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Through Fresh Eyes

The Worst

So Beloved Granddaughter has left us (along with her lovely parents) and gone back to Seffrica sob sob.

While Over Here, of course, we showed them around and tried to see the country from their perspective.

While they truly enjoyed themselves — I mean, Buc-ees, who could hate that? — there were some blots on the landscape, and here are the three most egregious:

1 – Waffle House Sucks

It used to be the place where America had breakfast on the road, and where we could be assured of an inexpensive meal drawn from a dizzying choice of meals.  Now?  I won’t be going back.  A cut-down, tiny menu (fallout from Covid, by the way), no longer inexpensive, and to be honest, the food was terrible even by WH’s standards.  (More on this later.)

2 – Sports Merchandise Is A Fucking Ripoff

We got to babysit Beloved Granddaughter while her parents went to watch a Dallas Mavericks game, which they enjoyed immensely — although bewildered by the spectacle.  The next morning, I went to Academy to buy them some Mavs stuff for souvies.  Did I?  Like hell I did.  $30 for a cheap (made in Third World Country #7) t-shirt?  $50 for a ditto sweatshirt, $25 for a cap?  WHO ARE THEY KIDDING?

3 – Light Beer Is Not Only Piss, It’s Also A Rip-Off

Son-in-law tried three different light beers (Bud Light, Miller Lite and Michelob Ultra), and declared them all to be shit beyond words.  (I could have told him that, but he wanted to “try the American experience” — his words —  even though I warned him against it.)  The nadir of all this came at the Mavs game, where he paid $10 for a cup of the aforesaid Michelob Ultra.  His description of American “light” beer cannot be repeated here, lest it offend my Readers’ sensitive feelings, and he is the politest, most Christian young man I’ve ever met.

Bonus:  Even Cheap Food Is Overpriced

Breakfast at IHOP:  $90 for four, excluding tip.  $12 for a stack of pancakes?  What the hell has happened to us?

Quite apart from poverty issues, it’ll be a LONG time before New Wife and I eat out again.  The prices aren’t just high, they’re a fucking insult.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

So, to clear our heads, a little off-beat mirth:

Menage à trois — a French term, after all:

And in the same vein:

And while we’re in that territory, so to speak, some offerings from Frederic Leighton:

The last is not by Frederic Leighton.  But run off to work, anyway.

Landscapes

Fine Art

As a rule, I tend to prefer Impressionist landscape paintings, such as Monet’s Morning:

That doesn’t mean I’m completely averse to the more realistic style, though, and I also think that 19th-century American painters are quite noteworthy, especially those of the Hudson Valley School.  Here are a few from John William Casilear, for example, that are quite lovely:

Hudson View
(One might think that this is an Impressionist painting, unless one has actually seen the Upper Hudson Valley at this time of day…)

Lake George (early)

Lake George (later)

Saratoga Springs

New Hampshire Beach

Sea Scene

Sunset

My favorite Casilear, though, is a moodier piece:

Moon Rise

Landscape art, I think, is supposed to calm the viewer and make them wonder at the beauty of Nature.  Casilear’s work does that, in spades.

Too Much Automotive Bullshit

Drive Time, Technology

I’ve ranted on and on about how I hate the intrusion of technology into the simple act of driving, but my ire is approaching volcanic levels.  Try this little snippet (via Insty, thankee, Squire):

While it’s often easier to sync your phone to a vehicle, it doesn’t allow the company you purchased the vehicle from to maximize its data harvesting capabilities. It also lets you circumvent their operating system to a large degree and any apps that might be tied to commerce, which is why automakers are now trying to sweeten the pot. The ultimate goal is to basically convert your vehicle into something that can sweep up just as much information about you as your smartphone — if not more.

“If you’re using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, then you’re kind of limited [for use of applications]”, Alexander Schoenhals, a Mercedes-Benz engineer working on third-party apps, explained.

Do they even realize how sinister this all sounds?  Every time I read shit like this from MB, BMW or VW, I want the 8th Army Air Force group to be re-constituted just to fly over and bomb their fucking factories into rubble (and repeat with Detroit on the return leg), simply to weed this bullshit out and force the aforementioned data harvesters to start from scratch all over again.

I’m unlikely to buy a new car anytime soon, if at all — more likely, I’ll be driving New Wife’s Fiat 500 forever, once my non-technological Tiguan has breathed its last drop of 89 octane unleaded.

But mark my words;  I will never drive some information vampire like the modern breed.

I’d rather find a way to get my hands on something from the pre-technology era (1970s) like a VW Thing, a Jeep CJ5 or others of that ilk (other suggestions in Comments), and deal with their discomfort and unreliability.

As for modern car manufacturers:  fuck ’em, and the motherboard they’re surfing in on.  I want no part of their shit.