After band practice, I went with Kris to his workplace, Guitar Center (GC). I had been conducting string trials, using a variety of different brands of guitar string of the same gauge on my guitar and sampling the sound of each in pursuit of the most stylish tone. Today I was trying the pricey "DR" strings, which are supposedly handmade. These string lasted about 4 hours and then the A string broke.

There's this thing with me and A-strings. If you made a histogram of the strings on my guitar that I break most often it would go E-1 A-4 D-12 G-0 B-0 E-0. That is, I break the A string four times as often as the E, and the D string 12 times as often. I don't ever break the solid strings. Anyway, I generally rate the durability of a type of strings by how long it takes for the A or D to give out on me.

I hadn't gotten the samples for DRs yet, so I was at GC to get a new pack. Kris had been scheduled help them prepare for "Black Friday", biggest shopping day of the year. It sounds like it will be a madhouse there, with hordes of Seattle musicians and their families shopping for christmas guitars for the budding Django Reinhardt in the family.

My favorite thing about GC is the presence of huge amounts of musical gear, all hooked up and begging for a test run. My least favorite thing about it is that if you walk any distance at all on the twill loop-pile carpet, your next brush with something electrically grounded will generate an audible "crack" and spark, causing you to emit an audible "ow! Jesus christ!" Ho ho, funny, but after ten or twelve of these, the prank-factor starts wearing thin. I've taken to carrying a quarter around in my hand while in GC so it can take the brunt of the arc when I need to touch something (like a doorknob or a keyboard). Once, when I sparked against an equipment rack, several of the synthesizer modules within began playing notes and would not stop until I turned them off. Oopsie.

One thing that you hear a lot of as a GC employee is people noodling with guitars and basses. Today Kris was wishing for a sign (as in "Wayne's World") which disallowed various Korn and Metallica songs which he's heard customers fumble through an average of five billion times per day.