summer patriot, winter soldier

not much of a loss

the ukraine is not much of a loss in geopolitical terms, what the russians gain in resources they could have obtained by trade and investment anyway.

what rankles is v putin feeding his ego, and encouraging the little prick into more ill-advised adventures.  and, of course, watching the horse,s ass biden get all puffy over not much, and accomplishing even less.

as for the human costs, one hates to see people needlessly killed.  but, watching some revert to being russians and not being ukrainians is not much to get all worked up about.

an aerial photo of kyov,s main drag sums it up nicely.--. it shows cars crowding the street "out of town" and completely empty heading the other way, nothing heading the other way to fight the russians.

to put the matter succinctly, as a people, the ukrainians are not the finn,s ready to fight the russians at the drop of a hat to protect country and people.  and, to die, if necessary but dedicated to take a whole bunch of rookies with them.

in sum, the ukraine is an artificial construct, not yet a country, not yet a people.  and, as such, not much of a acquisition for the "rooskies."

I don,t like seeing putin getting away w this, because it means we,ll have to whip his ass later, just as hitler had to be beaten at horrendous cost, when he çoculd have been eliminated at much less cost early on.

such is life, such is history.  poopy heads have a way of becoming real SHIT HEADS down the road.

john jay @ 02.25.2022

 

 

big poopy heads

the "west" is disinclined to actually do anything to dissuade Russian aggression in eastern Europe, which I would define as all of those little piss pot countries nobody knows exactly where they are.  except Poland, of course, which is just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

by  "do anything" I mean armed intervention w armor, artillery, infantry and an advanced air arm of strategic and tactical airplanes.  you know,a military capable of waging war, as in right now.

that ain,t gonna happen.

so, I suggest an alternative approach.--

we simply start calling the rookies names, such as "big poopy heads," "cabbage breath," and other suitable phrases.

that will show 'em.  or, we can just broadcast three and four hour segments of "Joe Biden,s greatest speeches.  that will bring them to their knees, begging for mercy.

 

john jay @ 02.25.2022

 

 

d'angelici excel mini dc used prices

I bought my d'ang less than a year ago, just as soon as sweetwater music could get one in the "viola" color.  I paid about $1900 for it, on an installment plan requiring no interest.

I have become very disenchanted with it, due to a very pronounced growling harmonic that cannot be eliminated by either the controls on the guitar, or by the amp.

i have complained to sweetwater and to Seymour Duncan.  at both companies I have encountered by what I call the foghorn leghorn syndrome, best described as "go away boy, you are bothering me "

I considered selling it, as it is in wonderful condition, cosmetically, and basically brand new, without any blemishes 

well.

I looked on the net for prices  described as "new," most of them are listed for sale at around $1100 or so   this, to my mind, doesn't reflect a very strong market for the guitar, especially one on the market about a year or so .

and, I came across a couple posts on the guitar pages blog/chat room describing my problems exactly.   to the "t."

that is, an incessant growling that is displeasing, to say the least   and, that cannot be gotten rid of.

again, well.

to my mind, this suggests a problem that is endemic to this guitar, and that is causing owners to dump it.  and, that word has gotten out, if only to a limited degree, and that people do not look upon the d'ang as a premium guitar, and are not willing to pay for it as such .

i am trying to get sweetwater and Duncan to fix it.  they are bullshitting me, and treating like an idiot.

about all I can do, short if suing them, is to spread the word.  that being, the damned guitar is a fucking turkey, and barely fit to play 

 

john jay @ 02,24,2022

"iron hands" at the gear page .... d'angelico excel mini dc ....

thegearpage.net/board/index.php?/threads/dangelico/excel-mini-dc-anyone.2148032/    [not a live link, you must copy and paste to the command line.   sorry.]

the post by "iron hands".

 

john jay @ 02.23.2022

my d'angelico excel mini dc .... sounds like .... (you may be interested in my tale of woe) ....

my d'angelico excel mini dc guitar, purchased from sweetwater music, sounds like an old worn out coffee mill (with bad bearings) grinding pea gravel into dust.

i have complained to sweetwater, and to seymour duncan, the purveyor of the pickups to d'angelico.  (the duncan fellow suggested that what i wanted was pickups with a clear sweet treble, and precise so as to articulate each note ....   just like that was old-fashioned or something, not to be sought after.   but, that is precisely what i want, and precisely what i thought i was getting.   me bad, eh?)

of the four (count 'em, 4 persons) representatives i have exchanged emails with, not one of them has said, ship the little dear back to us and we will fix it, and make it right.   not one.   not a single soul.***  

so, my recommendation to you, this fresh morning, as it was in the dead of night last evening, is to avoid the d'angelico excel mini dc just as you would pure death.   sweetwater, d'angelico and seymour duncan will not stand behind their products, and will not even examine their product to determine why it doesn't suit the needs of its customers.

they cannot even bring themselves to mouth the sentiment, let alone to talk the talk, and walk the walk.

i am going to fix the damn thing myself, with predictable results  .....   when i am done with it, it will look like shit, but it will sound like a small semi-hollow body guitar is supposed to.   with a clear sweet treble, a nice solid bass, and i will be able to hear and articulate each note and chord.  (not very well, as i am not much of a player, but i know what the damned instrument should sound like.)

i am going to take before and after pictures.   so that you to, will know what things will look like when you have to take the fixing of the same yourself to make up for the indifference of these purveyors.   sweetwater music.  d'angelico guitars.  seymour duncan pickups.

don't buy from them.

john jay @ 02.23.2-22

*** reminds me of "dead souls," nikolai gogol's wonderful book.   and, i have suggested to them that i would stand for the costs of the new pickups.   complete indifference.   take what you got, chump!! is said nicely and w/ dulcet tones, but articulated, nonetheless.

stay away from the d'angelico excel mini dc, until the purveyors of same are willing to back what they sell ....

my guitar simply isn't up to snuff  ....  something is not working in the pickups and tone controls.  it growls, and rumbles.   i don't mean a sexy little lauren bacall throaty timbre, i mean a manual transmission grinding gears and rocks in its death throes.  it sounds horrible.

i bought it from sweetwater music.   the pickups are supplied by seymour duncan.   who knows how in the hell you get a hold of d'angelico, it is basically making the guitars way "off shore," and who knows how many layers of corporations it is hidden behind.

i have informed them of the problem.   it has been written about in the guitar blogs.

thegearpage.net/board/index.php?/threads/dangelico-excel-mini-dc-anyone.2148032/       the author goes by the handle of "iron hands."    his description of what is going on with his guitar describes exactly what is happening with mine, except mine is getting worse.   it is a pisser.

so far the response is uniform.   something along the line of, gosh, that's horrible, and we don't think you are lying, it sounds plausible, but it sounds like the other guys problem to us/me/our company.   seymour duncan's "customer service" guy thinks maybe it was the manufacturer's faulty wiring.   sweetwater thinks it is seymour duncan's problem, and sweetwater's "customer service" guy is the one who kicked me along to seymour duncan's fellow.

i expect, pretty soon, that someone will suggest that the control knobs on the pots are at fault, and maybe i should talk to the guys who make them.   a very quick rattle, maybe.   or, maybe the guitar strings are defective.   thought of the strap?

i would suggest that until the people who are making a hell of a lot of money selling these guitars start standing behind their products, that you stay away from the d'ang excel mini dc w/ the seymour duncan '59 pickups.  stay away in droves.   something is not right with these guitars, and the sellers simply aren't making it right.  (they just would rather not know.)  imho.   and, increasingly bitter experience.   you don't pay nearly $2,000 for a guitar expecting it to sound like a coffee bean blender.   nor do you expect to pay that amount of money for something, and get chumped when you file a legit complaint on a quality issue.

and, gosh, they just don't understand what could be wrong.   anything.   not one of them.****

john jay @ 02.22.2022

****  not one of the 3 or 4 people i have talked and written to have made the simple suggestion, send it to us and we'll play it, and put it on the instruments and see what is wrong with it, and we'll make it right.  doesn't seem to be in the instruction manual.

p.s.  and, i am not trying to get out from under the purchase contract.   it's more than fair.   and, the guitar is absolutely beautiful, a color called viola.   but, it sounds like crap.   all i want is for it to sound like a quality guitar, and right now, it is not a quality guitar.   a nice wall hanging, maybe.   but, not a guitar.

in paris, riot police march w/ covid 19 mask protestors ..... no horses stomping old ladies in the streets ..... how novel!!

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/something-strange-happened-in-paris/    .    not a hot link, you'll have to figured it out on your own.

people marched, banged on drums, the sound of conversation wafting in the air, and french riot police (most without masks, some wearing masks) march in front of the protestors.

no horses mounted by idiot thugs.   no little old ladies pushing strollers "stompulated" in the streets by horses, mounted by idiot thugs.

equal measures of civility and restraint modeled by citizens and "authorities" alike.   how about that?!?!

a tip of the old hat to carolyn e., the news hound who never sleeps.   thanks, c.   i appreciate it.

john jay @ 02.21.2022

p.s.   this, after 32 days of protest.   the difference, of course, is that france is not led by a tiny-pecker-ed idiot (hey, it's what the spell checker said) like justin truedeau.  this, of course, is much to the benefit of the french.  i suppose so much is obvious.

can anyone offer a solution to the "growling" d'angelico excel mini dc ..... please don't be bashful, write!!!!

the "growl" in the d'ang excel mini dc has to lie in the seymour duncan pickups and allied circuitry.   i have given a cursory look at the wiring diagrams for the pickups and pups and all of that, and that brief look has convinced me that it is beyond my meager talents to mess with any of that.

any suggestions, helpful or otherwise, are entirely welcome.   now, i live in n.e. oregon very near civilization, but even so the home of the likes of a dan erlwine suggests that he would not be the handiest person to contact.   so, does anyone have the name/address/location of anyone in the portland, oregon or seattle, washington areas  ....   and, if in portland, please suggest someplace away from the downtown which has become a slum/combat area.   yes, i would prefer seattle or spokane, washington.   someone there, with the requisite skills to delve into the labyrinth of the d'ang circuitry, without doing harm.

john jay @ 02.21.2022

p.s.   i like seymour duncan pickups, as i have them almost exclusively in my guitars.   it is just this combination (in the subject guitar) which is most unfortunate.    if i could eliminate the "growl" by the snipping of some wires between the "volume" and "tone" controls, or even to switch or snip a circuit capacitor, that would be most welcome.

if nothing more than the judicious use of some small mirrors and forceps would help  .....  oh, glorious days lie ahead.  maybe. 

help, please!!!

to "iron hands" at "the gear page" ...... growling d'angelico's ...... open letter to "iron hands" .....

thegearpage.net/board/index.php?/threads/dangelico-excel-mini-dc/anyone.2148032/

"iron hands," i read your two posts at that thread about the persistent (and, aggravating) growling noise that "accompanies" your d'angelico excel mini dc with the seymour duncan pickups.

i have a d'angelico just like yours, an excel mini dc with the seymour duncan 57 pickups, and it too has that damned growl which i cannot get shed of.   it drives me just nuts, and no matter what i do, it is there.    i also have an ibanez guitar, an am-93 (another gibson 339 knockoff) with seymour duncan pickups, an sh-4 and an sh-2 replacing the original ibanez 58's, and i really enjoy playing that guitar, and i really like the tones that it produces.  (and, i find it very responsive to the tone and volume controls, which i also like.)

i would replace the d'angelico pickups in an instant with the sh-4 and sh-2 pickups, if it weren't for the fact that having to deal w/ those 4 lead (+ground) wires coming from the 57's scares the living snot out of me, and trying to tie into the duncan wiring schematic keeps me awake at night.

no chance to screw things up big time there, huh?   laughing.

i tried to sign into "the gear page" in order to correspond with you to see what you had done about the problem with the growl, but the page sign in page rejected my email address as being a "duplicate" on one already at their page.  please note, i have had that email address for many many years.  (the only thing i can think of is that it is "left over" at the gear page from a previous failed attempt to sign in.)  be all of that nonsense as it may, if you come across this somehow, i would like to find out what you did about "the growl."

specifically, if you replaced the pickups w/ the "hot rodded" duncans, did you do it yourself, or did you hire a guitar tech/repair person like dan erlwine to do it.  i would be interested to know the costs involved, if you did change out the pickups.  i like most everything about the d'ang except that damned growl, so the guitar is going to spend its time in the case, and the ibanez is going to get played.

if you undertook the project yourself, how did that work out?

personally, if i were to try and do it, i would get the duncan two lead (+ ground) pickups, and replace the whole damned mess, including pups (none of this push-pull nonsense for a duffer like me), and forgo all of that damned complicated circuitry.

i have an old schecter i bought at a pawn shop/second hand/"antiques" store, a veteran of the guitar wars with the scars to show for it, and it has one volume nob, one tone nob, and sh-4 and sh-2 and it plays beautifully  ....   if there is anything complicated about it, i haven't noticed it  .....  yet it has wonderful tone, and a nice deep "c" neck, which is incredibly comfy.   just right for an old poop like me.

and, a wonderfully clean tone.   i am too damned old for this "growly" crap.

if you read this by whatever chance, please do not hesitate to contact me.   if you solved the problem, i would dearly like to know how.

john jay @ 02.20.2022

canada reaches the height of its civilization ..... big brawny lads on horseback, trompling old ladies on strollers ..... brave lads, indeed .....

i'll hoist a brew to that.   picked her out of a crowd, wearing a bright red coat.  ah, what lads  .....  too clumsy to skate, i'll reckon.

i am supposing that the lad riding that stomping horse, made his mother right proud, indeed.

"ah, jimmy, didn't always do so well in school, but looks nice and tidy on a horse's back.   makes my chest swell w/ pride, seeing him trampling that woman on her stroller, peacefully protesting, to hide her cynical agenda: who knows the mischief she's been up to, peaceably assembling, yeah, you betcha.   i'll call tilly, see if she recorded it off the telly."

who knows how high canadian civilization may rise on the back of justin trudeau?   indeed?

john jay @ 02.20.2022