squier sonic stratocaster acquired, i'm home again
Out with the Squier Affinity Telecaster, in with the Squier Sonic Stratocaster. Yep. You can see me play and talk about it if you like.
This is one of those "why didn't I do this sooner" maneuvers, or so I thought.
The reality is that right now was the right time to get this guitar. It was time to go home again, so to speak.
There's the saying you can never go home again, but that's not always true. In some cases, time needs to pass before you can make your return home and truly enjoy it for what it is.
Such is the case with the Sonic Strat.
As I just said recently, I'm really jaded when it comes to guitars these days, and screw it, I'm fine with what I have.
But then the Sonic Strat went on sale with a rather sizable discount. Ah.
A voice in my head said, "It's time for that Tele to go. Trade it out and get that Strat. Trust me."
I didn't argue with myself on this one. While the Affinity Tele I had was perfectly fine and had nothing wrong with it, it was time to part ways with that guitar. I packed it in a spare gig bag I had, and off to the guitar store I went.
Tried out the Sonic Strat at the store. It felt good, sounded right, felt right. Bought it.
Before de-stickering it, I made a video first, posted that, then proceeded with the setup. For me, this was stupidly easy. I had everything done in about a half-hour. Neck adjusted, bridge saddles adjusted, a few other little odds and ends, new strings installed, done.
The price of a Sonic was also real nice, especially with the discount.
It's all about the formula
This Sonic is that very specific Squier formula for a Strat that I am intimately familiar with. Slim profile Strat body, 6-screw bridge with short/skinny block and block string saddles, bright ceramic magnet pickups, 21-fret neck. This guitar is home to me. I know this.
Squier has had this style of guitar in their lineup for almost 40 years. The first true "value" Squier Strats were made when Fender moved Squier production out of Japan and to Korea and Indonesia in 1987.
It just happened to be that my very first electric guitar (which I still own) is a 1989 Squier II Stratocaster, manufactured by Samick out of Korea. A "first generation value Strat", if you will.
When guitar snobs talk about "good" Squier Strats, what they're referring to is the Japanese made stuff prior to 1987. That's not home for me. Home is what came after '87. Before Classic Vibe series, before Vintage Modified series, and even before Affinity series.
In '89, for Strats there was Squier Standard and Squier II Standard. That's it. There were two because two separate manufacturers were being used at the time. The H.M. ("Heavy Metal") I and II and Contemporary were also made that year, but do not count because neither follow that bog standard Squier Strat formula. It's the Standards that matter.
Over the years, this bog standard Squier Strat has changed model names, manufacturers, body woods, fretboard woods and so on, but the formula has stayed the same.
Right now, this formula is applied to the Sonic model. Mine is an Indonesia build. Prior to this, I had one when it was called a Bullet Strat, made from 2007-2012. Mine was a 2010, and that was a China build.
I'm not a Fender guy because I can't be
Fender makes no Stratocaster guitar right now that has the Strat formula I'm looking for. I've gone through their entire catalog, which includes the Artist models, and not a single one suits. If it's not those crappy bent steel saddles, it's the pickups or some other wacky electronics. If it's not the pickups or wacky electronics, it's the 22-fret neck. If it's not the 22-fret neck, the neck has some weirdo shape. If not the weird neck shape, it's the tuners used. If it's not the tuners, it's that crappy 2-point bridge. It's always something. I can't even use their "Mod Shop" to craft the custom build I want. Not possible.
What would work is what Fender used to make from 1998-2005, the Fender Standard Stratocaster, as in the Mexico build. In fact, I'm genuinely surprised Fender does not offer a Strat in that spec, silver "transition" logo and all. Nostalgia sells, and it's weird they don't jump on that.
The only thing I ever remember people complaining about with that MIM Fender Strat is that it was The Most Boringest Fender. True? Yes, but that's what made it great. Just a bog standard Strat with ceramic magnet pickups. Absolutely nothing special about it, but wow, did it work well. Fender made a million of those Brown Sunburst MIM Strats. Probably literally. That is the ultimate comfort food Strat if there ever was one, and it was good. After a string saddle change from bent steel to block, that is.
Well, Fender doesn't make a Strat in that '90s design, and won't. Even if I wanted to be a Fender guy, Fender simply doesn't do anything '90s. Oh, they have every other decade covered, true enough. But '90s? Nope. They ignore that one and ignore it hard.
Then there's Squier that had exactly the Strat I wanted, in that same formula from the late '80s/early '90s, in a great color as I got mine in Surf Green. And it just happened to be the Sonic, one of their lowest priced models.
Again, this guitar is home to me.
However...
The entire reason I said right now was the right time to get this guitar (other than the fact it was on sale) is that Sonic models from a year or so ago truly sucked. I had tried one prior. The tuners were total garbage, everything felt wrong, and it sounded terrible.
Fortunately, that's now changed. What's being made now gets the low tier Squier Strat formula right.
I'm not saying the Sonic uses top tier stuff, because it certainly doesn't. But at the same time, there's nothing about it that screams cheap-and-bad. Now it's cheap-and-good, like it's supposed to be.
Will I ever go Tele again? Or Jazzmaster? Or something else?
Certainly not right now.
I'm genuinely surprised that I don't miss the Tele at all. Again, what I had was good with nothing wrong going on. Heck, even the sales guy who took in the trade said, "Wow, this Tele is set up real nice." Yeah, I've become good at setups over the years. Even so, that wasn't enough to keep me in Tele-land.
It's too early to say for sure, but at this point I might be totally okay sticking with the Strats in my preferred formula that Squier does best. I might even get one of those MIM Fenders later like I mentioned a minute ago, as it only takes a swap of string saddles to give it that Squier formula I like. I'd also wire in tone control to the bridge-only pickup setting. The Sonic thankfully already has that wired in, but I'd do the same on the MIM Fender Standard just because I like having it.
I'm also not opposed to trying a Jazzmaster again in the future, but that might be a chase after a dead unicorn. My first Jazzmaster, a Squier Vintage Modified, was amazing. I wore out the neck from playing it so much. I had 4 other Jazzmasters after that, with one being a Fender, and none had the magic the first one did. Trying to get another that has the magic of that first one might be a fool's errand.
For now, I'm happily at home with the bog standard Squier Strat in Sonic flavor. I didn't expect to get this guitar at all, but I'm very glad to have it.
running a garmin drive 53 with traffic reporting
I've been using Garmin GPS automotive receivers for over two decades, own a pile of Garmins spanning from 2005 all the way to current models, know how to make my own maps from OpenStreetMap data, and so on. I know a lot about these things.
Something I do wonder is how a flat earth believer thinks GPS works. Do they believe orbiting GPS satellites just circle around the top of the dome? Probably.
My daily driver is currently a 53. For a few weeks or maybe a month by this point I've been using traffic reporting via the GTM36 charger+traffic cable.
For the United States specifically, Garmin did offer a "53 & Traffic" model for a while. All that meant was that it came with the charger+traffic cable. The 53 is still for sale, but now it's only available as a no-traffic model, and that's the one I own. However, since I already have a GTM36 cable, using that puts back in the traffic reporting.
I had avoided doing this for a while just because I wanted to run the 53 as-is. Then I said screw it, I own the cable, it wasn't cheap to buy, and this is probably the cable the 53 needs for traffic reporting. I was right, traffic reporting was enabled, and have been running the 53 that way since.
To be clear, this is not traffic data acquired via internet because the US model 53 has no ability to connect to a phone or wifi. All traffic data received is over FM, and the traffic reports are mainly for highway travel through major cities.
Does the traffic reporting work? Yes.
Does that make the drive any better? Debatable. And this can be said for anything that reports traffic aside from Garmins. Infotainment, phone app, whatever.
Complications are bad
The whole point of GPS assisted navigation is to make driving easier by knowing where the hell it is you're going.
Any complication that's added into the mix tacks on stress to the drive. Traffic reporting is a complication. Pairing a smartphone to the navigation system (which I don't and won't do) is a complication. Anything that adds in bleeping, blooping, notifications, needless animated crap and so on are all complications.
Something that is within my ability to do is get everything back to the basics. I could take one of my old nuvi models, purposely use OpenStreetMap maps that I make myself, and have a total no-frills setup. No speed limit displayed (meaning no nag for going 1mph over the limit), no lane assist animations, no junction view, no traffic reporting, purposely use a basic voice with no text-to-speech, no voice control. Just a dirt simple A-to-B navigation system. I could daily that, and it would work just fine.
There's been no wonky crap going on with the 53's traffic reporting, so I'm sticking with it for the time being. If things get weird, the traffic feature can be disabled. Or I can just go back to an old model like I described above.
It wouldn't be a bother to drive without traffic reporting if that's what I have to do. I drove without traffic reporting for the first 13 years I used GPS navigation, so it's not like I'm inexperienced navigating that way.
google has started to delete accounts
Google said if a Google account is inactive for two years, it will be deleted...
...back in 2023. Now it's 2026, and it's finally happening.
I have a few really old email accounts, which includes Yahoo. I get this email from Google saying hey, better login to your Google account or it's getting whacked. I thought it was spam at first, but no, legit. Except there's a problem. I never signed up a Google account using that Yahoo email. I thought okay, fine, I'll just do a "forgot password" thing, Google will send an email, I'll login, delete the account, done deal. Try to do that, but nope, can't. Google system says it doesn't recognize my location as normal for that account. Fine, whatever. I gave up.
Four days later, I receive this:
This was confirmation that I definitely never signed up a Google account with my Yahoo address. The Gmail account listed was a ridiculously long username that I'd obviously never choose, and someone or some bot somehow managed to get my Yahoo address listed there as the backup address, even though I was never notified about this until these emails.
It is normal and almost routine that I get emails from Google for accounts I never signed up for to my Yahoo address. I get between 3 to 5 of these a year, all for different accounts. But this is the first time I've seen an account outright whacked by Google for non-use.
Chances are pretty good this Google account had been dormant for well more than two years, and only now am I seeing real deal account closure notices.
As for whether the associated YouTube channel also gets deleted when a Google account gets whacked for dormancy, Google said, "[...] we do not have plans to delete accounts with YouTube videos at this time."
Again, that was 2023 and it's 2026 now.
As far as I know, Google won't delete an account if it has a YouTube channel with videos.
I think it's best practice that if you have a crusty old YouTube channel with a few videos, but haven't logged into that Google account for a while, go login now. Even if you don't have any videos, you probably want to keep the YouTube username you have, so again, login if you want to keep the account alive.
i am so jaded when it comes to guitars now
So I tried out a brand new Fender Player II Stratocaster limited edition in British Racing Green.
I've said before I do not like Strats in green and that if you're going to go green with a guitar, get a Gretsch. See Gretsch's Cadillac Green and you'll understand why I say that. When Fender does green, it's always awful. However, this is one of those rare greens from Fender that actually works on a Strat. It's dark with a small amount of metallic flake, so they get a pass on this one. You can watch me pluck around on it if you like.
Even though I actually liked the color, that wasn't enough to win me over.
I have a 2025 Squier Affinity Telecaster. Butterscotch blonde with maple neck, maple fingerboard and black guard. It works. It's fine.
I also have a pair of 1989 Squier II Stratocasters, both Torino Red with maple necks, maple fingerboards and white guards. The first one is my first guitar that I still have, bought new in 1990, and I don't play it very often. The second was bought much, much later, and play that specifically so I don't have to play the first one. It works for the most part, but does need new tuners and a new pickup selector switch. It's fine otherwise.
After not getting along with that Fender, I went online instead and ordered a 3-pack of my preferred strings (which is still Ernie Ball Super Slinky) and a new cheap leather guitar strap for my Squiers. I've actually never owned a leather strap and always use Polypro since those are inexpensive and genuinely good, but wanted to try something different.
Any story of how some dude found That Perfect Guitar is bullshit
Typical to whenever I play anything in a guitar store, absolutely no guitar feels correct out of the gate. I've never had that magic moment in the store where an electric guitar just felt and sounded 100% perfect, and doubt I ever will.
You'd think by now after playing all these years that I would have found my "Number One". Nope. I've been in many guitar stores, tried many guitars, owned many guitars. What ultimately what ends up happening is I just buy whatever agrees with me that I think looks nice or nice enough.
One of the few things I've not tried is constructing my own guitar. Recently, I was really close to buying a Leo Jaymz DIY guitar kit. Stupid cheap and stupid easy to put together. There's the choice of Strat, Tele, Explorer, Les Paul solid body, Les Paul semihollow, Rhoads V (like what Jackson makes), JEM (like what Ibanez makes) and Iceman (Ibanez makes that too).
One thing I know for a fact is that electric bass players construct their own basses a lot. Bass players fight with off-the-shelf basses so much that they just say to hell with it and make their own. And yeah, Leo Jaymz has electric bass DIY kits too, even for stuff like a Rickenbacker 4001 shape.
It is totally doable, and honestly fairly easy, to piece together something from a kit and create That Perfect Guitar. At this point in my guitar playing life, I know enough about how electric guitars work to craft such a thing.
Right now I'm good with what I have, but whatever I get next will probably be a DIY kit since I know what's in the guitar store will never completely agree with me.
angelfire and tripod, gone
This is on the front of Lycos today:
To our users of Angelfire and Tripod. We apologize for the service interruptions. Unfortunately we will be shutting down in the next 30 days. Please move your hosting to another host as soon as possible.
...and probably won't be there next week since Angelfire and Tripod will be closed down on April 5, 2026. Or at least that's what the internet tells me.
It's funny how I found out about this.
I was looking up email providers just to see if any of the really old stuff was still in operation. Excite Mail still exists, but only as another Gmail since the Excite-run version was closed down August 31, 2021. This does make me wonder if you can actually sign up a Gmail account and have it end in @excite.com. Probably not, but it would be cool if you could.
Lycos still does offer free email addresses. I wouldn't get one because the service could get shut off at any moment. But when I went to the Lycos site, there was this huge notice that Angelfire and Tripod were shutting down.
What the hell are Angelfire and Tripod? Free web hosting services from forever ago, as in late '90s forever ago. These were places where you'd sign up and make some web pages.
I did use both Angelfire and Tripod in that forever ago era, but quickly dumped them once I got my own web site.
The Angelfire/Tripod closure is happening pretty much the exact same way AOL Hometown and Geocities closed. A small notice given, no easy option presented to back up your stuff at all, and then BUH-BYE, deleted...
...which is the way of things on the internet. Take this as a warning that if there's anything you care about at all that you posted online, download a copy right frickin' now. Get some USB sticks and download everything. In fact, make two copies on two separate sticks just in case one of the sticks bugs out on you. All your photos, all your videos, all your journal posts if you made any of those, all your social media posts, all your contact lists, all calendar schedules, all documents, all spreadsheets, whatever. Download EVERYTHING.
If you don't do it, you will lose it.