Play Like A Girl
DAISY ROCK GUITARS
Rock Candy Series
If girl-on-girl rock is your thing, Daisy Rock Guitars, the “girl guitar” company, is expanding their Rock Candy Series with the new and positively feminine Rainbow Sparkle and Power Pink finishes. It’s enough to make Courtney Love sick, but that’s a good thing. The Rock Candy guitars feature a thin, but voluptuous mahogany body with quilted maple top, a slim profile mahogany neck, and a rosewood fingerboard with “sexy” stars inlay. It also includes Duncan humbuckers, Grover tuners, and is also available in Atomic Pink and Champagne Sparkle finish. All male chauvinist jokes aside — Daisy Rock makes decent quality guitars for girls in this price point ($499). Visit www.daisyrock.com for more information.
APPLE
MacBook Pro
After six months of build up, Apple is finally “sleeping with the enemy” by using Intel computer chips in its new MacBook Pro and updated iMac. For some Mac fans, Apple’s abandonment of IBM and Motorola PowerPC chips is akin to becoming a White Sox fan after years of being a Cubs loyalist. That premise, of course, is b.s. — but Mac users do share some blind loyalties with those who bleed Cubbie blue. Apple’s new Core Duo Chips promise up to four times the performance of their soon-to-be-discontinued G4 laptop counterparts. Besides the expected power boost, the MacBook Pro adds an onboard iSight webcam, updated Garage Band and iLife software for 2006, and also included is iWeb: Apple’s new “easy” Web creation tool. If you consider yourself an “early adopter,” there is a caveat — as is the case with almost all new computer software/hardware upgrades — these Intel-based powered Macs unfortunately won’t run Logic or Final Cut Pro until new software updates arrive in March. Other Mac OSX applications will run in an emulation mode called “Rosetta.” For you Mac old-timers, any applications that ran in “Classic” mode on a G4 and G3 based Mac (in Mac 0S 9) will not run on these Intel Macs — at all. Apple will continue to sell some G4 Macs for the remainder of this year, but the wheels of progress are rolling, with the arrival of Intel-powered Macs. Retail price for the PowerBook Pro starts at $1,999. Visit www.apple.com for full details.
HUGHES & KETNER
The Tube Clock
Hughes & Kettner‘s Tube Clock looks like a miniature Hughes & Kettner tube amplifier, but it’s actually an expensive, but cool, limited-edition clock housed in a chrome chassis with six visible Nixie tubes displaying time to the second. Like an actual amp head, it includes a genuine Tolex covering and speed knobs in what H&K calls the “world’s first time-telling tube head.” Availability of the Tube Clock will be limited to the remaining supplies of Nixie Tubes, which have been out of production since early 2002. The Tube Clock features separate controls for display and tube brightness and a built-in power buffer for power surges. Suggested retail price is a whopping $399, but for Hughes & Kettner fans, it might just be worth it. Visit www.hughes-and-kettner.com for full details.
— David Gedge
