Lunch: Thinking about either a Del Taco Impossible California Burrito (I'm intrigued by Impossible meat, and the more you season it to death the less it matters whether it was once cow,) or a Burger King Whopper (doesn't have to be Impossible.) I haven't eaten at Burger King in years, always sort of enjoyed them, and they seem to be going extinct.
...
G&L Subject: Anyone have an eye out for holiday sales/late Black Friday stuff? The last couple years I came very close to picking up a Bel Air Green US ASAT, or a Himalayan SC2 when Musician's Friend blew those out - but haven't seen any ridiculous sales come up this year, which is probably for the best. Anyone find any ridiculous bargains or also keeping an eye out for them in the G&L aisle?
...
Music Subject: And sort of G&L related
How much do you value gear companies that have a 'custom shop' or allow a 'choose your own adventure' approach at least? I no longer feel it's wise for a consumer to do that (nor for a company to offer.) Empirically when a company offers a Custom Shop, customer service suffers across the board; I'm not sure the mechanics behind that are in the realm of guitars, but it can be very difficult to get in touch with companies such as (for a random example) Seymour Duncan, which offers both 'floor customs' and an actual Custom Shop apart from their regular line. Email/phone lines often seem nonexistent. I hear echoes of those difficulties in feedback on many other companies that purport to offer 'custom' options, and a lot of vocal customers balk at the cost of 'simple' items they get 'gouged' on - of course there are exponential costs to disrupting production on any regular process, that consumers don't see.That customer experience compounds the second aspect - disappointment. Expectations are very high when a customer specs a 'perfect' guitar, often by using information/old wives tales that are less than perfect. The customer expects the world from their 'dream' guitar - but in reality, a guitar can be absolute quality, flawless, and on paper identical to the next guitar on the assembly line - and still not play/sound the same as another identical guitar at all. There can be a dozen Les Pauls or Strats on the wall identical in feature and construction to each other; and there might only be one out of those that bonds with you and you want to take home. While a guitar you spec. out yourself may be more likely to play/sound satisfactory to you, it's still a dice roll. The opposite approach is to *not* work backward from materials as a consumer, but actually go into a retailer and play however many guitars until you find the one that 'speaks' to you - without regard to the materials, pickups etc. When you find the one you can't put down, buy that
I don't think the customer can necessarily always know better than the factory, or better than random chance.TLDR, I'm starting to not see any value in 'Custom Shops' - but that may be in part because I'm a project person by nature, and have plenty of guitars I'd DIY 'improvements' on myself after the fact without the up-charge - but I also have guitars I'd NEVER touch from the factory after playing and loving how they sound (hence why I bought them.)
...
Non-Music: Holiday Meals; what's on the menu? Keeping in mind the 'new' phenomena of fake meats, I happen to be the last of my siblings who is not a vegetarian/pescetarian; my brother joined the fold last year (he ridiculed my sister over it for years, but then finally gave up and joined her.) I was a vegetarian for several years (primarily for environmental related reasons) and stopped almost ten years ago (when I lost that idealism and got tired of how difficult it was to maintain proper nutrition without meat.) So it's always fish for Christmas in my family (both my siblings make a special allowance even for that on the holiday.)
Can't say I mind that - going back to 'fake meat' as a new phenomena, I wouldn't be opposed to being a vegetarian again if it was made convenient enough to do so. I don't necessarily 'crave' meat like a lot of people claim to and was more or less fine without it for a few years (though of course certain things I would go into a quandary over - Tritip mostly.) My other family members will certainly have non-vegetarian dishes at their celebrations, but I'm not really a fan of holiday fare; once a decade is enough for me to have turkey, ham, yams etc. Wondering if you have any special dining planned for the holiday?
I know the American Professional line carried on new body routing (from the American Special) that gives you a slot up there for the pickup selector but not more room than that. Glad CME points out that you can install the rhythm circuit (probably because they use the Vintera body) - not sure whether I would go through the effort, I actually use the thing for a quick volume cut when I need it, but I can live without it.