Be Excellent To Each Other

Inspired by my birthday, I wanted to reflect on the culture of inanimate objects being important, and the value people place on them. It would be cool if people joined in, or the thread can die a death.

So here's my top 5 list of things I have gathered in 25 years.
I am allowing one space on the top 5 for a multiple item clause, so those of you with 1349 copies of Amiga power can have that all in one category.


1 - Telecaster Plus guitars. OK so this IS multiple, but I'll pick the first one as my actual entry.

Loved these ever since I got into Radiohead as a teenager. They are quite rare, the model played by Johnny Greenwood. I have three, as the first was an obious WANT purchase. Took me years to find a nice one - I paid a reasonable £570 from a guy on eBay. When I went to collect it he didnt want to part with it, but did. Its natural swamp ash finish and is beautiful. Play amazingly, and sounds very cool. The 2nd I bought because I play in a band live, and wanted to have 2 of the same guitar having now taken the Tele as my main choice. Its a red burst with sparkles in it. Cost me £400 off eBay USA, but that turned into £650 by the time it got through customs. The last was a graduation gift off my parents; its sunburst just like the Radiohead guy's one. I rarely play that. Telcasters are ace. And these ones have LaceSensor pickups, hence where I get my forum name from.

2 - My house. Well, flat. Biggest purchase of my life, and so far (2.5 years in) its done me proud. I do desire a house at some point though, for upstairs luxury and ability to keep a pack of hounds.

3 - A Diesel watch. I was gifted £80 from my nan in the first year of University, and I decided to buy a watch. Theres been about 10 days in the past 7 years that I havent worn it. Its awesome, and albeit a brand name watch, I've never seen it sold elsewhere ever again. I wish I'd bought 3 at the time, as its a bit scratched now. Hopefully it will remain working forever.

4 - A painting my girlfriend did for me. Not long after we met (in a totally cool and romantic film-like way I must add, but thats for another story) and became involved, it was Xmas. I went all flash and bought her an ipod (thats flash for me). She totally owned me by creating a portrait of me on a canvas using some paint she nicked off me that I had used in my flat, all without my knowledge. Probably cost her about £10 to make, but hours of work and lots of thought. I felt really shit about my gift after I received that. Currently hangs in my bedroom. Its not as shit as it sounds, as its copied from a heavily heavily cartoonised / ps'd JPEG that the band used.

5 - All the music I have recorded in my life. This is my multiple entry. Sure some of it is shit, some of it isnt as good as it could be, some of it is great, some of it should be in everyones living room (just my opinion) but I am immensely proud of the collection of plastic, cardboard and sound files I have generated over the years. Once its recorded noone can take that away from you.


sorry for the long post, I'm determined to do no work on my bday.

edit- added pic of guitar. I would shed tears for days if that was stolen.

hmm. I might struggle to fill this list, because I don't place quite so much value on material things to be able to immediately think of 5 things. Generally I've plugged all my material power into buying the house, and continue to do so in an effort to actually own it. This isn't out of a material need but rather one of financial security.

After I own my house there aren't many material things I can think to want. I am the worst person to buy for ever. I have a few games, a shitload of dvds, and a couple of computers, but nothing brain-shatteringly profound.

Indeed it started out as 10, but I revised it to 5 things.
I think its quite interesting. Maybe im just bored.

Doesnt necessarily have to be thing syou have bought, or even expensive items.
Just things you love and would loathe to be lost / broken / stolen / other.

You have an amazing and inspirational book on punishment for crimes in Victorian britain. The good old days.

Also - Charlie surely has to be up there. /cleek

1. The copy of my novel my brother made for me. It's a proper book and everything and it makes me feel good. Even with the six million typos. My wife read it in one sitting last night and was up until the early hours finishing it. Even though she's read it twice before.

2. Fred and George. Two things, but they're a pair. They go together. Two little alien guys my wife made me for my birthday this year.

3. My big Optimus Prime my wife got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. He's got a lot of metal in him and he's awesome. He's been sitting in truck form for years now. One day I'll dig out the instructions and transform him again.

4. My Powerbook. Okay, it's old. It doesn't really cope with modern Internet sites like YouTube very well at all. And the battery lasts about two minutes. But it's been used virtually every day for five and a half years and has never given me any real problems. And being the 12" model, it's a brilliant, perfect size.

5. My hat. Bought for me in Jackson Hole, Wyoming by my grandmother-in-law. I wear it every day and I love it.

Bubbling under: Mattress, car, Xbox 360, DS, TV, bag.

I'm thoroughly unsentimental. I don't think there's a single inanimate thing I own for which its loss would distress me more than its fiscal value and hassle to replace.

Fair enough.
No wedding rings, childhood toys that are irreplaceable, bespoke 1-offs?

Damn man!

Hmm. In reverse order, then:

My sofa - I spent a metric fuckton of cash having a sofa made for the flat, and it's great.
My tractor - I love my little Field Marshall. It was the first mechanical thing I ever worked on, and it did proper farm work before retiring to be a 'show tractor'. The wife and I left the church on it, too.
My flat - it was an absolute whore to buy, but it's mine now, motherfuckers, mine all mine. And the wifes. But not as much as it's mine.
My Range Rover - yeah yeah yeah, but it's mine, I've worked on it loads and it's just the way I want it. So I'm going to be tearing it apart soon, obviously.
My wedding ring - which is odd, as I never expected to feel that way, but I still close my fist when getting into lifts or onto the tube in case if falls off, and if I lost it for some reason I'd do away with all the other things on this list to get it back.

Oh man! My wedding ring needs to be in my top five, too!

That's a lovely thing right there! What a guy!!

1. The watch I received for my 18th birthday. Despite getting through numerous straps, I would hate to lose it

2. All my photographs, dating back to when I was first given a camera. One day I'll sort them, honest.

Although I am really proud of my book and CD collections, if they were to go I would be able to rebuild them from scratch.

I have no rings, although the stalker-ex girlfriend once got through some unexpected single-mother-in-education cash from the government, and used more than half of it to go out and my me a fucking man-ring for £110. I made the stupid cunt take it back and advised her to actually spend the money for the purpose it was intended. It's hard to express just how much I'd like that stupid fucking woman dead. Crap tits too.

I do this too.

On a cold night in a pub beer garden a few weeks ago it fell off. I was distraught. Proper distraught. I had 5 blokes scrabbling around on the floor looking for it for me in the darkness. Found it though. Beers all round!

Excellent first post. My top 5 reads spookily similarly to start with.

1. My Gordon-Smith custom-made guitar. Amazingly, this only cost me £200 off eBay, but it's probably the nicest guitar I've ever played. I love it.

2. My house. It may be a small terraced ex-council house in The Poshest Part of Nottingham^TM, but it's ours.

3. My vinyl collection. I have some extremely rare stuff by Tool, Swans, Led Zep and Pink Floyd that are extremely precious to me.

4. My console/games collection. Small by quite a number of people on here's standards, and I don't have much L@@K R@RE stuff, but it's important to me.

5. I'm struggling with this one. My CD collection? I don't know. I don't really love my car or DVDs or TV or stuff like that. Hmm.

1) My car, a black 56-plate Honda Civic Type-S. The biggest purchase of my life (after my flat, but since I don't live there anymore after breaking up with my ex, that doesn't count). I'm planning on selling it to help fund my dream of owning a Lotus Elise early next year, though I sometimes wonder the validity of this dream when I really like the car I already own.

2) My bass guitar, a Music Man SUB 4-string, in graphite black with a metal diamond-patterned scratchplate. I've actually also been thinking about selling this recently too, since I am a truly awful bass player and tend to get a little frustrated with my sheer lack of talent. It is a nice guitar though, and I do have fun playing along to my Pink Floyd albums.

3) My Pink Floyd 'Oh By The Way' boxset, that I got for Chrimbo last year. It's every single Pink Floyd studio album in 'mini-vinyl' format, meaning it's all CDs in tiny recreations of the original vinyl sleeves. Very nice.

4) This would be my mutiple item - my modified Japanese Mk. 1 Megadrive and Mega CD, with my MD games collection. I'm not sure why I have such an affinity with the Megadrive, but I really do. I'd play it more if it worked properly with my HDTV, but as it is it's permanently set up on a tiny little telly in the spare bedroom.

5) Noodle & Nibbler, my pet rats. Noodle is a super-friendly, lovely little headcase with bags of personality, who is either running around going mental or totally fast asleep, oblivious to the world around her. Nibbler is a fat little bugger who is also a nervous wreck who barely does anything, is always on high-alert and jumps at the slightest noise, and shows you her dissapproval by attempting to bite you. Things she dissapproves of tend to be you attempting to pick her up (she can come to you, but not the other way around it seems) or preventing her from destroying yet more of my property by attempting to eat it. Still, I love them both dearly.

I have nothing from my childhood, and my wedding ring is of no value compared to my wife - and we were together for 8 years before we got married without needing a ring.

Obviously my wedding ring will shuffle all of those down one once I get it next year.

Good outlook on life. This kinda post is equally valid for me.

1. My house. I went through absolute insanity to get it. Think: getting mortgage whilst being a full-time student.


2. My guitars. I've got a rule. I don't spend more than £300 on one ever. That stems from playing a lot of shows in London with bands who had £800+ super strat guitars but sucked with them. Give me something cheap, with a lot of character and I'll outplay anyone in the venue with it. Current faves are my Jap Tele that I've had since 1990 and my ES-335 copy that is fat, heavy and beautiful. If I could find a green thinline Tele I'd buy that though at a much higher price.


3. My car. I've always driven Fiestas and Corsas and even a Talbot fucking Samba but now I've got a Laguna and being able to accelerate up hills and drive, comfortably, from Merseyside to London makes it all worth it.


4. G1 Grimlock. Swapped with a friend when at school. He died a couple of years later so Grimmy gets pride of place on the shelf.


5. My collection of gig tickets. Ones I've played and ones I've been to.

As much as I love my computer and other gadgets, I've learned that they're all replaceable (even if I'd be super annoyed at losing some impossible to find MP3s and all my photos).

My one irreplaceable object is the ring I wear on my right hand. When my mother became very ill in 1995 with what turned out to be a brain tumour, she had to give up work to concentrate on getting better. She received her last month of pay shortly before she was due to undergo a rather large operation on her brain, and she decided that we should spend it on things to remember her by, just in case the worst happened. So we had a family day out to the jewellery quarter of Birmingham, and each of us got something. It's a fairly simple ring and it wasn't exactly expensive, but I liked it at the time.

Whilst the worst did not happen at the time of the operation, it proved a little too much for the doctors to be able to do anything about, and she died a few months later.

So I'd gladly lose everything else I own before the ring.

That's lovely Curio, and very sad

I note that she's not on your list, either

:0)

Inanimate objects were specified.

Oh, hang on - she counts.

Get this: Played a show once where a guy had hands down the most expensive rig I've seen (well, for a non-pro). He had some kinda boutique amp, maybe a MAtchless I think. Then his pedal board, about 12-15 different hand made effects. All at least £100 each. The guitars were the crown though, 2 x identical 1959 reissue Les Paul flametops, the customs shop real deal ones, £4000+ each. I laughed when he just played pentatonic scales all night.

Especially as it has a message inscribed within it (in her handwriting) and one of her trademark handdrawn roses.

Other stuff:

The puck used to score the first goal at the Altrincham Ice Dome, signed by the scorer, Brad Cruikshank. We'd worked so hard to get the place built and although I didn't put money in (but a shed load of blood, sweat, tears and effort) I just wanted that puck so very, very badly.

My friend Geoff and I put on a show for the 2005 Manchester Comedy Festival. We worked our nuts off, and it was the most wonderful experience. And we even made a tiny, tiny profit - £4.26. I never did cash the cheque.

Anyone got a match?

You're the worst Defender owner ever.

FTFY.

Mmmm, chainsaw. The blood would go everywhere, heheheeeee.

I'm not having one. Because it's gay and a waste of money.

[runs]

Yeah. The bit of a wedding that's a waste of money is the man's ring. Yeah.

I didn't know my Dad was on this forum. I'm going to have to be careful what I say in future.

To be honest I wouldn't want one either, but then I don't even wear a watch much less any other jewellery of any type.

:blink:
Did you mean "S'not a Defender. It's a Series 3"?

What about Leela and Amy?

There were a bunch of special forces Landies and armoured Discos for sale through the Ministry of Defence Disposals Agency, but they're all gone now. Poo.

Still, Tucanos going cheap!

Going hugely off-topic now, but you can get Defender 90's. A 1984 Land Rover is a Series 3. 90 just refers to the wheelbase (but I'm sure you knew that).

I always take my watch off given the opportunity.

Gah, military Land Rovers have loads of uprated parts! How much were they?

The open top SAS ones were 10 grand, the armoured Discos were about 7. There are shedloads of them for sale on the internet, though. This place is a good portal.

I'm still planning on buying a Ferret armoured car, which are road legal and you can get a restored, running version for about 6 grand.

EDIT- Here you go, cheap military Land Rovers

Oh right, I thought they'd be super-cheap for some reason. As you were, soldier.

The final link in my previous post has £2-3 grand military Land Rovers. Was that more the price range you were after?

The MoD flogs its shit off exceptionally expensively, yes.

Oh yeah, sure, but saying "It's not a Defender, it's a 90" is like saying "It's not a Escort, it's a XR3i". But not. Er... Oh God, you know what I mean


I can certainly recommend them.

1. My engagement ring. It's dead pretty, lovely, all mine and means alot to me

2. Old photographs, and the hard drive with all my photos on.

3. My guinea pigs, Leela and Amy.

4. A necklace Matt bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I don't wear it at the moment because my neck's too fat, but up until recently I used to wear it every day.

5. A silver Celtic ring my parents gave me for my 18th birthday. I've worn it every day for the last 7 years.

Oh my god want want want

That would be in my top 5 if I owned it.