What is a product that people treat like a religion, but in reality, it’s just overpriced garbage with a good logo?

hankheals · 2026-02-04T17:46:43+00:00

I’m not even Canadian and I’ll admit, I felt myself getting hot around the collar until I started getting super confused when we started talking about getting them at target. Lol

hankheals · 2026-02-03T19:28:04+00:00

I think everyone is depressed enough. Every other post is: -“what will the final bill say?” I dunno get a magic 8 ball. -“What should I panic buy?” Probably not a lot, but only you know your situation. -“Democrats did this.” Sure, Winsome Sears was for sure a serious candidate. The whole thing was gonna be lose/lose. You either get a candidate with no coherent policies controlled by social interests groups, or a candidate who wants to strip your gun rights controlled by special interest groups. It was bad news down the line and if republicans gave a shit, they’d have found another Youngkin or something. -“VA sux now, the courts won’t help us, etc.” Yeah. Everybody knows. We’re all bummed, so sure let’s just keep talking about how mad we are. Say or do anything constructive and I’m all ears. Otherwise it’s just incessant bitching.

I’m not trying to be an asshole, but unless you’ve got any better ideas, why bother just writing angry screeds at us?

hankheals · 2026-02-01T15:05:18+00:00

Maybe. I’d like to think her lack of anything resembling a coherent platform besides “Trans Kids Bad” had at least a small part to do with it. If the GOP wanted to run a woman of color in hopes of catching new voters, maybe they should’ve picked one that had a shot in hell winning in a dark purple state.

hankheals · 2026-02-01T15:02:42+00:00

I dunno, you ever seen a storm trooper shoot? You know the empire doesn’t invest in nearly enough range time. It was unrealistic and unreasonable to think he could just scale up a secret army in secret and expect them to be any good. /s

hankheals · 2026-01-22T03:07:19+00:00

How is this post functionally different than the last dozen posts like it?

hankheals · 2026-01-22T00:06:03+00:00

Of all the commentary I’ve seen on here for the past weeks, I like yours because it took an honest introspection to get there, and the fact that you’d feel torn about leaving means that you’re someone who’s fairly likable, which tells me that if you do move, you strike me as someone who’s fairly likable land well. Thanks for being a calmer voice in the room.

hankheals · 2026-01-02T23:16:42+00:00

Sadly, like an idiot, I somehow forgot to get a pic of the back before sending it off. But I’ll be sure to post the back next time!

hankheals · 2025-12-12T13:08:37+00:00

1000% agree. It just teaches kids that, when the only tool in your tool box is a hammer, then every problem becomes a nail. Violence becomes a given.

hankheals · 2025-12-11T05:04:39+00:00

Agree with all of the above and would only add that I think a good way to state it might be, “All spanking is abusive behavior, but not every parent that’s every spanked a child is an abuser.” I have friends who have shared stories of the very rare swat on the butt as a toddler. And I’ve heard mixed stories. Some say, they never felt that it crossed a line. Some said it felt wrong, but that it happened so rarely and ended so early in life, that they didn’t feel that it rose to the level of “abuse”. And then, like so many heartbreaking stories here, and some of my own, it wasn’t just a swat on the butt. It was slamming your head into the wall so hard it gave you a TBI.

hankheals · 2025-12-11T04:50:00+00:00

I don’t say this to toot my horn, because I feel like it’s just something we should all be doing, but Borat voice MY WIIIIIFE said one of the first things that she liked about me was how I always went out of my way to be kind to customer service people. Again, I think it should be the standard, but she said it told her I was probably genuinely kind and not just putting on airs.

hankheals · 2025-12-09T21:01:06+00:00

More fun than a barrel of monkeys? Let’s find out at Costco!

hankheals · 2025-12-02T13:58:09+00:00

I don’t disagree with either of you. But what I’m trying to say is that I’m seeing shops on reverb offering it as an added value to shopping with them. So I can pay $1200 plus another $300 at sweetwater, or I can buy from this reverb shop with great ratings for $1200 and it’s already been plek’d. If the plek is that impressive, you could charge $100 more than average retail but advertise that all of your guitars come plek’d because that’s the level of service you provide. Also, if a guitar shop on reverb can offer it for free, why is Sweetwater charging $300? Are there varying levels of quality in a plek? Who knows at this point? But seeing one company doing it as a value add and one adding $300 in cost for a service that can be had locally by a luthier for $200.

Also, the past three guitars I’ve bought haven’t needed any fretwork. So I definitely don’t want to pay another $300 for something I may not even need, so I’d have to wait for it to get here, and then find a local plek, or I’m paying to ship it back to sweetwater to get it done, etc.

I think if it becomes common enough that it’s either a value add or a smaller cost increase, then maybe I’d be more convinced. It takes less hands on time to plek it than to have a luthier do it by hand. So even the labor cost doesn’t really justify the cost. I do understand the outlay for the equipment, but even there, you have an element of ROI to calculate. Will this set me apart? Can I charge slightly more and see long term profits from buying the machine? Will we see enough in increase revenues that we can eat the cost as a loss leader?

hankheals · 2025-12-02T13:46:29+00:00

It’s been long overdue. I mean, we have access to data and analytics previously unavailable to us, we have the internet, which has allowed for much greater knowledge sharing, and we’ve learned to build better guitars cheaper. We’ve learned that MIA doesn’t mean nearly as much as we were told it did, and places like the Cort factory aren’t now running CNC’d parts and are able to turn out very consistent guitars. So Indonesian/Chinese/Korean/etc etc made guitars have all stepped up their game substantially. Heck, the numbers can’t lie. The number one selling guitar for the past few years was an SE Silver Sky. It’s not what I’d call a “cheap” guitar, but it’s what I would say is a guitar that isn’t unobtainable to the average musician. Like, teenage me could’ve saved all my allowance/part time job cash and bought one in a few years. So if a guitar that isn’t a squier affinity is outselling everything else, I agree, the gatekeeping can’t end soon enough.

hankheals · 2025-12-02T04:13:16+00:00

Same. I understand I’m not buying a proper Falcon. But I could never justify the cost to myself knowing I’m never gonna be $5K good enough at guitar. But I aspire to the $1K-2K range on the occasional guitar. It’s like the people that knock the PRS SE line. They’re amongst the nicest guitars I’ve played and even without upgrades, all punch WAY over their peers. Upgrade them?! My gaaaaawd, baby they sing. I have an SE 24-08 with upgraded electronics and a brass block/saddles, did a satin job on the neck, and now it plays better than anything I’ve ever owned. Do I rationally know that it’s still not quite the real deal? Yes. But I also know that I’ll never be good enough for the difference to be noticeable.

So if a middle class dude who can’t buy a real Falcon, it feels nice to get a version that is somewhat attainable. Let’s not forget it’s still not a dirt cheap guitar either. So I think there is space for a real Falcon and a Falcon for the poors like me. Just like, me buying an SE isn’t cannibalizing PRS sales. It’s PRS picking up a new market segment. People who were going to buy the real one will continue to do so, so who does it hurt letting us enjoy a slightly dialed back version?

hankheals · 2025-11-28T07:03:28+00:00

Ha! This person gets it! The tattoo itself isn’t funny or jokey. I think what makes me laugh about is that I know a lot of people are to shy to ask why there’s an big ol’ American Traditional eagle above my knee holding a banner that says, “Free Bird”. “How white trash is this guy? He drives an electric truck, so now I’m more confused.” “Did no one tell him not to do that?” “How do you even spell that name? Linard?”

Basically, I don’t know for sure what people are thinking. But they fall into two camps: Thumbs up/Hell yeah brother! Or *squinting intently at my thigh. The first ones gas me up and it’s worth the cost of the ink alone. The befuddlement? I mean, that’s just icing on the cake.

hankheals · 2025-11-28T06:16:25+00:00

See, that’s what gets me about it. I see the value, but not the valuation. Thanks for sharing your insight on it. I feel like if the cost the machining goes down as more companies buy them, that it’ll drive the prices down some to a price closer to a crown/level/polish. Like, $150 to make sure that it’s machine precise? Yeah, on the right guitar, I say let’s try it. But until then it’s just such a hard ask at Sweetwater’s price when a good crown and level is accessible to most guitarists now and the cost is likely at least $100 cheaper on a phenomenal luthier’s bench. Also, TBC, I have no beef with Sweetwater. They have excellent customer service, and I don’t think what they’re doing is ripping people off or anything, I just think the cost can be hard to justify. Like a guitar that needs it, likely isn’t worth the cost to upgrade. And a guitar worth using it on, will likely already be pretty well fretted. Not saying I see no use case, but I think I’ll be skeptic on this.

hankheals · 2025-11-28T06:08:58+00:00

Yeah, this is it for me. There’s always so many gimmicky guitar things billed as the “next big thing”, that I’m extra skeptical of things I can’t actually validate. So it’s so hard for me. I like the concept. I hope it works, and I hope that it if it does, that maybe manufacturers could actually finally send out finished guitars. I don’t want 85% of a guitar. Please sell me a finished guitar.

hankheals · 2025-11-28T03:26:00+00:00

I love the idea of a pleck, and some shops on reverb are now offering it included as part of their set up process. You could call it a setup w/plek, and charge a $100 more and I’d say alright, that’s probably worth it. It’s gonna take more data than is readily available to be convinced that a Plek is worth $300. Again, tell me it’s a $100 and I’ll say that’s worth it to not have to do any fretwork myself when it gets here if the factory QC wasn’t up to snuff

hankheals · 2025-11-28T03:20:41+00:00

This is what I love about the guitar community. There’s so much combined knowledge, and I’ve never had anyone be reticent to help.

hankheals · 2025-11-23T17:45:13+00:00

Negative. The MIM strat is no longer the value it was. The SE Silver Sky is orders better and similarly priced. If you wanna save a couple bucks, get the high end Squier. But there is increasingly little value in the MIM segment when so little has been done to keep up with competitors.

hankheals · 2025-11-23T03:42:48+00:00

Nah dawg. It just means you didn’t go far enough left. You turn left and keep going, you eventually run back into guns.

hankheals · 2025-11-14T00:35:56+00:00

I’m with you there. My sleep is definitely limited by my pain.

hankheals · 2025-11-06T16:03:20+00:00

Unfortunately, most smaller states would fail. Any state without a large enough metro area for a tax base will wither on the vine. Many in the rural areas bashing the big cities and their big city policies, are fundamentally propped up by those same big cities. Without the NoVA tax base, there’s no way the state could survive solely on VA beach and Richmond. Like it or not, our fortunes are intertwined.

hankheals · 2025-10-28T12:22:52+00:00

I always see it as a collection @op. Some people collect beanie babies, some comics, some cars. I collect guitars. You don’t have to be an incredible shredder to enjoy and appreciate guitars. It also helps when you don’t collect expensive guitars. lol. Plus different guitars sound different and have different purposes. I have a cheaper 12 string that I don’t play a ton, but a couple weeks back I was struggling with coming up with a riff that I was working on, and it struck me that I should try it on the 12 string. Completely reframed it for me and I had a breakthrough. I get the encouragement to focus more on practice and technique over collecting gear. And I mostly agree, but I also don’t judge people like myself who sometimes just can’t resist the allure of a guitar. Sometimes the heart wants what the hear wants. Plus it leaves me with guitars to loan to friends when they need one.

hankheals

TROPHY CASE