at this moment listening to "TORQUE," a late-90's Drum&Bass compilation that I've been looking for since 1998 or thereabouts. I got it and its equally out of print sequel-of-sorts "Wormhole" (the arrival of which I'm still waiting for) off two brits on eBay. Having become accustomed to the work of (say) Amon Tobin, my ears aren't as shocked and appalled by the sub-bass distortions as those of the folks back in '97 mustabeen, but it's still a pretty intense sonic ride.

The purchase that shocked me out of spend mode, though, was a lefty Fender Jazz Bass (also still in transit) for about $330. That's pretty much put the kibosh on the whole new amp idea for a bit of a while... the amp was going to be my birthday gift to myself (less than a month left in my 20s goddamn goddamn), but now it's gonna have to be the bass. I can't justify both. And a bass amp is pretty much out of the question until I get a job with a salary instead of a wage (woe is me).

The bass I bought is actually pretty much identical to the one I lost to a guy who was willing to pay $5 more than I in a previous auction. It popped up the very next day. As they say: one door closes, another one opens.

I'm also getting slowly used to the hyperbolic language of eBay feedback. I'm not big on linguistic expressiveness, my forte being more irony and wry understatement (in case you hadn't noticed), so all the BEST SELLER EVARR! A++++++++++++++++++ is kinda beyond me. But I'm getting warmed up. Gradually. My feedback for the TORQUE CD even involved two exclamation points(!!).

My spending spree also included some American Apparel shirts as well as three (originally) $40 shirts that were in a rack at POP labeled "50% [crossed out] 75% off!" Summer shirts, all XXL or S. Lucky me the S fit my skinny frame. Call me bargain hunter.

This was my capitalist stooge post. My next post will deal with the people stuff (promise), just to prove that I'm not merely some consumerist automaton.
- posted by Bob @ 12:56 AM