Author: Joe Zimmerman
Some pedals give you a better version of your existing tone. The Eventide Knife Drop does not care about your existing tone. The Knife Drop looks at your carefully crafted guitar sound, laughs, and asks: “Would you like to sound like a broken Nintendo, an angry synthesizer, a spaceship landing in a junkyard, or perhaps all three simultaneously?” This thing is ridiculous. And I mean that as a compliment. It can do fuzz. It can do octaves. It can do synth sounds. It can do weird glitchy noises. It can do sounds that make other guitar players wander over and…
Welcome to the Gear Section of Should I Buy This Crap? If you’ve made it here, there’s a good chance you play guitar. And if you play guitar, there’s also a good chance you’ve convinced yourself at least once that the next piece of gear would finally make you sound like your favorite guitarist. How’d that work out? Yeah. Me too. Welcome to the wonderful world of G.A.S. Not the digestive kind, although guitar players are certainly old enough for that to become a concern too. I’m talking about Gear Acquisition Syndrome. The incurable condition where a guitarist with six…
The Mesa Grid Slammer was my gateway drug. Not to anything illegal. Just to guitar pedals. Before this little metal box showed up, I was firmly in the camp of: “I already have a dirty channel on my amp. Why do I need another dirty channel in a box?” Then I plugged in the Grid Slammer. Turns out the answer was: Because pedals do things amps can’t. Or at least not the same way. You can have twelve knobs. You can have a graphic EQ. You can have multiple gain channels. You can spend an entire afternoon trying to dial…
Colorado’s ballot this November is packed with issues, but one of them smells… well… like total crap. I’m talking about the proposal to force all school sports to be divided strictly by “biological sex.” Supporters claim it’s about fairness. My own life says it’s about fragile egos, outdated thinking, and a whole lot of steaming nonsense.I grew up in the early 90s. Our football team had a girl on it. Not a mascot. Not a novelty. Not a “statement.” She was there because she could kick the ball better than any of us. Period.And people gave her crap for it.Not…
I wanted to like this machine. Seriously. On paper, the Hoover SmartWash Pet Complete sounds brilliant. Automatic detergent dispensing, push forward to wash, pull backward to dry, removable brushes, upholstery tools, pet-focused marketing, and a five-year warranty. It checks all the boxes. Unfortunately, I ended up using that warranty more than I’d have liked. Twice. The First Impression Is Great I’ll give Hoover credit where it’s due. The SmartWash is easy to use. You don’t need to hold a trigger. You don’t need to measure cleaning solution. You don’t need to remember which button does what. You push it forward…
The No-BS GPU Buying Guide 2026 Which Graphics Card Should You Actually Buy? Introduction The graphics card market is more confusing than ever. You can spend $250 or $3,000 and every manufacturer will happily tell you their card is the one you need. The problem is that most people either buy far more GPU than they need or not enough to last more than a couple of years. This guide looks at the current NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel lineups and answers the question nobody in marketing wants to answer: Which cards are actually worth buying? Current GPU Stack Budget GPUs…
I hate this thing. Not because it’s bad. Quite the opposite. I hate it because every time I look at my credit card statement I briefly consider whether I could have bought a decent used car instead. The MSI RTX 5090 SUPRIM LIQUID SOC costs an absolutely stupid amount of money. Nobody should be comfortable spending this much on a graphics card. I certainly wasn’t. Even now I occasionally stare at it and wonder what exactly was wrong with my perfectly functional RTX 2080 Ti. Then I actually use it. And unfortunately that’s where my argument falls apart. The Upgrade…
⚠️ Buy Tour Tickets ONLY From The National Park Service Before we get into the review, let’s talk about something that annoyed the crap out of me. Mesa Verde’s guided tours are one of the biggest reasons to visit the park. Unfortunately, there are third-party resellers and tour brokers out there charging absolutely ridiculous markups for reservations that originate with the National Park Service. Most official cliff dwelling tours cost about $8 per person through the National Park Service reservation system. I’ve seen third-party offerings charging well over $100, and occasionally much more, for essentially the same access. Don’t do…
Some dog treats get a polite tail wag. Some get a sniff before being reluctantly accepted. And then there are Fruitables. In my house, if I so much as touch a bag, my dogs appear from every corner of the property and line up with military precision. It’s like the opening scene from The Sound of Music. One dog appears. Then another. Then somehow all of them are standing there in formation waiting for the performance to begin. The treats themselves are small, crunchy, pumpkin-based biscuits available in several flavors and advertised at only 8 calories per treat. They’re easy…
The Springs Resort is one of the most famous hot-springs destinations in Colorado, and after visiting, I understand exactly why. I also understand why some people leave feeling a little conflicted. This isn’t a one-poop review. Not because it’s bad. Far from it. The mud treatment area was fantastic. The sauna was excellent. The ability to jump from a cold plunge directly into a steaming hot spring was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The property sits right on the San Juan River, and when river access is open, that contrast-therapy experience is one of the resort’s biggest…