Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

I didn't even do anything to it at all! It won't lift the goddamn arm off the record! This could very easily result in me brushing the needle directly across the grooves/record playing surface! It happened twice and I thought I'd scratched my precious record and ruined the needle! Every time I push the button to lift the needle, it won't lift it, it just makes this clicking noise. And if I lift the thing that lifts the needle, it stops clicking, but puts the needle directly back down again. It doesn't matter if I turn the power on and off. WAAAH! Marky NOT A HAPPY CAMPER!!!!!!!

I feel that pain. Lucky for me I have the two Technics that have lasted me through the good times and bad. It is a sick feeling when the music playing machines break down.

Well I've gotten brave today. I've put on a record. *grits teeth with anxiety* But I know I have to babysit it, because if I were to pass out when the needle reaches the end of the side, the whole fucking thing will scratch my record and needle HORRIBLY. So I must remain vigilant.

Absolutely my favourite song by The Fall in the world at this moment: "Hard Life In The Country" I won't bother trying to describe it. You have to hear it to believe it. He goes out into the sticks of redneckery and still comes out sounding avant garde to the max. He also mentions a certain "D. Bowie" in spots. Brilliant.

Anyway this song was on the Room To Live EP which I have a white vinyl copy of. I'm not sure what CD you would buy if you wanted to get this on CD. I don't think they were all white vinyl, this was a reissue. Anyway that really bothers me that I wouldn't know what CD had this...wait...wait a minute now....no. It's impossible I've never heard this song before on CD in my life. I don't know which CD it is, but I will find out.

Oh my god. I saved it. I saved the needle and my record at the last minute. Oh my god. I think I just saw my life pass before my eyes.

I'm think I'm going to go back to playing CD's now. **Whew**

Today I got so distraught about my record player. My friend had said last night he had two turntables just sitting around at his house and I could borrow one. I didn't say anything at the time but when I woke up early this morning it's all I could think about. I waited a few hours until 9 AM before attempting to call him about it. He said "I just woke up" - whoops. But he said I could get it around 2 pm. In the meantime, absolutely fed up, I took my own record player down to the fucking shop to get fixed. When I got there I wasn't overjoyed with the reaction from the guy. I explained what was wrong with it and he said with all this hesitant doubt in his voice "well...it'll take about an hour...it'll cost about $75-$100, it may not even be worth it..." I'm thinking 'what the fuck are talking about this is my goddamn record player we're talking about here'. I said "oh ,well, I thought it would take a lot longer than that, actually" and he felt underneath it and tried to pick it up a little and said in a more pleased tone "oh! well, that's pretty heavy actually...I thought it was just a belt drive..okay...it'll be ready in a couple of weeks". So he gave me this ticket he wrote out and in the box marked "service requested" he had written "doesn't cue" but you see I thought at first that it said "doesn't care". Which pissed me off. Wasn't he even going to describe what was wrong with it on the ticket? What did he mean I didn't care? Didn't care when I got it back? Didn't care if it was fixed properly? Didn't care what they did or didn't do to it? It may seem funny now but I just didn't like his nonchalant attitude. Anyway so then I realized he had written "doesn't cue" which was exactly what the problem was anyway, so hell with it. I wonder how long a couple of weeks is though.

Anyway so it turned out I was lucky enough that my friend actually brought his turntable by my house today and told me I could have it. It's not fancy or anything, but it's not too dinky either. It's just fine for now. I'm happy. One really weird ass thing about it though is it has this speed adjustment knob. So even if you've got on 33 or whatever, you can still play with this knob which will very slightly speed it up or slow it down. The problem is it's not easy to calibrate this knob at all. I'm going to try though.