so sam ash closed all their stores
I didn't see this coming, but it happened.
Sam Ash is a musical instrument retailer that had 42 stores in the USA across 16 states, 9 of which were in Florida. I did shop at the Tampa store several times. In fact, that's where I first saw the then-new Squier Vintage Modified series back in the early 2010s. They had all the models, and it's where I got to play my first Squier Jazzmaster. It was amazing.
So when did this happen?
What I will describe to you in a moment actually works for almost any bolt-on neck, but it's the Fender and Squier guitars where people notice this the most.
Misaligned guitar neck defined: This is when the high-E string or low-E string is too close to the edge of the neck, causing it to buzz out like crazy and/or "jump" off the fretboard during guitar play.
Examine this photo first:
Some news about my current guitar "stable" and what I plan on doing in the future.
I'll first list off what I have and why I've not gone ahead and bought another guitar recently.
What I have: Two 1989 Squier II Stratocasters, Squier Affinity Stratocaster, Squier Classic Vibe '60s Jazzmaster, 1993 Fender American Stratocaster (currently in pieces, nonfunctional).
What I've been wanting to do for my next guitar is get something slightly more upscale. However, there are a few problems I keep encountering.
AITONE emailed and offered to send a looper pedal to me for free to review. I accepted.
Any time I accept a pedal for review, it has to offer something good that separates it from other like pedals. With the AT07, it offers are few good things I really like.
At the tail of this is my full video review, but here's a quick rundown of how it works and my thoughts on the AT07.
There was a time when I was all about mechanical PC keyboards. I stopped with all that nonsense once my hands started hurting from use of one of those. I would keep bottoming/"thudding" the keys. It did not matter what switch type I used. If the keyboard was mechanical, I would bottom the keys. Not good.
I switched back to regular PC keyboards, and yep, no more hand pain. But I had to find the right one, which I did.
For a while now I've been avoiding eating at Chipotle mainly due to it being complicated. That restaurant is one of those places where you have to know how to order before even going in there. Some say that Chipotle is basically Subway, but instead of sandwiches it's burritos, bowls and tacos. Eh... sort of.
I finally went to a Chipotle. And it sucked.
Many moons ago, I got exposed to one of the best damned printers ever made, the HP LaserJet 4 Plus. People love this thing so much that they are STILL reconditioned and sold on eBay to this day, STILL have new toner cartridges manufactured for them, and STILL have repair kits and replacement parts made to fix them. That's the staying power of the HP LaserJet 4 Plus. It's that good even though it was made 30 years ago.
What made the HP LJ 4+ so good is that it just worked. Black-and-white printing only, reasonable print speed and rock-solid reliable. They were built for office use and cranked out print after print with no complaints.
But can you get this with a new printer now for the home?
On paper, this thing sounds darned near perfect. But there's one thing about it that's not-so good. Bad, in fact.
I really like that Casio has been introducing a good amount of squared-off digitals lately. There's nothing wrong with round, but LCD digits by their very nature are angular, so a square/rectangle shape totally works with it. The WS1700H is a good example of that, as that model is big, square, and not sorry about it.
Certain events happen in my life that prove to me yes, this modern era is just plain dumb sometimes.
Spiral bound memo pads in 3x5 size, with the spiral being a metal coil. A simple thing. It's been around a very long time. The spiral bound notebook itself has been around since the 1930s. I don't know how long the 3x5 size of this has been around, but it has to be at least 70 years.
My preferred style of this memo pad is with the spiral on top of the page. It's easier to tear off pages and use either side of a page without the spiral getting in the way.
What do they look like?
Something I started doing about 16 years ago in the late-2000s is using direct GPS coordinates to get to places. Why? Address search sucked. It's not that the address couldn't be located, but rather the place I was directed to was incorrect.
Sometimes the destination was a little incorrect by putting me on the wrong side of the street. Other times it was really wrong by putting me over a block away from where I wanted to be. For example, in large shopping mall areas that take up acres of space, I don't want to be directed to the mall entrance. Rather, I want to be sent directly to the store entrance. Big difference.
I learned early on that the only thing that really works 100% of the time is using coordinates, so that's what I've been using for over 15 years. However, the way I do it these days has changed slightly.
