Matthew "magnetic cat" M.'s Profile

Man, i'd love to work at this place.  The Fret Shop exudes an industrious and small time shop vibe something like i imagine workshops in medieval times felt. There's a small merchandise area that includes a few very tasty guitar and bass specimens for sale, a wide variety of strings at prices a little higher than what one pays at music superstores, picks, pickups and spare parts. The majority of the store is behind the counter where instruments are worked on out in the open. I love the very existence of musical instruments, and a place like this that specializes in refining them so that they reverberate more beautifully turns me on to no end. I have never had an instrument of mine repaired or modified at Fifth Avenue, but i hear they do fine work whose price is commensurate with its precision. That is, getting work done here is costly. But if you have an instrument that means a lot to you, why take it to a hack?
When i was hanging around after trying out a mouth-watering '96 Taylor twelve string hanging from the wall, a young fellow brought in a  Mexican Stratocaster that he had just purchased.  He wanted to have it set up. The comments made by the man who i took to be the head of the shop were of an encouraging nature that minimized the amount of work that the guitar really needed before it would be in optimum playing condition. That's a good sign, i think. He wasn't trying to sell a novice an unneeded bill of services. And the content of his speech was somewhat technical while being easily comprehensible and in the end educational. This is a gem of a store.  Plus, there is a coffee dispenser near the sales counter that gives away the best coffee i've ever had in a guitar store.

Not quite the Cadillac of Pizza their ads boast. Palatable, but the sauce is unremarkable, the crust is standard issue, and the two times i've gone to the  lunch buffet, it seems they expect people to wait for an hour as they slowly expedite pizzas to the feeding trough. And the price was high for so little mediocre food.

I wanted to see what it would cost for me to have some sweatshirts or t shirts with my music project's logo printed here. The help, a hip looking lot, were very helpful and enthusiastic and gave me the scoop. It is much more expensive, it turns out, to have anything but small runs of shirts printed here than it is to screen print them.  They use a machine designed to print on textiles which interfaces with a computer. It is more time and labor intensive for long runs but frees up Skreened to be more agile in terms of being able to quickly make things to order. I would use Skreened for a few shirts for friends or a special event. Otherwise, I would turn to screen printing.

I ate some of the best baba ghanouj here that i've ever had the privilege of throwing down my gullet. Smooth yet interestingly textured, smokey and delicious. The gyro wasn't as good, and a little pricey, but still passwable. The waitress was young, pretty, and pleasant. A relaxing atmosphere and a great place for lunch if you are in the area.

This GE is i think more recent and seems even more upscale than the Clintonville location. The produce, as usual is excellent and the prices, as usual, are a little high. The beer and wine selection is wide, but there aren't as many microbrews as you would find at a good specialty shop. Maybe that's an obvious point. The meat selection is diverse and there are many options of half prepared seafood and meat dishes for those who want to just buy something and slap it in the oven at home. I haven't used the restroom here, but i bet it's not as catastrophic as the one in Clintonville. All in all, a great grocery.

A great place born of great intentions. Plus i went to a fun Halloween party there and met interesting people who (sadly) didn't objectify me in my tight blue dress.  There seems to be a like mindedness running through the people who spend a lot of time at Third Hand, and at its lowest common denominator this mindset seems to be an overarching dissatisfaction with many of the conventions of society we've become accustomed to, such as overreliance on cars and a tacit trust of government. I can appreciate that move toward new modes of life and trying to subvert the unhealthy status quo. I think this place is strongly linked to the sporeprint info shop next door.  But i don't think you have to radical to buy a bike there, have them fix yours, or spend some time there learning to maintain and repair bikes.

I remember when my parents and i used to drive 20 minutes from our little town to another which had a Wendy's. That was twenty years ago. Back then, the burgers seemed high class and delicious compared to all the other fast food joints.
It seems that Wendy's food has degraded over time and this store is another dispensary of that sad fact. I have an iron stomach, but there is something about the meat here that is more likely than not to make me feel half-sick and disgusted. It's not always that bad, sometimes when the burgers seem fresher and i don't do as much regretting afterward. But many times they are compacted, sad and greasy looking and i feel bad for the cow that gave it's life and ended up like this. And, from my experience, the staff at this Wendy's seem to be in a worse and slower-moving mood than at the great, luminous Rally's right up the street. Plus, they tried to give me a baked potato here one time that looked like it had been blown up with explosives.

I go there a lot because it's nearby. The gas prices are not the lowest you'll find, but they are not unduly inflated either. They have American Spirit cigarettes for about .50 less than many stores. The help is friendly. There's protective glass at the counter and it's one of those places where they lock the doors in the evening so that you have to do your business at a walk up window.

The store felt a bit understocked the last time i was there, but they had all the American Spirit types, so for the 400th time i chucked up the big money for the nice cigarettes. The guy at the counter who was also one of the owners was nice and talked to me at length about the nature of doing business in that area.  It's nice to not just merely buy something at a store but to also connect with some of the people there and hear what they have to say and how they say it.

Again, mirroring my review of the Rally's on Hudson and High, this place gets five stars because it has helped me out of a pinch so many times. By "pinch" i mean being broke as hell and/or in a hurry. A friend and i just enjoyed a Bacon Buford for lunch, and that sandwich cannot be beat by the other fast food contenders. It contains somewhat decent vegetables, and the red onions are perhaps one of the best decisions ever made by the executives of a chain burger joint. The burger patties themselves taste good to me, not as greasy as McD's, though i'm sure they're not the finest beef, or even predominantly beef.
The help has always been pleasant at this and the other Rally's i frequent, and that just increases the value of going there.