slangs and abbreviations

this is a direct copas from talkbass forum :p simply because I don't feel like writing anything serious right now heh heh, and since it's a forum, everything in it belongs to its members, including your humble writer here ;), plus, this is stated on their faq page, and though most of them are related to bass, some can be quite applicable in everyday life.

+1 (or any number): Agreed. More numbers= you HIGHLY agree.
A/B: When you compare two instruments by playing them one after another.
ABG: Acoustic Bass Guitar
AFAICS As Far As I Can See
AFAIK: As Far As I Know
Bump or Bumping: Said when you post in your own thread to move to the top of the list.
Blocks: Fretboard Markings
CAR: Candy Apple Red
CIJ: "Crafted In Japan"
Closet Classic: Bass: Has some signs of aging, cracked finish etc etc.
DB: Double Bass
DC: Double Cut Body Style.
DI: Direct Inject (Often referred to as a DI Box, or Direct Box)
Dots: Fretboard Marking
Feeler Used mainly on the "for sale" forums. Meaning "I'll sell if I get what I believe is top dollar."
Fingerboard: Board WITHOUT Frets (Fretless)
FOH: Front Of House
EQ: Equalizing, or adjusting the Highs, Mids, Lows to shape the sound of your bass.
ERB: Extended Range Bass
Fretboard: Board With Frets (Fretted)
FSR: Factory Special Run
EURB or EUB: Electric Upright Bass
FUQUA'd: Having Ed Fuqua bastardize your TB handle.
FWIW: For What It's Worth.
GAS: Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
GC: Guitar Center. A chain of music stores.
GL: Can Refer to "Geddy Lee" (ie. The model) or G&L basses.
GTG: Get Together.
HH: Double Humbucker Pickup Combo
HTH: Hope That Helps.
Hz: A Measurement Of Cycles Per Second
IIRC: If I Remember Correctly
IMHO: In My Humble Opinion
IMO: In My Opinion
IBTL: In Before The Lock
J-Bass: Jazz Bass
J/H: Jazz/Humbucker Pickup Combo
JM(H)O: Just My (Humble) Opinion
LP or LPB: Les Paul or Les Paul Bass (Referring to the body style) or even Lake Placid Blue (A colour)
MIA: Often referred to as "Made In America". Also "Missing In Action" for all the army buffs.
Mids: Generally between ____ Hz and ____ Hz.
MIJ: "Made In Japan"
MIK: "Made In Korea"
MIM: "Made In Mexico"
MM or EBMM: Music Man or Ernie Ball Music Man. MM can also refer to the Marcus Miller signature bass
Mod: Moderator. They can shut you up.
Mojo: Extensive wear on a bass due to years of playing. Such basses seem to have a deep history or charisma.
Noob/Newbie/Newb: New Member
NOS: New Old Stock. Always a Reissue Bass. It's like it's NEVER been played and never aged.
OP: Original Poster
OT: Off Topic
OTOH: On The Other Hand
P-Bass: Precision Bass
P/G: Pickguard
P/H: Precision/Humbucker Pickup Combo
P/J: Precision/Jazz Pickup Combo
P/U or Pups: Pickups
Paul: Forum administrator. Contact with any issues the mods can't handle, or to file complaints.
PBDDI: Tech 21 Programmable Bass Driver DI
PDDI: Tech 21 Para Driver DI
PM: Private Message
POS: Piece of ****. Not a good piece of equipment.
Pwned: Owned
RB5: Roscoe Beck 5-string
Relic: Bass: Nicks, Scratches, and Dings galore. Super Worn in. It's like you've been playing this bass, every for 30 years.
RI: Reissue
Ric: Rickenbacker Basses
SABDDI: Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI
SC: Single Cut Body Style.
SM58: An Industry Standard Microphone
SX Basses: Essex Basses
Scale Length: The length from the nut of the bass, so the bridge of the bass.
Sig.: Signature
SR5: Ernie Ball Stingray 5-string
Supporting Member Pay $20.00 to support TalkBass, and become a supporting member. Pay $60.00 and become a GOLD supporting member.
TB: TalkBass
The Qintar: An old poster on Talkbass.
Tort: Tortoise Shell (pickguard)
TTIUWOP or TTIUWP: This Thread Is Useless Without Pics
URB or UB: Upright Bass
VTC: Vintage Tone Control
YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary

Thrashing my bos' computer

on an otherwise beautiful sunday morning.. skip the stupid introduction and straight to the point. I've crashed my bos' computer. 

the thing about the IT department of this group of companies is that, there's only one IT guy and he's in charged of three main offices in Jakarta, including branch offices in Bandung. 

how did that happen, don't ask me.

anyways, I have apparently been the guy to rely on by my bosses when they have problems with their pc, which is a role I really much enjoy, with most of the cases revolve around somethings like why certain xxx websites are no longer accessible, why networks are not connecting, how do you download videos conveniently from youpoop, how to bypass national internet safe wtf which basically stop you from accessing x-rated content websites, and that bossy stuff.

so it seemed to be somewhat normal when a bos, whom I highly respect, come to me complaining that he no longer able to use chrome or mozilla, that the only thing worked was internet explorer, who was already heavily bombarded by spammers. In addition, all his doc and docx files have turned into exe..

trouble..

so chronologically, I tried to examine what types of trojans are infesting the little netbook, a lenovo idea pad S100, and what I could easily identified were mowhorc, which I instantly try to deal with: stop their process on task manager, delete their main and hidden execute files, erase their registry entries and all that stuff.

I then encountered browser protect, which I also try to deal with before finding out that there's an endless horde of stuff pushing themselves in within the task manager..

there were just too many of them that I feel the need to deploy a hired gun, but this is not just a blunt extermination effort, where you could just nuke the whole damn thing and start anew, this is a selective, highly calculated safe and rescue mission, which means that hiring the wrong gunman will means the end of a civilization.

and this is where the whole thing went wrong, and stupid fishy advertisement campaign lured me to spyware cease..
and the stupid application identified more than 500 trojans on the system folders, which upon deletion make the pad crashed.

fuck.

I'm a lazy guy, so things that forced me to overdo things would normally be dissed for the sake of other things which yield the same result, at least in the possibility of things, as the same results here does not necessarily implied the proposed excellence level of it.

in this case, disassembling the pad and connecting the hardisk to a third party pc using a sata cable is out of the question. downloading windows xp installation disk and burn them on a cd, find an external cd player to hook it up with is also dissed

what I have is USB dongle, an access to a scrap i386 folder and a considerably high speed internet connection. and that settles it, so I thought, with the USB as the boot disk to ms dos, I installed windows xp using winnt.exe from the i386 folder, which is a success.

but not until I realized that the there are files within the i386 folder that were missing or somewhat corrupt making it untraceable by xp, not allowing the pad to connect to internet, display help content, install new app due to missing dll files.

double fuck.

ah well, at least I get to enter windows again, which allowed me to fix the doc infested mowhorc, this is especially, effortlessly done using a locally made program called mowremoval v2.3.

unlike the spyware cease bitch, the mowremoval was indeed a capable piece of software designed exactly to do what it intended to do, remove mowhorc and restore the infected files. yup, restore.

and last but not least, this calls for the end of xp, the ever so reliable os version with oh so many deseases that makes it vulnerable in terms of security protection.

once again, after two days of bitching hours, windows 7 prevail, and once again installed through a dongle.

ps. obviously there are other bitching stuff such as finding the drivers for this stupid pad, the fn+f5 not working due to technical wonders such as why the hell a hotkey driver would be included within the power management driver pack (and not the ethernet or lan) and so on and so forth. 

repentance

image courtesy of noahakumu

repent (rəˈpent) verb

1. (especially in religion) to be sorry for one's past sins.

2. (with of) to wish that one had not done, made etc. 

reˈpentance noun

re pentant adjective

repentance is the fifth track on Dream Theatre's 2007 Systematic Chaos album, which song itself is the sixth part of a multi-album songs series about then drummer Mike Portnoy's way of confronting his own alcoholism problem

various information revealed that the song is apparently revolves around the steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, particularly steps eight (regret) and nine (restitution) or making a list of people whom one has wronged and, if possible, making direct amends with them. 

Portnoy called this collections of songs Twelve-Step suite, while other songs within the multi-album series include The Mirror, Lie, The Glass Prison, This Dying Soul, The Root of All Evil, and the seventh after Repentance, The Shattered Fortress.

I don't know where each song go in which album, as I'm just an occasional Dream Theatre fan, but you could check them on dt.spatang.com which is a great source of inside information for some, if not all, DT materials.

what fascinate me about this song was the fact that he asked a number of friends, for him, great musicians for us and awesome music gods for me, at least some of them, to do their own versions of repentance, contributed spoken words to the second part of the song. in no particular orders they are:

Steve Vai - "I want to thank you for helping me to see my own selfishness and to tell you how regretful I am it has hurt you."

Joe Satriani - "I really regret not being able to see my friend Andy..."

Mikael Åkerfeldt - "One of my best friends who's the godfather of my daughter, he asked me to sing or play something at his wedding, and I turned it down because I was busy and too much of a chickenshit to do it...And I feel sorry for that, because it was a very very close friend of mine"

Corey Taylor - "Until that moment, I'd never felt like I'd failed at anything...And I felt like I failed her...And I failed myself, and I failed my children...It's still really hard to deal with."

Jon Anderson - "I think it's the betrayal...it still haunts me."

Chris Jericho - "I'm sorry I didn't visit you in the hospital, Grandpa when you were on your deathbed. I'm sorry I didn't come to your funeral...I don't know if I was selfish or just too scared to face it. It's one of the biggest regrets of my life."

Steven Wilson - "So, I wanted to apologize to anyone that I've upset or offended.. they're just words, it's just an opinion, but unfortunately, I tend to express it as a fact, and that's kind of arrogant."

David Ellefson - "I'm here to confess with you that what I did, was wrong... And I'm asking for your forgiveness"

Steve Hogarth - "The only unforgivable thing hauls itself out of bed, looks over my shoulder at the bloody English weather..."

Neal Morse - "I'm sorry for what I did back then... I was a different person. I really was and I'm so sorry. I wish it wouldn't have happened, but it did, and I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry..."

Daniel Gildenlöw - "I guess I'm simply sorry for being me just so awful to the people..."

The song's ending also contains a spoken passage, which apparently is the twelve promises from the Alcoholics Anonymous book:

-------

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that god is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. 

-------

one thing that strikes me upon hearing this song is that, as a normal human being, at least that's what I'd like to think of me, we all have regrets, past sins, and sometimes we need to let it out, make a direct apology when possible or make that apology ourselves if not. 

and what's so great about this song is that everybody can be a part of it, and in one non particular evening, I heard something coming out of my mouth

- "I wish I could repeat again those periods of time during your visit... I wish I could make you happier, I'm sorry for being such a jerk the whole time. I really regret it. I'm sorry..."

waiting for godots

throughout my entire 29 years of living, I only did.. five international online shopping.

1. my purchase of our wedding rings from Etsy, which was safely shipped from Israel via their Israel post office, that's right Israel, weeks before the wedding date.. though the rings were oversized, and later had to be resized and mistakenly cleaned by the resizer dude simply because he thought it looks rugged, which was the idea.. the Etsy seller was Artisan Impact, they make gorgeous hand made jewels, awesome works.


2. my purchase of an ergonomic bike saddle, the research based E3 Form saddles, which price is the same with the USPS delivery rate, unfortunately, but well bought as it saved my ass more than it should. and this saddle arrived safely on my hand in just a week, which was amazing..

but these, I suspect, have something to do with me working for the Jakarta Post, which was the delivery address.. old Indonesian thieves, it seems, still have the apprehension of dealing with members of the press, which was a good thing, if I still work there..


3. I made two orders from the US before this one, but this should be mentioned first due to a reasons I will tell you later. This particular order is made from Ebay, years later after I quit the post, delivered from China to my home address via the Chinese equivalent of national airmail, which has its own tracking program in the Indonesian post after a deal. It arrived safely after almost three weeks of not knowing its whereabouts.. it's a five string bridge who was shipped in a condition where the screws taped directly on the surface, scrapping its paint and damaging the saddle adjustment for the A string.. safely arrived nonetheless..

and the other two might as well be my last orders from international sellers nonetheless..

4. A fixed Kahler bridge for 5 string bass, priced at around US$67 that gone up to US$98 or something due its shipment rate..

5. A set of five flatwound strings from webstring, which despite it's statement not shipping to Indonesia, accept my order, which was great at that time by the way. I paid US$34.13 for the sets plus delivery.

both items have not arrived and probably never will

when I contacted the Kahler vendor, he said not too worry because the time it spent at the custom is probably the reason why the item took 'forever' to reach me.

and when I contacted webstring, Wayne the owner, decided to be blunt.

"Audy, we did ship your order just a few days after the order was made. We decided some years ago not to ship to Indonesia because virtually everything that we ship there ends up in someone other than the customers' hands. Let's give it till next week and if it hasn't arrived we'll figure out how to proceed - Wayne Preis"

these purchases were made on March 2, and this post, unfortunately, is made on March 29.

I know how crooked Indonesians can be, similar to all other people in the world. What's different is that the system here is.. well.. made to accommodate smooth misconduct, victimizing honest little dude with a dream bass to build who thought 'hey why not get some parts from Ebay..'

"now what good is a Kahler bridge for anyone not planning to build any bass, or a flatwound strings for that matter, it's not like they're taxable.." duh, that's the stupid innocent spoiled brat within me talking

I have to stress here that the mistake, shared with.. well.. some hundreds of honest people among these Indonesian like-minded twenty million citizens, is really ours and ours alone who think that hey, the world is actually a better place, and people are worthy of trust, whoever they are..

once again faith in people does take me on the wrong direction

the wait is endless, and my experience do said that these things should arrive when I stop thinking about them.. wishful thinking.

----------------------

update:

on a lazy friday afternoon, a non-asuming guy came at the door delivering a letter from the post office who was wrongly sent to him, notifying that an item sent from the US has arrived.

I picked up the item at the post office on the following day, saturday March 30 and it was item 4.

I had to pay additional US$5 for tax, which was reasonable, but the thing that bothered me most was the fact that the address with which the item is sent to was WRONG!! which was stupid. I checked my ebay booking details and the address was right, which means that this guy was sending this item to the wrong address!! while all they've got to do is simply copy and paste the damn thing, I mean who are these guys thinking they know where I live more than me and decided to make out an address!!

stupidity at its peak, I presume..

anyways the bridge was installed and one of the bridge screws is taller than the rest, which will need to be cut later on.. logically, but afraid of damaging it, I chose to find a replacement saddle instead. though things can go much smoother if I just put shim on my neck, but I'm a bit reluctant with opening the neck screws.. yada yada yada..

that's it for item four, while the strings from webstrings is yet to arrive..

I guess it's safe to say that for future references, buying strings would mean going to the country which sell it and buy it ourselves, which is a major hassle for US$40 item.

20 things you experience when you're beyond broke

Beyond broke is what happen when your saving is already in minus, because at the end of the month you have to pay your monthly car installment but the amount left in your credit is only enough to pay half. Plus, it's not the second week of the month yet.

So these are 20 things I experience when I'm beyond broke, like now

1. Going to office to get that US$1 meal cash.
2. Leave home early to avoid spending that cash.
3. Bumping the head real hard on the nearest clean table edge cos Tribal Tech is playing this Tuesday and you have no cash to spend.
4. Taking that extra mile to get some money, despite the uncertainty, like taking troublesome jobs at hooker's price.
5. Skipping all possibilities of meet and greets, and felt sorry after going to one with a notorious freeloader.
6. Skip meals, and when impossible, buy the cheapest available.
7. Constantly trying to fine-tune the head to be a better calculator for every dime spent, which in my experience always felt that no money is left.
8. Looting for other people's cigarettes.
9. Leaning to spend more on credit card or paypal, which is a nasty habit in the making.
10. Putting travel allowance as another possibility of getting extra cash, and put it into your cash flow.
11. Asking yourself how you're going to survive this condition.
12. Delaying other money spending plans, and start spending money for the unavoidables, regretting them at no results.
13. Bitching about not getting the money you deserve, which you usually take lightly.
14. Start complaining about gas prices, which is lame.
15. Keep spending more money, which is a mysterious way of how the vicious circle of life works.
16. Planning on selling some stuff but never did as you felt you will survive.
17. Start looking for more paying jobs, even when you like the current job.
18. Start asking for money that people owes you, and destroying bad friendships along the way.
19. Making 'I'm broke' as the number one excuse for almost everything.
20. Hoping the day will never pass so you can avoid paying all those bills.

 *the image is from thoughtcatalog.com, number 23 on their list is occasionally true

big singles on Ibanez pre-amp (EQB-3SC)

here are two wiring diagrams connecting Nordstrand Big Singles on Ibanez pre-amp, the first is incomplete, the second, while still incomplete, includes my rough guesses on where the wires should go. I'm in the middle of confirming the diagram to the guys at Nordstrand forum, the correct diagram should be posted here once I received some answers

update:

Finally!!! after weeks of waiting and frontally looking for information from dudes (and dudettes) at Nordstrand and Ibanez forums, the ever helping guys from Ibanez posted this neat factory diagram that I've been searching for all this time with no significant result!!

(I'm so happy)

Check it