i let things go since they will be destroyed anyway
When I was a kid, I had a friend who was really into a certain magazine and had three-foot-high stacks of them in his room, situated just to the side of the door and against the wall. Something like two or three of those stacks. And no, that's not an exaggeration. The only reason the stacks weren't higher is because they would start falling over if they went any higher. He was a bit of a hoarder, even as a kid.
I saw that, thumbed through a few of the magazines (it was Mad, by the way), thought they were neat, and started buying copies of my own since they were cheap. After a few months of doing that, I asked dad if he ever bought any Mad magazines when he was younger. He said he did, so I then asked if he ever kept any of them. He said he didn't. I replied to that with something along the lines of, "Aww! They'd be worth a lot of money today!" He just shrugged it off. And he was correct not to keep them, because vintage copies of Mad never truly became anything valuable.
Only one store local to me at the time sold Mad, a card and gift shop. I look online to see if that store is still around. Nope. That didn't surprise me.
But then I did a deeper dive, and found out two things.
First, that store was originally registered in 1967. I thought wow, neat.
Second, that business was dissolved...
...in 1988.
Oh.
Yeah, I didn't even know that until before I wrote this. That one hit me, because it means the store was gone even before I got my first driver's license.
The building still stands, so the place where the card shop used to be wasn't technically destroyed.
But another place I recently found out the fate of is a different story.
As a kid, a special occasion was when the family used to go to a Chinese restaurant that originally opened in 1974. Every time the family went either once or twice a year, we'd always order the exact same thing, the Pu Pu Platter. It was always good.
This Chinese joint legitimately looked like a restaurant you'd find in a theme park, even though it was located in very plain part of town. The most exciting thing near it was a convenience store across the street. That restaurant installed all their pseudo-upscale designs back in the mid-'70s and never changed, which was part of its charm. Inside, the place was divided into themed rooms, and the one the family always picked was the Fountain Room, because it had an actual operating fountain in the middle of it. That was neat.
Other than the restaurant changing its sign once since the old one was so beat up that it needed to be replaced, this Chinese place looked exactly the same for almost 50 years.
Yeah, almost 50 years.
In 2022, that restaurant burned to the ground. Literally.
Arson was how the place got destroyed. Arson by whom? Just some guy that liked to set fire to restaurants in the local area for whatever reason. The guy was found, arrested, and actually admitted that yeah, it was him. And the guy was married with a four-year-old kid. I've no idea why he liked to torch restaurants. Maybe he hated his wife. Maybe his kid ruined his prized Funko Pop collection and the guy took out his frustration by setting fire to buildings. Who knows.
The place where that Chinese restaurant stood was cleaned up, and now it's just an empty parking lot that will most likely stay that way.
Not only can I never go to that restaurant ever again, no building exists where it used to be.
Oh.
That one also hit me, and definitely more so than the card shop closing did. A card shop is a whatever thing, but family memories were made at that tacky Chinese restaurant. It would be one thing if the restaurant owner closed shop and some other business took the building, but that's not what happened. The building burned down. Ugh..
Learning to let go is important
The older I get, the more I understand that nothing is forever.
There are very few things that I know will stick around.
Where places are concerned, state parks pretty much stay the same since they're not places of commerce. Maybe a gate will be fixed/updated. Maybe some trees will be planted along with other beautification. Maybe a small shed or other small building will be constructed or removed. But as far as the park itself is concerned, that stays the same. As for any residential or commercial building, yeah there's no guarantee it will even be there next week.
For possessions, steel non-mechanical things stand the test of time. This could be any number of things like flatware, jewelry, all-steel tools, and so on. Anything plastic on the other hand is doomed from the start. That plastic, at some point, will degrade and break.
Wooden things can last, depending on type of wood and how it was constructed. For example, if cabinets were made from marine grade plywood (the best and heaviest kind), I am fairly certain they would last at least 50 years, with the only thing possibly breaking on them being the hinges and not the wood itself. Then again, industrial grade hinges would make future hinge problems a nonissue right quick.
The possessions I have that I hang on to are small in number, but are manageable. This is not to say I've not lost things, because I have. For what I do have, if there is any way I can get a duplicate, I get it if it's not crazy-expensive. This is why I bought a second 1989 Squier II Stratocaster guitar. I still have my first one, which is my first guitar, and it's the second one that gets played sometimes whenever I want an old-Strat fix. Also in my possession is something I was miraculously able to find a duplicate of on eBay, the exact same keychain I've had since my teens. I still have my original, but the dupe is what I use now just because I like it.
I have a few other things that are totally in the "only valuable to me" category, but again, small and manageable.
There is one thing I do concerning locations that allows me to save them in my own way. I get the GPS coordinates and keep them in a list. This is something I've been doing for years when I started realizing certain destinations can change drastically to the point of being unrecognizable, such as the Chinese place being burned to the ground.
Any time I'm driving and I come to a place where I think that I may visit it again, that gets saved in the Garmin right then and there. Later on, I copy the coordinates from the Garmin and put it into my list.
In my list are locations that aren't necessarily important to anyone else, but interesting to me. For example, I have the location of a former CompUSA saved that's now an EV dealership. I have the location of a former Sam Ash store that's now a Spirit Halloween. I also have the locations saved of places where I used to live, and for houses of where relatives used to live that have been gone for years.
There is one location I've been desperately trying to find for probably about 15 years now. The memory I have of it is very hazy. It was either a class trip or possibly a "kid's adventure" style thing my parents signed me up for before high school. About once a year I spend something like four to six hours going through Google Maps trying to find that location, and have never been able to find it. The only lead I have is from the hazy memory I have of the place. It was some kind of high point with a concrete or marble (or both) structure at the top, very tourist-friendly, with woods around it, with a very clear view of fields far below in the distance. If you think you know where this is, trust me, you don't. I have looked at photos of every mountaintop area in the region where I think it might be (somewhere in New England or possibly New York). I have looked at all the ski mountaintop areas too. I have looked at mountain areas that are now closed. I also expanded outside of mountaintop areas to anywhere with a high point. I even used AI to help try to locate the place. Every time, I end up empty-handed. But I've not given up hope. One day I will find it, AND IF I DO, oh yes, those coordinates will be saved, and you bet your ass I'm going to visit that place again.
I had a similar situation happen in Florida where I went to a very specific spot. At the time I actually did have GPS, and thought, "Yeah, I'd better save this...? Nah, I'll remember it."
I didn't remember it.
A few years later, I was scanning around with Google Maps, and whammo, FOUND IT. Oh, that made me a happy guy. Coordinates were saved, and I went there again. It was still awesome. That was the trigger moment that made me start saving coordinates in a list, and have been doing it ever since.
Now if I can just find that one frickin' spot in the northeast... ugh. Someday. I'm not letting go of that. I've let go of plenty of other things, but not that. The hunt is still on.
dopey gen y women regretting tattoos
Before I can talk about Gen Y girls who now realize getting tattoos was a seriously stupid mistake, I have to talk about the Gen X tattoo experience first.
I have no tattoos at all, but I knew a lot of people who did. And I know 100% of them all regret it.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was listening to metal music, playing pretty much nothing but metal on guitar, and hung around with people who were also into metal. And you absolutely can't be around people like that without seeing tattoos everywhere.
To some degree, I was the "weirdo" for not having any tattoos. And oh yeah, there were friends I had at the time who tried to make me go get one several times. Pretty much everyone I knew back then knew a guy who could ink me up. Whether it was just some dude who would do the inking in his house for cheap, or going to a parlor where you'd pay more, there was plenty of choice to be had. When I think about it, the choice available was quite impressive considering I grew up in Small Town Nowheresville USA.
When tattoos became super trendy in the mid-to-late-2000s due to all the reality TV shows about it, all the Gen X folk who had tattoos were pleased as punch about that since tats were now "cool".
Yeah, well, that didn't last.
Tattoos today will never be as "cool" as they were, as that time is long gone. Now you've got a bunch of tattooed Gen X who got old and fat. All that ink has now faded, all the weight put on stretched everything out, all the sharp lines of the original artwork fuzzed. It all looks like shit.
Gen X people who got tats back in the day all have regret for that decision. Every one of them.
As for the Gen Y girls, who at the present time are age 30-45, you would think they would have learned a valuable lesson (as in DON'T DO IT) from seeing what happened to tattooed Gen X girls. Nope. A bunch of them said screw it, and got inked up in their late teens and early 20s.
The inked up Gen Y girls in their early 30s now are the funniest of the lot. They say they feel regret for the ink they got in their younger years, but truly have no idea what's coming.
I would argue that women under 35 can still get away with tattoos because they have youth on their side, especially if they're fit. But once middle age truly kicks in, that is when the regret truly hits.
Inked up Gen X girls learned the very hard way that you cannot erase your age no matter how hard you try. Even if you lose the weight, get fit, and throw a bunch of money at cosmetic surgeries and whatever, you are never getting that early-20s girl back. Skin will stretch, wrinkle, and change color. Age spots will happen, possibly along with blotches here and there. Aging happens, and that's fine, except these girls all have ink loudly telling everybody who they were that doesn't even represent who they are now.
Back in my early and mid 20s when I saw all my metalhead friends at the time getting inked up, in my mind was the thought of, "that's a really bad idea". I wasn't thinking of what that ink would look like in the future. I wasn't thinking of how having ink would damage professional endeavors. I wasn't even thinking about the judgment of others when they would see the ink.
What I was thinking about was the permanence of that ink on my skin, and that's why I never pulled the trigger on getting a tattoo. Even in my young-and-dumb 20s, I recognized there was no way I could just take a shower and wash away that ink. The thought of not having an "undo" for that legitimately scared me.
There was also the whole Prerequisite Rules For Being A Metalhead thing that really rubbed me the wrong way, i.e. you must dress in all black all the time, must only listen to metal music and nothing else, must this, must that, must whatever, must blah blah blah. All in the name of being rebellious, except there's nothing rebellious about it. It's conformist. And part of that conformity to be "cool" with the metal crowd meant you must have tattoos. Yes, plural. Several of them. Ink up your whole body. Hop to it.
My thought on that was, "Yeah, I don't think so", which ended up being actual real rebellion compared to all those metalheads who were just a bunch of lemmings following each other.
For the Gen X girls who were all metal/punk/whatever years ago with tattoos everywhere, they all ended up in one of three states. Either old/fat/dumpy/bitter, old/thin/sickly/bitter, or old/thin/sickly/loopy.
The last one is, of course, the most interesting of the three. These broads are genuinely very nice people, and any sense of that pseudo-rebellious attitude is thankfully long gone, but they are absolutely hopped up on prescription brain pills 24/7. The brain pills are part of whatever else is in the cocktail of drugs they take for their ailments on the daily.
Broads like this are basically permanently dazed, hence the pleasant attitude. They can function and get by, but can't really do anything too complicated. As for all the tattoos they have, they stopped caring about those a long time ago. Too expensive to have removed, and too expensive to have them all redone, so they gave up on that. Their existence now is cats (they all have cats), astrology (they all own tarot decks), and gardening.
Inked Gen Y girls will all have the same fate, as their future has already been decided. They'll just be a bunch of haggard looking cat ladies who never go out on days when Mercury or Neptune is doing weird shit or whatever, and grow tomatoes. And maybe make their own soaps.
It's not all doom and gloom, however. Many of the inked Gen X girls got themselves out of their personal hell and got centered once again by losing weight, getting crafty and getting outside. They know how to do things like fix a washing machine, mend and paint a fence, re-tile a bathroom and so on, among other things. A fair amount of them also went all-in with the "modern witch" look, which to be honest is kinda cute. Instead of that stupid rebellious look nonsense, they dress in flowy garb that's more classy. Nothing wrong with that. Some also got healthy enough to get off the brain pills, which is a significant improvement moving forward.
In their own way, some inked up Gen X girls found their way to be proper women as best they could and make it work. Gen Y girls will have to do the same when their time comes.
Tattoos today? Fake it, and be unapologetic about it.
I honestly don't know why anybody would bother with permanent tattoos in the first place when temporary tattoos (and sleeves) exist. Heck, you can even get a little tattoo printer now to just make up whatever.
Yes, all those tattoos are fake, but 100% of them have the "undo" built right in. Don't like the way one came out? WASH IT OFF, problem solved.
I've seriously thought about buying some temp tattoos and posting videos of myself with some applied just for the goof. Or better yet, purposely changing the tattoo to something different every so often in the same spot just to throw people off. I think that's funny.
$80 oil change
I found out very recently that the price of oil changes might go up, so even though my car didn't need one right now, I got an oil change anyway. Drove to my local garage, and was expecting the price to be $35 to $50. Nope. I was told $91, but was able to get the place to knock it down to $80 out the door.
The price I paid was just under the wire before it gets really bad.
How bad?
$120 bad, before tax. And that's for a cheap car like mine. For other cars, anywhere from $150 to $300, and that's not even for a luxury car. And no, I'm not kidding...
...so it's not that oil change prices might go up, they have gone up and will go up even higher.
Motor oil prices started getting jacked up in the beginning of May, but starting next month will be when $100+ will be the norm for an oil change.
Is it the Middle East oil supply disruption that caused this crap? From what I understand, yes. How long will this go on until oil supply is stabilized again? Could be a few months up to a year.
However, that doesn't mean garages will lower their prices even when the price of motor oil goes back down.
I was changing the oil in my car myself for a while, but then started having a local garage do it instead. When my next oil change is due, I may go back to doing it myself if garages don't lower their prices after motor oil prices go back down.
I'll be watching the prices, to be sure.
If the sting of paying 3 digits for an oil change is too much, learn how to change the oil in your car. I'd also strongly recommend buying a pack of oil filters. The combination of buying the motor oil locally and ordering your filters online is how you maximize savings.
I also have one other recommendation that works for most cars. Go 100% synthetic with your oil. Why? Lasts longer. Not just in your car, but an unopened container of it has a 5 to 7 year shelf life.
the other surf green strat i totally forgot about
You go through enough guitars, and sometimes you forget the ones you owned in the past.
I still have the Sonic Strat in Surf Green. It's good and I've had it for over a month now.
Before buying that guitar, I had not seen it in person, so I was worried about whether Squier's version of Surf Green would be to my liking or not. When I saw it in person fresh out of the box at Guitar Center, I knew instantly yes, good color. And then after buying it, I thought hey, nice to own my first Surf Green Strat.
But it wasn't the first.
I should first note that my Squier Sonic Stratocaster is a Surf Green with maple fingerboard, which is a Guitar Center exclusive color combination. However, elsewhere you will find it with a dark fretboard (which I think is Indian Laurel). I'm okay with the Surf + maple combo, but you may be one of those players that thinks Surf + dark fingerboard looks better. Guitar Center doesn't have that as it's an online-only thing.
Second to note is that Sea Foam Green is NOT Surf Green, as Sea Foam has more blue in it. You may see a few of those kicking around.
And this brings me to that Fender Player Stratocaster I owned briefly back in 2021.
That guitar was technically not Surf Green, but rather Surf Pearl. It was a color I didn't even want, but had to go with it due to the fact it was the only Player model I tried that didn't suck.
I've told this story before, so here's a recap:
Back then when the Player was "only" just over $800 after sales tax (the Player II is now $920 after tax in most US states), I wanted one in a color called Buttercream.
Summarized, I had to try FIVE different Player models at TWO different Guitar Center stores just to find one that wasn't terrible. FOUR of them, two Buttercream and two Polar White, all had bad nuts that made sitar noises on the unwound plain strings. Only one didn't, which was one in Surf Pearl, so that's what I went with.
I was never in love with the color, which I'll get more into in a moment.
That Fender did not stay with me because I quickly discovered the B and high-E were too tight as a result of no string guide spacer from the factory. I had to go to ANOTHER Guitar Center just to get that stupid part, installed it, and... it didn't fix the problem. I got rid of the guitar shortly after that as it was still well within the return window. The money on that stupid spacer was wasted.
Surf Pearl is a sorta/kinda metallic Surf Green but at the same time not really. It's one of the weirder colors from Fender. I never truly took a liking to it.
Consider Surf Pearl to be "You Wish This Was Surf Green But It Isn't", and that sums that color up.
As for my Sonic Strat, it does have a real-deal Surf Green. No metallic flake and a "minty" hue to it, just like it should look. And by that I mean as it should look for a gloss polyurethane finished body.
Nitro finish over Surf Green does look a touch greener while gloss poly mutes it a bit. I'm okay with this. Almost the exact same color muting happens with Fenders in Surf Green that are urethane finished instead of lacquered, so this is not a unique-to-Squier thing.
This is of course assuming you can even get a current production Fender Stratocaster in Surf Green with nitro finishing that doesn't have the dopey two-post bridge... which you currently can't. How do I know? I looked through the Fender catalog. Yeah, they have a few Surf Green Strats, but none with a proper 6-screw bridge. The closest you'll get with the 6-screw bridge is the American Vintage II 1957 Stratocaster in Sea Foam Green, which again is not Surf Green.
You can and should hold out for a color you really want...
...and shouldn't have to pay extra for it either.
If there weren't an option for Surf Green on the Sonic Strat, two other colorways currently offered works for me. There's basic black, which is a black body with all-maple neck a.k.a. Eric Clapton "Blackie" style, and an Arctic White HT version with white guard and blond neck. Either one of those would also suit me fine.
I got lucky twice with the Surf Green Sonic Strat I bought. It was available, thankfully cheap, and on sale at the time I bought it. Doesn't get much better than that.
Oh, and I didn't have to fight with the guitar either like I did with the aforementioned Fender. On first play, the Squier was good and needed nothing.
let's go to waimart to buy a tooi
All email should be text-only with no HTML at all, displayed in a monospaced font across the entire interface, and I'm going to show you why.
I recently had to add two misspellings to my email filters, waimart and tooi. Both of these "words" do not exist outside of email spam.
The entire reason these "words" exist is to fool the reader, you, into thinking they're something else. It's an exploitation of many sans-serif fonts.
This is best shown by example:
Here is a phrase using a sans-serif font:
And now the exact same phrase using a monospaced font:
If you're thinking the two phrases are different, you're wrong, they're the same. A capital I on a sans-serif font looks almost identical to a lowercase l.
And when I say the monospaced font should be across the entire mail interface, I'm not kidding.
Take this example:
Do you think you're reading that correctly?
It's actually this:
Still think you're reading it correctly?
Let's change that to uppercase:
I'll guess you probably saw what it actually was in monospaced lowercase.
Now imagine the sans-serif version in a tiny font displaying the From address in your mail client or phone. Do you think you would catch it then? I doubt it, regardless of how good your eyesight is.
Bear in mind that field is not part of the message but rather a different part of the mail interface...
...which is why I say a monospaced font should be across the entire mail interface. From field, Subject field, To field, and the body of the message. All of it. No exceptions.
If you have the ability to do so, switch over everything you can in your email to display in a monospaced font only. And if you can do the same for your text messaging app on your phone, do so.
Monospaced fonts is whatever "looks like typewriter", such as Courier New or PT Mono.