I admit it, I'm an addict

[Rob McAlpine]

Good luck with the lefty. That there aren't many lefty players should work in your favor.

I'm looking forward to getting my new Alembic. In principle it's probably as far away from that ES-345 as one can get.

Apparently the "Varitone" circuit is a set of notch filters:

http://reverb.com/news/the-varitone-circuit-demystified-scott-sharrard-and-the-gibson-es-345

So much for that. The auction estimate was $4-6 K, plus a 25% buyers premium. It's now at $15K, with buyer premium almost $19K. At $10-12K I was all over it. At this price I'm out. I may eventually regret walking, but at this point I'd rather spend it on Restive.

[TheOffice]

20k will buy a lot of HydraNet, 3Di etc.

I refuse to buy Dell products. I buy Lenovo laptops for work.
When my older daughter was in middle school all the kids had Dells. The repair rate was 97%. They switched to Lenovos and it dropped to 40%.
I had a Dell desktop that dies. After 8 hours on the phone with tech support it was still dead. I knew the problem was the power supply because everything else had been replaced, but none of the techs would listen. I emailed Michael Dell. Within 10 minutes I had an email from his secretary followed by a call from the head of tech support with his cell and beeper number. In a few days I had a new machine.

[Rob McAlpine]

Just sold for $25k w/ buyers premium. Finger was hovering when Beth said "a custom Collings and a new jib". This woman is evil I tell ya, pure evil.

Devil with a blue dress.

[BeauV]

Recently I've ended up with only acoustic instruments. 6-string guitar, 6-string baritone banjo, piano, and I'm pondering an upright bass.

I didn't intend to wander away from electric instruments, it just happened. My little Fender bassman amp is holding up a tool box in the garage.

[Tucky]

I think Beth made a good call- sounds like the "previously owned by a famous person" premium was a bit much, especially for a guitar that wasn't a working guitar. Have fun.

[LarryHoward]

Recently I've ended up with only acoustic instruments. 6-string guitar, 6-string baritone banjo, piano, and I'm pondering an upright bass.

I didn't intend to wander away from electric instruments, it just happened. My little Fender bassman amp is holding up a tool box in the garage.

What model Bassman? I have a feeling it could find a home on this site.

[BeauV]

Recently I've ended up with only acoustic instruments. 6-string guitar, 6-string baritone banjo, piano, and I'm pondering an upright bass.

I didn't intend to wander away from electric instruments, it just happened. My little Fender bassman amp is holding up a tool box in the garage.

What model Bassman? I have a feeling it could find a home on this site.

It has been about 5 years since I even looked at it. I'll go take a look next time I'm at our offsite storage (aka: Junk) locker.

[Rob McAlpine]

I think Beth made a good call- sounds like the "previously owned by a famous person" premium was a bit much, especially for a guitar that wasn't a working guitar. Have fun.

It's a working guitar, just not a stage played. I'm thinking of a Blackbird lucky 13 for the boat. In a pinch you can use it to repel boarders.

If it's a tweed bassman, that's a serious cult amp. Saw Doyle Bramhall playing thru one a couple months ago. Now THAT is a lefty guitarist.

But yeah, Beth is a keeper.

[kdh]

I got Adele this little solid state Fender for Christmas to go with the blonde Strat of mine that she's been playing.

[SemiSalt]

I fully understand that as users, we "pollute" our computers. Inevitably, we pick up bits of code in apps that don't work well, aren't fully compatible and over years, cause all sorts of problems and our computers begin to slow down and glitch out.

Right now, my desktop with Windows 10 is failing updates. It gives a message that it can't do so because of "Trend Micro 2009". Well, the computer is only about 3 years old and has never had Trend Micro on it. If we ever used any Trend Micro product, it was before the turn of the century on the 4th or 5th predecessor of this computer. The tools offered to remove Trend Micro don't solve the problem. I've found other people's reports of the same issue, but no solution that fits. Generally, a sucky situation.

[SemiSalt]

Another techy issue. I've been trying to take pictures of some of the flaws in our new bathroom (don't ask!). I was using my Canon Powershot and some problems. If I used flash, the detail was washed out, and if I didn't use flash, the long exposure led to hand shake and blur. I tried by Moto X, and it was better. So, for at least this use, the accessory on phone was better than the main function of the camera.

[Ajax]

The Canon should have a "low light" mode to aid in no-flash photography. Did you try that or did you just stay in a normal auto mode with the flash disabled?

As for Win10, there might be some remnant of a Trend Micro product that was vendor installed. As you know, computers all come with various bloatware installed on them straight out of the box. You basically have to spend time cleaning up a brand-new computer.