Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

[Ulu]

50+ years ago, I learned some guitar in school, but really I was just the lowly double bass player in a Be-bop group.

Yeah, it was that long ago…
Pizzicato Be-bop on the school’s giant stand-up bull fiddle. (I could not afford to own one, And who would want to keep that thing at home and carry it around anyway?)

I had a $30 Sears Silvertone flat top, and a goofy electric guitar that I built out of junk guitars myself. Those are lost to history, but eventually I bought three more over 5 decades.

I have only played a little since the 70s, & just my guitars. No bass.

However, Fellows, I have bought myself 7 more guitars since Christmas.

I’m converting my excess cash to hard goods before this massive inflation kills me here.

Plus I like guitars. I’ve owned only these 3 for years:
The ‘65 Gibson


The 1970 Aria


The 1998 Avilla

 

[Ulu]

Now I also own:

The 2004 Schecter C-1


The 1965 Silvertone 1448
(By Danelectro & sold only thru Sears.)
The custom tailpiece and bridge was designed and manufactured by yours truly.


The 1967 Silvertone 1479
(The Harmony Bobcat, as sold at Sears)


It’s missing the knobs and the whammy bar but it’s a nice player.


The 2020 Rogue lapsteel (from China)


The 2023 Fojill bass (also China)

Whoa! My very first bass guitar!

 

[Ulu]

And these:

The Squier Telecaster (Indonesia)
(Fender owns Squier, so a Tariff loophole?)


And finally, the best of all, The Eric Clapton signature edition 1999 Fender Stratocaster.

The real thing. It cost the same as I spent on the other 9 combined.

This is assembled in Corona California, but because of environmental protection regulations, The parts are sanded and painted in Mexico.

Ok , it’s nearly the real thing. It’s not actually signed by Clapton himself. It’s just a decal, painted on. It would’ve been another $10,000 with his real signature. I paid $1500 with the black case shown under the Telecaster.

Nonetheless it is by far the nicest guitar I have ever owned and played and even held in my hands. If I had an instrument this fine back in 1969 I probably would have skipped engineering and computer school and just gone straight into becoming a bohemian guitarist.

 

[Caperguy99]

And these:

The Squier Telecaster (Indonesia)
(Fender owns Squier, so a Tariff loophole?)
View attachment 1555839

And finally, the best of all, The Eric Clapton signature edition 1999 Fender Stratocaster.
View attachment 1555840
The real thing. It cost the same as I spent on the other 9 combined.

This is assembled in Corona California, but because of environmental protection regulations, The parts are sanded and painted in Mexico.

Ok , it’s nearly the real thing. It’s not actually signed by Clapton himself. It’s just a decal, painted on. It would’ve been another $10,000 with his real signature. I paid $1500 with the black case shown under the Telecaster.

Nonetheless it is by far the nicest guitar I have ever owned and played and even held in my hands. If I had an instrument this fine back in 1969 I probably would have skipped engineering and computer school and just gone straight into becoming a bohemian guitarist.

Beautiful Clapton strat - that’s my favorite guitar of all time! My dad had one, but sadly he’s a leftie - so it was a left handed guitar strung left and I never really got to play it.

Looking at the prices now will put some whiskers on your chin, though. Since COVID guitars have gone through the roof.

I’ve always been a bass player first - and my pride and joy is my 1969 American made Fender Precision with the chrome pickguards. Super nice deep sound.

I’m dreaming of a new acoustic - I’m still banging away on an old Yamaha. If I had my pick of the litter, I’d probably like a Martin or something. Maybe some day.

 

[Ulu]

I looked at some very nice $2k to $5k bass guitars, before gambling on a Chinese instrument on sale at $100+$8 tax (free shipping too!)

I was considering, at that price, how badly they must want to get rid of this piece of junk. But it was something to practice on. As it turns out, it’s an amazingly nice guitar. Far superior to my first Silvertone or my first Gibson.

I played bass violin in school, but until now I have never played an electric.

That Fojill will probably satisfy me for now. I had a couple luthiers play with it and they thought it was a nice instrument . . . until I told them the price.

I put some new $50 strings on it, and I bought a hardcase at $130, then I bought a little $148 MXR custom bass pre-amp so I could play this out through my 180 W Yamaha subwoofers.

So $436 spent & I’m shaking the nails out of the sheet rock.

I played this bass in a local shop, back to back with a 1990 model Fender precision bass. ($1800) When you do that it doesn’t quite compare, but is the Fender really worth $1700 dollars more?

It has been literally 50 years since I have touched a bass, and so my playing sux pretty bad.

I didn’t even dare ask them to play the $4500 Rickenbacker!

For the price, I do like this Matsumoku .

 

[skjl47]

They were forced to scam others worldwide. Now thousands are detained on the Myanmar border
Hello; My guess is all of us have gotten scam phone calls and e-mails. I get many each day except Sundays. Some days I get 20 or more. Was much worse in the past. Now I have a new land line phone service which announces the caller out loud, so i do not get quite so frustrated. Still get the calls.
Same for e-mails. I am reluctant to open most e-mails. Have one i am debating about right now.

When I opened the above link and realized all those people squatting on the ground were arrested for being phone scammers, I was cheered up. That they seemed miserable fits for folks who have scammed others out of their life savings. I stopped reading at the point the author tried to pitch as how these criminals are being treated badly, and we should feel for them.

If you have not seen the film THE BEEKEEPER, I suggest it for viewing

 

[skjl47]

Crews called as dumped batteries 'exploded' in fire
Hello; The above link is about a new tool for fighting Li-ion battery fires was tested, apparently for the first time. A bit in the story caught my attention. That bit being that someone dumped around two tons in the woods. My question being who winds up with two tons of old li-ion batteries to discard?
I do have a small container of old batteries I need to get rid of. I take the old batteries to a local BATTERY shop. I buy my batteries from the shop, and he has a container in which i can discard my old car and small batteries. Now he might wind up with a couple tone of old batteries, but I do not think he dumps them in the woods

 

[jjohnwm]

Crews called as dumped batteries 'exploded' in fire
Hello; The above link is about a new tool for fighting Li-ion battery fires was tested, apparently for the first time. A bit in the story caught my attention. That bit being that someone dumped around two tons in the woods. My question being who winds up with two tons of old li-ion batteries to discard?
I do have a small container of old batteries I need to get rid of. I take the old batteries to a local BATTERY shop. I buy my batteries from the shop, and he has a container in which i can discard my old car and small batteries. Now he might wind up with a couple tone of old batteries, but I do not think he dumps them in the woods

My initial reaction to this ^ story was that an average electric car battery weighs 1000 pounds or more, sometimes much more. But of course journalists, being the drama-queens they are nowadays, can't just state that 2 electric vehicle batteries were found in the woods; sounds pretty blah, doesn't it? No, much better to describe the quantity as "tons" of batteries; much sexier storyline.

But then I found a follow-up article online about this occurrence. Apparently, further study has shown that this site has been in existence since well-before the arrival of Europeans in North America. It's been proven that the oldest batteries at that dump-site were deposited there by indigenous North Americans, and that European settlers simply continued the tradition of battery disposal there. Naturally, over the centuries a huge quantity of batteries accumulated. Interestingly, there is another site nearby that has been used over the centuries for disposable diapers as well. Archaeologists are in disagreement as to whether this is coincidental, or if there is possibly some hidden and more sinister connection.

It must be true; an AI said it was so.

 

[Ulu]

Here’s my issue. People abandon cars every day. Abandoning an Li car is a big deal. Much more costly to deal with than a gasoline car. People have no clue.

That huge Li power bank that burned in LaMesa last year isn’t safe yet. It’s just cooled down enough to enter and start the demolition. They expect it to take another year to get it scraped up and “recycled”.

You can recycle plastics, but we normally don’t. Too dirty a process. Li batteries can be recycled, but will we?

The cost will always be a problem, creating more “superfund sites.”

Taxpayer funded.

 

[jjohnwm]

Your last four words ^ say it all. Last four words of the post, or last four words of the first paragraph, both equally true and equally sad.