Got mail today saying our hydro is turning over time TOU rates. This angers me to no end as I figure this will be another 20$ jump in my bill. Pair that with the harmonization of sales tax earlier this year in Ontario and we are paying the full 13% tax on these bills (another 8-10$ jump earlier this year) opposed to the previous 5. We also pay debt retirement for times before the deregulation of hydro as the gov't botched it, and the delivery fees are almost as much as my usage fees. I do not understand how the populace can be expected to alter their entire schedule to be nocturnal to save energy costs.. It is freaking retarded.
Enough of that though, lets talk pickups, G&L pickups to be precise.
To start, they ruined my Carvin pickups for me. The short of it is the carvin pickups lack character. They are bright, have good frequency response but little life. The are just there, they are not improving the sound at all, very neutral. The G&L pickups sound more, fatter, livelier, still tight though. There is more harmonic content, more shine/sparkle. Just more everything.
As far as output goes, these are much lower than I am used to. All my carvin buckers blow these out of the water (I know humbuckers should have more output than single coils) but the difference is pretty staggering, very audible. I had heard a lot of the folks referring to these as high output or hot, and really I don't see it. This is great though as I generally speaking, do not like my output too high. I do not want the pickups to be so hot channels break up prematurely. So while I now need to replace the humbuckers in my carvins (thinking some bare knuckles, a rebel yell has been recommended to me by the dealer I am working with), the G&L pickups could not make me happier. I can even play early Iron Maiden on them.
What is your take on these pickups?
I typically read a lot of books, that is until my Master's started. Now I read a lot of books, on soils. It kind of killed pleasure reading for me. I read a lot of historical fiction and fantasy novels. My favourite fantasy series are The Dark Tower (King) and Malazan: Book of the Fallen (Erikson), but I have a penchant for Cook's Black Company also. Another interesting read was The Engineer Trilogy (Parker), very different from what I was expecting. On a more serious note Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics were awesome non fiction reads, that I would highly recommend.
What are you reading/ what do you read?
I would like to take a moment here to talk about my rock influences, and how they have shaped my playing. I have always been a rocker, from about 8 I was rejecting 90s music and buying AC/DC instead. The first CD I purchased was back in black. Admittedly I outgrew AC/dc over time, probably due to my musical aptitude. That is not to say the things Angus can do with 2 fingers are not amazing
. Rock sort of instilled an archetypal sound into me, the loud distorted guitar. Most music doesn't feel right without it, although I do enjoy folk. I know some of you may heckle me for not having experienced the golden age first hand (more with the old jokes, what the hell is this punk up to eh?), but I couldn't respect that when I was younger. Nowadays however I really enjoy it too. But something about the attitude of the 70's sings to me. Blues rock especially (while I really don't care for 12 bars blues, I love some of the blues rock that surfaced. What are you feelings towards rock?
By the way Sam, I missed this yesterday, you asked me about graphite nuts. Honestly, I cannot tell you the difference. My last guitar and bass without a locking trem have all had it. I like the uniformity and self lubrication properties, but I am not sure it would help with slip much in my guitars, as they all have locking tuners. The ASAT is still settling in climatically/from newness so is definitely not the most tuning stable instrument I have kicking around. I may change it to a TUSQ to see what it is up at a later date, mostly just to see whats up with that man made ivory bone nut substitute.
your lightbulbs out from your bed and go and install a remote control switch! 
disco shows 
Right now reading a cool baseball book "Odd Man Out" about a minor league pitcher who went from Yale to baseball to being a internal medicine doctor. Like a Bull Durham with a smart pitcher.