I ordered a 20” flatpanel monitor from Dell. Why 20”? The max resolution my laptop can handle is 1600x1200, and that’s what I aimed to meet, and the Dell matches that max resolution for the best price. And it has four USB ports and other useful inputs.

I might as well spill my guts about the next bit of technogeekery on the horizon. This one may take a bit longer to save up for, though. I’ve always longed to invest in some kind of device to record music whether it be a stand-alone system or one that connects to a computer. After doing some research, I settled on something of a cross between both. It’s a standalone digital recorder that can dump the songs to a computer, which then burns to cd. I’ll also need a decent mic to record acoustic guitar. I’ll run the bass in directly to the recorder without an amp because the bass sounds good on its own.

For those that I haven’t lost yet, here’s how I plan to record. I’ll record acoustic guitar in the middle of the mix so that it is balanced between either side. Then, I’ll record a clean bass track 80% in one side and 20% in the other (“pan” it mainly to one side). Then, I’ll record a distorted bass track 80% / 20% in the same way, just flipped, so that the two bass tracks balance each other.* I’ve been curious for a long time as to how such a mix would sound. Since I can’t sing, there will be no vocals. Since I can’t play drums and don’t own any, there will be no drums (unless I find a drummer – not likely).

I have a bunch of musical ideas I’ve been racking up over the years, but nothing too organized. I really have no idea how it’s going to come out, but I’m excited to find out. Whatever comes of this experimentation will surely get posted here so you can all point and laugh at the guy with the recording device who doesn’t know how to write songs.

*anyone who copies this idea totally sucks. that is, unless i have unwittingly copied it from someone else, in which case i apologize and it's not like you can copyright ideas anyway. jeez.