Yesterday, while Mrs. K. and the stepdaughter were registering for baby stuff, I stumbled upon a Brook Mays music store, conveniently placed next to the Babies R Us.

I ran to the door.

Went inside, and noticed they had a fairly good sized Squier collection (mostly Bullets and Affinity Strats), with a Deluxe HH and a Satin Deluxe in vintage blonde, with a TS pickguard and 3 SC pups, with white pup covers.

After getting the salesman off the phone (I was the only one in the store), he grabbed the guitar for me and plugged me into a 30W Marshall combo.

WOW! For $199.00 these guitars are gonna be hard to beat. Fit and finish was every bit as good as the MIM Fender it was hanging next to. The medium jumbo frets felt perfect and the neck... well, I was in Heaven. It had a satin finish that felt almost like bare wood, which is my favorite. The salesman tried to spoil my fun by telling me that Squiers "don't have a good tremolo, and they go out of tune fast." I dismissed his uneducated comissioned salaried opinion and kept playing, yanking on the tremolo occasionally. Guess what? The guitar stayed in tune.

While the pups weren't in the Duncan / Dimarzio realm, but they had a good sound. The neck was pure clean Strat, bright and sparkly, and the bridge had a good, almost twangy bite to it. Way cool. Plenty of good tones on positions 2 and 4, sounding mostly like a 'bucker with the tone knob rolled back just a bit. Overall, there was plenty of clarity with the stock pups, and I liked 'em.

The guitar played every bit as good as the MIM I tried out recently, and I liked the neck and frets on the Squier more!

Fellas, I've found my next guitar. Now, I just gotta find the cashola, which should be coming soon.