A nice lazy day

The weather today was absolutely fantastic, so I took the dog for a good long walk in the sunshine. Really nice. One of those days where I stopped on the road and marvelled at the scenery. When you live somewhere like this, it's very easy to become used to it and just take it for granted. Due to the car woes, I stayed at home otherwise.

Other than being V shaped, the drunken rugby bass doesn't do anything in particular that my other basses can't do. So I took one of the sets of octave strings from a 12 string bass set (which I got a long time ago when I wanted a 12 string) and put them on it, making it into a piccolo bass, which is tuned exactly the same as the bottom four strings of a guitar. This is quite often regarded as a pointless thing to do but it lets you play it like a bass and get guitar like sounds.

I fired up the first Saints Row and have played it a bit. Probably because I'm so used to the second one, it's far better than I remember. I think it's because I was so used to GTA San Andreas that I never gave it a chance originally. It has more rough edges than the sequel but it's not as bad as expected. The city is also a lot smaller, but I keep driving through areas that I recognise from the second game, and it's interesting to see the original Saints Row area which has been completely redeveloped in the second game, much to your character's dismay. Quite a lt of other things are the same, mainly a number of the cars and some of the character animation. The character creation is much more limited but I managed to make him look a bit like he does in SR2. Not really necessary though as the story dictates that the character has extensive plastic surgery while in a five year coma between the two games. One thing that is difficult to get used to is that your character never speaks in the first game, while he never shuts up in the sequel.

Finally got to listen to the second Velvet Revolver album, which is really good. Also listened to Chinese Democracy, which is...well, it sure as hell isn't Guns N Roses, despite what it says on the cover and whatever Axl might say.