Me and my guitars

I've been occasionally asking questions here since I started to play the guitar, but I've decided to make an effort to become more active on the boards. As such, I thought I'd introduce myself.

My name's Joel and I'm 18. I became interested in learning the guitar in 2003, though I didn't start practicing consistantly until Fall 2004. I'm certainly not as good as I'd like to be (I can only play two songs beginning to end. And not perfectly either. Ziggy Stardust and Limelight, if anyone's wondering), which is why I'm here. I like classic rock in general, and Rush, David Bowie and Queen specifically (though I've recently started listening to Alanis Morrisette).

Back in June I aquired an acoustic guitar at a garage sale for $25. Some new bridge pins, tuner bushings and strings later, I have an instrument that's worth at least as much as I paid for it (though not much more...)

Yup. It's a genuine Marlin acoustic. :D Made in Korea.

Upon getting a part-time job, I decided to build an electric guitar. Five months, $750 (that should have been saved for university) and a million headaches later, I have this:

It looks better in pictures than it does in real life. It's certainly not perfect, but it sounds pretty good. And given that I've never done any sort of woodworking before... The neck was pre-bought at a music store. It came from a Peavey Generation, I think. The pickups are Burns Trisonic replicas from Kent Armstrong, wired in series with an on-off and phase reversal switch for each one (sound familiar?). This gives a pretty big variety of sound. Eventually I may or may not install some push-pull pots for series-parallel switching as well, though that's a ways off.