Roland Boss

Roland Boss

Oh to lead a bachelor's life again.

My wife Joanie, had recently planned a trip for herself to drive to the opposite coast of Florida and spend a week with her daughter's family. 

As she made plans to leave I remembered what it was like when I was a bachelor and fending for myself.

Of course I remembered my bachelor days as carefree, footloose and fancy free. A lifestyle where I could do whatever I wanted without consequence. No one to answer to! No one to tell me to pick up my socks put the dishes in the dishwasher or to make the bed!

Ah, for a few days I was going to live just like the bachelor I remembered being! I'd stay up all night and do bachelor things like blog online, play video games and watch Showtime Up-All-Night semi-dirty movies and sleep until noon and not take a shower or shave until the day after that! In fact, I'd bathe in the pool! I'd eat pizza and chili with beer three or even four times a day and let em rip whenever I felt like it!

Like the man said... be very careful for what you wish for because you just might get it...

The day my wife left home I started feeling ill at work. My eyes watered and burned, my throat felt scratchy and I felt achy all over.

Not allowing for the obvious, after work I drove home and cooked a can of chili, had a beer, fed the dogs and the cat and sat down in front of the TV to watch an old Rambo movie - something my wife would have left the room for - had she been there. In fact she would have chastised me for having a can of chili for dinner as I have high cholesterol and definitely would not have appreciated my eating it right out of the pan I cooked it in. Of course she would have squawked until I cleaned up my mess in the kitchen, put my dirty pan in the dishwasher and asked if I was finished with the beer bottle. But then, she was not there and I was able to be a man!

About mid-way through the movie I began to feel really weak and my stomach began making louder noises than usual. As I made a bee-line to the bathroom I felt goose bumps make their way over my skin and was aware I had the shakes.

When I reached the bathroom I flipped on the light, looked into the mirror and nearly jumped in fright at the pale figure with sunken eyes and sweat running down his gaunt face looking back at me. It was then I got the uncontrollable urge to expel the chili.

After I wiped down the sink, mirror and floor, and gargled, I crawled back to the living room, pulled myself onto the couch and convinced this thing had not yet got its hooks firmly into me I thought hard about how I would stop the dreaded flu in it's tracts!

My first thought was to pick up the phone and call my wife, because she would know what to do. But I dismissed that idea partly because I knew she'd worry and probably cut her visit short to come home to take care of me, but mostly because I was a MAN and was convinced I could and would handle the situation. 

So I asked myself; self, what would you have done when you were a bachelor? An age-old remedy came to mind and from the liquor cabinet I pulled out a bottle of Black-Strap Rum then made my way to the refrigerator where I found a lemon that had already been halved. I then went to the pantry and found the honey.

I put all the ingredients - one, well two, shots of rum, the juice from the halved lemon and one, well two, and tablespoons of honey into a saucepan and heated the mixture up to boiling. I then poured the mixture into a coffee mug and poured it down my throat.

Instead of the immediate soothing sensation I had expected I immediately jumped at the feeling of the skin on my tongue and throat being seared away! To make matters worse my stomach was immediately on fire and I made a bee line for the bathroom, again.

After I wiped down the sink and mirror and floor, and gargled, I crawled back to the living room, pulled myself up onto the coach and wondered aloud what I could do to prevent the flu and remembered the box of Emergan-C powder packets I had purchased a few months (or was it a few years?) back.

I made my way back to the bathroom and pulled just about everything from under the sink until I found the box. I read that each packet contains 1000 MG of Vitamin C and it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that Vitamin C is exactly what I needed to kill the flu before it took hold.

I also reasoned that if Vitamin C is what I needed then a massive dose of Vitamin C should really do the trick!

So I opened seven packets and poured the powder into an empty water bottle I had left on the dining room table missing the bottle with about a third of the red powder. Swearing, I made my way to the kitchen where I filled the bottle with filtered water, capped it and shook it hard.

I opened the bottle to a hiss of sweet smelling gas and drank the concoction down.

Again, the soothing sensation I had expected was replaced by a burning sensation as the acidic Vitamin C made its way down my burnt throat.

Fortunately, however, my stomach seemed to tolerate the mixture.

At that point I realized all my joints ached and it was very hot in the house and I was feeling weak enough to skip the movie and go to bed. So I turned down the thermostat and crawled into bed pulling the quilt up to my eyes.

Instead of falling fast asleep as I had hoped, I lay there with my eyes wide open and counted the minutes click by on the illuminated digital bedside clock.

After about two hours of this I dragged myself out of bed and made for the kitchen and a tall glass of water when I stepped on an empty packet of Emergan-C. I picked up the packet and when I got to the kitchen I read the front panel in the dim light of the microwave. How I possibly missed the bright red words "Energy Booster" surrounded by a bright yellow starburst was beyond me!

So after another hour or two of staring at the ceiling I decided I had to get some sleep and the only way to do so was to counteract the energy booster with Melatonin. A natural sleep inducer we kept around for those sleepless nights.

My manly reasoning powers kicked in again and I decided that if one or two Melatonin capsules helped me go to sleep on a normal sleepless night then in order to counteract the effects of 7000MG of vitamin C I would require at least seven Melatonin capsules. But, my previous lesson with the Emergan-C was not lost on me - no, I reasoned that seven would be overkill and decided five would be a more reasonable number.

I awoke with the sun shinning into my bedroom window and our Basset Hounds braying next to the bed. In a stupor I saw the clock read 1PM.

Realizing I was really late for work I tried to sit up and felt that the sheets, quilt and pillow were soaked with sweat, I had the chills and my throat had seemed to nearly close up during the night to the point that I could barely swallow. As I stood next to the bed I realized I was very sick and that none of my remedies helped.

As though my morning couldn’t possibly be worse, as I made my way to the bathroom I stepped in dog poop and remembered I had forgot to let the dogs out before I went to bed the night before!

While I cleaned the dog poop I got a familiar rumbling in my stomach and - yup, made another bee-line for the bathroom.

After I wiped down the sink, mirror and floor, and gargled, I crawled back to the living room, let the dogs out and then pulled myself onto the couch and concluded that I had the flu.

After I made calls to my boss and my doctor I pulled the wet sheets, quilt and pillowcases off the bed into a pile on the floor, and not feeling like making the bed I grabbed an afghan off the couch and curled up there.

As my cell phone rang on the end table next to me I glanced at my watch and saw it was 5:31PM. It was my cheery wife who was just calling to see how my day at work was and to let me know she was enjoying herself and missed both me and the dogs... of course, I tried my best to smile and laugh in all the right places and tell her how well the dogs and I were doing as I looked out at our partially devastated home.

After hanging up I wondered if I should have told her about being sick and the night’s events but thought better of it.

I forced myself to get dressed and drive to the pharmacy where my doctor had called in a prescription for an antibiotic and cough syrup. I had declined the cough syrup because I didn’t have a cough and thought it strange that the doc had included it?

On my way home I went through Wendy's drive-thru and ordered a spicy crunchy fried chicken sandwich and fries forgetting about how ruined my poor throat was. I nearly ran off the road as I tried to swallow the first bite of that sandwich.

I arrived home and found that the soft, warm Wendy's fries were actually very soothing going down and concentrated on savoring those.

I let the dogs in, fed them the chicken sandwich and curled back up on the couch where I woke up the next morning at 5AM.

Immediately upon waking I discovered my head and chest were full and I began coughing up all manner of yuck. I had a terrible headache, my eyes burned, my joints ached and I had even worse chills.

As I drank the warm Coke from Wendy's I felt that familiar feeling and made yet another bee-line for the bathroom.

After I wiped down the sink, mirror and floor, and gargled, I crawled back to the living room, pulled myself onto the couch and remembered I had forgotten to take the medicine I had picked up and had also neglected to let the dogs out after their super the night before. A quick sniff of air backed up the latter...

I had discovered that apparently the Basset's hadn’t enjoyed the chicken sandwich either and had left me gifts on the floor. I was really glad we had decided to tile the entire house a couple of years before.

After cleaning poop, taking my medicine and calling my boss I spent the next thirty-minutes or so searching through the bathroom cabinets looking for cough syrup.

I then spent the remainder of the day on the couch drinking water, sleeping and watching TV in between coughing fits.

I opened cans of soup for myself and cans of food for the dogs and even remembered to let them out before I turned in for the night. I kinda sorta re-made the bed, although I slept on the couch, and I admitted over the phone to my wife that I was very sick and missed her terribly.

The next morning I awoke at 8AM still feeling pretty sick but as I made my way to the bathroom I noticed the house was clean again; all my empty soda cans were gone as were my dirty soup bowls, snot napkins and cracker crumbs. There were no more water spots, red powder or empty packets of Emergan-C on the dining room table. The dirty bedclothes were picked up and the bed was properly made. All the stuff was put back neatly into the bathroom cabinets and there was no dog poop anywhere.

And then I smelled fresh coffee brewing and knew my savior, my best friend in the whole world had arrived to take care of me!

My wonderful wife said nothing about the mess the house was in and made no comments about my being un-bathed and unshaved. She met me with a worried smile, rubbed my back, asked how I was doing and if there were anything she could do for me.

It was then, at that very moment that I realized I was happy to be a domesticated man, that freedom was overrated and that there is no better feeling in the world than having a wife who loves and cares about me.

Thank you Joanie, you mean the world to me and I am lucky to have you.

Love,

Your husband...

- Roland

About the Author

Roland J Duquette is a 51 year old Floridian with a very diverse past. He has been a US Navy sailor, a caribbean adventurer, a business owner, a construction worker, a corporate bank manager and now a writer of short stories. He has recently been married for the second and last time and has learned the hard way what a wonderful thing a home and wife can be. Roland and his wife Joan share their lovely lakeside Central Florida home with their two Basst Hounds, Coco and Mindy together with their elderly black Lab Casey and two cats, Chubby and Smokey. Roland can be reached at RDuquette77@yahoo.com

Boss GT-10 or Zoom G9.2tt?

which should i get and y?I want good distortion and good effects.I use a roland microcube as my amp.
boss is the way to go?uhh y?y not zoom?and vice versa.

go for the gt-10. for guitar pedals, boss is the way to go

Roland Boss

Roland Boss In The News

Top 3 Apps To Turn Your IPhone Or IPad Into A Drum Machine

The first drumming machines made is easy for anyone to create beats, add drums to songs and do professional demos without a live drummer.

Fast forward ahead to today and we have apps available for smart phones and tablet devices like the iPad that cost less than $10 bucks and can do everything those original drum machines could and more.

What are some of those apps you can get to create beats, drum loops and more on your mobile devices? That's what we're going to look at in this article.

Drum Meister

This app uses a virtual kit on the screen of your iPhone or iPad. To play the drums all you do is click the image of the drum sound you want on screen. Making beats at first on an app like this feels a bit cumbersome, but the sample quality of each sound is fantastic and for simple high-hat, kick drum and snare beats it's quite easy to use.

Vdrummer

Similar to other drumming applications vDrummer uses actual images of piece of a full kit on screen. By tapping the picture of the drum you want to play the sound will be played. An advantage of vDrummer is that rather then displaying an assembled drum kit on screen they have positioned the drums next to those that are most used. For example the snare, kick and high hat are right next to each other. This layout is much easier to use with common beats and arrangements that use the kick drum, snare drum and high hat cymbal.

Korg iElectribe

Unlike the other two apps above this is a drum/beat machine more then a drum kit. Like a drum machine you don't need to know much about playing the drums to use this app since everything is programmed rather then played in real time. This app best resembles a drum machine from companies like Boss and Roland most people would be familiar with. A down side to this app is that you can't export or save the beats you create so you'll want to record them if you can to an external laptop or Digital Recording device via the headphone output on your iPad or iPhone.

These are just a few of the many drumming applications that are available for devices like the iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices. To get the most out of these apps you should have some knowledge of playing the drums and what makes a good beat.

If you'd learn more about how to play the drums check out the top drum lesson dvds. Courses like Learn and Master Drums make it far easier to learn the drums at home compared to private instruction for a lot less money.

 

 

 

Questions about Roland Boss

Amp settings for Ain't No Rest for the Wicked?

by Cage the Elephant. I have a Roland Boss Mg-10 and an Ibanez SA Series. Just want close to that tone. doesn't have to be perfect

That would be personal choice. It would take a lot of trial and error.

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