What Are Common Pros And Cons In A Paul Reed Smith Review?

Okay, let me nerd out for a bit here — the quick core fact is that S2 Mira guitars come with PRS-designed S2 pickups, which are PRS’s own humbucking designs made specifically for the S2 line. Those pickups have a balanced, slightly vintage-leaning voicing compared to some of the modern-hot PRS pickups; they aim to sit nicely between clarity and warmth, so the Mira retains that glassy PRS top-end but with enough midrange to cut through a mix. That said, there’s a catch I’ve learned from digging through forums and staring at guitar photos late into the night: PRS has tweaked the pickup spec across different runs and finishes. Some early S2 Mirаs shipped with covered S2 humbuckers, while other runs used the open-coil versions. There are also limited or special-run variations where PRS swapped in slightly different S2-voiced sets. So if you’re eyeballing a used Mira or trying to ID one, don’t be shocked if the pickup covers, pole-piece style, or even the winding labels look different from one example to another. If you want to be sure about the exact model in a particular Mira, the most reliable routes are: check the PRS product spec page or archived spec sheets for the model year, ask the seller/dealer for photos of the pickup underside or any factory paperwork, or contact PRS with the guitar’s serial number. Physically, you can also remove the pickup ring and look for maker stamps or stickers on the pickup baseplate — PRS usually marks their S2 pickups, but some covering styles hide those marks. For players who care about tone, the S2 set is a great starting point; if you want something brighter or beefier, swapping to an 85/15 or a 57/08-style set is a common, tone-first upgrade. Personally, I love the way the S2 humbuckers respond with light touch and dynamic playing — they’re not screamingly hot, but they polish chords beautifully and sing when you push them. If you’re buying, a quick photo of the pickups and the seller’s confirmation can save a lot of guesswork, and if you already own one, try out a few amp settings before reaching for the soldering iron — sometimes the stock S2s surprise you in the best way.

Honestly, when I eyeball used listings and lurk in guitar groups, the S2 Mira tends to sit in a slightly higher resale tier than most PRS SE models. The main reason is perception and provenance: S2s are marketed and built to bridge the gap between American-made Core instruments and the more affordable SE line, so people expect better hardware, different woods/finishes, and a quality-control story that justifies paying more secondhand. In practical terms that means an S2 Mira often commands noticeably more money than an SE Mira or comparable SE model, especially if it’s a desirable finish or a limited run. That said, resale isn’t just a sticker—condition, rarity, and timing matter way more than the model badge alone. A perfectly kept SE with original case, recent setup, and sought-after color can beat a beat-up S2 in final sale price. Conversely, a well-cared-for S2 with original case and low fret wear often holds its value better because buyers see it as closer to the Core lineage; I've seen folks pay a premium for a US-made serial and the 'feel' of higher-end fretwork. Mods are a big caveat: aftermarket pickups, non-original tuners, or routed cavities will usually tank resale for collectors, though players looking for tone might not care. If you’re buying to flip or wanting the best resale protection, my practical checklist is useful: keep the case and paperwork, take detailed photos, get a receipt for any recent setup, and be transparent about mods. List on multiple platforms (local marketplace, Reverb, eBay) and price it with a small room for negotiation. For buyers, remember that SEs are fantastic value for playing and modding — you can often get the same sonic goals for less money and still keep resale decent. Personally, I tend to favor S2 when I want resale security and a closer-to-Core feel, but for everyday playing and experimentation I’ll happily pick up an SE and make it my project guitar.

Oh man, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' is such a fun ride! The director behind all that explosive chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is Doug Liman. You might know him from other slick action flicks like 'The Bourne Identity' or 'Edge of Tomorrow.' What I love about Liman's style is how he balances high-octane set pieces with sharp, witty dialogue—this movie’s no exception. The way he frames those shootouts and marital spats like they’re two sides of the same coin? Brilliant. Plus, the whole film has this glossy, kinetic energy that makes it rewatchable as hell. Fun fact: Liman apparently encouraged Pitt and Jolie to improvise during therapy scenes, which added to the rawness of their performances. And hey, who could forget the iconic tango scene? Pure tension, pure Liman. It’s wild how a movie about assassins pretending to be a normal couple ended up being so… weirdly relatable?

Okay, I dug into this with the kind of curiosity that makes me stay up reading obscure threads at 2 a.m., and here's the honest take: there isn’t a well-documented, high-profile scandal widely known under the exact name 'E. Dewey Smith scandal.' That doesn’t mean nothing happened — it just means the label might be local, misremembered, misspelled, or tied to a niche story that hasn’t been widely archived online. I’ve seen this pattern a lot when names get truncated (E. Dewey Smith vs. Edward Dewey Smith vs. Edwin D. Smith) or when a person is mentioned as part of a larger investigation rather than the headline name. If you’re trying to figure out who was implicated, the place I’d start is by treating the question like a detective. Try variations: 'E Dewey Smith', 'E. D. Smith', 'Ed Smith Dewey', or even omit the initial. Add context words you might remember — a city, year, industry (politics, education, business), or what kind of scandal it was (financial impropriety, ethics violations, criminal charges). Then search newspaper archives (ProQuest, Newspapers.com, Google News Archive), state court records, and the Library of Congress digital collections. Local papers often carry what national outlets miss, and local courthouses or state attorney general sites will have dockets if charges were filed. If the person was a public official or business leader, check municipal minutes, council records, or corporate filings. For people tied to universities or hospitals, institutional press releases and board minutes can show who was investigated or sanctioned. Also consider reaching out to a local librarian or an archivist — they love this kind of puzzle and can often pull clippings that don’t surface in standard web searches. If you can share a region or time period, I’d happily brainstorm more targeted search terms — sometimes the breakthrough is as simple as swapping a middle initial for a full name or searching a range of years. Personally, this kind of hunt is one of my guilty pleasures: tracking down old news, piecing together timelines, and finding the tiny headline that explains everything. If you want, tell me any extra detail at all — a decade, a state, or even the field the person worked in — and I’ll help refine the search plan or suggest exact databases to check. I’m curious now, too.

Okay, diving in with full honesty: I couldn't track down any reputable news stories, court records, or academic write-ups that document a widely recognized 'E. Dewey Smith' scandal the way the question frames it. That doesn’t mean there was never a local controversy or internet rumor — it just means there’s no obvious archive trail in the usual places. With that in mind, here’s what typically counts as the kinds of evidence that would actually disprove scandal claims like this, and how I’d personally verify them if I were pulling an all-nighter digging through sources. First, the strongest exculpatory material is documentary and independently verifiable: contemporaneous records (bank statements, emails with reliable metadata, log files, dated contracts), official investigative reports that clear a person, and court documents showing dismissal, acquittal, or retraction orders. I pay close attention to metadata — email headers or file creation timestamps can reveal whether a purported document was forged or altered after the fact. Another heavyweight category is forensic evidence: if the scandal involves alleged physical wrongdoing, forensic tests (DNA, forensics on devices, chain-of-custody logs) that contradict the accusation tend to be decisive. Equally important are third-party verifications: independent audits, statements from neutral oversight bodies, or multiple reliable journalists corroborating that initial claims were false. Corrections and retractions from the original publishers are huge red flags in favor of the accused — if the outlet that published the claim later retracts it, that’s often where the exonerating evidence is explained. Practically, when I want to check these things I look in a few places in this order: reputable news archives (think major national dailies or trade press), public court dockets (federal PACER or state court websites), official investigative or oversight reports, and fact-checking sites like 'Snopes' or 'Reuters Fact Check'. I also use archived webpages (the Wayback Machine) to see original versions of stories, and I look for follow-ups or retractions from the original reporters. If I find conflicting claims online, I try to trace everything back to the primary source — a scanned court order, an official press release, or the investigative body’s report — because paraphrases and blog posts often garble the facts. If you have a specific article, tweet, or forum thread about E. Dewey Smith, send it my way and I’ll dig into the primary documents; sometimes the key evidence is buried in footnotes or a municipal clerk’s filing that gets overlooked. At the very least, I’ll help point you to the records that settle whether the claims were ever substantiated or were later disproved.

I've dug through messy timelines for shady affairs before, so my first instinct is to treat this like a mini-investigation: gather primary sources, then stitch them into a clear sequence. Start with major news outlets—use Google News and the news archives of local papers where the person was active. I often run searches with date ranges and site-specific queries like site:nytimes.com "E. Dewey Smith" (or whatever variation of the name exists) and then narrow by year. For older or deleted web pages, the Wayback Machine is a lifesaver—paste suspicious links there to see snapshots, and grab screenshots or archived URLs for each milestone you find. Beyond newspapers, check court dockets and official filings if the scandal involved legal action. PACER covers federal cases, and many states have searchable court portals for civil or criminal dockets. I’ve ordered a few PDF dockets and used the filing dates to anchor my timeline. Don’t forget press releases from organizations involved, statements on company or institutional websites, and local TV stations’ websites—those often have short broadcast summaries with clear dates. If you hit paywalls, university libraries or public libraries can give access to ProQuest, Nexis Uni, or other newspaper databases that compile contemporaneous coverage. Collect everything into a simple spreadsheet with columns for date, source, quote/excerpt, URL or archive link, and reliability notes. I use Zotero to keep snippets and PDFs organized, then export to Google Sheets and play with a visual timeline in TimelineJS or even Notion. Cross-check duplicate claims, look for primary evidence (court documents, official statements, dated emails) before trusting social-media threads, and use Wayback snapshots when posts are deleted. If you want, tell me the exact spelling and a rough time window and I’ll help map out a starting set of sources—I've made timelines for political sagas and media controversies and it’s kinda satisfying to turn chaos into a clear sequence.

If you're gearing up to write a school essay on 'The Great Gatsby', lean into the parts that made you feel something—because that's where the good theses live. Start by picking one clear angle: is it the hollowness of the American Dream, the role of memory and nostalgia, Fitzgerald's treatment of class, or Nick Carraway's unreliable narration? From there, craft a tight thesis sentence that stakes a claim (not just summary). For example: "In 'The Great Gatsby', Fitzgerald uses color imagery and the recurring green light to expose how the American Dream has been distorted into a spectacle of desire and illusion." That gives you a clear roadmap for paragraphs and evidence. Next, structure matters more than you think. Open with a hook — maybe a striking quote like "Gatsby believed in the green light" or a brief historical cue about the Jazz Age to anchor readers. Follow with your thesis and a sentence that outlines the main points. For body paragraphs, use the classic pattern: topic sentence, two or three pieces of textual evidence (quotes or close descriptions), analysis that ties each quote back to the thesis, and a short transition. Don’t let plot summary dominate: assume your reader knows the story and spend space analyzing why Fitzgerald chose a certain symbol, how the narrative voice colors our perception, or how setting (East Egg vs West Egg, the valley of ashes) supports your claim. Finish with a conclusion that widens the lens. Instead of merely repeating the thesis, reflect on the novel's broader resonance: how its critique of wealth still matters today, or how Nick's moral confusion mirrors contemporary ambivalence about success. Practical tips: integrate short quotes (one or two lines), always explain what each quote does, and connect back to your thesis. Edit to remove filler sentences; teachers love tight paragraphs with strong topic sentences. If you want, I can sketch a 5-paragraph outline or give a few model opening lines and thesis variants to fit different prompts — tell me if you need a more analytical, thematic, or historical focus.

Honestly, if you want a review that actually sings, pick lines that show how F. Scott Fitzgerald layers voice, longing, and irony in 'The Great Gatsby'. I always start with the narrator's opening because it sets the moral lens: 'In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.' Follow that immediately with the advice itself: 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.' Those two lines let readers know Nick's filtered sympathy and the social distance he carries — perfect to quote when you talk about narrative reliability and class judgment. Then grab the lines that carry the novel's atmosphere and symbols. Highlight 'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year receded before us.' I bring this up whenever I write about the American Dream or the novel's romanticized futurism. Counter it with Gatsby's earnest rebellion against time: 'Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!' — that little quotation is gold for a paragraph on delusion versus determination. For emotional beats, I always include Daisy's shirt scene: 'They're such beautiful shirts.' It sounds small, but in a review it's a vivid way to talk about wealth, sensuality, and how material things can break someone's composure. Finish your quoted set with the lines that feel like Fitzgerald's thesis and his elegy: 'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.' And sprinkle in Nick's reflective snapshot: 'I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.' If you want to tackle the moral vacuum and the spiritual imagery, mention the billboard: 'The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg' (you can quote the short descriptive bits that suit your point). Also don't skip the sharp, personal endorsement Nick gives Gatsby: 'You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.' That one is a great pivot in any review: it shows loyalty, judgment, and the narrator's complicated admiration. As a tip, when you use these quotes, sandwich them with a one-sentence context and one sentence of interpretation — that keeps your review readable and persuasive. I like to juxtapose the green light quote with the closing boats line to show how hope and inevitability coexist in the book. If you're feeling playful, open the review with the opening line and close with the last line; it frames the whole thing like a little bow, and readers always appreciate a neat structure that mirrors the book's own circle of longing.