The joy of playing cheap guitars
Snobs give these a miss. I don't.
I recently visited a little hole-in-the-wall place that carried nothing but cheap guitars. Why nothing but the cheap stuff? Because they're not "approved" to carry the more expensive brands (there's a whole process involved for anybody who wants to sell highfalutin brand guitars and it's not fun).
There are three things I know when it comes to the cheap stuff.
First, the low end brands have absolutely caught up to the higher tier stuff, and it's for one reason. CNC machining. Bodies and necks are built just as well as guitars costing quadruple the price, and I'm not kidding.
Second - and this is a weird one but true - lower end guitars have to put in better effort just so people will buy them. You can really see this with things like the neck pocket fit and paint. A lot of cheaper brands do it right. The higher tier brands, on the other hand, do a lot of cost cutting. This is why you will see things like finish blemishes and nasty neck pocket gaps on $1,000+ guitars whereas you really don't on the lower end stuff.
Third, given that most guitar players are such brand snobs, they don't actively seek out shops that sell the cheap stuff - but I do...
...and it's there I get a lot of enjoyment out of playing stuff that the snobs wouldn't give a second look to, or even a first for that matter.
I have a video of me playing some Tagima TG500 and Sawtooth guitars at that hole-in-the-wall shop.
Great guitars, great necks, great sounds. I had to resist pulling out my wallet because there were a few I wanted to buy on the spot.
An alternative to Tagima and Sawtooth is Grote. Lots of good choices for cheap.
My new favorite clicky pen
I liked these so much that I bought a 24-pack of them, and it wasn't easy to get these things.
Recently I was given a pen, a Zebra Z Grip that came out of a pack where the majority of them were black ink with a couple that had blue ink. Just your regular style retractable ball point pen with 1.0mm tip size, i.e. medium size.
And oh my God did I like that pen. I wanted more, but only in blue because blue ink is all I use.
Well, that presented a problem. Everybody locally has either the black-ink-only version or the combo pack like I mentioned a moment ago. All I wanted was blue.
I did find the all-blue pen pack eventually, but had to go to an office store just to get it. And I was forced to buy it as a 24-pack even though I totally don't need that many pens. But I'm okay with that.
You can, of course, find these online in a more reasonable 12-pack size. That is actually what I wanted, but the local store had the 24-pack I could get right then and there, so I went for it. No regrets even though it's unlikely I'll ever use them all.
I do like this pen enough to where I might try the highfalutin metal barrel version. Fancy pants, indeed.
Life is too short to use a crappy pen, so I might go for that later.
Squier 40th Anniversary Telecaster prices are all over the place
Shop around and you can score one for under $350 right now.
Evidently, the Squier 40th Anniversary Telecaster has been a tough sell, so Fender has slashed the price. At the time I write this in late August 2023, the price is $330. Brand new. Yep.
However, if you look at the listings for the same guitar, prices are flying all over the place.
Some are charging too much at $600, while others are under $350, and I've even seen a lightly used one for under $300.
What exactly is a 40th anniversary Squier Telecaster?
It's a Tele with "aged" chrome hardware, black guard, satin urethane finished body (very comfortable), tinted satin urethane finished neck (also very comfortable), vintage style tuning machines and pickups featuring alnico magnets. It is unknown what type of alnico, but my guess is since this is supposed to be an anniversary model, it's probably alnico 3.
My advice: Buy with the intent of getting a premium Squier for cheap. The satin-everything body + neck makes this a super comfortable player.
If you like Telecasters, score one for under $350 and you really do get something great for the money. $300 to $350 is definitely the sweet spot for one of these, be it new or lightly used.
And if you can't score one at a good price, the Classic Vibe Telecaster is always a sure thing.
It came from the '80s: Hondo H-1 Death Dagger
This is close to as nuts as it gets.
Behold, the guitar that will absolutely never fit on any guitar floor stand, the Hondo H-1 Death Dagger.
Sometimes you see guitars that test the limits of how far you can go with a design that's actually usable, and the Death Dagger is definitely one of these.
When I say this is close to as nuts as it gets, I'm not kidding.
Getting the original case that comes with the guitar is mandatory because you are NEVER finding it otherwise.
I do find it incredible is that it has a Strat-style tremolo system on it. There is enough wood back there to where the guitar has the stability to support it.
Obviously, this guitar is meant for rock and metal. To use it for any other style of music would be insulting.
How does it sound? I have no idea, but that's not why you buy this thing. You buy it for the look. I would guess it has your typical high-output humbucker tone, because that's all you're getting with this.
Again, you NEED that case if you're going to dare own this thing. Otherwise you'd have to custom fabricate it yourself.
In all honesty, if you like wacky shaped guitars, the Schecter Synyster Gates would suit you much better. And I'm absolutely certain it's built much better than that Hondo ever was.
Hard drive DESTRUCTION
Sometimes going caveman on old technology is the only way.
There's really only three options when it comes to the disposal of an old hard drive.
Option 1: Dispose and hope nobody ever tries to recover the data from it.
Option 2: Securely erase the data first, then dispose.
Option 3: Disassemble the drive, take out platters and physically damage them to the point of being unreadable, then dispose.
The first option is the fastest and easiest but at the same time the dumbest. The second option can take up to a full day to complete, and only if you know how to do it right. The third option takes about 20 minutes and absolutely works.
Let's talk about the second method first.
Securely erasing a drive
In Windows or Linux, securely erasing a drive can literally by an all-day thing.
The Windows way since Windows 8 to present (assuming the drive letter is E):
FORMAT E: /P:3
This slow-formats the drive first with zeroes, then overwrites every sector three more times, each time with a random number. If you're really paranoid, you can increase the 3 to 4 or 7 or whatever. If it were a 7-pass, that literally could take all weekend just to format the drive.
The Linux way:
Find the path to the drive first. A quick way in Terminal is by using df. After that, you go into the danger zone with dd, which if used improperly can literally destroy your drive if the command isn't written correctly (and I'm not kidding).
sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/DRIVE-GOES-HERE bs=8192 status=progress
This means to write random data, 8192 bytes at a time, across the whole drive and show the progress while it's doing it. After it's done, the drive will have to be repartitioned (such as with gparted) to be usable again. Why? Because using dd this way will wipe over everything including the partitions.
Note to those who would ask, "Why not use /dev/zero instead of /dev/urandom? Wouldn't using zero be faster?" Yes, faster, but /dev/urandom writes random data while /dev/zero uses just zeroes. In the Windows method used above, random data is used for the additional passes. I wanted to give a similar style for the Linux method.
In either OS, this process really, REALLY should not be interrupted. If you unplug the drive or lose power during the process, the HDD, SSD or whatever you're wiping has a high probability of being damaged beyond repair, i.e. "bricked".
In both OSes, securely erasing is s-l-o-w and that's just the way it is.
Going caveman instead
If I'm not selling the drive and the thing just needs to be thrown out, I don't secure-erase. Destroying the drive is faster and easier.
Properly destroying a mechanical drive does require removing the platters.
With 2.5-inch HDDs, those platters can be physically broken apart similar to how you can crack apart compact discs and DVDs.
With 3.5-inch HDDs, you either use bolt cutters to cut the platter in pieces, or take a and cut deep lines all over both surfaces of the platter. The business end of a large slotted screwdriver will also work.
What's my reason for doing this?
In this year 2023 I've been doing a lot to get away from mechanical media as much as I can.
Earlier in the year I moved all my old data off a stack of DVDs and then destroyed the discs because I wanted them out of my life. I wanted absolutely no way to go back to those discs.
I had a small pile of 2.5" HDDs. Like with the DVDs, I copied off all the data, then opened up the drives and destroyed the platters (easy to do).
The 3.5" HDD destruction was a "when I get around to it" thing because platters in those are more difficult to get to and remove. I finally got around to it, got the platters out, scratched them all up, done.
Given the fact 512GB USB sticks are cheap and 1TB SSD is the same price, and 2TB or even 4TB SSDs are now in the affordable range, yeah it's safe to ditch those old HDDs now.
Heck, even the 1TB microSD memory card is affordable now (about the same price as a 2TB SSD).
It was the right time to finally part ways with the big 3.5" HDDs.