Weirdest 2024 Fender Stratocaster guitar color

Oh, do you have to pay a pretty penny just to get this.

Take a look at the Fender 70th Anniversary Ultra Stratocaster HSS. It's expensive, and it only comes in one color. That color is called Amethyst.

Actual amethyst is quartz with a violet color to it. And yeah, I think Fender did translate that to a finish fairly well. The color does "move" as far as I can tell and definitely looks like something upscale. And yes, this is the kind of finish that does change color depending on how you look at it.

Is this guitar all about the paint? Of course not, and there's certainly more to it.

Loaded in this guitar is the Ultra Quadra Tap humbucker and noiseless middle and neck pickups. The neck is roasted maple and does have a compound 10-inch to 14-inch fingerboard radius. Frets are of the medium jumbo size (which I personally prefer).

The body is sculpted and contoured everywhere, front and back. And you get locking tuners.

For the electronics, it's the best of everything Fender has. That Quadra Tap humbucker can be switched over to a single-coil easily, S-1 switching is present, and so is treble bleed circuitry.

On top of all that, it does come with a black tweed hardshell case. If you haven't seen one of those, it does look cool. I actually like it better than the regular tweed case color.

In the end however, it's that Amethyst finish that sells the guitar more than anything else.

Amethyst is, by far, the weirdest Fender color for 2024. But at the same time it's also the most interesting. The color "moves", shines, plays with light and just does neat things regular finishes do not.

This Strat, again, is not cheap, but yeah you do get some seriously good exclusivity with this one. Nobody is going to be able to copy this color. It would be exceedingly difficult to make a fake of this. And that's a good thing.

Pearloid pick guards are dopey but cool

I think pearloid a.k.a. "mother of toilet seat" has come around to the point where it's cool again. It's still dopey due to it being an obvious fake fancy. But when I look at it now, I think yeah, not bad and I like it again. As you see on the Squier Classic Vibe '70s Stratocaster (only on the black one), it can work.

What do I mean by fake fancy? Let's talk about that.

A fancy that's real is abalone. If you look up abalone pick guards, you will see much more in the way of intricate designs, colors that "move", some very nice artsy-farsty things, and so on.

The whole "mother of toilet seat" joke comes from two things. There's mother of pearl, of which a ton of musical instrument stuff exists for that, and the fact decorative toilet seats did use a very similar pattern.

To the best of my knowledge, pearloid is just a way of taking cheap acrylic and fancying up the look.

I don't know what specific decade pearloid guards appeared. But I do remember that in the '90s, a pearloid pick guard on a Stratocaster was considered quite the upscale option. Every other Strat guard was just a plain color, but pearloid, ooh ahh, now we're in fancy pants territory.

The pearloid guard was around for a time and then went away. Now it appears on the Squier guitar seen above, and that one is supposedly a '70s inspired design.

Is it?

The headstock is definitely '70s-era Fender, but as far as I know, pearloid isn't a '70s-specific thing.

Seeing more wood on electric guitars is absolutely a '70s thing. And, sure enough, the Squier '70s Strat has a natural finish version.

But black finish + pearloid guard? Not really '70s.

I'm not saying it's a bad look, because it totally works. It's teetering on the edge of being cheesy/ugly but stays above board just enough to hold that fake fancy look without appearing ridiculous.

What I'm saying is that I like it. Ten years ago, no. But now? Yes. Pearloid has come around.

How I made my sneakers fit correctly

A while ago (possibly about a year?), I bought a pair of Skechers Vigor sneakers because they offer a wide size and have a nice unassuming appearance to them.

The sneakers arrive in the mail, I put them on, and they fit but at the same time they didn't.

I figured these things are new so they have to be broken in. I tried wearing them for a few days but they still felt wrong.

I made a decision at that point.

They went back in the shoebox and in the closet.

Even though they didn't fit the way I liked, I figured I'd keep them anyway as a backup pair for when my tried-and-true New Balance 608's wear out.

Recently, the time finally came when I had to retire my 608's. They were very used, beat up, starting to fall apart and looking terrible.

I was going to put on a new pair of 608's, but then remembered I had the Skechers in the closet.

My thought was okay, money was spent on those sneakers. I'm going to try an experiment to see if I can make these things fit correctly.

I took out the soles.

What I figured was these would make the sneakers feel even worse...

...but that didn't happen.

I put on the Skechers and now they felt great.

Perfect? No. But way better than before. NOW I can wear these things.

What I realized is the memory foam sole used in the Skechers Vigor is way too thick, so much to the point it felt like I was walking on putty. Those memory foam soles also made my feet sweat like crazy. I have no idea why. They just did.

Without the soles, my feet breathe properly and I can wear these Skechers all day comfortably.

It's probably true these sneakers will wear out twice as fast without the soles in them. I'm okay with that since they didn't fit correctly before anyway, so getting them into a wearable state is a win. I saved these things.

Small victory, but I'll take it.

Eating ridiculous cookies, Oreo Space Dunk

I rarely buy Oreos or cookies in general, but when I saw the Oreo Space Dunk cookies, yeah I had to get them.

It was actually the appearance that sold me on them because it looks like an '80s arcade. You've got the packaging with the big 3-D SPACE DUNK letters on it, starry night in the background, and so on. The cookie itself has a spaceship on it. It totally works.

Is there a difference between regular Oreos and Space Dunk? In fact, yes.

The creme is different in look because it's blue and purple even though it tastes the same as the regular creme.

The taste is the same as regular Oreos, however, it has a small amount of popping candy added in. Think of it as a light sprinkling of Pop Rocks.

You'd think this would be a bad combination, but it surprisingly works because the popping candy was kept to a reasonable level. The popping doesn't happen immediately but it's definitely there.

Ridiculous cookie? Yes. But they're fun, and that's the whole point...

...and fun enough to where it actually got me to get some, which is saying something. I've passed by Oreos many times in the candy aisle at the supermarket and never given them a second thought. Space Dunk Oreos got my attention, so yeah, the packaging worked and the cookie delivered.

Explorer is cool, but Firebird is cooler

I went to buy some strings recently, and the Epiphone Firebird was there hanging on the wall. Yeah, I had to try it out.

Even though I don't like tuners on the bottom of the headstock, I actually really liked how this thing played and sounded.

For the longest time I've thought about getting an Explorer style guitar (it would be the Schecter E-1 if I went for it), but there's just more cool factor to the Firebird.

I really, really like the way a Firebird takes to a sunburst finish because it brings out the center of the body in a real nice way. The gold-and-silver control knobs look great too. I also really like the trapezoid inlay markers on the fretboard.

Then there's the sound of the Firebird. You don't see too many guitars out there with mini humbuckers installed from the factory.

The best way I can describe the mini humbucker sound is that it's close to the sound of a humbucker in a semi-hollow body guitar (even though the Firebird is a solid-body) with "honk" to it. Yeah, I know, that sounds weird, but I can't describe it any other way.

On first listen, you'd think it sounds like an SG, but then you play it more and... no. Sounds different. Then you think it sounds Explorer-ish, but again, no. Firebird really does have its own tonal character.

This is not the first time I've played a Firebird, but when I do now, I think hm.. maybe I should get this instead of an Explorer type in the future.

The price of the Epiphone Firebird is certainly nice. Very affordable. Definitely worth checking out.