smarvo arsehole!

Went for a day of Mee sua outing yesterday. What can I say, I suppose this is the first ever outing EVER organised to have such a large turnout, like 18/22 of the people who can turn up. Morning was spent waiting for the latecomers (ahem, Cheryl) and "brunch" (more like lunch, really) at Thai Express. Must say the food there is pretty good. I had the soft shell crab thingy, not very worth the 10 bucks since the serving is quite small.. would love to try the green curry next time (Justin ordered that, and I tried. It was SHIOK.)

Much of lunch was spent talking about the impossible circumstances surrounding the improbable, deplorable and depreciative gossip of two OG-mates and one senior attached. Couple of times we laughed so hard I almost puked out my food. The rest were really very gross suggestions. (GASPs in horror) Then we went to MINDS cafe, a pretty nice place with just ONE toilet (when we were given free flow of drinks) and lots of funny board games. Spent 4 hours there, but most of it was wasted cause we didn't know how to play most of the games. A lot of noise and shouting involved, though. More people actually came to join us here.

Well then came dinner, which was originally supposed to be at some Turkish place I can't remember how to spell. Then it was supposed to be Fishermans' Wharf (which has really good fish and chips), but it was full so we went to some Indon restaurant which was again turned down cause some people can't eat spicy food. (well the Indon restaurants here are relatively mild. Trust me on that) So in the end it was Manhattan Fish Market again. (my second time this week). We shared the humungous platter (two platters actually, I can't remember what.) but since I was the only guy among the 6 sharing I had to eat more, which made me quite sick of MFM for the moment.

After dinner was pretty standard. Some people left right after dinner, but the rest went to walk around clarke quay without much aim whatsoever. Ended up sitting together and talking crap on some bridge near Brewerkz there, and then everyone left.

Oh my, what an interesting post.

Okay, something more interesting. I went by Bras Basah today to get books for my students, and since it's Bras Basah I always visit the guitar shops. Scouted for big big amps, tried a "Smarvo" amp in one of the shops, but the service I received from the owner was very disgusting. The moment he switched on the amp there was noise coming, so I asked him if it was the cable that was spoiled or the guitar that was not well-insulated. His reply was a terse, no. There is no noise. I don't know if he is really deaf or he just wants to push crap onto customers. I mean he could admit it's the guitar, or the cable, and replace it right? Am I not a potential customer? And he so grumbled when I asked him if I could borrow a pick. Like, manz, no wonder Swee Lee is a much better shop.

The friggin owner aside, the Smarvo amp was pretty good for its price. About $250 for 50 watts of power. Though the in-built distortion was kind of disgusting. And the noise factor (which I really suspect is the cable or the guitar, but was unable to confirm) might really put me off buying it. Noise when distortion is on I can understand, but noise while on clean? That's disgusting.

So I crossed over to Swee Lee to look around. Their stuff are WAY more expensive, but the quality is there. I enquired about the Ibanez 30 watt tone blaster, costs about $300. It's pretty small enough to fit into my room, and powerful enough to be heard 17 storeys down. Ok I will probably never ever try that but it's a pretty powerful package. And the staff were more understanding and helpful. So I tried it with a Washburn they had, pretty okay I guess, the Washburns, which have very limited flexibility since the one I tried only had ONE volume pot and that's it. Okay, so I'm supposing how much cash I could save up and how much space I can clear in my room first before deciding what I'd be getting. Either the 30w Toneblaster for $300 or a super big smarvo (I doubt it cause it's like, 1 metre by one metre cabinet) for around the same price. Though I can imagine being yelled at for buying the super big one.

Some group pics of mee sua!