David

Squiers seem to have come on in leaps and bounds qualitywise in the last few years, a huge improvement on the shocking quality of cheaper guitars (in general, not just squier) of a few years ago As always with budget guitars there are restrictions, so they won't be as of the same quality as a US Fender, but it should be a solid platform for upgrading - things like new pickups and electronics can bring a cheaper guitar to life You should always try before you buy with cheaper guitars though, as quality does still vary a bit (especially with things like woods used there is a much bigger variation between whats acceptable so individual instruments will differ) So for cheap money now and upgrading later one of the better squiers could do you nicely, or if you can stretch your budget a bit now, I would definately reccomend having a look at the Fender Lite ash teles (about £400, mik but play and sound excellent) or mim guitars - the base instrument should just be that bit nicer a platform David

An easy build if you know which end of a soldering iron to hold Have a look at how its wired in a guitar, and that will show you basically how the pot is wired, then stick that in a true bypass loop (schematics of both are easy to find) David

Anyone got a saved copy? my computer seems to be arguing with me when I tried watching it (probably because I don't have realplayer or somethign installed David

I thought it was a pretty cool film... Admittedly I have never really read any of the comics, so lots of characters and things changed between the comics and movie I missed out on, but looking at it just as a film, it was still well worth the visit to the cinema One thing that I noticed - the bridge, how the hell did it stay standing after they moved it? suspension bridges work from the cables being held tightly over the solid uprights to hold everythign in place, not dangling about at the ends over two uprights that magically float (which held even after magneto was stopped, so he couldn't have been holding it the whole time) is it just me who sits in films and notices things like this that are completely impractical? I remember the superweapon in Batman begins works on water - yet leaves humans (who are mostly made of the stuff) alone... Oh and the [insert car bomb/terrorist joke here] when magneto is chucking hte flaming cars at them on alcatraz Onwards to Xmen 4 (the last stand, again)? David

Always been beef here It will vary, as stovies seems to be one of those foods you can bung in most similar things (sausages or corned beef or whatever else) and it will come out nice, no gormet faffing about, just bung everythign in a big pan Oh, and its brown sauce definately, tomato I can just about understand (though dosen't sound a match for brown sauce) but salad bloody cream? fine for salads and tatties and so on, but not stovies... David

I can never understand that treat malarky o2 have, every so often they send me a message saying i can choose a new one, but when i call the number in the message it says i have one already and to wait until it is finished before i choose another... o2 have been fine so far for me, had a pay as you go phone when they were bt cellnet until I got a contract last year, and no real complaints so far David

I have a Fender standard Jazz and love it Any of the major brands are a good bet though, Warwick are known for decent basses, and the ibanez seem decent enough, and a friend of mine has a couple of yamaha's which are really nice too. Best bet is to get down to a shop or two and try some out, being a guitarist you have some start on the playing (though remember, bass is still a different instrument to guitar) so have some knowledge of what is good/bad for you. Fender jazz and precision basses are pretty different for example, different necks and pickups sound and feel pretty different, same again switching to somethign like a musicman with a humbucker... so try what you can and see for yourself personally I like the Fender I have and wouldn't mind a couple of others, they play and sound excellent and have a more 'classic' style to them than ibanez or the like, an ibanez or yamaha may suit you much better... David

Quite a few things get sold, quite a few don't and its free, so whats to lose? You might as well post what you have for sale and see if anyone is interested. worst case, you stick it on ebay a week later... David

I think mine shouts 'Ni' when I get a message, and plays some form of muse for phonecalls, but its always set on vibrate so i never hear them anyway... David

Volume I don't know if it is just my excessively girly ears, but most nightclubs seem to be at some annoying volume where you cant hold a normal conversation without shouting, gigs and suchlike I can understand, you go there for the music and there is the rock and roll element to it (I just wear earplugs) but quite a few times i have left to go other places in town so i can actually hear whats being said I don't understand how most people seem to listen to walkmen and suchlike so loudly, surely it must be causing some permanent damage to their ears... I set mine so I can hear it nicely above external noise, but no louder than I need it. Is this just me and my girly ears? everyone else seems happy enough in town and so on, I just don't bother often David

I carry a wee swiss army knife (one of these to be exact) in my pocket most of the time, maybe not an essential thing to have, but a small blade/screwdriver/scissors are useful to have about on you for odd things. hell, even all the US astronauts get a swiss army knife as part of their mission ket when they get shot into space... I am guessing all the knife stuff would mostly overlook small tools like these in favour of going after things more likely to be used as weapons (obviously you could still hurt someone with one, but it dosen't look as dangerous as a 5 inch blade) I am guessing the 'more stabbings with knife users' bit is more based on neds getting into fights - someone pulls a knife out drinking in town and gets a more extreme reaction from those about than someone swinging punches (ie someone else is a bit more likely to bring out a weapon too) I really can't see how me having a tiny penknife hidden in my pocket makes me anymore of a target Looking at the victorinox site makes me want to buy more knives (in the manly 'knives are cool' sense, not in the I want to carry weapons about sense) David

Got one at home Incredible pedal, though as Scott said, maybe not for 'nice' classic fuzz tones, though you can get some pretty reasonable sound out of it, though on the harsher side than a fuzzface or something. The odd sounds are excellent fun though, heavily gated 'velcro' sounds and odd oscillations and much more joy to be had A shitload of beautiful noise: check (though beautiful is a bit of a strange way to describe it ) The Blender is a more 'standard' fuzz pedal, and probably sits with the zvex on the harsh side of fuzz sounds though, but is a lot more 'standard' than the ZVex, though on that note, a lot easier to control and get 'good' sounds from, the zvex does have huge control over all the sounds it can make, but does require sitting down and toying with it for a while to see what you come up with sounds great and mansons do the zvex pedals, though I can't remember the prices, my Vexter ff was £125 from soundsgreat, which wasn't much more than I would have paid from the US including shipping and duties, the more expensive versions could be more worth importing though David

I don't think there was a problem with ipods or the like, only with the itunes music store - they were banned from things like selling music (as itunes does) whereas the ipod dosen't have anything to do with the sale of actual music, but storage/playback so gets through the ruling Garageband should be ok, as while it is a piece of music recording software, it dosen't infringe on the old apples label by selling music or acting as a label or dealer They made the agreement, Apple should damn well be sticking to it, regardless of whether they would lose money or have to rebrand itunes or whatever else. Its a sad day when a big corporation can go back on an old deal mostly due to the fact they are much larger and can afford any court fee's... David

Cellar 35 every thursday is an open mic night I think The Globe has one on sundays too David

I somehow manage to love every series of Red Dwarf, though they do seem to change 'style' over time, and while series 8 may not have been *as* good as some of the older ones, it is still damn funny. series 9 hasn't appeared as they were intending to do the film, which has fallen through multiple times from budget problems and getting backers and so on, still trying last time I heard... I will agree on the digital animation point though, there was something damn cool about all the model shots, doing it on computers just isn't the same... The ending of 8 was nicely set, as was the ending of 4 - Look at it simply and it looks like its over, but look closely and its still going, in 8 the fact that the rest of the crew were in the alternate dimension, or in 4 that when the future crew blew up the ship, they wiped themselves from exsistance, so they couldn't then destroy starbug, so it comes back (put on loop until rimmer destroys the drive first) I like Red Dwarf far too much... David

I got a few of these in my inbox recently, and felt the need to send a nice email to all the senders explaining how they were wrong... For one I can't see MSN switching to charging completely due to loads and excessive use by sending round emails that waste even more bandwidth... Oh, and the official BBC link? check the date on it David

Got an HD1, and need no more volume anyway, limiter or not Why anyone would need more volume is beyond me really, I have more than enough to hear it over general road noise and whatnot, so why need to blast it even louder? A strange desire for hearing damage? If you can't hear it above the normal road noise I would look for some decent isolating headphones rather than more volume David

Ah, why couldn't they just have done this in the first place None of this greedo shooting first nonsense, and all the extra cgi in the wide angle scenes and so on, its just not right Anyone want to buy the box set of IV-V-VI? cool gold version... David

There is a metal truss rod inside the guitars neck, that counteracts the pull of the strings to keep the neck straight (and give you some adjustment) If you just whip off all the strings, the truss rod will still be pulling the other way, and the neck will most likely bend as the truss rod pulls, not a good result So either leave the strings on it (detuned by a little bit couldnt hurt it really) or take them off and then loosen the truss rod so it isn't pulling the neck David

you can get satellie freeview now, like normal freeview, just using a dish for better reception no idea if you could hook it up to an exsisting dish, if it was setup for sky or whatever... David

I work in the photo lab in boots garthdee, nae a bad job at all David

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8735153007067438732&q=chain+reaction&pl=true David

saw that on b3ta last week those are rather impressive though, it must have taken some time to set them up, i liked the one where the ball goes up a slope, and keeps triggering weights to kick it up further, and the one with the magnets, where one gets swung round and that moves the next one and so on through the magnets attacting each other I remember seeing a video a while ago of a huge big machine some students had set up, covering most of a room, can't remember what the link was (probably somewhere on b3ta again) David