Guitar Enthusiasm:

I get excited sometimes.  In fact, sometimes I get so excited about something, that I just have to talk about it.  Unfortunately, when I get in a state like that, my poor friends suffer.  Because my excitement is often about obscure or minor subjects, such as the "ipod touch" incident, when I spent over half an hour telling my mother why the ipod touch would be a fun device to use as a mobile recorder. 

Unfortunately, once I get going, you only have three options:

1. Curl up in the foetal position and start rocking back and forth.
2. Saying "yeah," "mmhmm" and "you don't say?" while focusing your attention elsewhere, OR
3. Dousing me in the eyes with pepper spray and jumping through a nearby window.

My poor friends get stuck in this situation quite often.  Especially lately, now that I've been really getting back into playing the guitar.  For example:

"I just tuned my old guitar to Open G tuning."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it's this crazy tuning that lets you play it almost like an entirely new instrument."

"Oh, um, you don't say?"

"I can use a slide, and get these chords while playing slide guitar.  Chords, on slide guitar!  Isn't that amazing!?"

"Mmm hmm"

"Not to mention that it breaks you out of the usual thinking - you don't just hover around an E chord, because the fingering is all messed up."

"Yeah."

"And I'm trying to learn finger picking again, because this new tuning is like learning an all new instrument, and...."

*sound of breaking glass*

Now let's see how you guys did.  If you read this post without saying "yeah", "mmmhmm", or "you don't say", odds are, you're not my friend.  Either that, or you're already getting the pepper spray ready.