[__tsidewinder__]

thanks for the responses. A reward system sounds good. Maybe, if I get to a certain point in technical ability, I buy myself some new gear.

And to RockerBob, the point of the technical study and the hard work and practice is so that when I DO just play, and have fun with the guitar, I will play better, and have MORE fun. Its like when you first started, and you realized you'll have to work your butt off for two weeks to learn chords in order to play your favourite song. Yeah, once the necessary hard work was done, the guitar opened up and became completely awesome. But it DID take hard work, at least for me. Now I want to open up some more of the guitar, and make it even more awesome.