Happy Februrary!! (Patreon)

Thank you so much for being here with us for the month of February!! I really, really appreciate it 🥰❤️ Lots of cool stuff has been happening lately! 

First off, today we have a new video release from GFI System called Duophony!  Russ and I have been working on this video behind-the-scenes for the past few weeks. I gotta tell you, the Vongon Polyphrase and JHS Artificial Blonde both really came in handy for adding stereo width to my pedal chains. You want to see the INSANE list of pedals we used in this video?

• GFI System Skylar
• Vongon Polyphrase
• Vongon Paragraphs
• Chase Bliss Gen Loss MKII
• JHS Artificial Blonde
• JHS 3 Series Octave Reverb
• Spaceman Effects Delta II
• Red Panda Bitmap 2
• OBNE BL-44
• OBNE Dark Star
• OBNE Expression Ramper
• Fairfield Circuitry Randy's Revenge
• CopperSound Pedals Telegraph V2
• Bananana Effects Tararira, and 
• two SUPER SPECIAL SECRET pedals you're gonna LOVE 😆

Secondly, I realized that black lipstick does NOT work for me haha. I gave it a shot because of this really nice YouTube comment:

I tried it out during our last livestream with a purple color, and it looked great! But when I tried it with black lipstick... it just... didn't work. Sure, it looks good in photos! But in real life.... not so much. At least I tried!

Speaking of comments! I can't believe the (mostly!) positive reception we've gotten from our recent mean comments video. The funniest thing is that the person who wrote the "chesty harp girl" comment deleted NOT ONLY that comment, but their entire Reddit account, and the person who wrote the "Sun Riah / redditpill content for guitar bros harpist" also had this to say:

"Ended up in a youtubers' 'responding to mean comments' video cause they found a conversation I was having with a friend. Never intended them to see that... I wasn't even being that mean I just got them mixed up with someone else and was disappointed in what I believed was a rebrand."

Maybe stuff like this will make people reconsider saying unnecessarily negative stuff about people on the Internet for no reason? .. but sadly, probably not. Mean commenters are EVERYWHERE! What blows my mind is that I've never written anything bad about someone, especially not in a public setting such as the internet, and I'm confused as to why people do this. Like, what is the motivation behind it? Was that "chesty girl harp" guy so upset that I'm making YouTube videos about effect pedals and technology? I'm just glad Russ didn't choose the REALLY bad comments... cus as you know, I've seen some real shit! 

So in other news, you know the FOMOfx VJP / Whammy Bar I have on my harp? Russ and I had a few complications with it falling off the harp -- the weird thing was that the adhesive stayed on the harp, but not on the actual mounting device. So Peter at FOMOfx made me a special prototype for the Virtual Jeff Pro!! It has double the adhesive and a different shape / weight distribution, so I think this is the solution now!! :) As I've said, I'm keeping the VJP on my harp at all times, so if this is a more permanent installation, that's totally fine by me!!

I got invited to SuperBooth 2023 (in BERLIN), but with all the logistics of that, I don't know how I could possibly make it work. I'm starting to think about getting a second Serrana 34 harp for the purpose of traveling, and if you're in the Patrons-Only Discord group, you'll know what crazy fun ideas we've been throwing around... 😈 If you're not in it, send me a message!!! I'll add ya ASAP :)

Lately, I've been pretty obsessed with Sweetwaters Iron Goddess of Mercy tea, AKA ti quan yin. I ordered this exact tea from Adagio Teas online, but to be honest (please note that I am in no way a 'tea snob', because I am totally not educated enough on the variety of teas out there to have an educated opinion hahah), I really didn't enjoy it. Maybe the quality was lower, or maybe I was making it differently. But now, I make my Iron Goddess tea with a little bit of oat milk and honey, and it really changes the entire drink! I'm still cutting out coffee and soda because it makes my tinnitus louder, but for some reason, Iron Goddess is okay. I know oolong teas have caffeine but I guess it works in lower quantities. I would LOVE to one day be super educated on all the different kinds of teas, but for now, I just know that I love oolongs and green teas (I always think about "The Brewers" person who joins our livestreams asking about tea recommendations hahah that person always makes me smile! They always ask what kind of tea I'm drinking, and I wish I had more recommendations for them, because lately the answer is 'Iron Goddess'!)

On the subject of tinnitus / TMJD, it's been almost 8 months since my tinnitus started, and I have an appointment to get my custom mouthguard fitted next month to treat my clicking and painful jaw. The appointment is in March, and then my treatment starts in April, which is a little worrisome for me because I have to see the doctor every week for a while to make sure my jaw is moving in the correct direction and everything. I have some traveling / tours in the works for April and May... so I'm trying to navigate everything as best as I can! 

Speaking of navigating everything, I really want to make a lofi harp album, because everyone keeps asking me for one after the release of the Virtual Jeff video. It did EXTREMELY well on TikTok (3 MILLION VIEWS AHHH) and 1.8M views on IG, so people who hear that track are asking for more! Unfortunately, with my schedule being the way it is  (working my part-time job 4 days a week while simultaneously trying to juggle the work for two secret NDA scoring projects, a 2-track limited release album / vinyl with a popular prog metal band, livestreams, and YouTube video release schedule), I just can't swing it right now. I'm sure you knew this already, but Russ and I catch up on our work during Saturday and Sunday, so we don't really get "time off / weekends". It's definitely worth it, because we're doing what we love! But it's also a very big shift, and working with your significant other can sometimes get stressful. We do our best to do things that focus on our relationship as well, even something simple like grabbing coffee at our local cafe together and walking around the park (or practicing yo-yo tricks!! I'm looking at YOU, Doc Pop!!! 🥳❤️) 

I also regularly text Russ about my thrift-store finds, like this ridiculous (but tempting!) Charlie-Brown-esque sweater. In hindsight, I probably should have bought it, but I opted for $0.99 floral pants instead. People already call me "goth egg" and "corey feldman," I don't need to add a "charlie brown" to that list lmao

I hope you all are having a fantastic week, and hopefully I'll see you tomorrow night during the livestream, or see ya in Discord! :) ♡ Again, thank you so much for all your support, and for still being here with us during the month of February. It means the world to me!!