Oddly enough, the answer to the first question is - not really. I used to play the guitar at camp when I was younger but I haven't played one since then, so I know the basic chords but that's about it. Anyway, recently I decided that instead of spending so much time playing the rock band game guitar (which I'm freakin awesome at) I thought maybe I should spend that time learning to play a real guitar...a skill that might appeal to demographics other than nerdy teenage boys.

My original plan was to get some cheap, used guitar off craigslist that I could mess around with, but as I was searching online I stumbed onto DiPinto guitars website and they had some of the coolest, unique looking guitars I had seen. So to answer the second question above, here's the text from the 'About Us' page over on dipintoguitars.com:

DiPinto Guitars is a small family owned company, operating out of Philadelphia, PA. Founded in 1995 as a repair shop, the store slowly evolved into a showroom specializing in oddball vintage guitars and Chris DiPinto's own guitar creations. Over the years, DiPinto has grown to include a full scale guitar manufacturing operation while still operating the original retail outlet.

Now it wasn't about getting a cheap guitar to mess around with anymore, I wanted one of these guitars! So I went down to their retail outlet on Girard street and tried a bunch of them out and eventually purchased their Mach IV model in a sparkly gold color.

And just to make it even cooler, Conan O'Brien is the proud owner of DiPinto Galaxie 4 guitar. So if you want to get a really awesome and unique-looking guitar or bass for surprisingly cheap, check out dipintoguitars.com, and assuming I actually learn how to play it maybe we can jam together.

Published 05 June 2009 - 0 comments (View/Post Comments)   

I was born in west Philadelphia (Will Smith style) but then quickly moved to the slightly less ghetto main line where I attended Lower Merion High School (Kobe Bryant style). High school was relatively uneventful because I spent most of it sitting in my room playing Everquest, but I also worked part-time at the exciting, fun-filled Penn Wynne Library.

I then matriculated to Brandeis University in lovely Waltham, Massachusetts where I majored in Computer Science and Mathematics. Yes, you read that right. At any other school I would have had a monopoly on geekiness however at Brandeis I fit in rather well among the likes of Beauty and the Geek reality TV star Richard Rubin.

I then went to work for Smart Business Consulting where I had worked as an intern during the previous two summers. There I met a large portion of the technology consulting team from Arthur Andersen who were laid off when Andersen went under indictment for their involvement in the Enron scandal.

It was at Smart that I began my training in the ways of the Jedi...and the ways of the Microsoft ASP.NET web programmer. But after working there for two years I felt it was time to find a job that could offer me more to look forward to than sitting in a cubicle hoping to one day get promoted to a larger cubicle with a door.

That is when I found Orbius. Orbius was a web startup company run by a bunch of cool (read: geeky) guys out of a house they rented in Newtown Square. It reminded me of the dot-com companies I read about in the late 90s and while we all know how that turned out, it seemed like those guys had a lot of fun while they were there.

Without going into the details, after working there for about a year the economy tanked and Orbius was forced to shut down its office so I am currently working from my home in center city Philadelphia, which is...Awesome! So there you have it, you now know who I am, but you'll have to read some Ayn Rand to find out who John Galt is.

Published 03 April 2009 - 0 comments (View/Post Comments)