things you bought that didn't work out for you

[Jaycat]

Tickets to see Jeff Beck.

Unfortunately, Bogert and Appice tagged along with him.

Oh , and did I mention "Jim Dandy" and Black Oak Arkansas were the opening act.

I still want my money back.

 

[jmlee]

Tickets to see Jeff Beck.

Unfortunately, Bogert and Appice tagged along with him.

Oh , and did I mention "Jim Dandy" and Black Oak Arkansas were the opening act.

I still want my money back.

Next time you get some BB&A tickets give me a call and I’ll take them off your hands!

 

[retslock]

That's a long list for me but in a bass/musical context a Stingray back in the '80s and a Maton fretless also back then. I was never able to bond with either of them.

 

[Gorilla Monsoon]

Tickets to see Jeff Beck.

Unfortunately, Bogert and Appice tagged along with him.

Oh , and did I mention "Jim Dandy" and Black Oak Arkansas were the opening act.

I still want my money back.

Sat through 3 hours of Jefferson Starship to see Jeff play for 35 minutes. That was when Jefferson Starship was reeeeeeeealy bad. I don’t know if they ever improved but they were insufferable then. Like - rather lick a wasps nest than see them insufferable…

 

[SDC1-ClickClack]

Sat through 3 hours of Jefferson Starship to see Jeff play for 35 minutes. That was when Jefferson Starship was reeeeeeeealy bad. I don’t know if they ever improved but they were insufferable then. Like - rather lick a wasps nest than see them insufferable…

But.... but.... they built a city on rock'n'roll! Don't you believe in miracles?

 

[jimmydean]

Considering I have sold , traded every piece of gear I have ever bought except for my Barefaced cab and my 62 JB , things have not worked out for me over the last couple of Decades .

 

[retslock]

I’d say the same thing for any two-stroke machine I’ve owned!

The Kawasaki we had went well for years. It started pretty easily even in cold weather but when parts started to wear out we found it hard to get them. They don't make them anymore.

 

[retslock]

While I don’t often make purchases that are large enough to regret south of the occasional dubious Amazon instrument, I have noticed I have a certain problem with lunchboxes.

On several occasions, I’ve seen cute bentos for sale, decided that I want to start packing aesthetic lunches again, and maintaining the effort for just a few weeks until I remember it’s vastly easier just to skip lunch at work altogether rather than bother sitting down, nevermind the daily commitment of sacrificing a few minutes of dedicated prep time each evening that I’d rather spend on essential activities like napping and crying.

Also, on a whim I picked up a cheap egg bite maker this summer, thinking it’d make for a simple and satisfying meal prep tool, but all the silicone molds are less than one egg in capacity and the cleanup is more tedious and involved than frying up my eggs like a normal person.

… Food is frustrating.

--^@

Food PREP is frustrating. I quite like the eating part.

 

[retslock]

Daddario NYXL strings. Those strings were so tense, the G string broke when putting it on before it was to pitch, probably around F somewhere iirc, Daddario sends me a whole other package out of a different batch. I played 2 notes on the D string and then it snapped. I then put a random used string on for the D, and the new NYXLs actually went duller then that D string within 2 weeks. I also ordered a normal tapered XL .145 and they sent me a non-tapered instead, it was pretty much an unusable string because of the action at the bridge, plus even trying to string a .145 over a saddle is not easy haha. They said they would send me another pack of strings and make sure they sent a tapered one this time for my .145 and I just told them forget it, they've lost my business for pretty much life. Unless they have something nobody else offers, I WILL NOT use daddario gear.

Wow that's an unlucky experience. When I used round wound I never had any trouble with D'Addario for many years and loved their strings. I'm also very happy with Chromes now for several years as well.

 

[Lenny JG]

Wow that's an unlucky experience. When I used round wound I never had any trouble with D'Addario for many years and loved their strings. I'm also very happy with Chromes now for several years as well.

Unlucky indeed lol

 

[ajkula66]

I could go on with gear, cars and other mundane stuff but if I want to be *really* serious for a NY minute, I'd have to say that it was the house in the Poconos which we had built and moved there in 2006.

As much as I loved the area my wife hated it. With a passion of a thousand and one suns.

A decade later we separated and she and the kids ended up back in Brooklyn, while I stayed in PA for a while - at a different location fairly close by - until my retirement in 2021. I'm roughly 5,000 miles away as I'm writing this.

I'm never coming back to the States, but if someone asked me where I'd live if I could be teleported across the ocean and set up with some funds to make the remainder of my days *very* comfortable, I'd still chose NEPA.

 

[Wesley R]

Artic Cat El Tiger

Emmons pedal steel (fun, but not me)

 

[Wasnex]

Here's my sad little story:
Around 1983 I did a bunch of research on the "best bass amp." I ended up special ordering an Ampeg SVT and 810. When it come in, the store called and said come try it out. It sounded nothing like I imagined. In fact I thought it was so awful that I wondered if it was broken, or possibly a black market fake. Since it was special ordered, I paid it off and made do. Over the years I have occasionally come across SVT with 810s in stores. They all sound pretty much the same. It's just not my sound

The gas powered yard equipment that did not work out for me is a walk behind string trimmer. The areas where I need to use it have too steep of an incline.

Regarding progressives. I am pretty severely nearsighted and I am on my second set. My opinion is mixed...they are better in some ways and worse in others. I buy dedicated single vision readers, as I can't read for long with the progressives. I also feel progressives suck for sharp peripheral vision, which I found a bit concerning for driving. To overcome this I turn my head more at stops.

Getting used to a new progressive prescription seems to take much longer than single vision. The first prescription took almost a year. I adapted to the second set much quicker; maybe 3-6 months. The main issue for me was getting used to the distortion in my field of vision as I am looking around. The distortion creates a sensation sort of like vertigo. After fully adapting to a prescription, I stop noticing the distortion.

I do feel progressives allow a wider range of reasonably sharp vision. So after my brain learns to compensate, progressives give a more natural experience in the mid to far vision range. I suspect they would not be ideal for activities such as tennis of soft ball.

Regarding two-stroke power or gas VS electric power.
I love my gas power and usually have no problem getting it started and keeping it running until it gets old/worn out. Last year my Ryobi blower and weed eater crapped out after almost 20 years of service. I also have a Craftsman mower that bought about the same time. The pull chord on the blower broke. I was going to fix it, but when I pulled it apart I found some screws had come loose a stripped out. I bought a brand new top of the line Stihl. I miss the old Ryobi, but the Stihl is a step up.

The drive shaft on the weed eater locked up. I bought a used block off Ebay (because new parts are not available). I cannibalized parts from my old unit to make a complete power head. A few years back I bought a backup Toro powerhead that works with the same attachments.

Over the years I had to replace the fuel lines, primer bulbs and gas caps a few times. Also replaced a bump head and flex shaft on the weed eater, and fiddled with the carburetor jets from time to time. Both units were still running the original spark plugs. I don't bother running them out of gas as I start them regularly. I buy non-ethanol fuel and add Star Tron fuel treatment for all of my small engines (including motorcycles).

I have Stihl chain saw that I don't use very often. When I need it I fill it up with gas and it usually starts after a few pulls. When I am done with it, I drain the gas and run the motor till it quits. The chain oiler leaks while the unit is stored, but AFAIK that's pretty typical.

I also have about a 20 year old gas wood chipper. I usually wind up chipping two or three times a year to clear piles. When a big branch falls or a tree dies, I chip what I can and usually the rest gets put in my trash can a few pieces at a time. My chipper is rated to 3".

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

@Chris Fitzgerald , try the HX editor that runs under Windows before selling your Stomp. You might change your mind, or just have some fun using it via the editor before selling it.

If I could edit on a Mac screen, or even on an iPad, that might be a game changer. Is that an option?

 

[darev]

If I could edit on a Mac screen, or even on an iPad, that might be a game changer. Is that an option?

Mac, yes. iPad/iOS, no.

 

[Jefenator]

If I'm being honest: most of it. But some real standouts are:

• Barefoot experience shoes. Tried the 2 mile walk to work & back with those... once. Then I thought they might be salvageable as gig shoes. After a long afternoon gig in them I came down with a raging case of plantar fasciitis that still dogs me a year & a half later. That might be THE worst $99 I ever spent.
• I mysteriously stopped hiking with a tripod shortly after I got one of the best carbon fiber tripods money could buy. (Finally sold it & used the proceeds to get a carbon fiber bow for the double bass.)
• My 2nd & 3rd motorcycles. (Should have just stuck with the '77 Honda CB750.)
• New $1000 mountain bike. Fancy enough to be kind of scary to try & work on – cheap enough to not really be worth the bother. (I've been getting WAY more use from the used $800 gravel bike.)

 

[Iridescentone]

DVD and Bluray players. They die in a couple years of use. Problem is the newer players that are still available don't properly upscale some older DVD's, but instead play them at the wrong aspect ratio...everything is shown W I-D-E-R. An obsolete format, apparently. Renders half my 200 movie collection unwatchable.

 

[Iridescentone]

I bought a really nice Stihl weed whacker, gasoline. What a pain in the arse. I should have bought a battery powered one. What was I thinking?

I hear ya. Got a $300 Echo "pro" trimmer (on sale for $200). It starts up great, has gobs of power to blast through almost anything, but....reloading the string magazine is a complete joke. Not only is string loading fiddly and time consuming, but once reloaded, the string gets jammed up right after the first "bounce". Assuming I was doing it wrong I took it back to the Echo dealer. He tells me..."oh yeah, the stock string mechanism is crap, so we use this optional one ($25), which I buy. Lo and behold, it loads up a little easier, but it still effing jams up after the first bounce.

Meanwhile, I'd already tossed my 25 yr old cheapo corded Black & Decker, that never failed to work.

 

[covermego]

I'm sure somebody has mentioned treadmills. Bought one in 2006 and while it "didn't work out for me", it sure did for my wife! Still have it and I have to figure out how to determine how many miles are on it. Probably about 10K miles (just did the basic math and I'll bet I'm not too far off!). She still uses it, especially during the dark-n-dreary winter. She never ran before in her youth; never a jock or anything. However, thanks to this treadmill, she has run many half-marathons AND 2 full marathons. Next marathon is 600 miles south in January, at ........ DIDDNEY-LAND !!! I can't tell you her age, but I'm 66 and she's 7 years younger than me. I think we paid around $500 for it, from Costco. She got her money's worth. Never, ever been repaired.

 

[pcake]

I'm sure somebody has mentioned treadmills. Bought one in 2006 and while it "didn't work out for me", it sure did for my wife! Still have it and I have to figure out how to determine how many miles are on it. Probably about 10K miles (just did the basic math and I'll bet I'm not too far off!). She still uses it, especially during the dark-n-dreary winter. She never ran before in her youth; never a jock or anything. However, thanks to this treadmill, she has run many half-marathons AND 2 full marathons. Next marathon is 600 miles south in January, at ........ DIDDNEY-LAND !!! I can't tell you her age, but I'm 66 and she's 7 years younger than me. I think we paid around $500 for it, from Costco. She got her money's worth. Never, ever been repaired.

ah, home treadmills... every one i've owned a treadmill,. they made my knees hurt a lot, while none at the gym ever bothered my knees at all. i sold each one, several to people who later reported how happy they are with them. ironically, perhaps, i have a $150 walking pad with a permanent 8 degree incline that doesn't hurt my knees after all those pricier treadmills.