I play guitars. I own guitars. I own plenty of guitars.
Right now, I have 7 hanging on my walls, two in a case, and one that is on display (it is a vintage Martin Tenor guitar that was my father’s, it is a non-player).
I have multiple electrics, from 1980s inspired super Strats, to a damn fine Strat clone, to hot rodded Telecaster clone, and a pure metal neck through with hot EMG’s.
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About a week ago, our clothes washer began giving troubles. It was struggling to drain and spin the wet load. A little rebalancing and a little luck got us a few more loads of clothes.
Alas, this morning, I fired it up with a load of whites, a smallish load compared to our dark washes. Its first attempt stalled. I dialed up a rinse and spin cycle, with my fingers crossed.
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More than a decade ago, I had a couple of really bad days when we lived in Chandler Arizona. We had a leaking faucet in our master bathroom, so I needed to change the cartridge on the hot water valve.
Easy peasy. It was a Delta faucet, so a trip to the local Home Depot yielded a drop in cartridge. Cost about $4.
Back home, I go to turn off the hot water feed under the sink.
Fuck, it doesn’t close (cheap ass fitting by the budget cut-rate contractor.)
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In 2014 I bought my first Kindle. It was a then new Paperwhite, and it served me very well. A few years ago, I switched to reading my books on my iPad with the Kindle app, and thus the Kindle was (softly) retired. Then my wife “inherited” a Kobo reader, and I had to set it up for her. That means wipe the old owner’s information (she had passed away), and I got to experience the joy of reading with a crisp e-ink display.
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Whenever you hear or see the word “Trump”, you can instantly conjure in your mind gaudy, cheesy, trite shit. Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump Sneakers, Trump “tourbillon” watches, and Trump Tokens as part of World Liberty Financial.
That doesn’t even cover the main branding deals that make up the bulk of the Trump family corporation’s recent past business activities.
Alas, there are many that I missed, but never fear, there are still many opportunities for the Orange-hued shit-gibbon to case in on the rubes.
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I have plenty of guitars already, but I wanted to make an addition to my stable. I have long desired to add a Stratocaster to my collection, but the one I want was about $900, and that was just a wee bit high. What I was eyeing was a Fender Player II HSS Stratocaster in blue. The Player series is made in Mexico (and that is not a negative, the plant in Mexico turns out damn fine instruments) and is adorned with a hum bucking pickup in the bridge position, and two single coil pickups. This provides a wide variety of tonal sounds to be dialed up.
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I am back to my OG blog, here at Tralfaz, and I will use this to take some swipes at pols and douchebag techbros, as well as anything that strikes my fancy.
Today, we’re going to skewer Elon Musk for being a ginormous man-child. There are plenty of topics to slag against Musk, but there are two that I will bring out today, his temper tantrum declaration that he will move all of his businesses to Texas from California, and him throwing his full support behind Trump for president in 2024 in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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I have two Substacks, one a shitposting site that I just vomit up whatever I please, and one where I write semi-seriously about my profession. Since Substack has a really fucked up position on their growing cohort of out and out Nazis, and a surprising number of people who go around to pile on troll when they come across someone who is dismayed about it (I have had to block more people in 3 months on Substack as I did in 14 years on Twitter).
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I mentioned on my other property (here) that I had been on a binge of buying physical media of movies and shows that I enjoy so that I actually own and can watch whenever and wherever I want.
One of those series I added to my collection in 2023 was The Sopranos. The entire series, on Blu-ray disc, ran me about $50. A steal in my mind.
I am midway through watching rips on my Plex server, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts. But, alas, back in 2016, I had three posts:
Late to the party – The Sopranos
Mid-Series Check in – Sopranos
Well shit, I already covered it well.
All of what I wrote before is still true, and I got nothing. However, The Sopranos is and will remain one of the greatest pieces of television ever made. HBO has had some other follow on successes, but in my mind, The Sopranos stands alone.
The date was Sunday, January 3, 2010. The day started like most. I got up, read the news, ate my usual breakfast (coffee, a bowl of Grape Nuts) and I then got myself to the gym to do an hour on the elliptical trainer.
It was an off day, I just couldn’t get in a groove, and I struggled to get my heart rate above 100. I was sucking wind, to say the least.
Alas, I bailed out during the 5 minute cooldown after the hour, and headed home. I got back home about 8:30 AM, and then stepped into the shower.
KABAM
It hit me like a ton of bricks. Shooting pain down the arms, and it felt like Dom Delouise was standing on my chest.
I stepped out of the shower, and hobbled my way down to my wife’s office and I told her I needed to go to the emergency room. NOW.
Fortunately, she freaked out, and called 9111.
I daubed off most of the water and slipped on some sweats, while waiting for the EMT’s to show up. They checked me out, and they thought I had just overexerted myself at the gym. Fortunately (again) my wife insisted that they take me to the hospital.
I got to the hospital, and they hooked me up to an ECG and I was having a heart attack.
Let me tell you, that gets the staff moving. I was put on a gurney, wheeled to the Catheter lab, to get a stent put in. I had 100% blockage in the descending node of the right coronary artery.
I got a three night stay in the hospital, and 16 weeks of cardiac rehab2.
The really weird thing is that I was arguably in the best shape of my life. I was running 5-7 miles 5 or 6 days a week. I was doing aggressive hikes on the weekend (if you have spent time in Tucson AZ, you know that the hiking there is epic).
But I still had a heart attack. If I hadn’t gotten to the hospital, I would have died.
This morning is the 14th anniversary of that fateful day. I still view each day as a blessing and a gift.
Celebrate life. Spend time with those you love, and take nothing for granted.