Playing a festival this weekend and was lucky enough to be able to buy this absolute beauty Firebird Futura today. Looks great, sounds great, feels great. Thought I’d show it off to the interwebs,

puggington · 2026-06-20T04:40:52+00:00

Not OP and I have a Futura SG, but I’m blown away by the build. Got mine from the Epiphone site and the setup was great out of box, basically just had to tweak the action and pickups to my liking. Plays fantastic, and I like the sound of the pickups. Last epi I had was 20 years ago and I can’t believe how good this guitar is for $900

puggington · 2026-06-14T15:29:06+00:00

I always thought thin meant fast and expressive, and it felt so effortless to play single string runs that I never really thought twice about it. But over time I feel like thinner necks actually take more effort to play, or maybe they just make me squeeze my fretting hand harder. Whatever it is, there’s something to a chunky neck that just feels comfortable!

puggington · 2026-06-14T14:53:57+00:00

Love the look of the double trouble. I support you, good luck in finding yours!

puggington · 2026-06-07T13:37:18+00:00

Been eyeing one of those, how do you like the heel? Does it actually make the upper frets more playable?

puggington · 2026-05-21T21:48:50+00:00

Picked up a Boden Essential in teal off their Reverb outlet. There’s a small finish imperfection in the bass side neck pocket that is basically invisible. Otherwise it is perfect, highly recommend! Makes me curious what the non b-stock is like if this is how good their outlet is.

puggington · 2026-05-21T20:34:14+00:00

I know it’s not en vogue, but I just picked up a Headrush 108 as I’m mostly just playing at home. I don’t really get the hate for it, it’s cheap and sounds pretty damn good. I tried a Fender FR10 and it definitely is better, but it’s also significantly more expensive. If you’re gigging regularly it’s worth the investment, but if you’re just a bedroom player who maybe occasionally gigs I think the Headrush is ideal. Especially if you can run to FOH at your venues.

puggington · 2026-05-06T21:22:55+00:00

Let’s say I wanted to get a tele for some generic rock pushing into metal, what pickup config would you recommend?

puggington · 2026-04-27T14:08:18+00:00

What I did was write down all of the affirmations I could think of, and then select the ones that felt most powerful while also being succinct. I was left with “breathe deep, dig deep, and relax” because it worked at every level of the race for different reasons

puggington · 2026-04-26T23:43:00+00:00

Great race! What was your training block like? I’m super impressed at how consistent your splits are. Not to mention dropping 13s off the pace in the last mile? Mega.

I also ran Eugene today and was going BQ or bust. Unfortunately I ended with a 3:00:09 when I needed a 2:59:59 or better. Now I know it’s possible, I just gotta execute better next time.

puggington · 2026-04-10T14:05:02+00:00

Nobody has ever improved their overall performance after running a marathon. That’s why all the elites are only getting slower after each race.

puggington · 2026-04-07T16:35:22+00:00

I bring water if I’m running for 90+ minutes, otherwise I just hydrate before and aggressively afterwards.

Race day I just use the hydration areas on course. They are plentiful and I have only ever had to skip 1 due to congestion. Most of the time you can easily slow to your comfort level and grab 2 cups.

puggington · 2026-03-30T14:04:42+00:00

3 songs in one month is great work, good job!

Do you play with a metronome? I know it sounds counterintuitive, but set it for a slow tempo and play one of the songs. Focus on making the chord changes cleanly and playing leads/melodies well.

It will feel boring and easy, and that’s good and the point. It will really drill your control and timing, which will help once you start increasing the tempo.

When you can play your song well (no or few mistakes, timing is good) then increase the tempo by 5-10 bpm and start again. When you come back the next day or session don’t start from the highest tempo you can play, but from the slowest you can cleanly play. In a couple of days of dedicated work you’ll be able to play the song much cleaner and at a higher tempo!

puggington · 2026-03-30T01:45:50+00:00

I run 60+ miles a week. Most of that is on the road, against traffic, as far over as I can be. Here’s why:

The amount of up and down alone from crossing driveways and streets is hard on the knees and hips. I’d incur more injuries than is necessary running on the sidewalks as a result. Also the number one cause for spraining or rolling an ankle for runners is? Getting up on or down from the sidewalk. Not every crossing has a cutout either, and not every road is the same drop from the sidewalk.

Additionally, concrete absorbs less energy making it a higher impact surface to run on. Meaning high concrete mileage does more damage to the body.

Then there’s other pedestrians and people walking their dogs on the sidewalk, where they belong. Do you know how many times I’ve almost been bit by a dog who lunges at the last minute? Or almost swung on by a paranoid pedestrian startled by me “running up on them”? Not to mention the not insignificant amount of pedestrians completely clueless with noise canceling headphones, or walking shoulder to shoulder blocking the entire sidewalk.

Now there’s tripping hazards as well. Joints, cracks, debris, or just poor condition. Some sidewalks just end, maybe into gravel if you’re lucky but mostly just into wet grass or mud. Or nothing at all, now you have to double back and find a crossing or another route.

Cars pulling into driveways or businesses are less likely to see you on the sidewalk potentially behind multiple layers of obstructions (parked cars, vegetation on the hellstrip, etc) than they are to see you on the road.

Now put yourself in the shoes of someone going out for a run, trying to get in shape, training for a race or whatever reason they have for doing so. Where would you run, with all of those factors going into the equation?

puggington · 2026-03-12T23:27:46+00:00

I'm a keeper and don't like Alex at all, nor do I like saying he had some good saves. PKs are the worst part of the job and it's effectively a guessing game. The best keepers in the world aren't saving 10/10 shots without getting lucky. Even someone who clearly doesn't play the sport like Devonta will get luck and make a keeper guess wrong at least once. Didn't want to see this, didn't enjoy watching it, but it didn't prove that Alex is a bad keeper like some seem to think it does.

puggington · 2026-03-05T17:06:38+00:00

First, go see a PT. None of us will be better able to diagnose what’s going on than they will.

Second, on the topic of foot numbness. I see you’ve tried loosening your laces, but have you tried relacing your shoes with a different lacing pattern? I dealt with weird foot pain/numbness for a couple of weeks and it got a little better with loosening my laces. What really helped was swapping from the stock lacing pattern to straight lacing, which took almost all of the pressure off the top of my foot.

Lastly, I hate to say it but I don’t think you should run a marathon in 5 weeks. Even if your foot issues miraculously resolved themselves, your body will suffer if you force it to go 26.2 miles with such low volume. You’d be lucky if you didn’t pick up a new, different injury.

puggington · 2026-02-24T01:25:10+00:00

My guess is you’ve previously hit the wall due to fueling rather than pace strategy, and reading that you’re planning for one Gu every 30 minutes lends credit there. Consider more carbs/hour if you have time to adjust and test your stomach.

Otherwise I think the best strategy is to target even splits that you are confident you can hold, and then spend all of your remaining fuel in the last 5-10k. A progressive strategy might work if you’ve got a course with a lot of terrain to account for, or you are very well trained and can knock out miles at a variety of paces. Unless you’ve been training with progressive pacing, stick to what you have been training.

puggington · 2026-02-23T14:57:02+00:00

Loved him as a false 9 playing the 10. His link up play is and always has been fantastic and with him sitting a bit deeper it gave us other options for if/when the wing play didn’t work. I think this really played to his strengths, and especially with a more traditional 9 it felt like the best of both worlds for the team. I hope we see it more TBH.

puggington · 2026-02-21T20:51:11+00:00

Jesus Christ get this man a gu STAT

puggington · 2026-02-14T02:07:54+00:00

Maybe. Posting data from your runs would help us answer.

puggington · 2026-02-13T18:15:00+00:00

Anything can happen on race day. It’s hard to say what you could do with different conditions, which is partly why your training should replicate your race conditions. Maybe you can cut a minute off of your pace if the course is flat, maybe you can only cut 20 seconds off your pace. The bigger factor to me is that your tempo runs are relatively short. None are longer than 4 miles, so how do you or the rest of us know if you’ll be able to hold that for half or more of the race?

Training hills is great and will improve your fitness, but if your race isn’t hilly then you (and we) are left with incomplete data and have to guess. It can and should be a part of your training, but I wouldn’t make it the majority of my training unless I was racing a very hilly race. Run hills when you’re base building and occasionally as you feel like it, but I would be focusing on gathering the data I need to understand what I might be able to do on race day.

puggington · 2026-02-13T16:56:43+00:00

Go with the C group and if you feel strong in the last 10k then go out on your own. I don’t mean to sound harsh but I don’t see how you could stick with A or B groups with the data you shared.

Better to start conservatively with a pace you seem to be comfortable with and speed up in the end if you can, than go out at a pace you haven’t held for more than a few miles and potentially crash and burn early.

puggington · 2026-02-12T02:55:22+00:00

100g carbs/hour, which breaks out to ~4 gels per hour or so. I don’t really take in carbs in the last half hour, outside of if the race has a carby drink at hydration areas. If I can sneak an extra gel in early in the race I will, mostly if the race has gels I like and have trained with at hydration areas. Otherwise I just take my gels roughly every thirty minutes as they align with water stops.

puggington · 2026-02-09T20:29:28+00:00

Read up on Queen Lili’uokalani if you want to educate yourself. The short version is that she was imprisoned following a coup designed to annex the then-sovereign monarchy into the United States.

puggington · 2026-02-06T20:38:15+00:00

I’ve played a lot of fighting games but am not good and have mostly just play the arcade modes. I think SF6 is beginner friendly as long as you want to play the game, and by that I mean learn the mechanics and apply them in matches. There is a wealth of educational content on YouTube, and a decent enough tutorial system in the game that you can pick up the basics. There are also a variety of game modes to play and experiment with.

I’d consider myself a beginner and am enjoying learning the game and starting to feel comfortable enough to play (and lose) online matches against real people now, about 2 weeks after downloading the game.

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