A thing to watch out for with cheap Strat copy guitars
This is a very easy thing to miss, and it can drastically change the way the guitar plays.
Cheap guitars are cool, so when you see something like the Grote guitar that sells for under $100 new, you think hey, I'll get that, set it up myself and it'll play great.
Not so fast. There's something you're missing that you probably didn't even notice.
The string guides.
If you look at any Strat style guitar with a straight (meaning not angled back) headstock, it has one or two string guides to keep the strings from popping out of the nut during play.
A string guide introduces a break angle. If there is a single guide, two strings (high-E and B) have the break angle changed. If there are two guides, four strings (high-E, B, G, D) have the break angle changed.
The steeper the break angle, the tighter the string will feel when tuned to pitch (especially during string bending).
The Grote seen above, while certainly cheap and totally playable, has guides that are closer to the nut than usual.
Examine the cheap Squier Bullet Stratocaster for an example of traditional guide spacing from the nut. Notice how the guide that holds down the D and G strings is just before the A-string tuning post, and how the guide holding the B and high-E strings is just after the A-string tuning post.
Yes, placement of guides on the headstock does make a differece, and again, this is a very easy thing to miss.
Generally speaking, guides that are closer to the nut will have strings that feel tighter, and not necessarily in a good way.
How do you test whether the string guides are adding too much string tension or not, and what can you do about it?
This test is very easy.
Loosen the strings. Take the strings off the guides, tune the guitar back up to pitch, then play and see if it feels different.
If the strings feel easier to play, then you know the guides are the problem.
Fixing this problem is fortunately cheap. Use nylon spacers. I can't tell you the exact size of spacer to use because it varies from guitar to guitar.
A second option is to take out the guides and install a string retainer bar instead. You will of course have to drill new holes in the headstock to install this, and this isn't much of a bother with cheap off-brand guitars since it was cheap to begin with.
The main advantage of using the retainer bar is that you can adjust the height. If you set it too low (you would know if strings feel too tight during note bends), you can detune the strings, back out the screws a little bit to raise the bar a little, tune back up, adjust as desired.
Another advantage of the retainer bar is that if you find yourself knocking the low-E or low-A string out of the nut sometimes from hard play, that bar will keep those strings in the nut even if you play like a caveman.
Sometimes all it takes to get a cheap Strat copy guitar truly playing like you want is a good setup, and getting your string break angles set just right on the headstock itself.
Burgundy Mist makes an appearance on a very affordable Telecaster
I like the look of this one. A lot. And the price is certainly right.
I'd argue this is one of the best applications of the Burgundy Mist finish I've ever seen.
Usually I only see this color on Strats. This time it's on the Squier Affinity Telecaster Deluxe.
The great part about this guitar, other than the color, is that it's a Deluxe model, meaning it has the contour curve in the back like a Strat does. What that means is that it's a very comfortable player. Looks like a plank from the front, but the back is where things get really comfortable whether playing sitting or standing. Very nice.
In addition, being it's an Affinity model, the tuners are better than on the Bullet series. Generally speaking, the Affinity series from Squier is good stuff. It's not the bargain basement Bullet, nor is it the upper priced Classic Vibe. It's right in the middle. You get something good without having to pay a bunch for it.
Great to see the Burgundy Mist finish again, and this is the best yet.
Bad vision friendly watch, Casio W218
This is probably the most legible digital watch there is, and it's fortunately cheap.
I'm middle aged, and while I'm not 50 just yet, I am starting to experience vision issues related to age.
Seen above is the Casio W218. Before getting into that, some info relating to my vision.
The specific thing going on with my vision happens right after I get up in the morning. Right after I wake up, I can barely read anything. Glasses on or off, doesn't matter. It takes me a good 5 minutes before I can really start to focus.
I don't use an alarm clock because I use the phone for that. However, I don't want to fumble around for the phone to check the time after just getting up, so I wear a watch to sleep. This is when I realized I need a watch that has high legibility without being a goofy-big thing, and it absolutely had to have a good night light for low-light reading. Casio W218 works great for this.
When I get up, my vision is fuzzy, the room is dark and I need a clock I can read. All I have to do is turn my wrist close to my face, press the night light button and oh yeah, I can read this even with glasses off. The amber night light fills the whole display and I can see and read it all.
Some specs and further explanation of what makes this watch so great
First, bear in mind I have a 6.5" (16.5cm) wrist, but whether you have skinny or big wrists, anybody can wear this.
Dimensions are 44.4mm lug-to-lug, 43.2mm width, 10.8mm thick. That makes it sound like a goofy-big watch. It isn't, and that's primarily due to the fact the lug-to-lug is short.
Also bear in mind the actual display itself. Yes, the watch is 43.2mm wide, but the bezel is thick. The display itself is about 21mm wide, which sounds too small, but that is compensated for with large LCD digits.
On paper, the dimensions make it sound like it wouldn't work at all, but in practical use, it's actually just right.
Another thing going for this watch is high contrast LCD. The LCD panel is a light gray, basically identical in color to the F-91W. Easy to read at any angle. But the huge advantage over the F-91W is the night light.
Looks like a classic square G-SHOCK, except you can actually read it
When talking about the classic square G-SHOCK, the two models most people go for are the DW5600E (basic) and GWM5610 (tough solar, atomic timekeeping). Both of those are great watches with great night lights, but have displays with small digits and an LCD panel that washes out easily when viewed at an angle.
The W218 does have a classic G-SHOCK square appearance. It doesn't have the water resistance of a G-SHOCK (50m compared to 200m) nor is it anywhere near as tough, but the price is right and it's far more legible.
Is the W218 basically an F-91W?
Functionally, yes. If you took an F-91W, gave it a bigger LCD with bigger digits, far better night light and thickened up the strap, you get the W218.
Literally, the only difference in watch operation is that two buttons are flipped. On the F-91W, the night light button is on the left and start/stop button on the right. On the W218, night light button is on the right and start/stop on the left. Other than that, the feature set between the two is exactly the same.
It pretty much doesn't get any better than this for digital watch legibility
The W218 has a high contrast LCD with large digits and great night light in a case that isn't goofy-big, and it's easy to operate. It doesn't get any better than that.
It comes in several colors. I prefer the classic black myself, but there is also red, orange, green and blue.
How I feel about the phone these days as a Gen-X in the 20s
Phones are good for everything except talking on them.
I'll first that that yes, I'm calling this decade the '20s. We're over 20 years into it now, nobody confuses the 2020s with the 1920s, so it's okay.
Do I call the 2010s the tens? Yes. But for years 2000-2009, I do call those the two-thousands (or 2000s in written form for short) because referring to them as "oughts" is just weird.
Also, small complaint: It annoys me whenever anybody says "year two thousand" when referring to that year specifically. Just say 2000.
We're never getting back how awesome phone conversations were in the late '90s
I'm not referring to what people talked about in the '90s but rather the feel and the sound of the conversations.
Landline phone tech for the home had its peak in the late '90s and early 2000s. This was a time when the sound quality was as good as it ever got on the old style systems. Absolutely no lag from when you spoke to when the other person heard you and vice versa. The phone designs were amazing, and the handsets had great battery life. Speakerphones even on cheap home systems were great too.
For the cordless systems, gone were the retracting antennas, replaced with small stubby ones. And the wireless frequency that worked best was 2.4GHz. There was a short period where 5.6GHz was promoted as an "upgrade", but it was terrible compared to 2.4. The range you got on 2.4GHz was incredible. Talk anywhere in the house, outside in the yard, basement, wherever. It always worked.
In addition to that, it was not uncommon to keep a phone for 5 to 10 years before replacing it. There was simply nothing to break on them.
The modern smartphone: Very usable with data OFF
I use a prepaid smartphone service that allows me to receive normal calls and texts using no data. Whenever I need data for some internet thing when not at the house, I can enable it temporarily. When at the house, I just use Wi-Fi when needed.
The reason I mention this is because there are some carriers out there that require data to be on all the time just for phone service to work. I hope it's a good long while before I ever have to deal with a phone that requires always-on data, as I would find that genuinely annoying.
I like texting, taking photos and making videos
These are the 3 things I like best about the smartphone. I use the Textra app for my texts (it's amazing). It's easy to make high quality videos. Where photos are concerned, I really like that I can geotag them.
Before the smartphone, I had been searching for a point-and-shoot digital camera that had GPS specifically to geotag photos. I never bought one because they were way too expensive and still are. For whatever stupid reason, getting a point-and-shoot camera with geotagging is a big ask. On the phone however, it's built right in.
Granted, a camera like a Canon PowerShot or a Panasonic LUMIX takes far superior photos when compared to a phone... but the phone makes geotagging, storing and sharing of photos stupidly easy.
I don't like talking on the phone anymore
It's been years since I've had any sort of long conversation on the phone. Once you go smartphone, long voice conversations just isn't a doable thing for several reasons.
There's no way to comfortably hold a plastic brick (the phone) for a long period of time.
The sound quality is terrible.
I refuse to use an ear bud because it makes my ear sore quickly, and I don't like having a speaker physically in my ear. Yes, I've tried several different types of buds. All terrible.
All smartphones have "overtalking" problems where if you use the microphone and speaker on the handset itself, you're guaranteed to talk over the person you're conversing with and them talk over you. This is because the mic and speaker on smartphones, including expensive ones, are just cheap tinny little things. The phone tries to smooth it out with audio processing, but nope, it's bad. That's just the way it is.
Use the speakerphone? Forget it. Same overtalking problem, only louder.
Because of all this crap, I can only stand to talk on a smartphone for maybe 5 minutes.
Is there a way to use an old style cordless phone with a smartphone when home?
Yes.
Panasonic, as far as I'm concerned, does make the best cordless phones. Back in the day I spent over $100 on a set from them, and wow, was that phone glorious. Loved it.
They're still making great cordless phones now with the addition of linking it to a smartphone. When you search Panasonic Link2Cell, that's when you find their BlueTooth handsets.
These things have the stuff that makes talking on the phone not terrible. Some have an amplification option. Some also have a "SLOW" mode that literally slows the speed of speech you hear in real time.
Is this the same as talking on the phone at home in the late '90s? Not exactly, but it's the closest thing to it.
Do I prefer text over talk?
I'm not one of those guys who believes things were oh-so much better when people actually talked on the phone.
From years ago before the smartphone era, I can distinctly remember having certain friends at that time who did the extremely annoying thing of calling me while loud things were going on around them. Or worse yet, doing that, talking to me and other people in the room at the same time.
Yeah, I don't miss that. At all.
Another thing I don't miss are people that don't know how to end a phone conversation. You know the type. They seem to enjoy long awkward moments of silence. After enough of that crap, you say, "WELL OKAY THEN I guess I'll talk to ya later" and suddenly then they have a bunch to say, then stop... and the awkward silence happens again.
I don't miss that either.
It's safe to say yes, I do prefer text.
I wouldn't want to go back to cordless phones
If I really wanted better voice calling, I'd get that Panasonic set. But the fact I'm so used to not talking on the phone makes it not worth the bother.
I'm also not hot on the idea of using a separate camera from my phone, which would not have geotagging.
Right now, as things stand, I'm okay with my smartphone. It's not perfect (what phone is?), but it does get the job done.
Some people "live on their phone". I don't. But at the same time, I've come to realize that in this modern era, the smartphone is required. Not just for communications but also because there are some services where if you don't have a smartphone, it's not only inconvenient but outright prevents access to certain stuff.
It's fun to look back on what I used to use in the late '90s for phone tech, but it's definitely something that should stay there.
A better green Fender Telecaster
If you're going to go green with a Telecaster, this is the way to do it.
I made mention of a seriously fugly Fender Telecaster Player Plus elsewhere in a terrible color called Cosmic Jade. Horrible. Green guitars are terrible.
However, this one isn't.
Take the Fender Player Telecaster in Olive. When it comes to a green Telecaster, this one is done right.
The darker green works great. The mint green pick guard works great with the body color. The dark fingerboard works with the body color also.
Would I actually own this guitar? Yes. I could see myself playing something like this often because it's a CME exclusive color (meaning not part of the standard Fender catalog).
I actually like the understated look of this quite a bit, because sometimes it will look black depending on the light, and other times the green shows up. I also really dig the fact there is no metal flake in this finish, giving it a super "smooth" look.
Olive, when done right, really works. And this Telecaster does. Heck, even the chrome looks more shiny and special when against Olive.
Is this Tele priced higher than others? No! You don't have to pay any extra to get it, so if green is your thing, get this guitar.