This also applies to those who love to fill their minds and ears with your sounds. Deafness will surly follow, but the acquisition of stronger amplifiers, more mind-blowing phones to blast it into your head, and acoustic rooms to take over when your headset will not reach to the kitchen....speakers everywhere. I'm guilty of this. Huh? Did you say something?

*laugh* when i first saw the title, i had to come take a peak!! don't think this applies to me (well, maybe the indigestion part, being wolf and all) but i pine for stuff all the time! *grin* good to see you again samm the blob!!

Mike from Geo and Radio Conferences would relate to GAS. I think he is still upacking his goodies we convinced him not to throw out! Every last one of them electronic, as far as I know...

Oh, Lord, I am PINING again! Last Wednesday (the day before Americans celebrated Independence Day, Jamaicans don't have ours until 6 August), I walked into Sam Wisdom Music and saw a second-hand Fender Telecaster selling on consignment for J$13,000.00 (approx. US$650.00). I asked if I could take it down to check it out and, while one of the sales staff said yes, the hanger has a strap across it that needed to be removed first and no one would remove it. The sales lady who I first spoke to was too short to reach it, the proprietor was on the 'phone, and no-one else was available. My lunchtime ran out and I headed back to work. Today I walked to Sam Wisdom Music, intent on playing that Telecaster. They were not fully open, as they were supposed to be closed in order to attend an exhibition, but as they had lessons scheduled for today, they remained open until the lessons were finished. This meant, however, that there was once again no member of staff who could take the guitar down. I was not to be deterred again. This time, I borrowed a stool, stood on it, and removed the restraining strap myself. I took the guitar down and tuned the guitar myself, using my memory of what A440 sounds like, and I played it, unplugged at first, and then through the amp in their music room. Except for some deadness in the neck pickup (which my current guitar, a Gibson The Paul II, also has at times, but not to the same extent...) it sounded quite good and the single-note runs I played fell very easily to hand. I did not try to play a blues shuffle, but I get the general feeling that it would be an even bigger bitch to play on the Telecaster than it is on my TPII (longer scale = longer stretch to the next note...). It's a Japanese Fender Telecaster and a quite good guitar. I envy whoever will buy it because I can't afford to spend J$13,000 (approx. US$650.00) on another guitar. Also, if I were able to spend that much on another guitar, I'd buy an acoustic to replace the crap acoustic I have now. One last thing to mention about that Telecaster: it would be most ironic if I got it and put it beside my TPII. I would then have a Gibson The Paul II in wine red with no binding and a Fender Telecaster in sunburst with white binding on the front and the back of the body. And NEITHER of them would have a vibrato! Insupportable! Maybe I could buy the Telecaster and eventually put a roller-saddle TOM and a Les Trem or a Maestro vibrola on the TPII. And maybe money will grow on trees, too... :(