dag 1126: The world is sinking through the ground

A few recent internet related problems in the Nelson Mandela building at the Björk Bjiggler Critical Mass HQ (Northern) combined with a general lack of available time have prevented me from posting over the last few weeks. Things seem to have sorted themselves out a bit so I can once again put finger to keyboard and produce some more prose full of insight and thought - or maybe not.

First of all it is about time I drew your attention to the fact that we now have a new blog layout which, to the non internet savvy, means that it doesn't look the same as it used to do. As with most things that happen in my life, it did not come about due to me being proactive, but reactive. I logged in to write a post one day and was presented with a message saying I could either carry on with the blog as it is, but miss out on the all the new features that are being introduced or upgrade to the new format and be able to make full use of all the wonderful new features. There was an inviting link to click on to start the upgrade process and a message next to it warning that all template customisations would be lost. As our template had been heavily modified over the years I thought about this for a bit (ok for quite some time actually - I am not very good at making decisions at the best of times). Eventually I came to the conclusion that the only way forward is to keep up with the times and move on rather than staying stuck with the old ways and getting left behind. So I clicked the link and ended up with what you now see before you. At the same time I decided to start using blogger comments (these weren't available when we first set it up), which means we have lost all of the old ones I think it is better to have them integrated rather than being separate and its probably better to do it now than in the future which would mean even more comments getting lost. If you can remember any comments that are missing please feel free to re-enter them against the appropriate post.

Since the last instalment my new Sandberg bass arrived from Germany. It seemed to take quite a while for my order to get processed, but once it had been shipped it only took 2 days to arrive. The box was huge and filled with airbags which surrounded and protected bass, which was inside the Sandberg gig bag that is supplied with all Sandberg basses. Opening up the gig bag was pretty exciting as I finally got to see my first glimpse the bass I had been waiting for for the last week or so. I chose the bass based on the picture on the left, though I new mine would have a black rather than a pearl pick guard. I thought the bass looked good in pictures, but in the flesh I think it looks even better. The first thing that struck me was the quality. Every component just oozes quality in both design and build. I just had to have a play and was also amazed to find that the bass was practically in perfect tune - I only had to adjust 1 string slightly. The violet burst colour is much darker in reality than the picture and will go perfectly with the type of music I will be playing with it. I was a bit worried about how I would get on with 5 strings as I had only ever played 4 string basses before, but so far it hasn't seemed any harder to play because of that extra string. Now I want to get a smallish bass amp (got my eye on a Phil Jones briefcase) and I must say I also wouldn't mind getting a few of these EBS pedals (their amps look pretty good too) - nothing to do with them being Swedish of course!

I've also got to think up a name for my new band - then I can start recording stuff.