Hotwire's Blog

Before buying myself a steel strung acoustic guitar I did a little research into what makes a good guitar and how to spot one; now I have got my guitar I feel the need to share the knowledge I have gained during the experience.
The first thing you should always do when you pick up a guitar is play it, even if you’ve never touched a guitar before. The way it feels in your hand and sounds to your ears is very important. A quality guitar neck will fit nicely within your hand and feel comfortable; remember you will spend a lot of time holding this in the future.
So now you’ve found a guitar you like the look, feel and sound of, now its time to inspect the build quality. A high quality steel strung acoustic will have a small action, that is the strings will never be around half a centimetre above the fret board at the top fret(closest to body of the guitar). This can vary and some people may prefer a guitar with a higher action.
Next look at where the neck joins the body; and the join between fret board and the body of the guitar; Do these look well made? Is there little gaps with bits of glue visible, a surprisingly common problem, or do the joints look well defined and clean?
You should also check how straight the neck is, this shouldn’t really be a problem with a new guitar, but if you are looking at second hand model this becomes a lot more important. The neck should be perfectly straight and perpendicular to the body.
You should also check the tightness of the tuning pegs. They should not be so loose that it makes them easy to knock out of tune. If you plan to use high grade (thick) strings you should also check that the pegs aren’t too tight as they will be tighter with higher grade strings.
Most models of steel strung acoustic guitars come in two versions, Full size and Folk size. The difference between the two is the size of the body not the size of the neck. A full size guitar will have a fuller sound and play louder, but the folk sized guitars are often more comfortable.
I would advise looking at as many guitars as possible, some above your budget and some below. You can often pick up a much nicer guitar for a small amount more than you were planning, and conversely you can often find great deals for less than you expected. I would advise keeping away from the very cheapest ranges as this are often made to a very low quality as most people buying them either don’t know what a good guitar is or don’t care.

I have decided that it is time to resurrect this blog, as I seem to have little better to do with my time.
On a more interesting note I have recently been getting into breakcore. This is a recent style of music that consists mainly of breaks taken from other genres, often jungle or techno, speed up and mashed together. These are hardcore tunes and aren't for the faint hearted. Check out Venetian Snares, Bong-Ra, and any tunes you can find on Dissident Records.

As I use this blog for very little at the moment I am leaning towards the idea of a product review blog. I know this has been done more than a few times, but I feel I need to add my 2 cents.

An Electric shaver, seemingly a useful personal hygiene gadget, but really an international conspiracy to get my money for nothing. I have always shaved, like any sensible person, using a safety razor and shaving foam; but recently my laziness has compounded in me buying an electric shaver to save a little bit of time. I wasn’t really expecting wonders from an electric shaver, but I was taken aback to find that not only was my face still covered in hair, but it was in a surprisingly large amount of pain. It seems to me that these devices of torture are designed to rip the hair from your face, rather than cut it. I would not mind so much if I was left either hairless and pained or haired and painless, but no, I have a not so nice halfway house. To conclude never buy electronic hair removal gadgets, and _never_ trust adverts! Oh and if anyone wants a free torture device your welcome to come and get it any time.

Today I discovered that before 1847 vegetarians were known as Pythagoreans; at first this fact shocked me because I have always known the Pythagoreans as the followers of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos who based their beliefs on the school of mathematics, but also held mystical beliefs. Until today I was unaware their views on vegetarianism, but it seems they were deeply against meat eating.
It is clear that Pythagorean views were not widely held until 1847, so how did the term, Pythagorean, come to cover all vegetarians for over 2000 years after the death of Pythagoras himself. It seems most likely to me that as the number of vegetarians was low at the time the name of group of famous vegetarians was given to all vegetarians. Not it seems not all of #php agrees with me, they claim, “All Pythagoreans were vegetarians, but not all vegetarians were Pythagoreans, so to say non-meat eaters were Pythagoreans or were called that, is false, since only the vegetarians who were that because of Pythagoras could really be called Pythagoreans”. This seems to me to be presuming that a groups name must directly link to the belief system they hold, and cant just be what people call them. I mean does every single person that calls them self Catholic today even believe in God, no; and that is what people are calling themselves not what the majority call the minority. It seems to me that some of #php are too quick to make assumptions without looking into the evidence.
http://www.salagram.net/veg1.html
http://www.ivu.org/faq/definitions.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian

I have decided that, to give my blog some sort of meaning, I should review every restaurant dine in. In the spirit of this resolution here I record my thoughts on Amalfi Italian Restaurant. The meal was first rate throughout, the service good, the menu expansive, and very reasonably priced. I started with an Al Salmone Bruschetta, essentially a simple tomato Bruschetta with smoked salmon layering the top. This was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of smoked salmon. For main course I had Tagliatelli Carbonara, I found the sauce particularly rich, not dissimilar to eating pure cream; that is not to say I did not enjoy it. I rarely eat dessert was this was a tradition unbroken on this occasion; although I did drink a bottle a white wine with my meal, which is even more unusual for me. I freely admit I know next to nothing about wine, so I will leave my comment to the wine to, it was pleasant. In total, a meal for two including a bottle of wine, come to just over £30, most reasonable for a meal of such high quality and such good service. If anyone is ever in Cardiff, I highly recommend a visit for a cheap yet extremely agreeable meal.

I have found a remarkably interesting government website (www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk); I applaud the government for finally getting a web project working well, even if it is unlikely to really provide a useful service to many people. This website allows inputting your postcode and viewing a whole host of data relating your postal area and city, the data covers many different topics from crime and health care to deprivation and economic data.
Among many other useful facts I found that almost a 1/3 of Wales has no qualifications, this I found it be a shockingly high number, maybe I am over optimistic about British education standards, but I thought we could do better than educating 2/3 of our population.
I also discovered that over 50% of my local area is rented accommodation; I do live in a student area so this is to be expected really. The thing that bothers me about it is how few people’s hands all this money must be falling into, but I suppose that’s just the kind of world we live in.
You should really check this website out, I haven’t really managed to make it sound like the best read ever, but I think it’s defiantly worth a look in a spare 10 minutes.

I have just finished watching the 3rd episode of the new American version of Teachers. Although I did laugh a few times during the show, I was appalled by how poor the jokes were. I first remember Teachers being aired on Channel 4 in the UK; I found this an incredibly funny show, with very real characters. The new Americanised version it clearly a cheap imitation of a great British show, and they haven’t even managed to keep the sense of reality I found in the original series. I find it amazing that the country that exports the largest amount of TV shows feels the need to mimic our comedy. Go, Go British Comedy.

I've never had a blog before, or even really thought about getting one, that’s until www.netlamers.org was set up and s|k coerced me into signing up to this, most probably passed, fad. Anyway I make no promises to ever update this blog or talk about anything remotely interesting or relevant, so don’t be too expectant of me.