Tang, Pomegranates and Puss..

How are we all today?

Well it is Thursday, and I do not have a job.. Work is very hard to come by. I have now put in 40 applications in the last 3 weeks, and no one seems to like me. It seems odd.. Today I was at Multi Med in Swanzey applying for an absolutely awful assembly job. It is the sort of boring work with no variation that has the tendency to drain the soul, but I would happily do it for minimum wage.. While I was there, 4 other applicants were applying for exactly the same position. Indeed, it is extraordinarily hard to find even the most unpleasant work. If I do not get any calls by 12 tomorrow, then it is off to Price Chopper for night shift.

Besides complaining, I have honestly done nothing else but go to every business in town asking for a job for the last month. Perhaps it is time to start my own business, but what to do? I could host poker games and take a 50% house cut, or I could put my dads lawnmower in the trunk and mow people's lawns, and demand that they pay me.. Perhaps sleeping on it would be a good plan.

You know what? It is time to talk about instruments. I would really like to own a serviceable mandolin. I got a new one for my birthday, but unfortunately it did not work too well at all. I am currently building a ukulele neck for it out of poplar. The result will eventually resemble something between a cumbus, a George Formby style banjolele and a Brazilian cavaco. At least that is the plan. My parents say that they will pay half the price of a new mandolin in exchange for the chores I am doing around the house but I will not accept this generous offer, though I have been looking around at the choices available. I am determined that my next machine will be a flat back because they are cheaper and easier to play, and I have zoomed in on three possible choices. One is made by a Mexican company called Paracho Elite, and is called the "Venice" model. It is relatively cheap, and from what I understand is also of reasonable quality. The second is made by the company Paris Swing and is called the "Nauges" model; Nauges after a song by Django Reinhardt, who's choice of guitar style this mandolin strongly emulates. It costs $500, and so buying it would cause me not to be able to drive anywhere. It also has quite a thin body, which would not produce the amount of volume I am looking for. The last choice is the Giannini GBSM1 Brazilian mandolin. It is made by the company Giannini, who have been making mandolins in Brazil since 1925. Brazilian mandolins show their European heritage by strongly emulating the Portuguese guitar used in Fado music. These mandolins have quite deep flat backs and long scales, and thus will produce more volume than my current ailing machine. Still, all this speculation is irrelevant until I find a job. I just wanted to talk about something else than finding one.