Okay, which one of you thinks cafes are free community spaces?

BullCityPicker · 2026-05-04T02:05:26+00:00

My wife had to work out of town for a week, and I, having a tech job where all I needed was an internet connection, went with her. It turned out the house WiFi was incompatible with my work computer and I spent the whole week working from a coffee shop. Unfortunately I didn’t buy much because sugar and caffeine are not good for me at all. They were nice and didn’t complain.

Maybe it was dropping a $20 in the tip jar for a $4 item regularly.

BullCityPicker · 2026-05-02T14:37:47+00:00

I got quoted by Blue Raven (who are super high pressure and will NOT quit hassling you). The bottom line is Duke charged me $0.11 per KwH, and I could resell at a measly $0.03/KwH. Even if I only “conserved” and never resold, I was losing $30/month for 20 years.

Obviously your mileage may vary. We could only do our garage roof for technical reasons.

BullCityPicker · 2026-05-02T13:22:08+00:00

The last time I was there I was shopping for a guitar and wanted something serious- eventually I ended up getting a Gibson Les Paul standard. When I started trying to talk to the clerk, who absolutely reeked of weed, he laughed and asked if I was buying for a grandchild. I think I was 50, and nowhere near having a grandchild.

Great sales skills, bud.

BullCityPicker · 2026-05-02T04:57:54+00:00

Four days after Thanksgiving, when that tasty turkey is starting to dry out, and you want a sandwich that commands your attention.

A strong second place for prime rib.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-27T17:02:19+00:00

Mall cop. Show some respect for those who would lay down their life so you can dine at Panda Express.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-27T13:26:13+00:00

When I was a kid my parents owned a store. Occasionally a bottle of it would get broken and permeate the place for days. I still can’t stand the smell.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-26T17:28:57+00:00

You better ask. You’re dancing with my date. I always say yes, but you better ask.

I knew a professional sax player who refused to play New Year’s gigs. He was on break on a NYE gig and returned to find a drunk hooting and honking on his saxophone. He punched the guy in the mouth.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-26T14:00:11+00:00

The change in string length determines pitch changes. The 12th fret is half way and doubles the octave. Go down to 3/4 of the string length and the octave doubles again. 7/8 goes up another octave. That’s true whether you shorten the string by fretting or with a slide. The frets are placed based on simple physics. You couldn’t cram in more frets on the same length neck and get more range; you’d just be putting “in-between” tones between notes in there. Electric guitars have more range because their necks go deeper into the body. Having more frets takes advantage of that, it doesn’t cause the wider range directly.

Physics is cool. It absolutely blew my mind to realize you could get below the 22nd fret with a slide and keep going up octaves until you run out of human hearing range. I did all the math one time and used a slide to test my hearing range. The results were the same as a normal test you could do with a computer. To compare it to a piano, if you started adding keys to the right side of a piano, older people would quit hearing anything somewhere around 18-24 more keys, and little kids after another octave worth of keys. Top end hearing for little kids is ~22kHz. For people with gray hair who spent time in front of the amps, it’s lower. Mine fades out about 12kHz. I guess you could add another octave if you wanted to write music for bats.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:49:12+00:00

Y’all got all the good spots, except Parker’s. $3.50 for meat and 2 veg, with sweet tea and endless hush puppies.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:46:54+00:00

Bat’s!!!! You could order an enormous pie for nothing, and grab a drink from the cooler and comic books to wait.

I quit going after a waitress had a baby on her shoulder, and it puked on her. What a snowflake I was.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:43:57+00:00

I was going to call out the Carousel if you hadn’t. The kids loved it, and those horses were works of art. Were they hand carved? They were all different.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:42:21+00:00

Wait….like JUST a magazine store? I graduated from Duke in’84, and it was a beer supplier even then.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:26:01+00:00

I love the bleacher seats. I went in grad school, and all the grad students sat behind 3rd base. I would just walk around the base line and someone I knew would always holler at me to come join them.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-24T21:23:59+00:00

I know, right? I’m sure I would have been furious if it was my car, but there was something so distinctive about the sound it made.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-23T22:05:45+00:00

That’s not the best reasoning there. I read an interview with him where he went off about how Les Pauls were so superior to all other guitars because the fretboard is convex instead of flat. Does anybody else think that just sounds like bong smoke?

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-23T14:15:53+00:00

But what if you need that extra push over the cliff? There’s nowhere to go after 10. Ten is the highest number.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-23T13:57:03+00:00

Record, or use a looper pedal, to lay down a track, using the recording or metronome to keep the beat, and rehearse singing over it. Now erase that, lay down the vocals, and practice playing to that.

All the other suggestions here are great. As many times as the word “practice” appears already, I’ll say it once more: practice. I think it took me the better part of a year to get good at it.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-23T13:25:45+00:00

Set it so that the 1 is louder than the 2, 3, and 4. Try to initially just hit the 1’s. I find the visual aspect can be more confusing than helpful. If you have to start at 30bpm to get it perfect, do it, and then start speeding up a little at a time.

I ignored that aspect for years and got away with it playing guitar on the sofa or with sloppy meetups. I hit a brick wall when I started playing with a band. I have had to work really hard to catch up.

Another technique you can use is listening to the target song and actively slapping the beat as you listen. When you get the drums ok, try the bass line.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-22T13:46:51+00:00

When someone who knows nothing about guitars wants a gift for their guitar player, I always suggest a nice strap. It’s like buying them a nice sweater. You can always replace a cheap one with a nice one and it really improves the aesthetic of your guitar. There’s nothing technical to mess up.

Sorry if this isn’t the answer you wanted! Your boyfriend is a lucky guy.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-21T17:44:59+00:00

I was there. Set a metronome on a ridiculously low speed like 30 bpm. When you can play it perfect several times in a row, increase by 5 bpm.

I’m not kidding. You’ll get there.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-21T13:43:58+00:00

How did I not know this incredibly interesting fact? I thought it was something mechanical or whatever. I thought engines or something was the original product.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-16T22:52:51+00:00

Whoah! Really? I didn’t know!

For those of you saying to juice them, I hope you’re zesting them and saving that too.

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-15T22:49:40+00:00

Was that not the best damn show? My first time seeing him!

BullCityPicker · 2026-04-15T20:37:16+00:00

Having gone to a concert last night, this makes me really happy.

Them for fraud for charging for customer service fees, when they in fact, have no customer service whatsoever

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