Nick Vassilev's Place: Cleaning etc.

My Apple iPad was delivered today – one day earlier than the official UK launch, which is tomorrow.

I am very busy in the office right now so no time for playing with it. I left it 3 rooms away in order to avoid temptation but tonight I am going to enjoy a few hours with it.

I hate accounts

Who likes preparing books and accounts? Not me. Thank you very much.

I first saw this guitar in the hands of Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. What an awkward shape for a guitar, I thought at the time. But somehow in the hands of the Texas blues maestro, this guitar was a tonal explosion despite its looks.

I understand that Billy Gibbons could play the crappiest Squier out there and still nail La Grange like you’ll never be able to, but after seeing him use this guitar for a few years now, I thought there might be some mojo in it.

Let me put this right – this is not a popular guitar, and you won’t find it in every guitar shop. I believe it is less popular in the UK than the US but it’s worth every penny you spend on it (currently around £2,000 – £2,200).

If you love ZZ Top and Billy Gibbons and have 2 grand to spare, this is the huitar you need. Forgot to mention – … only purchase if fan of hot Texas blues, barbeques and mex food .

I am planning to play the Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird in the near future and post a review here.

Rispek!

To my biggest surprise I recently found out that Pioneer have announced last year (hmm, I must have slipped past this one) they had decided to stop making TVs. I couldn’t believe what I heard (and read)! Pioneer’s TVs have always been occupying the top spot of the quality TV pyramid.

My first flat screen TV was Pioneer’s first generation plasma TV – a 43″ source of pure visual pleasure whether switched on or off. Once you’ve watched the picture you instantly become a Pioneer fan. These guys really knew what they were doing.

At first I thought that Pioneer stopping to make TVs was a joke. How could one of the most successful TVs ever be stopped form manufacturing?!? A quick look at http://www.pioneer.co.uk and I knew it wasn’t just a joke. There were no TVs on their website – all the other quality Pioneer stuff – blu-rays, dvd players, car entertainment systems, but TVs.

It was when I started searching in Google for any press releases when I read all about the company’s financial trouble last year. One article was commenting on the rumour that Panasonic (they actually hold 15% stake in Pioneer) were passed the secret know how of making top quality plasma TVs. The writer has based his opinion on the fact that Panasonic have put surprisingly good TV resembling the latest Pioneer Kuro models. He goes on to say that Panasonic have not been able to achieve such technical specs in the past. It is suspicious that right after Pioneer stopped making TVs Panasonic releases same quality sets. e.

I can only hope it’s true.

Webmastering…Hey, someone has to do it. Well, I like it, but that’s different. I prefer to update my pages myself. Forget the CMS stuff – this is for amateurs and although it’s convenient and quick, gives you less control to everything.

I also like working on weekends and bank holidays. I love the silence. It gets my creative juices running.

Saying this, I remember I need to do some property maintenance at home. Lots of stuff must go into plastic containers and then to storage. I am planning to take photos of all the stuff that doesn’t get used and sell it on ebay. This is called a nice double bonus – you get that much needed free space and people pay you some money for the effort. Melikes

I have reasons to believe that Slash’s playing stands a few galaxies ahead from my guitar skills, as brutally confirmed by the latest assessment of my command of the 6-string instrument.

Rispek, man!

Updated wordpress, installed tweetmeme plugin – no retweets at all …since the last 10 min:^).

For some strange reasons my wordpress blog wouldn’t upgrade automatically hence the manual upgrade. No logical reason behind this inconvenience but I am willing to get to the bottom of it. Hmm, could it be the hosting provider? I don’t have any kind of trouble on wordpress installations on my servers… I must get this checked.

Working on my websites. Thinking about it I probably have enough work for 5 web designers and programmers. Why do I do it myself – I don’t know. Call it a hobby, special interest or pleasure – I like doing it. It feels great to build something from scratch and see it grow into something really useful.

The only down point is that these SEO and web design activities take a significant amount of time. But it would’ve been too easy and boring otherwise.

Great little place for posting your add. Strictly ads – no frills information needed and exchanged. Still growing but showing lots of ads already.

Give it a try here: rabota v london.

Slash with the original Apetite Les Paul copy

Well, this guitar surpassed my expectations!!! I expected a good quality Gibson Les Paul (don’t we all expect this from Gibson?) and this instrument simply blew my mind away. What a tone, what a great feel to it! Needless to say the AAA figured  maple top is amazing.

As all Slash and GN’R fans know, the original guitar used to record Appetite For Destruction (and Slash’s last minute guitar tone saviour) was actually a Gibson Les Paul copy. So now Gibson have made a copy of this famous copy . Wow, what a copy!!!

I believe big part of this amazing Slash tone was produced by the great Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups and the Marshall Silver Jubilee head I had it plugged into. Excellent work, Mr. Duncan.

I subscribe to the school of thoughts that the fact the original Appetite guitar has such popularity and great tone and was even copied by the company whose guitars it was meant to be a copy of,  means that no matter what guitar you’re playing, you can create masterpieces as long as you play with your heart and soul. Well, a little bit of luthier craftsmanship would make your job easier, but it doesn’t have to be a 1959 Burst to play heavenly tones.

This is what I think. I may be wrong. But in any case the Appetite guitar rocks hard and kicks some serious ass.

These videos below prove my point: