Cheap booze reviews? Seriously? Seriously!

For some reason, I’ve run across a couple of sites lately that do nothing but review the cheapest, nastiest wine and malt liquor on the planet.

While other “booze review” sites tend to portray a sophisticated image, BumWine.com and 40ozMaltLiquor.com go in the opposite direction. Those sites, of course, stick with the nastiest hooch they can find and gleefully review it.

Let’s take a look first a BumWine. If you haven’t hit the link to head over there yet, you really should – the banner alone is worth the price of admission. Rarely has a take-off on the illustration representing the evolution of man been such a hoot.

The entire site is knee-slapping funny, in fact, as the folks at BumWine review some of the worst wines imaginable. Yes, Night Train, Cisco, Thunderbird, MD “Mad Dog” 2020 and Thunderbird are all given the “this stuff is cheap and nasty, but we love it” treatment and the reviews and features will provide a heck of a lot of entertainment.

I’ve got a great Night Train story, by the way. When I was in college, I drove to the liquor store with a couple of friends of mine. One of them bought two huge bottle of Night Train and he chugged one in the back seat of my Subaru before we got back to campus.

“Hey, shut the hell up!” I demanded.

“Take it easy on him, man,” my sober friend in the front seat said. “This is his first train ride.”

The other site – 40ozMaltLiquor.com – sticks with reviewing cheap  wine’s raunchy sibling. The reviews over there are a heck of a lot of fun, too, and I particularly appreciate the occasional videos in which one of the site owners knocks back a bottle of malt liquor and describes the experience in great detail.

Again, I’ve got another great story about malt liquor from my college days. See, we adored Olde English 800 (and cheap wine, for that matter) as we did like to drink a little bit. Back then, you could get a 40-ounce bottle of 8-ball for around $1.25. If you drank one of those, you were feeling OK. If you drank two, you forgot where you were, who you were and how to walk. That’s a lot of damage done for $2.50.

I’m mentioning all of this for a couple of reasons. First of all, I just think those two sites are a hoot. Second, they do remind me of my drinking days back in college.

When I think back to those, I recall the time I went with some friends to an off-campus party. One of those fellows decided he was going to keep up with how much he drank, so he brought along a pen and decided to make a mark on his arm for every beer he drank.

At the first of the evening, the lines were neat and vertical. As the night wore on, those lines got larger, more horizontal and downright impossible to count.

I am certain that we couldn’t abuse ourselves to that extent and get away with it these days – we’re just too damned old. Still, nostalgia is a good thing.

Tell Me Thursday – Michael’s broken arm

Welcome to the “The Hawg is a moron” edition of Tell Me Thursday!

Why is The Hawg so dumb? Because I lost track of the days somehow and put up my Wordless Wednesday post on Thursday and am now writing my Tell Me Thursday post on a Friday.

Works been, well, slightly hellish as of late and I lost track of the days somewhere in all of that. Perhaps just a nice, relaxing weekend will help set things right. I’m also using my fall-back excuse – I turned 40-years-old this year and I’m inclined to forget things as a result (that’s the only thing I like about turning 40 – I can whip out the “old, tired man” thing from time to time).

At any rate, the lad in the picture I posted above (and in my Wordless Wednesday post) is my 12-year-old son, Michael. The poor fellow broke his arm at school while (apparently) goofing off. He’ll have to stay in that cast until sometime in October and the thing itches like crazy every now and again. I feel bad for the boy.

Still, he has learned some valuable lessons from all of this. For example, casts are really hard and can do some damage when you hit people with them. Also, just because you’re sporting a cast does not necessarily mean you’ve gotten out of mowing the lawn (hey, I’m not going to do it – that’s one of the things I love about having a son who can mow it for me).

Michael’s been a trooper throughout his broken arm ordeal and will, hopefully, heal up just fine so he can get rid of that cast next month.

As for me, something I learned years ago has been reinforced – when it comes to kids, you just never know what those little rascals are going to do.

This post is part of the famed Tell Me Thursday event. If you participate in Wordless Wednesday, then you should certainly consider taking part in Tell Me Thursday so you can tell the story behind that Wednesday post. Head on over to the Tell Me Thursday site for more details.

Wordless Wednesday – poor Michael!

This entry is part of the famed Wordless Wednesday event. Click here to see the other entries or (better yet) submit something of your own.

The sewer rat!

As I’ve probably mentioned on here before, my dad was a middle school assistant principal for years.

He’s retired now so that whole experience seems – to him – to be a lot funnier than it was when he was grinding through it. Dad has a lot of stories to tell – everything from almost being hit in the head with a pickle when walking out of his office one day to a troublemaking kid saying his biggest ambition in life was to go on welfare and have folks like my father pay for it all. Education be damned, right? What a little punk.

At any rate, one of my dad’s favorite stories involves a kid who ran off from school one day. I’ll call the kid Jerry because I can’t recall the boy’s real name. Besides, he died doing something stupid years ago (apparently) so I don’t see that it matters all that much.

Young Jerry, see, decided to wander around town instead of going to school on this particular day. While he was at it, the kid broke into a house that was near the school, stole a dog and took to the sewers.

Dad became aware of all this when the cops showed up investigating the break-in. For whatever reason, young Jerry was running through the sewers near the school and was quickly discovered by the cops due to the barking, stolen dog that was with him.

None of the adults could get down in the sewer, seemingly, without calling in someone from the city to pull a manhole cover off somewhere – I rather doubt anyone regarded that move as anything but a last resort. You can see their point, right? Who wants to run around through a sewer after a troubled kid and a stolen dog?So the police decided to track Jerry’s progress and yell at him when they could.

Dad said he managed to strike up a conversation with Jerry as the kid and the dog were running through the sewers.

“Jerry, get out of there!” dad demanded.

“Oh, no,” the kid replied (I imagine that dog was barking, too). “I’m never coming out.”

Jerry did eventually surface, the dog was returned to its owner and the police likely filed something somewhere with the juvenile court in an attempt to convince Jerry to see the error of his ways. Everything was fine, right?

No. No. Of course not.

A few days after Jerry was running through the sewers, his mother showed up in my dad’s office and was outraged.

“The kids keep calling Jerry ‘The Sewer Rat’,” she fumed. “You’ve got to do something about it!”

“Ma’am, I hate to tell you this, but your son is probably stuck with that name through high school,” dad replied.

Great stuff. Sewer rat. Heh.

Happy ‘Anomaly’ day!

After a mere 20 years, Ace Frehley has finally released a new album.

That’s right – Anomaly is now in the stores. Actually, it’s a pretty good album – my expectations were too high after so long a wait, but that little album I initially viewed as fair-to-middling has turned out to be pretty good. It seems that the former lead guitarist for KISS still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

To find out more information about the new disc, watch the “electronic press kit” above or head on over to Ace’s site – AceFrehley.com.

By the way, I’ve had the urge to pick up a guitar with humbucking pickups in it since I started fooling around with recording tracks on my computer. I love my Fender Deluxe Stratocaster, but those single coils just can’t crank out the “chunka, chunka, chunka” distortion I’d like to get from time to time.

Like any red-blooded American boy who was raised on the likes of KISS, I’ve always wanted a Gibson Les Paul.Sadly, those are quite expensive and I can’t see running out and buying one until I can at least learn how to play worth a damn. Furthermore, I’ve always loved the Ace Frehley signature series Les Pauls, but those are even more expensive than the typical ones (I believe one of those went for $3,500 the last time I checked).

I ran across a Chinese company, however, called Zxcmusic that makes an Ace Frehley model Les Paul that looks pretty darn great. You can find out the details about that particular guitar by clicking here.

The thing costs a mere $219 plus $100 for shipping. That’s one of those “too good to be true” prices and I suspect that’s exactly the case. Still, I’ve read a couple of good things on the Internet about that company.

If anyone has had any experience with the stuff Zxcmusic produces, I’d love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, rush out and buy that new Ace Frehley album. Any old time KISS fan will love it.

Music Monday – 'Clint Eastwood' by the Gorillaz!

Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood - Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.




PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

Apparently, people are still willing to buy compact discs

Since the days when Napster and those “music-stealers” that used it were in the news, we’ve heard about the forthcoming demise of compact discs.

Compact discs appear to have some life left in them yet. Just last week, all of the Beatles studio recordings were released in both mono and stereo formats and the things have sold like crazy.

That’s really no surprise. The Beatles are – after all – the greatest rock band of all time (in my opinion, at least, and I’m not alone) and the band’s catalogue was completely remastered. People have demanded such a remastering job for years and they’ve finally gotten it – it’s no shock these two boxed sets have sold so well.

Ah, but there’s something about these collections that also points out why so many people love stealing music through torrents or anywhere else they can find it. Here’s the deal – the stereo box set costs $260 and the mono boxed set costs $299. Wow.

Hey, the remasters sound great and you do get a lot of albums in those sets (the original British studio albums plus volumes 1 and 2 of the Past Masters series in the stereo set, a little bit less in the mono edition) and the remasters do sound great. But the price seems a bit steep.

That’s particularly true for those of us who bought all the CD remasters that came out in 1987, and more expensive still to those of us who bought albums and tapes before the catalogue was put on CD. Tommy Lee Jones in Men In Black referenced “having to buy the White Album – again” and I know exactly how he felt.

I’ll probably wind up buying the stereo remasters, but one has to wonder – how many times do we have to pay for the same songs over and over again? Those music pirates may have a point.

…and you thought we were just messing around

Well, well, well, well and well.

It seems that the woman who teaches my son’s advanced English class has decided that it would be a good exercise for her students to start their own blogs. My boy is in the seventh grade now and I can’t help but think his teacher has a great idea.

Yes, indeed. She views blogging as a great writing exercise and figures there’s some great networking potential there, too. It seems teacher is going to monitor the kids’ blogs so as to check up on their progress and will host a few events through Mr. Linky so the kids can participate in a few things.

I couldn’t be happier. I feel almost vindicated – like all that time I spent typing away on this here blog may be viewed as useful in some quarters.

Besides, I’ve learned enough by now (I hope) to help my son put together a blog that will kick ass. Other students will have those homemade banners and such, of course, but phooey on that. I work with a graphic designer (you can see his handiwork on my banner that he slapped together in about five minutes or take a look at the blog template he designed for our company by clicking here).

I haven’t pestered Dave the Designer about helping me out with my blog template (obviously), but I’d bet he’d be willing to help The Boy design something that will put whatever the other kids come up with to shame.

Furthermore, I can help my kid get some traffic by participating in fun-filled events such as Music Monday, Wordless Wednesday and Tell Me Thursday.

Yes, the lad will simply rule the blogosphere at his school. Hey, I sucked at making those wooden race cars in Cub Scouts and have been a failure at most mechanical projects I’ve tried. However, I can teach that kid a thing or two about blogging.

Before long, the lad will be posting drivel and annoying people just like his old man. That’s a beautiful thing…

My plan to help my girl sell cookies was rejected!

For my Wordless Wednesday post yesterday, I put up a photo of a cute little girl who had – apparently – just set fire to a house full of people who refused to place an order for Girl Scouts cookies with her.

There was a point to all of that. Well, there was sort of a point to that, at least.

I’ve got an eight-year-old girl who sells cookies for her Girl Scouts troop every year. The competition is fierce, folks. She generally manages to sell around 300 boxes or so, but that amount pales in comparison to sales totals from some of the other girls.

My daughter holds her own and generates a lot of money for her troop, but there’s always room for improvement. So I came up with a plan. I figured on having young Brenda go from door to door with a sales pitch that people simply can’t resist.

“My daddy says if I don’t sell a lot of cookies this year, I won’t get a Christmas,” she would say through her quivering lips.

My wife rejected my plan immediately. She figures the neighbors will think I’m horrible. She might be right.

However, my daughter would sell the heck out of some cookies, huh?

This entry is part of the soon-to-be-famous Tell Me Thursday event. If you participate in Wordless Wednesday, why not come back the next day and tell us the story behind your entry. It’s dandy fun. Head on over to the Tell Me Thursday site for details!

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

Yeah, it’s a cheesy title – I know.

Ah, but there’s a point here. Back in the 1980s, there were these commercials featuring a woman who fell and was saved because she pushed a button and alerted someone.

What if that woman would have fallen and – for whatever reason – couldn’t have pushed a button and summoned help? That’s where Brickhouse Alert comes in. Sure, their customers get a Life Alert system which features a button that can be pressed to summon help.

In addition to that Life Alert “big button” system with which were are all familiar, Brickhouse also offers fall detection. If a client falls and can’t push a button, the fall detection system alerts Brickhouse and help is sent.

Want more? They’ve got it. How about a monitored smoke detector, medication reminders, inactivity detector and other hand services? They’ve got it and some other stuff, too.

Now, there’s a very useful application for the latest technology, huh? Check it out.

The Pirates set a record!

In case no one noticed, the Pittsburgh Pirates now have the longest consecutive losing streak of any team in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL.

On Monday, the Pirates earned their 82nd loss of the season in a game against the Cubs. With that loss, the Bucs clinched a dubious honor -- 17 consecutive losing seasons.

They came into the season tied with the Philadelphia Phillies -- a team that managed to lose 16 consecutive seasons from 1933-1949. Pittsburgh hasn't had a winning season since 1992 and seems doomed to consistent failure in the foreseeable future.

How bad is Pittsburgh? Read all about it right here. That article sums it all up better than I ever could. Besides, I'm too tired to give a damn. I've rooted for the Pirates for years and I'm about sick of caring how the team does.

In fact, the rotten Pirates are one of the reasons I don't follow baseball liked I did once upon a time. In fact, the last time I watched a full Pirates game was a few years ago. After hurling a few empty beer cans at the screen and cursing the team for being so clueless and awful, I pretty much quit watching Pittsburgh and haven't paid much attention to baseball since.

I've just about concluded that the way to get a team to turn rotten is to convince me to room for it. I've pulled for the Pirates since about 1977 and look what's happened to them. Around that same time I started rooting for the Denver Broncos and they've been getting worse since John Elway retired a decade ago.

Oh, don't get me started on Denver. They fired Mike Shanahan and alienated quarterback Jay Cutler until he made up his mind to leave. Shanahan was replaced by a punk, nothing kid of a coach named Josh McDaniels and Cutler was traded to Chicago for Kyle Orton -- a loser who is so anonymous that Denver might have been better off pulling a fan out of the stands and making him quarterback.

Denver will suck this year. Count on it. In fact, I'd be stunned if the Broncos did anything but stink up the field over the next few seasons.

As for Basketball, I followed the Bulls quite a bit. The Bulls, of course, ran off Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and haven't done much since then. Even my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks -- once a force to be reckoned with in the 1960s through the 1980s -- have been reduced to a fair-to-middling team since joining the SEC.

Hell, even my beloved Benton Panthers are terrible at football these days.

My wife isn't a huge sports fan. I'm starting to think she's got a point.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

This post is part of the famed Wordless Wednesday event. Hit that dandy link to see some other entries or (better yet) add something of your own.

Funniest thing I’ve seen in at least a week

Take a good look at that photo over to the left that was taken by a radar camera in Arizona.

That’s right – that’s a fellow driving a Subaru and wearing a monkey mask. Why? According to this story, the man is Dave VonTesmar and he has racked up 37 tickets in Arizona as cameras have caught him speeding and engaging in various traffic-related shenanigans.

Apparently, he’s been trying to avoid detection by putting on a mask while breaking the law (that ploy hasn’t worked as the police have, obviously, identified him). VonTesmar enjoys variety, seemingly, as he’ll put on a giraffe or gazelle mask from time to time.

Of course, the authorities in Arizona have dubbed him an outlaw and he has somehow evaded the law so far. Some people call him a menace. However, all I can say is, “Go, monkey man. Go!”

Truly, few things could be funnier than frustrated the police by driving around and breaking traffic laws while wearing a mask. They’ve got a few cameras in Pulaski County (home of our state capitol) but none in my beloved town of Benton. I doubt I’d have the guts to do it, but I’d love to drive around with a Bill Clinton mask on and annoy traffic police here in Arkansas.

So, my hat’s off to VonTesmar for having the stones to actually pull such a thing. He’ll be brought to justice eventually, of course, but couldn’t you imagine the judge and prosecutor trying to keep a straight face in that case?

Music Monday – new Ace Frehley!

Yes, the Ace Frehley album, Anomaly, comes out on Sept. 15. You know you’re excited, kids, so here’s a song off the album to tide you over.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.




PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

Having too much fun with that Guitar Link…

A few days ago, I wrote all about the joy that is the Behringer Guitar Link.

I’m having more fun than should be allowed with that thing as I’ve been learning how to use it. All you need to use it is a free USB port on your computer and an ASIO compatible soundcard (for best results).

You can hear my pitiful rendition of Moon Over Marin by the Dead Kennedys by scrolling to the end of this post and streaming it.

The best thing about this guitar link is that I paid about $40 and have been finding plenty of free software to model amps and mix tracks on the Internet (I mentioned a lot of that in the post I just referenced). Yes, you can spend a lot of cash using commercial products set up for recording, but how many of us are professionals? My guitar playing stinks and I’m just having fun – the free stuff is more than good enough for me.

For the record, I recorded my guitar and bass parts on the aforementioned song through Kristal Audio Engine. The lead and rhythm guitar parts were recorded through the D.I.G. 2.0 amp modeler from AcmeBarGig VST plug-in and I ran my bass through  FreeAmp3 from Fretted Synth. The mixdown in Kristal was in that weird Ogg Vorbis format so I converted the song to MP3 through Audacity.

While it’s obvious I need a better sound card and learning how to play worth a damn would be nice, I was able to lay down some tracks that sound good enough for me through a bunch of absolutely free programs. That’s great stuff.

Now all I need to do is finish my country song that’s sure to be a big hit one day -- “I’m Wearing a Hawaiian Shirt (But there’s no Luau in my Heart).” Go ahead and laugh but that song will be huge one day. Yes, there will come a day when my song will establish a fad – a bunch of people will be wearing Hawaiian shirts and acting sad. Count on it.

Here’s my awful attempt at covering a Dead Kennedys song. Enjoy!

7-5 for the Hogs this year…

Yes, football season is upon us once again and we Arkansans are hoping our beloved Razorbacks do something this year.

My dad tells me that he was in a restaurant last year when the Hogs were in the midst of their 5-7 season and two fellow (who had obviously been drinking a lot) boldly predicted the Razorbacks wouldn’t lose a game this season.

Most of us haven’t lost our heads and are hoping for the team to have a decent season. And we’ve got some reasons to be excited. First and foremost, there’s Ryan Mallett – the Batesville, Ark., native who went to Michigan and then came back home to Arkansas. He was a heavily recruited quarterback in 2006 and we’re hoping the fellow follows through on his promise this season at Arkansas.

Hey, we’re not used to having top-notch quarterbacks at the University of Arkansas, so seeing one on the field will be a bit of a novelty for us. Our former head coach, that damned Houston Nutt, didn’t go out of his way to recruit quarterbacks and managed to ruin some good ones when they fell in his lap. Let’s see what Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino can do with a talented passer, huh?

Let’s not forget that Michael Smith – the running back who was one of the few highlights on the offense last year – will be back this season. He’ll be joined by Dennis Johnson in the backfield and here’s hoping the running game will be solid.

Yes, Michael Smith was pretty much the running game last year and the offense was just plain dreadful. It appears that the passing game will be solid, too, provided Mallett can find some targets. Last year, those quarterbacking brothers Casey and Nathan Dick had trouble finding receivers. We’re not sure if the receivers were just terrible or if the Dick brothers were just lousy quarterbacks.

The receivers are improved this year and perhaps the most impressive of all is tight end D.J. Williams. Of course, the question remains – will the offensive line hold up long enough to protect Mallett so he can throw to a receiver or two? That was a problem last year as that offensive line folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Here’s hoping Petrino has beaten the line into shape.

The defense was terribly weak last year, but I always wondered – was it really just bad or were the players worn out because the pitiful offense never gave them a chance to rest? Again, that’s a question that will have to be answered throughout the season.

Having said all of that, here are my predictions for the season. These, I’m sure, will hold up pretty well.

Sept. 5 – Missouri State. Arkansas will whip the socks off of Missouri State. That’s why teams like Missouri State are on the schedule. That one will be an easy win.

Sept. 19 – Georgia. It’s rarely good when Georgia comes to town. They dominated the Hogs during the Nutt years and there’s no reason to think that will change this season. There’s a loss.

Sept. 26 – at Alabama. It’s no fluke that Alabama is ranked #5 in the preseason polls. Playing Alabama this season will be bad enough for almost anyone and you can double the misery when a team faces the Crimson Tide at home. There’s a loss.

Oct. 3 – at Texas A&M. Ah, the Aggies are rebuilding, too. Still, considering the weak showing by the Hogs last year in almost every game, I’ll have to call that one a loss.

Oct. 10 – Auburn. Yes, another team that’s rebuilding. Fortunately, they’re coming to Arkansas. Home field advantage will be a big factor here. And, we’ll have a win.

Oct. 17 – at Florida. Arkansas beat Florida once upon a time. Honest! The losing streak will continue this season against the preseason No. 1. That’s a loss.

Oct. 24 – at Ole Miss. Yes, the Rebels are ranked No. 8 in the country right now. However, that ranking doesn’t take the team’s biggest liability into account – head coach Houston “Boxcar” Nut. Nutt frustrated Arkansas fans for years while he goofed off in this state and he’ll annoy Ole Miss fans before long. There’s a win for the Hogs because that’s the kind of game that Nutt has fumbled with inept coaching for years. By the way, I chose the “Boxcar” nickname for Nutt around 2002 because the man is a straight up bum.

Oct. 31 – Eastern Michigan. Another rent-a-win.

Nov. 7 – South Carolina. Poor old South Carolina. That team never can get it together. The Hogs will win this one.

Nov. 14 – Troy. The third – and final – rent-a-win of the year.

Nov. 21 – Mississippi State. Remember when Mississippi State fielded great teams? I can’t recall when exactly that was, either. There’s nothing impressive about them this year, so the Hogs will win that one.

Nov. 29 – at LSU. The preseason No. 11 will clobber the Hogs unless half the team comes down with swine flu. There’s a loss for the Razorbacks.

So, we’re looking at a 7-5 season with three wins against nonconference opponents, meaning the Razorbacks should rack up a 4-5 SEC record this year. Ugly but true. Bank on it. Hey, they’ll get better.

Recording guitar tracks on the cheap

“Gee, The Hawg,” a lot of people have asked me. “I want to hook my guitar up to my computer and record some tracks. How, how – oh, how – is that to be done?”

Actually, no one has asked me that question, but I thought I’d be helpful and answer it just the same. Last week, I got a brand new Behringer Guitar Link off of eBay for the low, low price of about $40. The Guitar Link is a nifty little device that lets me plug my guitar into my computer through a USB port.

The Guitar Link is a wonderful thing, to be sure, but the software that comes with it – the stuff that can actually make it useful – is complete garbage. First of all, there’s a scaled back package of guitar amp models from Native Instruments (the people who brought us the formidable Guitar Rig 3 package that will honestly allow you to pull about any sound you want out of your guitar.

The “Behringer edition” of that software gives you but three models and no “pedal effects” at all. To make matters worse, you can demo the models for 30 days and can only keep one. Want more? You’ve got to pay for it, folks.

The mixer – EnergyXT2 – is just about to bad. In addition to being hard as hell to use, you’ve got to send in some cash if you want to unlock some of the better features of the software (that includes plugging in drum tracks and other things). Seeing how terrible the scaled back version of the software is, I don’t think I’m going to send them any money.

In fact, I decided that spending a lot to be able to record tracks on my computer is ridiculous. Once you drop about $300 for Guitar Rig and a decent mixing/recording package, spend some more cash on monitors and do something about the crummy stock soundcard in your computer, you’re starting to talk about some real money. Oh, and plan on spending some more if you want a pedal to easily control those effects in Guitar Rig.

For that kind of cash, you could get a heck of a good modeling amp, a four-track recorder and a microphone. You could record and mix all day long the old fashioned way (and the way I prefer, frankly).

No, what I want to do is just bang out some ideas, loop some guitar tracks I can practice against and generally mess around with my beloved Fender Deluxe Stratocaster. I’m not going to spend a lot of money to do that. Besides, it just plain irritates me when I buy a piece of hardware and a lot of crippled software comes with it. Bah!

So I looked around and found some free recording solutions. First of all, you’ve got have a good mixer and the best free one out there for my purposes is Kristal Audio Engine. It doesn’t cost a dime unless you’re going to use it commercially and it supports both ASIO and VST.

ASIO a great sound driver for instruments that features wonderfully low latency – high latency means you’ll hit a note and wait a bit for the computer to process it. That’s a pain to deal with if you’re recording multiple tracks (and, yes, Kristal is great at handling multiple tracks). VST is a standard plug-in format and it’s a wonderful thing. There are a lot of great, free amp packages and effects for guitar and bass in that VST format.

The amp package I picked up is FreeAmp 2.5 – it’s got seven amplifier models to choose from and plenty of effects – compressors, wah pedals, overdrive, chorus, delay, reverb, flanger and phaser. It’s a very solid package that is more than good enough for fleshing out ideas and making your guitar sound like everything from a fine instrument to a piece of trash with a couple of strings missing and a short in the electronics.

Thanks to Kristal’s ability to easily handle VST effects, there are plenty of free amp models and effects. Yeah, most of them suck, but there are some really great ones if you’re willing to dig around for them.

There are a couple of major drawbacks to Kristal. First of all, you can’t record what the VST plug-in is processing. You record clean and then slap effects on later. That’s not that much of an issue for me, really, as I’ve spent so much time practicing with my guitar unplugged that I’m used to it. Besides, you can run the VST-processed tone through your headphones after you’ve stopped recording it – great for multitracking purposes as you can lay down a basic track, process the right hell out of it and then play along with it on additional tracks.

Second, you can't output a track to MP3. Fortunately, Audacity is free and I can output tracks in Kristal to Ogg Vorbis (or WAV) and convert them to MP3 in Audacity (that requires the LAME MP3 encoder, but that's also free).

Also, Kristal is very easy to use and that’s a great thing. Back when my roommate had a four-track recorder, it was an easy to matter to mic up my guitar and play some tracks. Kristal makes things just about that easy.

I’ll admit I was very tempted by all the guitar models available in Guitar Rig after fooling with the scaled down version of it. Then I remembered something – back when I was actually halfway decent at playing guitar, I got by with a simple amp with reverb on it and a Boss HM-2 distortion pedal. What am I really going to do with a ton of effects, anyway? I’ve got more sounds available through my FreeAmp than I’ve ever had and that’s more than good enough.

So, there it is. Save that money and grab a copy of Kristal and some VST effects/amps that cost you absolutely nothing. You’ll be glad you did.

If you'd like an awful example of my lame guitar skills, just click the player below. We've got three tracks in there (main pitiful riff, terrible lead and some jangly thing at the end) that I processed through Kristal and FreeAmp then converted in Audacity. Yeah, I know I need to practice and learn how to use Kristal, but I hope to be able to brag about being competent or reasonably decent on guitar one of these days.

Credit – something everyone’s talking about these days…

One thing that people have been talking about a lot these days is credit repair.

No, this isn’t like 2005 when all you had to do to get a loan was have a job and a pulse. If you want to get a loan for a house, car or just about anything else, a clean credit history is helpful – lenders, it seems, have adopted the attitude that they want to loan money to people who are likely to pay it back.

That’s probably better for the economy in the long run, but what about those folks who just ran into a little bad luck and need to find a way to improve credit scores? That’s where DSI Solutions can help.

The site is free to visit and you’ll find plenty of testimonies from people the company has helped and the business offers a money back guarantee. It’s worth a look.

My new hero…

It’s true – I, The Hawg, have a new hero.

I couldn’t tell you the name of my hero (I’ll explain why later), but he is truly The Man We All Wish We Could Be.

Dig this.

One of the girls in my daughter’s Brownies troop was having a birthday party. To celebrate, the little girl decided to have a bunch of friends over to her house for a sleepover.

Yeah, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? About a dozen girls who are about eight-years-old running nuts and screaming their heads off for hours on end (my daughter tells me she didn’t get to sleep until 3:30 a.m.)

When we dropped my daughter off for the party we asked the mother of the birthday girl where her husband was. It seems he took off before the girls arrived and was nowhere to be found.

Ah, but he didn’t become my hero then. No, he became my hero when my daughter came home from the party and I asked her if he came home and she said, “No he didn’t.”

That’s right. That heroic cat fled the scene and – apparently – didn’t come back home until the party was over and everyone was gone. Where did he go? Who cares? He got out of there and saved himself an evening of aggravation. None of us fathers met the man but I’d like to think that all of us thought the same thing -- “Man, I wish I could do that.”

That takes some guts, folks. My hat goes off to my hero because he achieved something that I never could. If my daughter decides to have a sleepover with a ton of squealing girls, I imagine my conversation with my wife would go something like this:

The Wife: Well, she wants to have a sleepover.

The Hawg: Really? God. What do you think?

The Wife: I think we should let her do it.

The Hawg: I don’t. That’s a terrible idea. All that yelling…

The Wife: Well, I’ve already told her she could have a sleepover. So…

The Hawg: Y’all have fun. I don’t really like kids unless I’m related to them, you know?

The Wife: What do you mean, “Y’all have fun?”

The Hawg: I figure I’ll be down the street at a hotel until it’s over. I’ll watch some television and just relax for awhile. I’ll tell our son he can flee with me if he wants…

The Wife: The hell you will! You’re not going to leave me with all those kids! You’re going to stay here and help me! Your daughter would be crushed if she knew her father wanted to run out on her instead of helping her enjoy her party. Grow up. You’re a father. Fathers have to do things like this.

The Hawg: Yes dear…

You see? I’d cave in an instant. My wife would win the day through an effective combination of intimidation and guilt.

Ah, but my hero didn’t cave. I suspect that most of us fathers would like to flee sleepovers. My hero had the guts to actually do it.

That, friends, makes him a manly man of the first order and an inspiration to us all. God bless you, hero! Long may you reign…

Blanche Lincoln in trouble?

Here’s one of those stories that actually concerns me a bit. According to a recent poll, U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) enjoys a miserable 36 percent approval rating in this state.

Uh, Lincoln’s got an election coming up next year. The poll numbers can’t be good news for her.

Now, I’m a Republican so I should view that as good news, right? Actually, I’m not so sure.

Let me explain. First of all, Lincoln is a hell of a lot better than our other senator, Mark Pryor. He epitomizes the phrase “empty suit” and apparently believes that he is representing his party simply by voting the way the national Democrats want him to on each and every issue.

Lincoln, by contrast, is more than a bit different. I headed to Washington, D.C., back in 2006 with the organization I work for (they howl every time I mention them on this little blog, so they’ll remain nameless) and we were concerned about some health care legislation that died on the Senate floor. We asked both Pryor and Lincoln why they voted against the bill.

Pryor danced around the issue for awhile, claimed we didn’t have a health care bill allowing small businesses to join together and take advantage of the group rates large corporations enjoy because the Republicans were being unfair. Yes, it was all the fault of the Republicans, see, that the bill failed – they wouldn’t let the Democrats add any amendments and blah, blah, bloppity blah. Pryor’s whining and finger pointing are, sadly, commonplace. His father was equally mealy-mouthed and unimpressive as a U.S. senator.

When we asked Lincoln the same question, she looked us square in the eyes and said, “I didn’t vote for it because it’s a bad bill.” She then outlined what she thought a better bill would be and laid out her position very well. While we didn’t agree with her, she at least had the gumption to explain her vote and why she didn’t like the legislation at issue rather than blaming the Republicans and taking no responsibility for her vote. I can respect that.

Lincoln has, over the years, has demonstrated that she does have the interest of her constituents at heart and has typically attempted to listen to what we say instead of just following the party line. In short, I like the woman and I’ve voted for her twice.

Now, here’s the problem with her being in a potential rotten spot right before the November elections. I might feel a bit better about things if the Republicans could field a top notch candidate against her. However, there are nine Republicans (as of this writing) who may or may not run in the primaries and they range from trouble making gadflies to quality candidates that are a bit unknown.

If we were just talking about a straight-up race against the Republican primary winner and Lincoln, than that’s one thing. Hey, I’d love to see Gilbert Baker (who seems to change his mind daily about running) or Tom Cotton jump in the race and wind up in the Senate.

Ah, but we may not be talking about a race against Lincoln at all. No, State Sen. Bob Johnson (D-Bigelow) may run against Lincoln in the primaries. Given this state’s knack of voting for Republicans in presidential elections and sticking with Democrats in congressional races (out of our six-member congressional delegation, only one of them is a Republican), that worries me.

Frankly, Johnson sucks. Let’s look at some of the things he’s done that I absolutely detest:

* He sponsored legislation in 2005 allowing Hot Springs and West Memphis to hold elections allowing electronic games at those city’s race tracks (horse in the case of Hot Springs, greyhounds in the case of West Memphis). Those machines were approved, thus allowing us to continue the odd practice of allowing gambling in two cities but no other ones in Arkansas. Either ban it completely or let everyone have it. There’s no sense in allowing two groups to hold a monopoly and allowing them to make it more profitable by coming up with new ways to rip off the public is appalling.

* Also in 2005 (a banner year for Johnson, seemingly), he sponsored legislation that would allow Deltic Timber to to stick a housing development in the watershed of Lake Maumelle. The problem with that, of course, is that Lake Maumelle is central Arkansas’ primary water source. What the hell? Why back something that will clearly lead to more pollution of drinking water in the area? That effort – fortunately – failed.

* In 2006, he was in the middle of a controversy in the Arkansas Supreme Court. Justices found the Legislature’s method of providing funding for local projects violated the state constitution and pointed to Johnson’s $400,000 appropriate for road projects in Bigelow (his hometown) as a particularly glaring example of how the system was broken. Uh, Bigelow has about 300 people in it. What was that $400,000 used for and what kind of road project costs that much in Bigelow?

* Johnson backed that blasted cigarette tax last year to pay for a statewide trauma system (necessary) and a lot of other health-related stuff (probably not necessary). That measure passed and I’ve always had an objection to it. We voted to hold a statewide lottery that will generate cash for college scholarships. If, indeed, the money that is used for those scholarships now is replaced by lottery revenue, why not take that surplus and use it for a trauma system? He may call himself a conservative Democrat, but he’s sure as hell not a fiscal conservative. We could use a few of those right now.

* A few years ago when Republican Mike Huckabee was governor, Johnson – yet again – proved he loves spending those taxpayer dollars. He backed the governor’s plan to float $1 billion in bonds to pay for road repairs, see – a notion that infuriated a lot of us Republicans who’d like to see the government cut spending rather than increasing it and taking on more debt.

Again, Lincoln’s weak position in the polls may turn out to be a blessing if we get a strong Republican running for her Senate seat. However, I could well see a situation where that Johnson character gets in office and continues his spendthrift, pork-barreling ways on a national level.

He claims to be a conservative, rebel Democrat who is hard to define. That’s a bunch of nonsense as he’s fairly easy to define. If a project involves spending taxpayer dollars, you can bet he’ll be there pushing for it.

I think I’d prefer to see Lincoln have another term if Johnson is the alternative, honestly. I may not always agree with Lincoln, but I do like her and believe she’s looking out for the best interests of her constituents. I’m not quite sure what that Johnson character would do.