KingBollock

13, in 1988, at the Christadelphinan hall in Nuneaton. It was a thing for pensioners. The school choir was playing, but I was playing in a small band (bass, drums, piano and two singers. The entirety of my music class). We were only supposed to do three songs, but they enjoyed us so much that they wanted us to carry on. So we played the same three songs, again. Proper band gig would have been 14. It was in the youth club building on the George Eliot school grounds, but had nothing to do with the school (I was the only band member still of school age).

What realm are you on? I used to be on Darkmoon Faire. It’s a RP realm, but I never actually did any RP, though I always meant to try it. I had a proper character with a proper back story. When I moved to Wales, I didn’t get the internet for seven bloomin’ weeks. By the time I got back to WoW, my guild was gone and the server was dead. I’d often go on and be the only Horde (For The Horde!!), on there. In the end I moved my main character to Draenor. I had a Gnome, too. He was an engineer (most of my characters are engineers) called Boltthrower. I think I only got him as far as level 12, or something.

I wish I had! We had nine of them come at the same time. They all needed a little daughter board replacing. So that’s what I did. When testing, afterwards, none of them worked properly. The boss got really angry! I told him that it was the battery he was using to test them (the only one we had). So he measured it. It came out at 7.3v. He said that that was plenty… and got even angrier! So I attached a 9v battery clip to a power supply set to 9v, and every pedal worked perfectly. He didn’t like that. So he got rid of me, despite me being the only other person working there. A funny thing is, though, I also worked on his mobile disco. Setting up and taking down, but I also ran the lights (it was huge, the biggest lighting rig I have ever seen on a mobile disco. I have been to music venues with fewer lights). The bosses wife and daughter really liked me, knew that I was a hard worker and that the disco would be worse off without me. It took another six months for him to trick me into getting myself sacked. He told me that we had no discos booked for the weekend (which was a first), and he encouraged me to “go out and have some fun”…So, for the first time in about a year, I went and visited a friend. Then the boss called wanting to know where I was, but I was out (no mobile phones back then). So now he had his excuse. He was a tosser, but I loved the work.

Thank you! I’m not sure how much I can meddle with the midi settings for this keyboard (this thing cost me £60 or £70, nearly 20 years ago), but I shall look into it and see. At least I know it’s something to look for, so yes, thank you. Even longer ago, my wife once surprised me with one of those electronic drum pad thingies, where all the pads are one, small unit, the pads being between about 4 and 6 inches. It was rubbish, so it went back, even though it only cost £40. But it was midi and would have worked a treat for what I am trying to do now. But I can’t seem to find the “toy grade” versions anymore, they’re all £400+. Which is a shame.

Ah well. Thanks guys. You’ve confirmed what I thought anyway, but I figured it was worth asking someone more knowledgable than me (but then, I could have done that by just standing at the garden gate and shouting my questions at random people passing by…). I have remembered that I do actually own a keyboard that will do the job… But it’s an old, cheapo Yamaha, with small, non-velocity sensitive, non-weighted keys. I just wish the damned thing didn’t take up so much space! It’s actually hiding behind my amps because it was standing where the drum kit is now, and getting in the way… But it’s got the midi sockets that’ll allow me to use it to do what I need, and I always think it’s a shame when an instrument (such as it is) is hidden and not used. I will also be using the kit through my PC. It’s just that I am only just starting to learn, and I don’t want to have to bugger about with the computer everytime I want a quick bash. As I understand, it is better to have more frequent but shorter practice sessions, which suits me, medically, too. I know I don’t really need to keep the keyboard or pad thing discrete from the PC for such sessions, but I thought it’d be fun, which is why I didn’t want to go to any expense to do it.

Wow! I’ve got a Flying V that I am hoping to fix up this year, that pick-up would be great in it…

I have recently acquired an electric drum kit, an Alesis Nitro Mesh kit. The module has MIDI connections, as well as a USB b. I have a Native Instruments A25 keyboard and an Akai MPD218. Unfortunately, both only have USB b outputs. If I could connect one of them to the drum module, I can use it to trigger its sounds, keeping it all discrete, not having to go through my PC, which is too far away from the kit for me to see what’s going on. Keeping it discrete is important for other reasons, too. I have seen MIDI host boxes that cost over £70, but I really, really don’t want to have to spend that much. Does anyone know of a cheaper (much cheaper) way of going about it?

I agree with those suggesting a serrated washer and, if there’s room, a second nut. However, if you choose to go down the thread-locker route, instead or as well, this is the stuff I use: https://www.modelsport.co.uk/product/zap-technology-z-42-thread-locker-14329 It takes a tiny blob of it to do the job.

Including what we wore, and the reception, our wedding probably cost less than a grand in total. We had our reception on a canal boat, so we were limited in how many people we could invite (and have to pay for…). The canal boat trip made the event memorable, and the people that came still talk about it fondly 25 years later.

It depends which ligament you’ve torn. I once tore my MCL and found a metal hinged knee brace to be very helpful.

Some bits to go with my new electric drum kit. Such as the extension tom and cymbal pads. A cable so that I can plug it into my PC, and a nice drum vst. A Tamiya Sand Viper (RC buggy), with a nice ESC and motor combo. And a crawler for my wife. I am going to be building desks (PC gaming and recording desk, and a modelling and painting desk) and storage furniture for my Lair, which is going to take quite a bit of wood. Once all that’s done, I’d go to town on the lighting. Lots of black light and other mood lighting. All voice controlled.

There’s an oft sited story that pops up whenever anyone claims that multiple people seeing ghosts in the same place, is proof of ghosts… I’m not going to get all the details right… There was a factory (I think) that had many people claiming that it was haunted, they were all seeing ghosts and stuff they couldn’t explain. In the end, it turned out to be a dodgy cooling fan (or something), that was vibrating at the same frequency that causes eyes to vibrate. Once they fixed the fan, the ghosts all left. Perhaps it was too cold for them…

When out at the pub, I always used to have Britvic 55, but nowhere seems to have it anymore, it’s all J2O.

I used to love doner kebabs. It’s surprising the variety you get from each kebab shop. There was always a kebab I would have a fancy for, from one shop or another. The nicest kebab I have ever had was from a place in Rugby. It was so greasy and delicious! I once had two of them for Sunday dinner (I was living with a biker gang at the time, and they were all having a roast chicken dinner. I don’t like chicken.), much to everyone’s amusement. I tried going vegetarian once, for health reasons. I don’t normally over eat, but I eat crap. For instance, I don’t like meat if it tastes like meat, but I can eat beef and onion pies (I don’t like onion, either), pork sausages, turkey burgers and such, the crap stuff. The only thing that kept tempting me was doner kebabs. The fact that, because of my restrictive diet (I just don’t like many foods), I only had potatoes, bread and cheese left to me, didn’t help. I kept it up for the year that I told myself I would do, but caved to a kebab in the end. And then I went right off them, I can’t stand them now. Although, after my brain op, I completely lost my sense of taste for three months, and I ate a lot of kebabs in those three months. Mainly because of the really hot chilli sauce that the local kebab shop used. All I had to me was heat (spicy heat) and texture. It is a most disconcerting feeling.

Now that I would win! I must sit on the damned things at least twice a day! And when my sciatica is playing up and they’re already sore… it brings tears to the eyes…

WoW wouldn’t let me have KingBollock. So my main is called Slugsalter. But I do have several alts with names like Bollok, Bolloq and Bolloque. Which I didn’t think of until much later. I ain’t paying for a name change! There’s another gaming chap online that has tried to usurp the KingBollock name. He goes by that name on YouTube, but I have the KingBollock channel. He did get the name on Steam, however, so I went with KingBollockTheOriginal. Wish I’d just gone with KingBollockOG… I once asked him about it in the comments on one of his YouTube videos, and he told me that it was a nickname given to him by his mates… Yeah, right. Not that I’m bitter at all… After years of going by KingBollock on Epic Games, a couple of weeks ago they decided that I could no longer use the name. I changed it to KingBolloq. Not happy!

Once, in about 2000, I organised a forum meet-up in Stratford-upon-Avon. We arranged to meet at the train station. We were in our old, red, L300, so stood out. As we were driving around the car park, we suddenly hear, as loud as you like “The Royal Bollocks, I presume?!” echoing right across the whole car park! And how’s this for a claim to fame (it’s not, that’s how it is…)… The bloke that shouted that, was a fairly high ranking copper, who later got in the news after he mentioned, online somewhere, weeing on Margret Thatcher’s grave, just after she had died. He was promptly sacked.

In 1997 I used to spend a lot of time on a chat program called Palace, where you had an avatar and could move around in a room, talking with other people using speech bubbles. One day I changed my avatar to a picture of a prawn, in a welly, lying in a little bed, and changed my name (which you could do at any time) to KingPrawn. Then I changed my avatar again and changed my name to what it is now. I figured it would suit me, me being big, round and hairy… I once did a vanity search and found a site that had collected names from various places around the internet and ranked them, and I came third! Though, first and second place went to the people that made the list… I even once got a mention in PC Gamer magazine for something I had said on their original forum. I am known by this name wherever I am online. I even have friends, that I know in real life (after initially meeting online), that know me as this, though they tend to shorten it to KB. I have had some very interesting reactions from parcel delivery people…

For the last week or so, I have been meaning to look to see if anyone has actually researched what kind of weather ducks actually like.

I think people are too different to be able to pin down specific frequencies to specific effects. I also don’t believe that sounds could have such a large range of effects. If it was true, we’d probably all enjoy the same music. However, I do know that Sharon Den Adel hits a note in The Cross that does funny, very pleasant things to my insides… But then, so does Dani Filth in Courting Baphomet… I’m wondering about certain noises and whether it’s conditioning that gives them their effect, such as sirens. I have also read that one of the most distressing sounds in nature, is the sound of a baby crying (to make you want to help it).

The only Fender instrument I have ever owned is my banjo. I have nothing against them, they just don’t do much that interests me. Though the nicest playing guitar I have ever played was a ‘68 strat. However… In such a situation, I would go for whatever gets me the closest to the old, blue Steve Harris signature bass. Royal blue P bass with chrome pickguard and maple fretboard. Mainly thanks to the Live After Death video. Steve Harris was the main reason (along with Lemmy) that I play bass. He looks happy with it! http://www.ironmaiden666.com.br/2011/06/fender-steve-harris-precision-bass.html

Argh! The Boss PS-3 got me the sack from the best job I ever had… Cool sounds, though!

I am not in the mood for thinking beyond the “ohh, I wonder…” stage, so I thought I’d ask here. I have a pedal that I built, it’s two Big Muffs in one box, a ‘73 Ram’s Head and a Musket. I have made several modifications to it and plan on making more (I am even considering installing it into a rack unit, to give me more space. And I love the look of a busy rack). One thing I added was an order switcher, which decides which effect goes first. What I am wondering is if it’d be possible to make that switch (not the same switch, obviously, but a single switch) change the series order or make them parallel (A / A+B / B), and how I’d go about it. I don’t even know how useful such an option would be… I have several more different clipping options I want to add to it, as well as a boost to one side. The boost would even up the amount of transistors (the ‘73 has 4, whereas the Musket has 5). I have also added a wet/dry blend, but am now wondering, if I can run them in parallel, would I be able to have a blend that works between the two effects? All this for a pair of Muffs! I do love a pointless tinker.

This information is probably useless, but it might be interesting… A long time ago, when I actually weighed more than I do now (I would have been 26 stone), and suffered with a bad back. I went out to a quarry to collect rocks (for terrarium displays), and ended up with around 90lbs of them in a sack on my back. The weight countered the weight of my gut and, for the first time in ages, I felt comfortable (other than the straps digging into my shoulders). I had very strong legs at the time, so walking around with that weight on my back was easy. It wouldn’t work for me now, because it’s downward pressure that kills me. Just sitting up for too long (3 or 4 hours) is enough to mess me up. I do wonder, though, if counter-balancing the weight of a bass, front to back, would be helpful to someone? I would imagine it’d be a lot easier to find 9lbs the carry than the 90lbs I was carrying. I don’t know how you’d go about carrying it, however (perhaps get a strap made from a hunter’s cartridge belt, and fill the pockets with lead sea fishing weights? I don’t bloomin’ know!).