Show us your most recent mundane, stupid, non-MST3K accomplishment

Yeah, I’ll start.

This is stupid, but it takes me weeks to do anything besides going to work and coming home and drinking beer.

So about a month ago I bought the cheapest, sleaziest single-X stand for the sole purpose of having a temporary place at home to put my Hammond clonewheel on top of the Yamaha.

No, on stage, I use the Quiklok WS550 and either stack on the Rhodes or use a double-X behind for the flexibility of height difference, but at home I was just stacking stuff on top of the Rhodes piano.

Now the JBL Eon 15 G1 can go in its proper place, facing out of the sliding glass door reproducing 18 kHz sine waves at high volume, since I don’t need volume at home, and can EQ out stuff through a consumer grade amplifier and use a subwoofer.

Just need to align the top C keys and it’s good to go.

And buy a music stand that can hold about four inches of heavy books on the shelf for sight-reading.

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wait I’m supposed to have accomplishments now?

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What is that to the right, a Wurlitzer?

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Our washing machine started squealing during the spin cycle, then seized completely. I pulled the whole thing apart to replace the tub bearing!


…but it turns out it’s integrated into a transmission that costs $240, so we just bought a new (used) washer.

But I took that whole thing apart!

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“I can take apart the remote control
and I can almost put it back together”
– the Flobots

:grin:

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No, that’s the Rhodes piano, from 1976 (my birth year! coincidence). The action is fairly nice, really, compared to other people who complain about the slow return. Single-note trills aren’t a problem on that one.

I do have a Wurli, on the opposite wall, which is a 720A. That’s my third and last Wurlitzer EP (120 first, then 200A, then the 720A): lot of trouble IMHO, although plenty of people claim to tune them in an hour or so and work the electrical problems with a spray of DeOxxit.

/* EDIT yeah, so, people say “Spring Cleaning,” but, for me, it’s more like "Autumn/Fall Cleaning. Lot of stuff to do.

/* DOUBLE SECRET EDIT Actually the order of the Wurlis is wrong. The 720A was my first. Bought in a … basically a junk shop in PDX for like a hundred bucks, was in beautiful condition. I was still a teenager. It rested somewhere in my parents’ garage or something for like twenty years. More years than that, really. Not too sure about the exact years. A long time, anyway.

The second was the `120 (which is actually the model Ray used on “What’d I Say” and some other of the Atlantic records). Not bad. Heavy, and fragile. Bought it off e-bay sometime in the early-2000s.

The last was a 200A which I found literally on somebody’s front lawn in Buffalo. Walked it back home about a mile or two with my wife at the time. We took turns! It’s not that heavy, but it gets heavier by each hundred meters or so. Which town, Buffalo, is kind of a Shangri-Là for vintage instruments. I had a bead on a Hammond RT-3 for a song, like $1500 or so (it’s a little bigger and heavier than the other console organs, namely, the B3, C3, A100s, as well as those earlier models with the same tonewheel system but lacking the percussion effect, which I need for jazz music and can be retrofitted…also, aside from the A100s, you need a power amplifier and a speaker) and did end up with an A-100 for just the cost of picking it up thanks to a pal with a truck, which didn’t quite make the grade, although some of the technicians there and up in Niagara Falls are literally the best in the world. It was a dog of an instrument, and at the time high-quality softsynths like from NI were coming online, and I wasn’t playing out much, just house parties, pretty much, so…choices, I guess. I used a Voce Micro-BII to do basically cover songs of the Stones, and 80s pop music.

Somewhat heavy, and while the electronics worked fine, it was never in correct tune. Yes, I tried the old beeswax trick as well as just a soldering pencil, but I’m not handy that way. But it was compact, and looked neat: I could and did carry it under one arm, but not for long distances. Sold it once I recovered my 720A back in PDX to some dude off Craigslist, who I told about a few missing reeds and such: some young kid in his early twenties, who was probably psyched to get it for, I think, two hundred bucks or so.

So, full circle, the 720A (it’s a 200A just in a “furniture” type cabinet…I think the keys themselves are a bit longer, more acoustic-piano like, but same reeds and electronics). I am glad my folks held onto her for so long! I probably should pay them back rent for storage, but they’re getting older and they forget things! :laughing:First thing when I landed back here was: “Yo, where’s my piano at!” There’s some electrical stuff that I don’t really have the spare space to open her up and test things properly. Tuning, of course, but some of the charm of the Wurli is they’re always a little bit out of tune. Like a honkey-tonk piano, sort of.

Tremolo effect is fine, of course. It’s the same instrument you hear on countless recordings, but they are a beast to keep maintained.

For contrast, the Rhodes pianos are no joke: they’re heavy, and a bit finicky about being dropped a few feet, and such, but a much simpler action, much simpler tuning method, and uses passive pickups, so the only electrical problems are, like, a weak simple connection between the “harp” and the output.

And, indeed, add a tremolo effect and a bit of crap through the amplifier, and the Rhodes can sound somewhat Wurlitzer-ish.

I made a mistake when I said the Wurli + tremolo + (Boss DS-1) for Black Flag: in that case I was using the 200A “found object,” but, obviously just the tremolo on the piano itself, and indeed I did use a little Boss DS-1 distortion pedal into the Peavey Blues Classic 50. I do have a cheap tremolo pedal around, but I never used it on the Wurlitzer: the standard effect is adequate. I did prefer using that cheap little DS-1 to the “lead” channel on the amp at the time: just quicker and easier.

It sounded a lot more guitarish than the lame guitar player our stupid band had at the time.

And the board leaning up against the Wurli is an Ensoniq SQ-80. You’re probably familiar with the sound of this digital synth (and it’s younger cousin, the ESQ-1) from John Carpenter soundtracks. Synths aren’t really my thing, but I did put myself through a self-regimented prog-rock crash course, just to know what’s what.

The mixer’s a Mackie 1202: first job I played with it, at Ash St. Saloon in PDX, it dropped about three feet onto its face on stage, thanks to some shenanigans and I hadn’t used it live before and figured out the best way to incorporate it into my stage set-up. Thing is a tank. It’s just a battle-axe! The sound “girl” in this case (usually it’s “sound guy” but in this case it was not) must have had lightning reflexes: I would hope she muted my channel (mono) on seeing the mixer start to fall, but, honestly, that was a bottom-of-the-barrel job. They’d book anybody. I’m still a bit cheesed that on setup her first words to the band were “I don’t give you sends from FOH!” A bit patronizing, but, whatevs.

*/

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“I don’t think there’s anything wrong the action on this piano.”

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The action’s almost shot!

TY for the clip.

Actually, I did use the 200A in a cover band twenty years ago or so. Add a tremolo pedal and a DS-1 and you can cover some early Black Flag stuff pretty legit. “TV Party” and that kind of stuff.

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I took a picture with my phone. That’s it really. I was taking a walk, so there is that to lend some air of excitement.

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Me too. I like this topic already.

My lawn has gone to seed. The weather has oscillated between too hot and too rainy. This weekend, I might accomplish mowing it. Will keep you posted. :upside_down_face:

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I had a day off today, so I took some time to rest and catch my breath. Go, Team @optiMSTie! :smiley:

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That’s beautiful.

If Jimmy Page were to have taken a photograph, it probably wouldn’t have been as good.

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I drew an otter on my ThinkGeek Bag of Holding. Why? Well, why not?

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Pretty nice!

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I really miss ThinkGeek. Their April Fool’s Day merch was the best!

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I really like this thread. We all need to be applauded for even our small accomplishments, cuz these days sometimes little things can be really hard!

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Word.

I suspect there’s almost a pressure to “accomplish bigly” with various precautions and advisories and incubators/breeders.

Write a novel Create the perfect Tom Servo! Deep clean your dwelling space!

And, obviously, everyone here is into one or several things that are a source of joy.

But, for those of us (namely me, since that’s all I can say) who don’t do a lot of household cleaning, it’s small little victories that can be important.

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That’s awesome! I haven’t done a washer yet, but I completely disassembled our dryer once after it stopped working. It was a little thing – solenoid or moisture sensor, I think – but I got the part, put it all back together and it served us well for years.

Also recently replaced a dead LED strip in a TV. Ordered the replacement strip on eBay. Taking apart a modern TV is a pain on a good day; digging all the way down to the LED strips was a serious headache. The surgery was successful, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.

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Why? What have you heard?

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I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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