The modern American large mall experience
I do love how you can smell the money burning in a place like this.
Recently, I went to a shopping mall. A nice one, mind you. The type that's in a town that has money and the locals who live around it also have money. As in the kind of locals who live in overpriced McMansions and their kids go to charter or private schools.
Crazy things about malls like this: It has industrial design trying and failing to feel homey and inviting, it's expensive (who needs a Coach handbag?), it's also cheap (anything Daiso), it's clean and it's also dirty. And all of this is going on at the same time.
I actually quite enjoy the big shopping mall, said sincerely. It is the old world way of American Big Retail that still somehow survives. I can't help but think of the massive cost just to keep the lights on and the doors open every time I'm in one of these places. What's the electricity bill for a giant place like this? Or the water bill? How much does it cost to heat and cool all this giant open space?
In my time, I've seen some things in Big Retail. Mini malls, freestanding big box stores, "shopping towns", "super" stores, small freestanding dollar stores taking any commercial space they could find (sometimes in the weirdest of places)...
...but none of those compare to the large mall experience just because of the massive cost of everything to do with it.
I'll explain more about what I said above.
Industrial design
You can't get away from the industrial design of a big honkin' shopping mall. Designers try very hard to make a giant interior space feel warm and inviting, but it never quite works, because let's be real here. How in the hell can you make a 50ft ceiling feel "inviting"? You can't. There's just no way.
Expensive
Luxury goods stores are a staple of big shopping malls. There's nothing in any of them that I actually want.
I've always found it amazing that you hardly ever see any customers shopping in luxury stores, even on busy days. Maybe they see some real traffic during the holiday shopping season, but you know that doesn't cover the cost of running that space for the year. How can they afford to stay in business? I HAVE NO IDEA.
Cheap
A stone's throw (literally) from the luxury stores are places that sell things cheap. The typical things seen are general items like toiletries and home goods. Think of it as a slightly better dollar store.
These are the only mall stores where I will actually shop. I can actually afford what they sell, and I can find things that are genuinely useful.
Clean, but dirty
You always see mall employees cleaning something just about anywhere you go. This keeps the place looking nice...
...but not really.
When you have a large industrial designed commercial space that sees tons of foot traffic, over time the place just starts wearing out.
There are only so many times a floor can be walked on and cleaned before the tile starts breaking. Or if the area is carpeted, high traffic carpet at some point starts wearing out. The counter top the clerk uses to check out products for customers day after day starts showing its age.
You get the idea. A mall gets used a ton.
Yes, the place is clean, but also dirty. Keep cleaning a well-used thing and it just ends up still looking dirty after being cleaned. There's not much that can be done about that except to replace the floor or carpet or counter top or whatever... and malls typically don't do that all too often.
I am glad the big mall is still here
When you really think about it, the giant commercial space that is the large shopping mall is all sorts of ridiculous.
This ridiculousness is very American and I'm glad it's still around. Seeing absolutely colossal commercial spaces is just a sight to behold and brings a sense of wonderment.
And hey, the parking is free.
Late '90s weird (but cheap!) guitar, Yamaha AES-500
Getting this much personality in a guitar from the '90s for the price it sells for is a steal.
To start off with, the AE500 exists but that is a totally different guitar. The S makes all the difference here.
The Yamaha AES-500 was made for just three years, that being 1998, 1999 and 2000. That's it. This is a bolt-on guitar with a 22-fret neck that has a 12" fingerboard radius, which basically means Les-Paul-like.
And yes, they came from the factory with a weird shaped swooping pearloid pick guard. The guard is not an aftermarket thing. Yamaha released the guitar that way on purpose.
Not only is the pick guard pearloid, but the rear electronics cover and the truss rod cover all match the pick guard too. Same color and everything. The truss rod cover even "swoops" in shape to match the pick guard shape. Neat!
Fortunately, Yamaha designed this as an easy player. The body does have a "belly cut" on the rear. Electronics are two volume controls, one tone control - and supposedly this does have push-push for coil splitting. Also, yes there is a pickup blade selector switch. It's on the bottom of the pick guard and somewhat camouflaged by pearloid. If you look at the bridge side pickup and then look further down you'll see it there. The bridge is similar to what the PRS SE 245 uses with fixed saddle position. You never have to mess around with intonation on this guitar as a result. Like I said, this is designed to be an easy player.
Why does the AES-500 sell for so low?
My guess is probably because it had a short run, hardly anybody knows about it, and when it was made is a factor. People don't generally consider late-'90s/early-'00s electrics to be all that valuable - yet. They will be someday.
I should also mention that yes, there was a different model with a more "civilized" pick guard and more advanced features, the AES-800. That one has the bridge + single individually mounted bridge saddles. About the same price as the AES-500!
The AES-500 definitely has personality. I think what it suffered from more than anything else was right guitar, wrong time. This guitar looks totally fresh today.
However, if you don't want to deal with an old guitar (and I wouldn't blame you), the modern Yamaha Revstar is a nice alternative with some personality to it.
Schecter Demon S-II, the "longhorn SG"
A nice offering from Schecter...
...if you like black, because that is the only color this comes in - but it does carry the color very nicely.
The Demon S-II sells for a nice price, and what comes to mind immediately is that it does sort of look like that black Epiphone G-400 Tony Iommi SG from the mid-2010s with the cross inlay markers on the fretboard.
The S-II is, of course, the better player's guitar compared to that Epiphone. Thin neck with flat 14" radius and big 'ol X-Jumbo frets. That's a rock guitar configuration for sure. And it has two active humbuckers on top of that.
And while I know this is a little thing, I appreciate the control knobs are metal and knurled. Some guitar makers cheap out with the knobs, but Schecter doesn't. I also appreciate the brightwork is black chrome and not the shinier stuff. It adds a touch of class and also makes the guitar look mean.
Oh, and the best part - the longer top horn and strap button position means this guitar does not have neck dive.
If you like the SG shape but wish something existed that was "massaged" to cure the neck dive, still look cool, be an awesome player all around and actually be affordable, S-II Demon is it.
Garmin 2025.10 North America map update
Amazingly, Garmin released another map update.
Why is this amazing? They're the last man standing for standalone car navigation systems, that's why. It's very nice to see Garmin still releasing map updates.
I currently run a Garmin DriveSmart 66 as my daily driver in the car. It has worked very well.
I'm not going to go over the particulars with the DS66 because I've already done that previously. Instead, I'm going to talk about something else I think should exist.
As I said, Garmin is the last man standing when you want a standalone navigation system. You get a DS66, maybe optionally get a bean bag mount (so you don't have to stick it to the windshield), and that's pretty much it...
...unless you want a larger screen like the DS76 and DS86. But that's it. Garmin is your only option in America for one of these things new.
What I think should exist is an alternative standalone option. And no, that cheap stuff on AliExpress doesn't count and neither does the phone. I mean a standalone navigator as good as Garmin. That used to be TomTom, but they don't sell standalone models in the US anymore.
I don't have the business acumen nor the money to pull this off, but if I could, I'd love to develop a modern version of the Garmin nuvi 265. Yes, I'm talking about the 3.5" screen square version. A modern take would be something that uses OpenStreetMap data that could be updated whenever the user wants, uses a magnetic mount similar to how people mount phones in cars, and has huge concentration on two things: UI and heat resistance.
It is totally possible to develop a UI that's fun, easy and quick but powerful all at the same time.
And I would want this thing to handle whatever heat even the hottest summer could throw at it. Heat resistance is a really big deal.
Bigger screens are not what we need. It's the UI that needs to change. My old Garmin nuvi 40LM from 2011, a 4.3" version, is actually more legible than the 6" DriveSmart 66. Yeah, the DS66 is far more advanced, but still, that old 40 can be read far more easily.
There are other things I'd want this thing to do, but I'd want this to be a legible little powerhouse the size of a car gauge that could be mounted nearly anywhere in the car.
Garmin (and TomTom) actually had the really right idea with the 3.5" size. It totally worked, but then they got all widescreen crazy and it's been that way ever since.
Would something like this sell? I know it would, if for no other reason than from people seeing "Waiting for GPS..." on their phone navigation app over and over again, getting mega frustrated at that and thinking, "There has GOT to be something else I can use besides this crap!"
I would hope some developer and some investors would take interest in a new 3.5" standalone OpenStreetMap-based navigation system. And oh yeah, I'd be more than happy to talk with them about it.
For now, I'm glad to still see map updates and will continue using my DS66.
The brownest Fender brown
Let's talk about the brownest of Fender browns.
Take the Fender Mustang in Faded Mocha. This was a special edition color from around 2017. This is as brown as brown gets on a Fender.
Why is this the brownest of browns for an electric guitar?
Before I answer that, yes of course you always see brown with a traditional sunburst finish. As the sun "sets" towards the edge of the body, the brown is there.
However, to see all brown with no variation other than some wood grain... well, that's different.
An example of Mocha is the Fender American Vintage II 1973 Stratocaster...
...but when you look at that, notice that it doesn't commit to brown 100%. You do see some red in there. Yes, Mocha is a great color on the Am Vin II '73 Strat, no question, but still, it didn't go 100% in on the brown.
The Faded Mocha of the Fender Mustang however did go all-in on brown. There is barely any red in there (if any?) and it totally commits to "looks like a coffee table". And that is why it's the brownest of Fender browns.
Faded Mocha has no metal flake, no burst and nothing fancy about it other than a gloss finish (which in itself isn't fancy). It is a color that says, "I am brown. Wanna fight about it?"
For some people, this very specific brown is the perfect guitar color because it goes in the total complete opposite direction of fancy. The not-exciting look of it brings a sense of warmth and comfort just looking at it, and some find that very attractive.
If you're all about the brown, Faded Mocha is what you want. Expensive? No. Quite affordable.
Not into the Mustang? Pretty much all guitar makes have a brown of some kind, if that's your thing.