It’s easy to identify and criticize bad design. When an object is well designed though, you often don’t notice it (by design).

There are two monoliths that stand outside by house. One green and one black. These waste and compost bins, distributed by the provincial government, are well designed.

• They are durable. It’s rare to see one that has broken. In my 20+ years of using them, they’ve never failed. Even the “moving parts” like wheels and lid hinges hold up.
• They are stable. It takes a very strong wind to blow them over, and when they have some weight in them, they almost never tip.
• They’re big. They hold a lot of… stuff.
• They are manoeuvrable. They’re big enough that if you fill them with dense materials, they can get much heavier than what a person could ever carry. When rocked up on their one set of wheels, a single person can move a huge weight.
• There’s a small version. You can request a smaller version if you don’t need the size. They take up less space and are easier to manoeuvre.

They aren’t perfect. They can build of water (or worse, “garbage juice”) at the bottom and turn rancid. They are waste bins.

Thanks to those who designed these bins and those who identified procured them in our province.

After all, one person’s trash is another person’s, uh, metaphor!

YouTube Guitar-Guy Paul Davids does a great dive into how rich the seemingly simple tones of Blur’s Song 2 really are. Davids doesn’t address the distorted bass, which is a big part of the sound, but his video will still make you enjoy Song 2 even more.

I saw the amazing Nova Scotia band Sandbox play in Charlottetown PEI some time in the late 90s and they did a blistering cover of Song 2.

These types of YouTube channels have such high levels of production quality that it’s almost unsettling.

I made a Lego build I felt proud enough to share, including some great help from the kids (the Dad figure was all them).

I’ve been playing around with some simple home recording recently and am impressed with the state of the tools.

GarageBand comes is “free” (with an expensive computer) and is remarkably capable. I’ve been playing guitar quietly into my headphones via the Fender Mustang Micro. I realized I could plug the Mustang Micro into my laptop and start using modelled (‘virtual’) guitar amps and effects.

When I lasted checked in with digitally modelled guitar gear around fifteen years ago, it was still mostly a novelty. Now, they sound great. If anything, they give you an immediately paralyzing paradox of choice by offering you every guitar amp and effects pedal ever made.

As a way to try out getting something recorded, I conceived of an intentionally simple and limited recording project. I made a simplified arrangement of Niel Gow‘s Lament for the Death of his Second Wife. Gow composed the original in 1805 at 78 years old. The piece has been haunting me since I heard Tim Chaisson play it on a piano at the Zap Your PRAM conference in 2008.

My arrangement is much less nuanced than Tim’s. It was a quick proof-of-concept to see how recording guitar with digital gear can work.

While I’m trying not to focus too much on the technical details and enjoy making music, I do have some implementation details for anyone interested:

• I played my 20ish-year-old Yamaha Pacifica 102S guitar – one of my favourite things.
• The Pacifica goes through the Fender Mustang Micro as an audio interface on my laptop.
• I recorded into GarageBand.
• The lead guitar is using Bias FX 2 amp and effects modeller – the settings I used can be found in the “ToneCloud” under the name Dumble Glass.
• The organ is a the “tonewheel organ” virtual instrument that ships with GarageBand. It’s a an emulated Hammond B3 organ. I didn’t actually play anything on keys – I just clumsily entered the notes of some simple three-note chords into the “Piano Roll” feature in GarageBand with my mouse.
• The bass is just my guitar run through a Octaver effect to drop the pitch, and then piped into a modelled bass amp in Bias FX 2.
• There’s some quiet acoustic guitar in there too – that’s the beautiful Taylor GS5 (mostly wasted on me) recorded hastily through an SM57 mic.

I started watching guitar videos on YouTube this year. This led me to discover more guitar-focused YouTube channels. Like for any topic, there’s a whole parallel universe on YouTube populated by guitar players, gear reviewers, and customizers.

I’ve had the same electric guitar for 20 years, and the closest I’ve ever come to modifying it was adding a strap made it out of a seat belt and changing strings way too infrequently.

As you watch more of these videos, you begin patterns emerge. You can clearly see when a major company sends out new products. All of the sudden, every channel has a ‘review’ of the new Yahama Revstar guitars with a “Includes paid promotion” notice.

After watching YouTube channels like DBG talk about how locking tuners and a graphite nut will help your guitar hold tune, I took the bait and bought both. I can’t just be that person without locking tuners, right?

I knew I was buying a little indulgence, and was ok with that. It was a fun toe-tip into the world of improving my guitar. I was buying the learning experience of doing this upgrade as much as I was buying the actual products.

What struck me was how I was drawn into this little world, and how it turned into an actual transaction.

This is how it happens. I was radicalized by the YouTube algorithm.

About twenty years ago, I fashioned an old car seat belt into a guitar strap. It’s still holding up. This may be my greatest triumph.