Well, we made it through Heather's "Shiny 16th" party! Everything went pretty well -- I'm kinda shocked, my own self! ;)

We had a great time, and my first ever attempt at writing a murder mystery party was seemingly successful. It was a Firefly-themed event, of course, though not as fancy as a proper Shindig. Heather smiled the whole night, so that alone made it a success for me. My role as host & ship's mechanic, Spicy McHaggis was quite a bit of fun.

PICTURES are... here! Thanks, Ashley, for all the help with the camera!

And, just in case anyone would find it useful, I am posting the entire set of scripts and host materials that I wrote. I looked far and wide for a Firefly-themed murder mystery, and could find absolutely nothing, so I wrote my own. It's not as polished as it could be, but I'll be updating soon to whip it into a more "professional" package. It'll still be free, my service to the Browncoat community, of course. But in the meantime, here is the version we used:

Entire set of scripts and story materials for "The Birthday McGuffin".

Let me know what you think!

PS: Herr Tobias -- very sorry you had to recuse yourself... We missed your rendition of Mal!

Fifteen cubic yards is a lot of mulch.

A lot.

Hmmm. The top of the desk is only 1 7/16" thick. Provided the wood is worthwhile once I disassemble the beast (I've enlisted my buddy and fellow Microsofty, Mark, to identify the wood for me :), I may need to beef that up a bit by adding 1/4" or 3/8" of thickness. sounds like my opportunity to work up a flamed or figured maple top?

Either road, I plan to start photographing the transformation from desk to bass later today.

Started working on the full-size, true-to-scale bass design in Illustrator (don't have AutoCAD :), and it's coming along nicely.

A couple other design requirements have materialized along the way, in addition to the first set:

• •  Since the design is for a 2-string bass, the headstock design should accentuate the narrow lines presented by the 2 strings. Something Kubicki-like, maybe, but with a twist.
• •  Even though this is going to be a bolt-on neck, I really like the lines resulting from the deep cutouts in neck-through designs. BUT, need to be wary of structural integrity; that's a high-stress area.

And, as promised, my primary design inspirations:

Wow. Been a very long time since my last post. Since then, I've jumped ship to the Federal practice within Microsoft Consulting Services, and completed a long-term and a short-term engagement. Now on number 3!

Anyway, back to it. What to post about? the SharePoint stuff I'm working these days is not too groundbreaking, and I can't post yet about the Tech Preview software I'm playing with... Going to be putting in 15 yards of mulch around the house this weekend - but who posts about that? Oh, I know!

I've decided to build a bass!

Started out looking around for a cheap fretless, because I want to play just like the late, great Mark Sandman on a 2-string with a slide. I use a slide on my beloved Les Paul, but with its 4 strings and the frets, there's too much interference for my low skills.

My first pick... a cheapo fretless from Musician's friend. But I just didn't like the look of it, and the ebonal fingerboard made me cringe. Off to eBay. Found a couple nice prospects, but way too pricey. Then a diversion - a Rickenbacker 4003 fretless! I love Rickenbackers! But, even more pricey. So... any of those Japanese knock-offs from the 70's? A few, but they're either too beat up, or still outside my price range.

So, the final verdict: build my own, of course! I have this monolith of a desk from the 40's or 50's - and I think the 2" slab top is maple! if that's the case, then I can get 6-8 blanks out of it, I think, and the wood should be gorgeously aged... Still gonna cost some dough, but piecemeal, and a lot more fun.

Here's my initial design specs:

• Body
• •  Big & heavy. 'Cause a bass has to be :)
• •  Maybe kinda Ricky-like in body design, but still unique.
• •  Nature-inspired, but masculine. No flower shapes...
• Neck
• •  Pre-built, because I know I'd screw up building my own.
• •  Rock Maple neck and head.
• •  Ebony (preferably) or Rosewood fretless fingerboard.
• Hardware
• •  Bridge: Something chunky, cast aluminum or brass. Probably brass (see first point under "Body").
• •  Machines: Unsure, but probably something compact, like Schaller M4's.
• Electronics
• •  Dual humbuckers. I like humbuckers. I like to say, "humbuckers".

Next up: the visual design inspiration!

Well, as usual, it's been a while since I posted here. (No surprise.) It's been even longer since I started trying to figure out how to play one of my favorite bass lines of all time: Days and Days, by Concrete Blonde. Having now (pretty much) figured it out today, I can't figure why it was so hard. Mental block, I guess.

So, since over a year of searching has failed to yield anyone else's tablature for this, here's mine. Nowhere near perfect, but remember - you saw it here first.

Intro, Part 1:
  G|----------0------------------------|---------0------------2-2-2-|
  D|------------3-0--------------------|-----------3-0--------------|
  A|-0--3-0---------3---0--3-0---------|-0--3-0---------3--0--------|
  E|----------------------------3-0--3-|----------------------------|

Intro, Part 2:
  G|-----------0-------------------------||
  D|-------------3-0---------------------||  This repeats 4 times
  A|--0--3-0---------3---0--3-0----------||  before vocals.
  E|-----------------------------3-0--3--||

Verse:
  G|---------------||                  |------------------|
  D|---------------||  This repeats 7  |------------------|
  A|--0------------||  times, then:    |--0--3-0----------|
  E|------3-00-3h--||                  |----------3-0--3--|

Chorus:
  G|--------------------------------------------||
  D|--------------------------------------------||  This part plays
  A|--------------------------------------------||  twice, and then...
  E|--1--1-1--1-1--1-1-1----5--5-5--5-5--5-5-5--||

  G|-----------0-------------------------||
  D|-------------3-0---------------------||  ...this repeats 4 times
  A|--0--3-0---------3---0--3-0----------||  before next verse.
  E|-----------------------------3-0--3--||

This post dedicated to Paul W.

Pretty bummed out tonight; Hard to even care about posting. But...

Maybe things happen in threes. At least I hope it's only three, at least as regards the "Bad Things that happen while away from home at customers this year" list. Much worse with each item:

1. Hit a deer and totalled my car.
2. Passed kidney stones while driving a 5-speed in traffic.
3. Indiana Jones died.

Indy, our family cat these past few years, passed well before his time earlier today, October 21, 2008. I blame myself for not getting him treated as quickly as we should. And for not making extra effort to understand what was really going on. I loved him, but still let him down. I'm sorry, Indy, my fuzz-faced friend.

I'll miss you. We all will.