What Did Santa Bring?

Simple post. What presents did I receive for Christmas?

After all, everybody knows Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Santa.

The main present I got was an acoustic guitar. Now completing my collection of guitars : Electric bass, acoustic bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar.

Here’s a picture of the new addition :

And now to the books and DVDs.

Russell Brand boxset, with two live shows, and series one of his Ponderland show.

Also, Russell’s new book, “Articles Of Faith” which is a collection of all of his football articles from The Guardian last season.

Next up is a classic book, which I started reading in school, but we never finished. Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger.

Another highly rated book, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

Finally, a book about one of my favourite bands, Babyshambles. Has interviews with the band and some great photos in there, seems good so far.

There were other stocking filler type of presents, but I feel it’d be wholely unnecessary to take photos of a pack of socks or gift vouchers. Or money.

What did everyone else get then?

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My first ebay purchase

That’s right, I’ve joined the world of ebay consumerism.

I’ve been browsing ebay a lot lately, and there’s really some good bargains to be had on there, and the ability to purchase using paypal is a huge advantage for me with my online income coming through there.

So today I saw something I really couldn’t resist, it was pretty pricey and I dismissed purchasing it at first, but the more I looked at it the more I realised I’d regret it if I didn’t go and buy it.

A 24″ x 36″ print, done by some eastern European artist, featuring some of my favourite movie/tv characters. Tony Soprano from the Sopranos (James Gandolfini), Tony Montana from Scarface (Al Pacino), Jimmy Conway from Goodfellas (Robert Deniro) and Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather (Marlon Brando). Behind these guys who are seated at a bar is their respective crews. There was a black and white version of it available too, but I went with the colour, it looked a bit better to me. The overall price incl. delivery was £28.00 which is around €37/$57, but I’m pleased I bought it. I have to consider getting it framed when it arrives.

Another online purchase today may interest some Leaving Cert students who read this blog. Leaving Cert Solutions.com offer books with all the Maths exam questions from previous years and the solutions combined. On one side of the page is the question, and on the other the solution, which is much handier than having to go online and find the solutions and print them off all the time or whatever. It cost €25 to order online, and though this may seem expensive, since you already have the exam papers, and get the solutions for free, I feel it’s a pretty big timesaver, and should come in handy. They do Higher and Ordinary level too, in case you’re wondering!

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iPod classic review

A while ago I got my iPod 80gb Classic, and promised a review. I’ve left it a bit late, but my excuse is that I was waiting until I had a properly formed opinion of the thing.

At the beginning I posted that I was pretty much in love with the thing, and to be honest that hasn’t changed. Is hasn’t fucked up on me once, no freezing or anything like that, and I’ve let it fall a couple times already

The generous 80gb storage allows me to use it as an external hard drive, and I’ve backed up a solid 15gb of videos/movies/various files from my laptop onto the iPod. Transfer was quite quick, and it’s very handy to know I’ve a copy of all my important files on my iPod.

Although always being anti-apple until now, I must say I do like the whole iTunes system, and it’s pretty handy for updating my iPod. The only gripe I have is that most of my albums have the album artwork attached in Windows Media Player, but getting them to work on iTunes and the iPod is a different matter. It sounds quite trivial, but it’s so much cooler scrolling down your music when the album covers are all there. Apparently I have to register on iTunes to get the covers working properly, and this requires credit card info to be put in at some stage. Now that’s bullshit. I don’t want to waste my time registering just so I can get what I should already have. And needing a credit card for it? Sounds like Apple being dickheads to me. If I’m wrong about the CC thing, do correct me.

For the price I paid for this, I’m most satisfied. €250 for 80gb isn’t bad at all. I know some readers of this have recently gotten the iPod nano and touch. I can’t understand why someone would pay the astronomical price for an iPod touch when for a cheaper price you can buy the Classic, which has way more hard disc space. The touch just sounds so dodgy to me aswell. Touch screens aren’t the safest in my opinion, so a touch screen on something you’re going to be carrying around with you everywhere? Sure it’ll be cool for the first month or so when you can show everyone how great your new touch screen iPod is, but then when you run out of space for you music, oh how I’ll laugh my friends. I’ll giggle with glee as I enjoy all those extra gigabytes on my beautiful but humble iPod Classic. Then your screen breaks. Oh I’ll laugh harder. I’ll chortle with cheeriness as my modest click wheel soldiers on.
Apologies for the lack of pictures on here, my camera’s still broken!

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New iPod

I finally got my new iPod that I’ve wanted for ages. Picked it up yesterday evening in Dixon’s in Liffey Valley (cheers to a friend, Philip who works there and text me to let me know they had some in. You’re a good soul).

First impressions are pretty good. I’ve already backed up around 10gb of files onto the hard-drive function of it. I’m currently importing my music library into iTunes to sync it up with the iPod. The size of the thing, for 80gb, is amazingly small. And the screen, good lord the graphics on it are so good looking.

So as it stands, if this thing were a woman, I’d wooing her and taking her back to my place for coffee.  I’ll post a more in depth review when I’ve tried it out properly.

I also picked up headphones, because I knew the ones included with the iPod would be pretty useless. I managed to pick up the same as my last pair, which you can read about in this post.

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A new iPod.

I’ve decided I’m going to get this new mp3 player I’ve been wanting a while. I’ve also decided I’m going to conform and finally get an iPod. This is the one I’m after.

“iPod classic”. It hasn’t got this fancy new touch screen the latest ipods have, it’s a new model of the older, plainer iPods. I wouldn’t fancy paying tons for an iPod touch with less capacity than the classic and much more breaking potential. Come on, a touch screen on something you’ll be carrying around with you all the time?

So it’s €250 for 80gb iPod classic. Sounds good to me. I considered ordering online, but really it’s more hassle and I never found a saving of more than about ten euro, so it’s not worth it. So I’m going to deposit some of my Paypal funds to get this

I’m gonna deposit €200 and put the rest to it from my own wages. While I’m on this sort of topic, the guitar I ordered a while back arrived just four days after I placed the order, in perfect condition and everything, so another thumbs up to Thomann on that.

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My earphones have finally failed me.

I don’t think I’m alone in going through a fair few sets of earphones throughout the years.

I tend to go for “in-ear” earphones. They’re always more comfortable for me, staying in without any trouble, and also being that bit louder than most earphones. The JVC pair I own at the moment are finally on their way out, after serving me fairly well for a good few months, which for my standards is very good. The only decent pic I could find of them is below.

At the moment I’m still using them, though there’s only sound in one ear. I had a quick look at in shops and noticed they’re all around €50 for a decent pair of the ones I like. Considering I only paid €25 for the JVC pair, I was fairly shocked.I’m looking at buying an iPod soon, so I might hold off a new pair until I do that, and see if the earphones included are any use.

So, a fond farewell to my JVC HA-FX33’s, you served your master well lads.

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A new puchase.

Yesterday my paypal balance finally went over the 500€ mark. The current balance is €507.53, or $725.

So I decided it was time to deposit some of that and buy myself something nice. Readers will remember a post I made a while back about things I’d like to buy.

One of the the things on there was to get a cheap guitar set, for me to mess about on, so today I went and ordered one off thomann

Here she is :

Certainly one of the cheapest ones on there, but it’ll do me fine I imagine. I’ve no great plans or intentions for it, just to have some fun on it (playing bass on your own like I currently do isn’t always the most fun).

I’ve bought off that site before and never had any problems, so hopefully this’ll be the same. I remember before being impressed at the delivery time. I ordered on Saturday afternoon, so chances are the order won’t be processed until Monday.

The best part about it is that it’s going to be completely paid for by all my work online. The total amount for the set (guitar, amp, cable, gigbag, plecs and strap) and a tuner, and another cable (since I broke the one on my bass) was €145 including shipping, so it’s nothing major!

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Nothin’ like a bit of materialism.

I admit to being a materialistic bastard. My possessions are incredibly important to me. I think most people today are like this though in reality, just some don’t realise it.

So here I’m going to talk about some things I’d like to acquire in the future, both short term and long term.

At the moment, my laptop is a bit messed up. Having gotten the power input repaired, they messed up the screen. I told them about this and was meant to bring it down to them three Saturdays ago, but haven’t been in a fit state to do so yet, so it’s going to have to wait (the guy who repaired it does Saturdays and I’ll need to get to talk to him about it). So even if I get this one fixed, I’d love a new lappy. I’d have to get a 17 inch widescreen, just like this one. Quality laptops these days have 2gb RAM, so that’s another necessity. I’m not too concerned about hard drive space, because it’ll never be enough, as laptops rarely have anything decent in that department. So I’d have to be getting another external hard drive, as I was foolish enough to break my last one.

I also need a new mp3 player. At the moment I’m using an old Creative Zen 20gb brick. I’ve broken 3 Zen Micro’s, and have the fourth replacement one lying somewhere in my house, unusable. Then I went onto the iAudio 20gb, which I loved. It was sturdy and reliable, which was what I need (I’m sure you’ve noticed my trend of breaking everything I own). Then one day there was some software/firmware issues and I had to get it fixed. Got it fixed and all was well. So then one day I’ve got it hooked up to my speakers, and leave it on the subwoofer. Since I had the bass up all the way, the mp3 jumped off the speaker and onto the floor. And broke

So a new mp3 please. Preferably an iPod, though I’ve always rejected these, I think it’s time I gave them a go.

I’ve got a bass guitar and amp in my room which I loved messing about on. I’m nothing special at all, but I have my fun. So I want to add to this and pick up a (cheap, bottom of the line) normal electric guitar set.

All good business men have good watches, so I’ve got to get my hands on a nice gentlemanly watch at some stage.

As regards a car in later life, I have no idea. Everyone knows their dream car, but I don’t, so any suggestions are welcome for this

Of course everyone would want a big house when they’re older, and I’m no different. But what’s important for me in this dream is to have some sort of media room. This would be where I’d spend all my spare time. A nice big spacious room with an office of sorts at one end, with the laptop on the desk. This end of the room has posters of movies or bands or something on the wall. Then the other end a huge flatscreen on the wall, hooked up to the dvd player and gaming facilities. Other walls here covered in shelves of dvds and cds and books. Top class surround sound system all around the room. Behind the leather couch are the guitar amps and guitars. Perhaps one wall looks like it’s a bookshelf too, but then you flick the switch and it’s the entrance to something else I haven’t decided on yet

So thats :

• Laptop
• mp3 player
• Guitar
• Watch
• _______ Car
• Media room with secret wall

There should be more on that list, but that’s all I can think of for now, any suggestions welcome!

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Pics of speaker/office

After overwhelming requests, well one, I have to put up a few pictures of the speakers I got, so you’ll also get a look at my laptop/office type area in my room. Excited?

Here’s a shot of the desk, trying to get most things in there

.

And again, but a little closer.

Annoyingly, my blaydin’ whopper clock doesn’t show up well in pictures. It’s a behind the two speakers on the right side of the laptop. It has a little hand moving back and forth creating a sort of projection of the time on it, and that changes to the date, and has certain greetings (Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening, and Happy Christmas when it’s December!). It’s usually the first thing people comment on when they see my room, depending on how many dead bodies/hookers/cocaine piles are there at the same time.

To see these pictures in they’re full size, check out http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n9/TheWalsho/

Happy Mongey?

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Now listening in 5.1!

Got myself some nice new speakers today, 5.1 set from PC world, on sale for €54.99

They’re fairly sleek looking, and a damn nice sound. Came with a wireless remote too, though my laptop picks up on this and goes a bit mad when I use it, which is pretty funny. I’m happy with the new acquisition anyway, well worth the money.

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