Avoidable Watches Forever: Anyone have a recommendation for a tough automatic "knockaround" watch that I can wear doing outdoors activities? I already have a Desk Diver Seamaster, the Mandatory Rolex, and a I Like Talking About Racing but Am Afraid To Speedmaster, among others. However I mostly wear my G-shock (thanks Robert) so I'm looking for something in between.
I've looked at the Doxa 200s and a lot of the Seiko 5s and Prospexes. Nothing has really caught my interest - I'm looking for something that can withstand some slightly adventurous things like hiking + skiing but also I could wear to a meeting if it came to that. Looking to keep it around a thousand dollars or so.
I have an ORIS Big Pilot - Not worth the money. They are poorly made. Mine had to go in for repair 4 months after I bought it. As it's out of warranty, next time it breaks, it goes in the trash. Get a Citizen - they last.
It’s not automatic, but I wore a Citizen EcoDrive for about 12 years that was damn near indestructible even with my clumsy ass. Cost about 30% of your budget and it was great.
I had a citizen EcoDrive that lasted through 12 years of really abusive ownership on my part. It's Seiko 5 replacement didn't make it a year until I started having issues with the metal band.
I recently decided if would be nice to have a watch again... EcoDrives seem to be the Lexus ES of watches: nice enough and entirely sufficient for people who don't care about watches.
If buying used doesn't bothered you, get the best watch ever made. The Seiko Skx007 or 009. I guarantee you will be still wearing it 30 years from now, without the ridiculous expenses involved in keeping a Swiss watch running. Besides being a certified 200m diver, it's also substantial enough to hammer nails, and has an aftermarket to rival the small block Chevy.
I almost got rid of mine, and I regretted it immediately. Before the era of dive computers, this was the watch that most professional divers used. The guy who put me onto them had thousands of dives and almost 30 years without a servicing into his.
My ironman, don't remember which one but it said "200m" on it lasted at least 1500 dives for me, most of them working, some over 200ft. It was my backup backup but never let me down. Worked great as a timer, or local time reference. Also has easy to manipulate buttons to with gloves. By all rights using the buttons at depth should have caused failure but never did.
Yeah, but those are really only the new ones with Tags that fetch silly money. It's likely to be most produced true dive watch of all time, and there is no shortage of them around in good shape for reasonable money. Read $300.
This. I've worn mine hiking and mountain biking, and it looks nice enough on a leather strap to wear to the office. Haven't seen the Prospex in person, but it looks good in pictures and is probably cheaper new than a used SARB017.
I was replacing horrid 3 year old APC and excellent but really old Tripp Lite UPS's with hopefully good Eaton UPS's, and all the way at the bottom of the rack amongst spaghetti, dust bunnies is a watch, not ticking, with a broken band. It's a Timex Expedition, water resistant to 100M. Heavy stainless steel, more dirty than scratched. Forest green band stitched to leather. One Panasonic CR2016 for $5 and an Amazon spring kit for $11 (it was a clamshell organizer tray of 20 different spring pin sizes, with 10 or 20 in each. I am to take one and throw away the rest. So much for so cheap, thanks China. The movement was labeled TMX, made in the Phillipines), and we are up and ticking. Literally, it ticks really loudly, putting it face down helps. It lights up! And a day counter, must need to fix it once a month. The wheel on the side faces my hand, and it juts out, its already forming a callous and wore off my a hole in my arm hair, but all watches are shaped like that, so must be normal. This thing is really cool, I'm now a watch guy. It seems like something similar goes for $60 new, but I can't imagine the band is as high quality. This thing has worn leather on the inside, its barely cracked and I can make out "water resistant leather" branded on the inside still.
Yep, I had a Timex divers watch that I wore religiously for years. It went skiing and hiking and diving, and got bashed around in all kinds of places. That thing never let me down so I’m feeling a little bad that I have no idea what happened to it. It was shamefully discarded when my wife bought me a TAG which I had always wanted. I’m going to find it someday squirrelled away somewhere and probably still working.
The Marathon Black General Purpose Mechanical has been my go-to knockaround for 5+ years now. Affordable, light, but extremely durable. If a nylon strap isn't meeting-worthy, they have other stainless automatics in their lineup, but they inch above the $1000 level. Not much higher though.
For about $1K I’m a fan of used Oak and Oscar - either the Olmstead (field) or their GMT. Sandwich dial, non-tool adjustment, drilled lug holes. I wear mine more in the winter with flannels / layers / etc vs the summer which is more Submariner time.
They go for 1,600 to 2,000 new but can be found at the 1K mark on the forums.
Other off the beaten path is Serica (French brand) - they just came out with a field watch that I really like.
The Garmin tactix Delta has oddly become a workaday "beater" watch for me. If you aren't using the GPS extensively they can go a full month on a charge. If you don't want to be tracked you can disable all T/R features and make it silent. I have the version with Applied Ballistics software. You can range a target with your bluetooth laser and the drop solution will appear instantly on the watch. I've found this to be a handy feature;-)
If you want something that's indestructible it's Casio. I have a Casio Pro-Trek that is my go-to "indestructible". At 12+ years old, it's been covered in mud, salt water, and even oil - banged against everything possible and still works / looks near new.
That said Casio Pro-Treks, G-Shocks, or Tough Solars look as tough as they are and aren't exactly office wear. I too wanted something in between my dress watches and Casio. A watch I could wear on a boat, a hike, at the bar, to dinner - etc.
For an auto I would second the SKX007 and SKX009 suggestions. I have the 009 - it's great, though personally I find the case a bit thick. I'd also suggest a Hamilton Field Khaki - I prefer Arabic numerals - and the "field watch" face. Hamilton's Khakis come in many dial colors, movements, bracelet options, and sizes.
Although mine is a cream / salmon dial, stainless steel, and quartz movement. The face is one of my favorites, it's easy to read and it has a lot of depth to it. At 42mm it also wears quite well. I linked the Titanium one, which is at the highest point of your budget, but other variants can be had for much less or from 3rd party retailers.
I also have the 38mm auto w/a black dial on a leather, which is slightly more casual, but is still at home just about everywhere that doesn't involve a tie. However, I can't truly attest that it's a rugged watch. A drop from about 4ft (off my dresser) required a spring replacement.
...Which is why I don't consider autos to be as rugged as a quartz. If you can "slum" it with a solar quartz watch (I personally love solar; for the sheer laziness of not having to set them!) - the Ecodrives are solid choices. I have a few, their stats are impressive, as are their materials, but there's just something about the execution of a Citizen that I rarely find comes together. For that reason, I prefer Seiko to Citizens, though Seiko has much less of a solar selection. Their proliferate expansion of the Seiko 5 line, both in terms of options and price - at the sacrifice of performance does leave a bit to be desired. Not that Seiko was every really high end, but it does seem like they are going further down market and perhaps are not quite the value they once were.
Alternatively, there are a few microbrands that may scratch that "all rounder" watch itch. Boldr, Vaer, and Nodus have some interesting ones. I particularly like the Nodus Retrospect line, though I have yet to pull the trigger.
Lastly - my newest "all rounder" was an impulse buy from a company called "Momentum" based out of Canada. Like most micros they other's movements (Japanese mostly) and have traditional watch designs similar to more iconic brands. I was intrigued by their Smoke Jumper solar line - which looks a whole lot like my Khaki Field (same dial, but a black case) - AND in SOLAR!! At $200 (after discount) I figured it would be worth a try. Should get it next week. Hopefully it's not one of those watches that looks great on paper and less so in person...
I somehow get targeted ads for bras for petite women. No doubt because I clicked on one once trying to figure who the model was. Like your ads, this also creates much food for thought, but it’s different thought, knowwhatImean? I have no complaints.
Like Gary Busey, with his beady eyes and crooked smile, wearing a suit made of human hair and driving a brand-new Cadillac with roof racks full of nasty, warped lumber?
Dec 7, 2023·edited Dec 7, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
I saw something today where some Canadian official was complaining that the people signing up for their euthanasia program are too white and too rich. Can’t make this stuff up.
I wish you luck. I've an acquaintance who, five years or so ago, found himself suddenly divorced in his mid fifties after two or more decades of marriage. He can't seem to make it to a 3rd date, despite being an accomplished bassist/guitarist/skateboarder/grandfather and a fit 60 year old. Might be a Michigan thing.
I wish him the best. Fortunately, I found my second wife at the age of 43 in 2015. Having spent the previous 3 years in the online dating gristmill, it felt like I caught the last helicopter out of Saigon.
I actually don't mind the AARP junk mail, beyond paying to dispose of it. They seem to have given up once I reached retirement-eligible age.
But since I have the same name as my father, I received MediCare signup mailings for an entire year at age 41. It was pretty amusing at the time. With modern advertising being what it is I now can't help but laugh out loud over the notion that databases have Dad, myself, and my cousin of the same name so conflated that they won't know whom to spam with what.
Some of those supplemental MediCare insurance plans really need to update their databases. I regularly get them in the fall addressed to the guy I bought the house from 20 years ago. Even stranger are the extended vehicle warranty renewals addressed to his wife who died two years before I bought the house.
AARP started sending me membership applications for my 35th birthday. Love their optimistic outlook on my expected retirement age. Don't want to join their club though.
Facebook marketplace did a similar thing to me. I was searching for motorcycle boots and found a woman's race car driver halloween costume being sold by a 20 year old sorority girl. I clicked to get a better look at her and now Facebook thinks I like woman's clothing
There are a lot of advantages to being 25 with a bit of cash in my pocket in a college town. Unfortunately I actually like my gf so I haven't experienced as many as I like to think I could have otherwise
6-7 years ago. Id take them off l. 4 years of children and 2 years of marriage. (Happy recent anniversary to us) “alright we have 8 minutes, you take them off”
Conversely, I got a hit on Facebook marketplace for my Miata by a gorgeous 19 year old “E-Girl.” Im almost certain she has no interest in the Miata, but we exchanged Snaps and I think she’s got some interest in me. Cue my mother, angrily ordering me not to sell the Miata at a loss so I can sleep with a blue-haired Sheetz employee.
is it wrong of me to notice that the dwarf likes to get high
Anyway, I think elevating prole-grade content (the stuff I consume anyway) by way of highbrow critique is at least funny because of the juxtaposition. Tangentially related is the writing of scientific white papers on nonsense things for the lulz.
They do I seem to have an effect on tennis. Look at before and after pictures of Simona Halep. She played much better after the reduction although she is now banned for doping.
They just fixed something using the web browser. If you accidentally clicked the person, you'd go to that person's potential writings. So, you go back. But it was going back to the beginning of the comments and you'd have to wade through them all. That's fixed. You come back to where you were before.
Spring Drive is a mechanical movement that is braked/smoothed via electronics. I'm wearing a Bulova Precisionist today which accomplishes the same effect in completely different fashion.
Cool. I love the Precisionist. I have one in my Lunar Pilot (43mm Snoopy), but I only get half the coolness of the movement in that. Bulova has to fire whoever the designer is on the Precisionist line though. Just incredibly busy designs. The new Jetstar, however, is the bees knees.
I wish there were more brands that followed Bulova's approach. A sweeping hand quartz is the best of both. Make is solar and you'd have a killer movement.
There's a whole rant here about abstraction layers and how we ended up with a system where we need to synchronise everything against network time because we've lost the ability to regulate timekeeping in electronic devices.
When I was studying for my CPA, we had something like 2 years to use the source material before it would expire. I was being lazy and didn't want to study so 5 years after paying for a review course, I had to change the time clock on my old dell laptop to 1/1/2009 so I could still get to the study materials. It worked. Now my network administrator manages the time. Do you know how annoying "See your network administrator" is when you are the network administrator (by default, not by job performance) and have no flipping clue what they're talking about. I used to like computers.
When work locked down computers so you couldn't do that anymore, it made some testing a bit difficult. Say you have something that does THIS on M-F, but THAT on Sat + Sunday. Unless you planned on testing THAT on Sat + Sunday, you were a bit screwed. So, you made options you could feed it to tell it, "Yeah, we are doing the Saturday + Sunday stuff and it's Wednesday.". So, instead of accessing the system date, here and here, here, here (A few hours later) and here in a bunch of spots, you grabbed the date and time from the get go, and stuck it in a field and used that instead. But if you had an option set, you'd modify the field before doing anything else.
And some dude somewhere probably died because some similar medical programmer forgot to update the call from the work around to the actual date before it went live.
Some dude spent years building a virtual machine thats always saturday/sunday inside a virtual machine thats always m-f. I dont know this but i also know this.
Thanks. I expected it to have an on-board timekeeping method complemented by an occasional online check. If my memory serves me correctly the original apple watch had to be paired with a phone, so the reliance on the online servers makes sense.
To me now it's a question of what is the right tool for the job/which scratch matches the itch. I have suggested to a number of women to go for the quartz version of the gold Cartier because I surmised they did not have an interest in and did not want the maintenance of a mechanical movement. On the other hand recently I suggested an Orient and a Seiko display-back for the opposite reason. I suppose the proverbial door for the watch and car analogies is comparable to the B-2 hangar's.
Dec 8, 2023·edited Dec 8, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
I prefer quartz to automatic because if I don't wear it for a week or two, it's still keeping good time. I sold off all my automatic watches because I was tired of having to wind and set them every time I wore them, or keeping them on a watch winder which is an expense of its own.
Quartz gets a bad rap because watch companies have figured out how to make them cheaply and then engaged in a race to the bottom. Take a 32,768 Hz XT-cut tuning fork crystal, use a standard chip to divide it by 2 thirteen times (8192), then use that 4hz output to drive a stepper motor. Then run that through a gear train to move the hands. Don't bother with temperature compensation because the drift is fairly symmetrical around 25 degrees C. The best accuracy you can get from cheap crystals is 5-10 ppm, which translates into 0.5-1.0 seconds/day. Almost everybody does this which is why quartz movements get no respect.
With two exceptions:
1) Grand Seiko 9F movement pushed the limit with what you can do with an XT crystal. They selected the most accurate crystals in a batch, burned then in for 90 days, then carefully plotted the variation and temperature drift FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CRYSTAL. Then they programmed a somewhat more complex microchip in the movement with said crystal's compensation information. Finally the 9F movement reads the temperature about every 3 minutes and corrects the fractional-N PLL divisor for the timekeeping logic. The result is that every 9F movement is guaranteed to +/-10 seconds per YEAR. The "gold star" versions are guaranteed to 5 seconds per year. My personal "Sea of Clouds" GS is keeping to less than -2 seconds per year, but I'm kind of fuzzy on that because i don't remember how precisely I set it last year.
2) Alternatively, don't use the XT-cut 32khz tuning fork crystal. Citizen has mastered using higher frequency AT-cut crystals which have superior accuracy. The trick is that the higher frequency also means higher power consumption. Citizen's accomplishment was in reducing the power consumption to get 3 years out of a battery. Their flagship Caliber 001 watch is claimed to be accurate to within one second per year(!). Bulova, part of the Citizen watch group, has their Precisionist line (Jack mentions below), which oscillates at 262 khz (actually 2^^18 hz). That higher frequency meant that the stepper motor can step more often; my Bulova Lunar Pilot had a second hand that sweeps much like an automatic watch.
Hydrocarbon polymers are miracle materials, but they almost always get used to make cheap, shoddy substitutes for metals.
Then there's aluminum. Best used as a heat sink and exchanger, every single structural application of the metal has a bunch of asterisks attached to it. It's ONLY redeeming quality is its light weight.
One of my g shocks is accurate to about 2 seconds a month, not an expensive watch by any means, I think that what they are able to do with cheap movements is amazing.
I know way more about prole shit than about high class things. Recently I've been listening to more classical music. I listened to it on WKAR when I was driving around Lansing in my wife's 4Runner because it didn't have Bluetooth to hook my phone up and pop/rock radio stations are garbage. I enjoyed it and downloaded the Idagio app to listen more. I'm just not sure I $10-per-month enjoy it. I don't know enough to choose what I want to listen to, to curate a playlist (or several playlists) and it's easier to load my phone up with 500 5-min songs than it is 50 50-minute symphonies. At least right now it is...
A good friend of mine is about 5’6” (married to a former Big 10 cheerleader, and hes completed an Ironman, don’t cry for him) and in the group text when he gets fired up we always send him the “You’re an angry elf!” gif.
I went on a couple dates with a single mom chick that was 4’10” she was south side white thrash and absolutely gorgeous. I think she figured i wasn’t sticking around for the long haul after our extra curricular activities and she was probably right. My, uh, unit wasn’t any bigger but it certainly looked bigger.
Jack said(wrote) something years ago about how women want you based on the strength of their reaction to you, basically explaining why assholes get chicks. I’d agree... I’m 6’ and reasonably good looking so I’ve never had that problem, but being obviously desirable (even if your faking it) and having some disdain on your face makes all but the most confident of women insecure.
Can you imagine the years of panicked meetings at Disney when they were trying to figure out how to deal with the Snow White remake. What do we call them? Who do we hire?
That really doesn’t work when you consider the other definition of stature as status. But I’m sure the language gatekeepers, whoever they are, will come up with something like a “not tall” designation.
Funny how today people think “The Little Death” is a dumb movie because they need to Google it. Was curious as to what would come up. Same difference between the White House.gov and .org although both could be seen a parody.
Geto Boys? Fuck Yeah. Not into rap nor hip-hop, but "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta (1992)" in Office Space is used in one of the most iconic scenes in the history of movies.
Every office jockey that saw that movie and that scene thought "That's real life".
Off topic? Suzy + Toto Wolff are under investigation for leaked FIA information. Suzy screamed "Misogyny!!!!!" when asked about it. Supposedly he had info that he had no right to.
Sounds about right. Also look up Shaila-Ann Rao + Toto from a couple of years ago. I think there's a pattern. At least he's married to this one.
Funny when the FIA said you could put extra stays in to keep the floor from drooping, MB already the parts ready to go.
"Earlier in 2023, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was accused of "numerous instances" of sexist behaviour and bullying, including against fellow FIA official Shaila-Ann Rao - a former lawyer of Toto Wolff's."
In the CyberTruck threads I mentioned Terry Bradshaw and the fight scene in Hooper. MBS may be bringing out his inner Bradshaw. "OK MFer, let's get it on". He may have held this in reserve, waiting for an opportune moment.
I'd rather stare at the corner like the victims of the Blair Witch than have anything to do with Toto or Susie. There is no allegation you could make against them that I would not immediately believe.
In the New Yorker profile of Toto from last year, there are multiple paragraphs about how Toto initiated a new, more robust toilet brushing regime in the Merc hospitality bathrooms; he even took time himself to educate the contractors about the best brushing techniques
In 2019, Wolff hired Miguel Guerreiro, a hygiene manager, to travel with the team and to make sure that the Mercedes motor-home bathrooms were spotless at all times. Wolff insisted on a cleaning rota that reflected the various rhythms of the race weekend, and showed Guerreiro how he liked the toilet brush to be shaken dry (twice) before being replaced in its holder. “I want the brush to be exchanged every day or every other day,” he told me. When I expressed disbelief about this, Wolff called Guerreiro over.
“Miguel, can I steal thirty seconds of your time?” Wolff asked. “What did we discuss yesterday?”
Guerreiro replied, “Exactly how the toilets were functioning and how we could improve because—”
“We discussed about the soap—that you can’t really reach it well. You don’t know where the sensor is.”
“Yes,” Guerreiro said. “And the paper, you can’t really see it. . . .”
There were traces of water droplets on the mirror. The door handles needed a wipe. “We have done pretty well, Miguel and I. Everybody laughed about us at the beginning,” Wolff said. But, according to Wolff, the team suffered from less diarrhea and fewer viral infections than their rivals. “We’re talking about feces and all this shitting,” Wolff said. “The point is that I want to set the standards in what I do.”
I loathe the show "Family Guy" but have been subject to a commercial of theirs where something, maybe an inanimate object because Seth McFarlane is so quirky, says "I'm German, I'd like to watch you crap." As a bonus the commercial runs in the middle of the day when kids could see it.
same. though I'd be more likely to believe the story if Sherman had said Ron Dennis.
I heard from someone who was high up at McLaren that Ron, when reviewing blueprints for a factory, had the floor enlarged because one row of tiles would have been cut shorter than the others.
he also banned air tools because he didn't like the sound they make.
Years ago, before Trump was President, I saw something with his pilots and his personal plane. They were saying he was like that with the plane. The white glove treatment with things never seen. Couldn't be a fingerprint on any chrome. And it was the pilot's job to make it so. Being qualified to fly a converted airliner wasn't the only part of the job.
I voted for Trump twice. I'll do it a 3rd time. I don't like the guy. But, I'll vote for him again in a heartbeat. I'd probably hate his guts if I had to be subjected to something like that on the job.
It interesting how the elites are turning the high culture they once produced, into low culture. Another weird modern thing to me observe. Though I guess the boomers are the richest group of low culture fans the world has ever produced.
The effete boomers are ruining the muscle car hobby too. They are turning them into trailer queens, and only driving them on and off their trailers onto manicured lawns. Sad to see the cars that once terrorized main streets all over the US being relegated to that.
Or molesting them so far past their original form. Hate it when they take a masculine car and add all the modern accoutrements because they can't handle a car designed for young men.
Extremely lame. Nothing is badass about sound deadening and lumbar support.
Why feel any guilt, Jack? Form follows function and to enjoy the bike, you need to be comfortable. It's your bike; you can do what works for you.
Same thing re late stage boomers and their muscle cars. Sound deadening and lumbar support? If it makes the experience more enjoyable for you, go for it. At that stage in life, attempting to be "badass" is pointless (and probably would look silly). To thine own self be true.
there is nothing at all to be ashamed with putting heli-bars on a bike. especially the blackbird. anyone gives you shit, you tell 'em, "try to keep up with me, motherfucker."
I don't mind some mods. That's what the muscle car scene was about. But some of the retro mods they are cranking out are just insane. The moment it all started seeming nuts to me was when Year One brought to market $100k + second gen Trans Ams a decade ago. Back when you could still find a $10k TA easily enough. And $100k was real money.
I think there's a big difference between a disk brake conversion kit for safety and a complete interior overhaul to bring it up to contemporary standard. Honestly, it seems like a lot of those guys just want a modern Camaro but would rather spend half a dozen times the price just to not be seen in one to look "cool".
The racer stuff like coilovers and complete frames gets a pass because having it is necessary to go fast and win.
Restomods and over the top restorations are still a very small percentage of the muscle cars out there. They just get more attention. I have an oringinal 70 Challenger RT with 57K miles. It has a complete crushed velvet interior from 1983. That was certainly over the top at the time. I don't like it really but boy does it get attention everywhere I go. Good thing it has power steering, the steering wheel is 10 inch diameter at most. That's what they did back in the day.
you had me at crushed velvet interior. you could put a Caravan engine in that thing and it would still be cooler than 90 percent of the restomods out there.
There’s a fine line with modding old cars that I can’t really define. Period/day 2 mods are A-OK in my book. Want discs on your Mustang? K-H 4 piston calipers like the Boss 302 book intended.
The shiftiness of old cars is what makes them fun to begin with.
"It's a monstrosity" "It isn't what it was" "Thats ridiculous, all the charm is gone" too bad, don't care, when i hit [Certain_number.txt] you'll find me doing donuts in the haters' front lawns in this
I don't know what area you're in, but in the Chicago area, I see 99 percent of the cars being driven not trailered to shows and cruise nights. It's almost like everyone knows they are getting old and better drive them before they can't
The auctions are driving the hobby into that. One of the reasons Hemmings is turning me off. Always with what a particular car went for. And them pushing their own auction site. When the opening question is "How much is it worth?" and opposed to "How do you like driving it?" you know there's not a lot of passion in the driving it.
You can't even blame someone that did drive it hard but stopped. You start seeing siblings of your ride going to auction and constantly selling for more and more.
The dumb TV restoration shows haven't helped either.
“Richistan” by Robert Frank is also a good book. The cluelessness of the featured rich people along with the others in the book who adopt a “woe is me” attitude about having the burden of untold wealth makes for one funny book.
Exactly. High and low culture are separated by the context required to appreciate it.
Anyone anywhere can appreciate a muscle car. To appreciate a Picasso, you have to know who painted it, why he painted it and what he was on at the time.
This is half true. There are classy lake boat people and river boat people. The river boat people are mostly fun and trash. I grew up a river boat person. The lake of the ozarks, despite the name, are river boat people.
Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami (ok not a great argument) Manhattan have high culture boat people. Wealthy classy people have wealthy classy boats. I would agree to say it skews low culture. Inboards and sailboats lean high class. I/os and go fast boats lean low culture. Yachts? Trash. Do you here that bezos?
Boats are, in general, far too conspicuous as status symbols to be favored by those who want to project status in a subtle fashion, which is the essence of “high” culture. It’s a secret language - recall discussions here about contemporary discourse - of taste, behavior, luxury beliefs, vocabulary, etc. that non-members cannot penetrate, at least in theory.
I’m not sure I agree with the premise that *all* high culture originates from cities (unless you were implying this was a US-centric phenomenon). In the UK - much of UC or UMC culture is downstream from aristocratic culture - which includes a fair amount of non-urban activities, habits, and aesthetics.
Here’s a low culture story for y’all, brought to mind by Jack’s oblique reference to stopping up the toilets AND the “person of short stature” discussion:
I went on my last ever field trip in seventh grade, as did everyone else in my class. We suffered this fate as a cohort as a result of some disgraceful and reprehensible behavior perpetrated by a few reprobates and an accomplice of short stature, who was an insufficiently conscientious objector.
After having departed a children’s science museum located in a now-closed mall outside of Chattanooga, a group of school buses pulled up to a Cici’s (Feces?) Pizza - feeding time!
The trick with this late lunch at Cici’s (Feces?) Pizza would be getting ~200 students plus teachers and other assorted hangers-on in the door, fed, and back on the bus in time to make it back home to North Georgia in time for the end of the school day, so that the entire school system’s bus schedule wouldn’t be disrupted.
The first problem happened almost immediately. A gentleman I’ll call “JA” surreptitiously emptied an entire salt shaker into the fountain drink - Mr. Pibb, for anyone curious - of a girl I’ll call “DF.” DF later remarked that her Mr. Pibb tasted “weird,” but this didn’t prevent her from drinking the entire thing. Or almost the entire thing. She began to vomit uncontrollably and may have had a seizure. She had to spend the night at Erlanger in Chattanooga. For his part, JA - who later died of an Oxy overdose - was the prime mover in the chaos. These days, DF is married with kids and works as a cashier at Rose’s, which is like K MART but worse, and is permanently stuck in ~1991.
During the sodium poisoning episode, there were two would-be plumbers at work in the bathroom; “BJ” - who had one of the most impressive rattail haircuts I’ve ever seen - and “KK” - who was a ~75 IQ person of short stature. BJ had conscripted KK into their shared work against KK’s will. Working together, they stopped up every toilet and sink in both bathrooms before flooding each toilet and sink. None of the teachers noticed until the restaurant began to flood, since they were focused on securing an ambulance for DF. BJ’s whereabouts are unknown; no social media of which I’m aware. KK works for his father’s successful spray foam insulation business.
The final act began when another miscreant - “JJ,” who was the only non-white person in my grade (he is biracial) - exclaimed “FOOD FIGHT!,” after which one began immediately. The last time I saw JJ in person, he was working the second window (i.e., the one that hands over food) at the Wendy’s in my hometown. He looked down on me from his perch and said “If I had known it was you, I would’ve spit in it.” I saw him again earlier this month in the local arrest reports.
We arrived back at the middle school several hours after the school day had ended, which snarled the school system’s bus schedule and infuriated nearly every parent in the county.
Nota Bene: I assure you, every single word of the above is true - no embellishments or artistic license.
I must admit to being surprised that none of the teachers knew who the troublemakers were and either kept an eye on them, or barred them from going.
There were NO field trips allow by my school district for a good many years - because one kid used the field trip as the first leg in his running away from home. The resulting legal issues for the school put an end to them for the entire school district.
I was perfectly behaved at school, but I would sometimes “act out” on trips - various extracurricular stuff.
Once, during a high school trip to Atlanta for “Future Business Leaders of America,” I decided that - instead of attending any of the activities pertaining to the trip - I preferred instead to ride MARTA (the second and most recent time I’ve done so in my life) to go shopping at Lenox Square in Buckhead with my friends. We were brazen about it. I walked back into our hotel lobby with a Benihana to-go bag and $500+ of clothes, expensive British automotive magazines, etc.
I should have gotten in trouble, but then again my mother was the school system superintendent…
"Hey mom, you need to sign this so I can go on a field trip" as opposed to
"We don't drop a dime on our transitioning students to their parents".
Best field trip I ever went on was visiting the GM Framingham Assembly in Mass. It was supposed to be just for the Vocational High School, and I went to the regular HS. They had empty seats and a buddy went there. The teacher asked if the ones going knew anyone that would like to go. Buddy said my name. The teacher got ahold of me the day before while I was at school. Said "Have a parent write something that they give permission and bring it with you. We'll call your school to say you are with us". I doubt things would be that casual today.
That was 1973 or 74. Wiki says "The Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Cutlass were added in 1970. " That's what I remember.
For the life of me 50 years later, I still can't figure out why someone wouldn't want to take tour of a place like that. There shouldn't have been any empty seats.
Although I was VERY hungry, I chose not to eat my meal from Wendy’s.
Instead, I went to Taco Bell nearby, where I was greeted by another blast from the past.
Without going into all of the details, there is a long-tenured shift manager at the local Taco Bell who was a Coca Cola heiress who lost her trust fund for the sin of marrying the wrong sort of person. Her daughter is now married to the son of the Chairman Emeritus of Wyeth Pharmaceutical. Daughter and husband live in Geneva, Switzerland (and don’t work, of course).
One of my first crushes was erika the latina at mcdonalds when i was 16. She liked soldiers and thugs not dorky 16 year old white guys. I’m almost positive i saw her working while i was ordering food at the same mcdonalds 20 years later. She looked good. I didnt ask her if she was who i thought she was.
I found myself in our McDonald’s on Christmas Eve about 10 years ago.
Five guys, one girlfriend (who was the DD). We had been drinking at the only bar in town, which had closed at 9 or 10. We were all drunk and VERY hungry. Of course, there was nowhere to eat, except McDonald’s. The Waffle House next door was standing room only.
We went in and ordered 200 chicken nuggets, which they treated as if it was a high roller’s order at The Wynn in Vegas. The guy running the counter was above 5 years older than us - he had dropped out of Georgia Tech. In retrospect it was very sad.
We went to my buddy’s lake house and devoured our bounteous harvest before finishing a bottle of scotch.
I woke up hungover and drove to my parents’ house at dawn.
Hey, what's wrong with dropping out for a bit, backpacking in Nepal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a year or 2? You'll be young forever. No one will hold that against you. </sarc>
One thing the system doesn't care about is YOU. There's a new crop of warm bodies being birthed in the halls of higher education every year. When you age group has it semi-going on and you don't, you can easily be seen as damaged goods. "Life experiences" only count for so much. Most of us are "Average". We have to be.
Its funny to me how life works out. Often times sad. Often times simply boring. A few have great luck, a few suffer tragedy. I know the stories I know are almost all mundane, and I warily suspect the only ones that would pull a reader from sentence to sentence are the tragedies befalling several extremely gifted people I've known
But I'd be interested to hear others' short stories of fame and fortune and tragedy and disaster and luck good and bad.
Dam! You’d think the sea levels would drop or something...
What'd I miss?
It was a link to worldwide dam building for the last 100 or so years. I was trying to be funny, guess it wasn’t. Going back to Casio F91W shopping.
I missed the whole thing on the plane apparently.
Avoidable Watches Forever: Anyone have a recommendation for a tough automatic "knockaround" watch that I can wear doing outdoors activities? I already have a Desk Diver Seamaster, the Mandatory Rolex, and a I Like Talking About Racing but Am Afraid To Speedmaster, among others. However I mostly wear my G-shock (thanks Robert) so I'm looking for something in between.
I've looked at the Doxa 200s and a lot of the Seiko 5s and Prospexes. Nothing has really caught my interest - I'm looking for something that can withstand some slightly adventurous things like hiking + skiing but also I could wear to a meeting if it came to that. Looking to keep it around a thousand dollars or so.
Orients for sure.
ORIS Big Pilot.
Pre-Nashvill Weiss.
+1 for Orient. I beat the hell out of my Kamasu and don’t feel bad about it.
+1 for Kamasu. Scratch proof sapphire glass with a hacking movement at an affordable price.
I have an ORIS Big Pilot - Not worth the money. They are poorly made. Mine had to go in for repair 4 months after I bought it. As it's out of warranty, next time it breaks, it goes in the trash. Get a Citizen - they last.
I had a very good one but to be fair I didn't keep it long enough for it to cause trouble
Honestly, the occident watches have better quality control
Sinn?
Ah good call.
It’s not automatic, but I wore a Citizen EcoDrive for about 12 years that was damn near indestructible even with my clumsy ass. Cost about 30% of your budget and it was great.
Ditto. Mine's 10 years old and is bulletproof.
They make basic ones as well as more ornate ones also
THis one made of titanium would be unstoppable
https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/product/BM8560-02X.html?cgid=mens-ecodrive
I had a citizen EcoDrive that lasted through 12 years of really abusive ownership on my part. It's Seiko 5 replacement didn't make it a year until I started having issues with the metal band.
I recently decided if would be nice to have a watch again... EcoDrives seem to be the Lexus ES of watches: nice enough and entirely sufficient for people who don't care about watches.
For an everyday I always plug a Citizen Eco-Drive. Not fancy and just does the job.
If buying used doesn't bothered you, get the best watch ever made. The Seiko Skx007 or 009. I guarantee you will be still wearing it 30 years from now, without the ridiculous expenses involved in keeping a Swiss watch running. Besides being a certified 200m diver, it's also substantial enough to hammer nails, and has an aftermarket to rival the small block Chevy.
Thanks for putting that on my radar.
Seems just my jam.
I almost got rid of mine, and I regretted it immediately. Before the era of dive computers, this was the watch that most professional divers used. The guy who put me onto them had thousands of dives and almost 30 years without a servicing into his.
My ironman, don't remember which one but it said "200m" on it lasted at least 1500 dives for me, most of them working, some over 200ft. It was my backup backup but never let me down. Worked great as a timer, or local time reference. Also has easy to manipulate buttons to with gloves. By all rights using the buttons at depth should have caused failure but never did.
Be aware that new SKXs are now selling at roughly 3X original list. They stopped making them a few years ago.
Damn. Thanks for the heads up.
Yeah, but those are really only the new ones with Tags that fetch silly money. It's likely to be most produced true dive watch of all time, and there is no shortage of them around in good shape for reasonable money. Read $300.
Much better news!
TBH I like these better than any seiko made right now
fuck yeah speedmaster
You DO know you basically said "watches that suck, avoid them," right?
I feel like that's good advice in general!
You've got the diver and the chronograph, perhaps a mountaineer next?
Seiko Alpinist, with the totally useless (but still fun) internal rotating bezel.
hello yes id like to buy one seeko alpenis
I hadn't even thought about those but they are _really_ nice.
This. I've worn mine hiking and mountain biking, and it looks nice enough on a leather strap to wear to the office. Haven't seen the Prospex in person, but it looks good in pictures and is probably cheaper new than a used SARB017.
I missed out on the pre-Prospex a dozen times, and feel like an idiot for doing so.
I randomly got mine off of Massdrop when that was still a thing.
Oh yeah, I was there! My Massdrop/DROP order history is something like 40 items.
I was replacing horrid 3 year old APC and excellent but really old Tripp Lite UPS's with hopefully good Eaton UPS's, and all the way at the bottom of the rack amongst spaghetti, dust bunnies is a watch, not ticking, with a broken band. It's a Timex Expedition, water resistant to 100M. Heavy stainless steel, more dirty than scratched. Forest green band stitched to leather. One Panasonic CR2016 for $5 and an Amazon spring kit for $11 (it was a clamshell organizer tray of 20 different spring pin sizes, with 10 or 20 in each. I am to take one and throw away the rest. So much for so cheap, thanks China. The movement was labeled TMX, made in the Phillipines), and we are up and ticking. Literally, it ticks really loudly, putting it face down helps. It lights up! And a day counter, must need to fix it once a month. The wheel on the side faces my hand, and it juts out, its already forming a callous and wore off my a hole in my arm hair, but all watches are shaped like that, so must be normal. This thing is really cool, I'm now a watch guy. It seems like something similar goes for $60 new, but I can't imagine the band is as high quality. This thing has worn leather on the inside, its barely cracked and I can make out "water resistant leather" branded on the inside still.
Yep, I had a Timex divers watch that I wore religiously for years. It went skiing and hiking and diving, and got bashed around in all kinds of places. That thing never let me down so I’m feeling a little bad that I have no idea what happened to it. It was shamefully discarded when my wife bought me a TAG which I had always wanted. I’m going to find it someday squirrelled away somewhere and probably still working.
The Marathon Black General Purpose Mechanical has been my go-to knockaround for 5+ years now. Affordable, light, but extremely durable. If a nylon strap isn't meeting-worthy, they have other stainless automatics in their lineup, but they inch above the $1000 level. Not much higher though.
Huge fan of Squale. Their auto is 95% of a submariner and is $485
For about $1K I’m a fan of used Oak and Oscar - either the Olmstead (field) or their GMT. Sandwich dial, non-tool adjustment, drilled lug holes. I wear mine more in the winter with flannels / layers / etc vs the summer which is more Submariner time.
They go for 1,600 to 2,000 new but can be found at the 1K mark on the forums.
Other off the beaten path is Serica (French brand) - they just came out with a field watch that I really like.
Christopher ward c63 gmt, definitely looks like another famous watch but more like a true homage
The Garmin tactix Delta has oddly become a workaday "beater" watch for me. If you aren't using the GPS extensively they can go a full month on a charge. If you don't want to be tracked you can disable all T/R features and make it silent. I have the version with Applied Ballistics software. You can range a target with your bluetooth laser and the drop solution will appear instantly on the watch. I've found this to be a handy feature;-)
Sounds incredibly useful if you like hitting stuff from far away.
I JUST went through this exercise!
If you want something that's indestructible it's Casio. I have a Casio Pro-Trek that is my go-to "indestructible". At 12+ years old, it's been covered in mud, salt water, and even oil - banged against everything possible and still works / looks near new.
That said Casio Pro-Treks, G-Shocks, or Tough Solars look as tough as they are and aren't exactly office wear. I too wanted something in between my dress watches and Casio. A watch I could wear on a boat, a hike, at the bar, to dinner - etc.
For an auto I would second the SKX007 and SKX009 suggestions. I have the 009 - it's great, though personally I find the case a bit thick. I'd also suggest a Hamilton Field Khaki - I prefer Arabic numerals - and the "field watch" face. Hamilton's Khakis come in many dial colors, movements, bracelet options, and sizes.
My Hamilton is very similar to this watch: https://www.hamiltonwatch.com/en-us/h70545140-khaki-field-auto.html
Although mine is a cream / salmon dial, stainless steel, and quartz movement. The face is one of my favorites, it's easy to read and it has a lot of depth to it. At 42mm it also wears quite well. I linked the Titanium one, which is at the highest point of your budget, but other variants can be had for much less or from 3rd party retailers.
I also have the 38mm auto w/a black dial on a leather, which is slightly more casual, but is still at home just about everywhere that doesn't involve a tie. However, I can't truly attest that it's a rugged watch. A drop from about 4ft (off my dresser) required a spring replacement.
...Which is why I don't consider autos to be as rugged as a quartz. If you can "slum" it with a solar quartz watch (I personally love solar; for the sheer laziness of not having to set them!) - the Ecodrives are solid choices. I have a few, their stats are impressive, as are their materials, but there's just something about the execution of a Citizen that I rarely find comes together. For that reason, I prefer Seiko to Citizens, though Seiko has much less of a solar selection. Their proliferate expansion of the Seiko 5 line, both in terms of options and price - at the sacrifice of performance does leave a bit to be desired. Not that Seiko was every really high end, but it does seem like they are going further down market and perhaps are not quite the value they once were.
Alternatively, there are a few microbrands that may scratch that "all rounder" watch itch. Boldr, Vaer, and Nodus have some interesting ones. I particularly like the Nodus Retrospect line, though I have yet to pull the trigger.
Lastly - my newest "all rounder" was an impulse buy from a company called "Momentum" based out of Canada. Like most micros they other's movements (Japanese mostly) and have traditional watch designs similar to more iconic brands. I was intrigued by their Smoke Jumper solar line - which looks a whole lot like my Khaki Field (same dial, but a black case) - AND in SOLAR!! At $200 (after discount) I figured it would be worth a try. Should get it next week. Hopefully it's not one of those watches that looks great on paper and less so in person...
Vostok Amphibia?
I somehow get targeted ads for bras for petite women. No doubt because I clicked on one once trying to figure who the model was. Like your ads, this also creates much food for thought, but it’s different thought, knowwhatImean? I have no complaints.
Hahaha!
I hate when misclicks change your ads. Insta thinks I'm a woman in my 30s. Horrible.
What are these 'ad' things you people talk about?
They're these chunks of useless info and screen space whose only purpose is to bother and spy on you.
Awful invention.
You're NOT one, right?
In clownworld, I can be anything at any time!
Does that mean that in Clownworld, I can be a normal, well-adjusted human being?
lolno
its not a miracle machine
Oh yeah! Right!
In Clownworld you ARE a normal well-adjusted human being!
Normal?
Like Gary Busey, with his beady eyes and crooked smile, wearing a suit made of human hair and driving a brand-new Cadillac with roof racks full of nasty, warped lumber?
I was watching jazz videos from Barcelona a while back and then all the YouTube ads switched languages from English to Spanish.
A lot of mine on my phone show up in French. I have no idea why.
Canuckistan doesn’t mandate that LOL?
No, we've not yet made Hindi an official language yet either.
I saw something today where some Canadian official was complaining that the people signing up for their euthanasia program are too white and too rich. Can’t make this stuff up.
Probably only a matter of time for that and Mandarin.
I always loved this scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyO1ILQAGsU&pp=ygUaY2FuYWRpYW4gYmFjb24gdHJ1Y2sgc2NlbmU%3D
Classic
Instagram apparently thinks I like men’s clothing, watches, Porsches, and curvy goth chicks. Eh, it’s got that one right.
I hope you mean the Porsches...
Yeah, the goth chicks look good in them
No doubt that's why I know all about Shelby Beatty and Casee Brim, to say nothing of "Laparasian" and "Vivacious Honey".
Your demo is a little different than mine. For instance, I’m now big into fishing, courtesy of Erica Lynn.
zero chance you dont get "hot single moms in your area want to meet you" ads
They don't bother. Already met them all.
savage
Or, at this point, "salvage?"
well they are used goods
Hot single moms in jacks area are like shermans lists. They start at 0
they're about as enlightening, too
I'm kidding, Sherman
often in the same night.
hey-oh!
Be grateful- at some point they become "attractive seniors in your area" ads. Not cougar hunting, since I qualify for AARP membership.
OH GOD NO
ANYTHING BUT THAT
I could take a mauling.
I wish you luck. I've an acquaintance who, five years or so ago, found himself suddenly divorced in his mid fifties after two or more decades of marriage. He can't seem to make it to a 3rd date, despite being an accomplished bassist/guitarist/skateboarder/grandfather and a fit 60 year old. Might be a Michigan thing.
I wish him the best. Fortunately, I found my second wife at the age of 43 in 2015. Having spent the previous 3 years in the online dating gristmill, it felt like I caught the last helicopter out of Saigon.
On my 50th, which happened during 🦠🦠, an AARP membership application was waiting in my mailbox.
Apparently they’re jumping the birthday gun a bit since, as my brother’s application arrived two weeks before his 50th birthday, in October.
I actually don't mind the AARP junk mail, beyond paying to dispose of it. They seem to have given up once I reached retirement-eligible age.
But since I have the same name as my father, I received MediCare signup mailings for an entire year at age 41. It was pretty amusing at the time. With modern advertising being what it is I now can't help but laugh out loud over the notion that databases have Dad, myself, and my cousin of the same name so conflated that they won't know whom to spam with what.
One of the few things that offends me is the AARP's assumption that every old geezer wants to be a member of their club.
Some of those supplemental MediCare insurance plans really need to update their databases. I regularly get them in the fall addressed to the guy I bought the house from 20 years ago. Even stranger are the extended vehicle warranty renewals addressed to his wife who died two years before I bought the house.
AARP started sending me membership applications for my 35th birthday. Love their optimistic outlook on my expected retirement age. Don't want to join their club though.
What really stings are the mailers for burial plots.
Never too early to plan for the future.
That’s a grave decision to make, you dig?
[SIGH] Alright, in order:
Would, have, if drinking, it's a maybe for me
Facebook marketplace did a similar thing to me. I was searching for motorcycle boots and found a woman's race car driver halloween costume being sold by a 20 year old sorority girl. I clicked to get a better look at her and now Facebook thinks I like woman's clothing
I mean I do, when modeled by 20y/o sorority girls. It’s terrible what FB is doing to us!
There are a lot of advantages to being 25 with a bit of cash in my pocket in a college town. Unfortunately I actually like my gf so I haven't experienced as many as I like to think I could have otherwise
i like womens clothing
when theyre taking it off
“I dress for women and I undress for men.” Angie Dickinson.
6-7 years ago. Id take them off l. 4 years of children and 2 years of marriage. (Happy recent anniversary to us) “alright we have 8 minutes, you take them off”
Conversely, I got a hit on Facebook marketplace for my Miata by a gorgeous 19 year old “E-Girl.” Im almost certain she has no interest in the Miata, but we exchanged Snaps and I think she’s got some interest in me. Cue my mother, angrily ordering me not to sell the Miata at a loss so I can sleep with a blue-haired Sheetz employee.
Also creates different food
is it wrong of me to notice that the dwarf likes to get high
Anyway, I think elevating prole-grade content (the stuff I consume anyway) by way of highbrow critique is at least funny because of the juxtaposition. Tangentially related is the writing of scientific white papers on nonsense things for the lulz.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322530755_Analysis_and_Qualitative_Effects_of_Large_Breasts_on_Aerodynamic_Performance_and_Wake_of_a_Miss_Kobayashi's_Dragon_Maid_Character
This is stupid. I like it. If you've ever wondered if jumbo jugs would change the drag coefficient, this is your jam.
They do I seem to have an effect on tennis. Look at before and after pictures of Simona Halep. She played much better after the reduction although she is now banned for doping.
I hate this fucking app. I type too fast, typo, post, and then realize the mistake.
you can just edit the post lol
All I see when I click the three dots is share link, hide link, or delete. I am using the app on an iPad.
Hear hear!
Same here.
God created the internet and web browsers for a reason. Apps mostly suck.
I can't use the substack app at all. Phone won't admit it's already installed and sends me to the Play store.
ACF emails mercifully offer a link to open in the browser. Nothing else I subscribe to does this.
I know I can edit on a browser.
sorry bud
my bad
No problem. I should just use a browser but I would rather suffer and complain. It’s a boomer thing.
I hate the app. The site is infinitely better in a browser, even on a phone browser.
The app feels a bit to me like malicious compliance for the lesbians who read Bari Weiss on iPhone XR.
They just fixed something using the web browser. If you accidentally clicked the person, you'd go to that person's potential writings. So, you go back. But it was going back to the beginning of the comments and you'd have to wade through them all. That's fixed. You come back to where you were before.
Misaligned incentives!
More research is required. In a video format. With slow motion options.
I'm sure R34 has you covered for whatever you're looking for.
N. Rabino the author of the above, in his best George C Scott voice "Adrian Newey, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!!!!"
The guy applied fluid dynamics to anime tiddies
the absolute madman
Do midgets get high, or medium?
Hey-O!
They just get less short.
YOU WILL NEVER BE TALL
Hahahaha
You can work on your dragon-girl titty thing after you get that moon base built.
I'd rather just repurpose the Nazi moon base that's already there tbh
How about the argument against quartz watches vs automatics........
They say quartz has no soul, but making a crystal oscillate with a tiny amount of electrons is pretty cool.
Isn't the Grand Seiko Spring Drive a blend of the two? Ultra cool. Want one as my dress watch.
Spring Drive is a mechanical movement that is braked/smoothed via electronics. I'm wearing a Bulova Precisionist today which accomplishes the same effect in completely different fashion.
Neat! Which one is that? Some look pretty busy and others look like dress watches.
I have the most basic no frills dress one.
Solid. Probably the one I'd get if I did.
Cool. I love the Precisionist. I have one in my Lunar Pilot (43mm Snoopy), but I only get half the coolness of the movement in that. Bulova has to fire whoever the designer is on the Precisionist line though. Just incredibly busy designs. The new Jetstar, however, is the bees knees.
YES IT IS.
It’s like the ACF Home Shopping Network today!
Now we need a 1-800 number and we're golden!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55aHvFD-I80&pp=ygUYaG9tZWJveSBzaG9wcGluZyBuZXR3b3Jr
Ain't no one in Australia buying a watch called Jetstar!
YES! The newer Bulovas are too friggin busy.
I wish there were more brands that followed Bulova's approach. A sweeping hand quartz is the best of both. Make is solar and you'd have a killer movement.
Now you got me thinking how smartwatches keep time. Is it via the cpu?
I thought they used a kind of reference from the internet, like smartphones.
Very good question, I don’t have any idea!
Not well, when they don't have GPS turned on. Nothing loses track of time like a 32-bit and up CPU through a modern operating system.
There's a whole rant here about abstraction layers and how we ended up with a system where we need to synchronise everything against network time because we've lost the ability to regulate timekeeping in electronic devices.
When I was studying for my CPA, we had something like 2 years to use the source material before it would expire. I was being lazy and didn't want to study so 5 years after paying for a review course, I had to change the time clock on my old dell laptop to 1/1/2009 so I could still get to the study materials. It worked. Now my network administrator manages the time. Do you know how annoying "See your network administrator" is when you are the network administrator (by default, not by job performance) and have no flipping clue what they're talking about. I used to like computers.
When work locked down computers so you couldn't do that anymore, it made some testing a bit difficult. Say you have something that does THIS on M-F, but THAT on Sat + Sunday. Unless you planned on testing THAT on Sat + Sunday, you were a bit screwed. So, you made options you could feed it to tell it, "Yeah, we are doing the Saturday + Sunday stuff and it's Wednesday.". So, instead of accessing the system date, here and here, here, here (A few hours later) and here in a bunch of spots, you grabbed the date and time from the get go, and stuck it in a field and used that instead. But if you had an option set, you'd modify the field before doing anything else.
And some dude somewhere probably died because some similar medical programmer forgot to update the call from the work around to the actual date before it went live.
Exactly.
OH WE'LL JUST DO IT IN SOFTWARE.
Some dude spent years building a virtual machine thats always saturday/sunday inside a virtual machine thats always m-f. I dont know this but i also know this.
Fix it in post!
But a disciplined oscillator is almost always best.
https://9to5mac.com/2015/12/30/apple-watch-timekeeping/
Thanks. I expected it to have an on-board timekeeping method complemented by an occasional online check. If my memory serves me correctly the original apple watch had to be paired with a phone, so the reliance on the online servers makes sense.
It’s interesting that, with the Apple clock application, the second hand moves like an old electric clock, and not one movement per second.
To me now it's a question of what is the right tool for the job/which scratch matches the itch. I have suggested to a number of women to go for the quartz version of the gold Cartier because I surmised they did not have an interest in and did not want the maintenance of a mechanical movement. On the other hand recently I suggested an Orient and a Seiko display-back for the opposite reason. I suppose the proverbial door for the watch and car analogies is comparable to the B-2 hangar's.
I like both, but my preference is for low maintenance.
I got out of the habit of wearing a watch during the plandemic. Need to start again.
I prefer quartz to automatic because if I don't wear it for a week or two, it's still keeping good time. I sold off all my automatic watches because I was tired of having to wind and set them every time I wore them, or keeping them on a watch winder which is an expense of its own.
Quartz gets a bad rap because watch companies have figured out how to make them cheaply and then engaged in a race to the bottom. Take a 32,768 Hz XT-cut tuning fork crystal, use a standard chip to divide it by 2 thirteen times (8192), then use that 4hz output to drive a stepper motor. Then run that through a gear train to move the hands. Don't bother with temperature compensation because the drift is fairly symmetrical around 25 degrees C. The best accuracy you can get from cheap crystals is 5-10 ppm, which translates into 0.5-1.0 seconds/day. Almost everybody does this which is why quartz movements get no respect.
With two exceptions:
1) Grand Seiko 9F movement pushed the limit with what you can do with an XT crystal. They selected the most accurate crystals in a batch, burned then in for 90 days, then carefully plotted the variation and temperature drift FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL CRYSTAL. Then they programmed a somewhat more complex microchip in the movement with said crystal's compensation information. Finally the 9F movement reads the temperature about every 3 minutes and corrects the fractional-N PLL divisor for the timekeeping logic. The result is that every 9F movement is guaranteed to +/-10 seconds per YEAR. The "gold star" versions are guaranteed to 5 seconds per year. My personal "Sea of Clouds" GS is keeping to less than -2 seconds per year, but I'm kind of fuzzy on that because i don't remember how precisely I set it last year.
2) Alternatively, don't use the XT-cut 32khz tuning fork crystal. Citizen has mastered using higher frequency AT-cut crystals which have superior accuracy. The trick is that the higher frequency also means higher power consumption. Citizen's accomplishment was in reducing the power consumption to get 3 years out of a battery. Their flagship Caliber 001 watch is claimed to be accurate to within one second per year(!). Bulova, part of the Citizen watch group, has their Precisionist line (Jack mentions below), which oscillates at 262 khz (actually 2^^18 hz). That higher frequency meant that the stepper motor can step more often; my Bulova Lunar Pilot had a second hand that sweeps much like an automatic watch.
Plastics are just like quartz.
Hydrocarbon polymers are miracle materials, but they almost always get used to make cheap, shoddy substitutes for metals.
Then there's aluminum. Best used as a heat sink and exchanger, every single structural application of the metal has a bunch of asterisks attached to it. It's ONLY redeeming quality is its light weight.
Yeah, fuck aluminum and it's little micro-fracture bullshit that has put so many BMX kids in the hospital.
Wow. I had no idea.
Neat!
One of my g shocks is accurate to about 2 seconds a month, not an expensive watch by any means, I think that what they are able to do with cheap movements is amazing.
You must understand, Jack, that midgets are the second of the Inherently Hilarious Things.
You doubt me? Then try imagining something that ISN'T made both awesome and hilarious by adding a midget.
Go ahead, as they say. I'll wait.
I didn’t know Peter the Great commented here
If you're talking about that doorshaker in "The Wizard of Oz," that was Peter the Fabulous.
not that I know from personal experience, but I'd wager porn tops that list
Not that you'd know...
I know way more about prole shit than about high class things. Recently I've been listening to more classical music. I listened to it on WKAR when I was driving around Lansing in my wife's 4Runner because it didn't have Bluetooth to hook my phone up and pop/rock radio stations are garbage. I enjoyed it and downloaded the Idagio app to listen more. I'm just not sure I $10-per-month enjoy it. I don't know enough to choose what I want to listen to, to curate a playlist (or several playlists) and it's easier to load my phone up with 500 5-min songs than it is 50 50-minute symphonies. At least right now it is...
Most radio stations have apps and online streams. Or you can just listen on FM!
This is the local classical station in Potland, OR:
https://www.allclassical.org/mobile-apps/
The preferred contemporary phrase for a “midget” or “dwarf” or “little person” is … “person of short stature”
It was JUST "little person" relatively recently, I thought. They changed it AGAIN?
we need to put the names on a higher shelf so they cant get at it
Don't forget to hide the ladders, chairs, and step stools.
I shouldn't be laughing audibly at that joke
This reminded me of the Dewey Cox protest song about little men. Classic.
Who cares?
None of them hit you the way "midget" does.
im still partial to floor [slur]
hits like a truck
thanks louis ck
A good friend of mine is about 5’6” (married to a former Big 10 cheerleader, and hes completed an Ironman, don’t cry for him) and in the group text when he gets fired up we always send him the “You’re an angry elf!” gif.
Are cheerleaders supposed to be tall?
His wife is short even for a cheerleader. The classic “spinner”.
Gotcha, the one that flies.
Um, sort of.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spinner
lmao I thought you were literally referring to her cheerleader position as a flyer
Ah, Urban Dictionary!
Without you, I'd never have learned the meaning of such terms as Dirty Sanchez and Fat Elvis.
The education I get from this place...
I went on a couple dates with a single mom chick that was 4’10” she was south side white thrash and absolutely gorgeous. I think she figured i wasn’t sticking around for the long haul after our extra curricular activities and she was probably right. My, uh, unit wasn’t any bigger but it certainly looked bigger.
Context!
Context is everything.
But that also somehow includes Chris Harris and Torchy and all the other manlet autowriters!
As you know, I’m 5’8” on a good day, and I never feel insecure about my height.
Only an inch shorter but reactions online and IRL are night and day.
Do the desantis and wear lifts.
nah
cowboy boots
snakeskin for the style factor
Jack said(wrote) something years ago about how women want you based on the strength of their reaction to you, basically explaining why assholes get chicks. I’d agree... I’m 6’ and reasonably good looking so I’ve never had that problem, but being obviously desirable (even if your faking it) and having some disdain on your face makes all but the most confident of women insecure.
im very good at not caring what women think which they seem to like
for some reason
Of course they do! It’s the definition of confidence. You should try dating only chicks taller than you or something, just for the laughs.
Yes but I'm not sure why you don't.
Your height should be as constantly vexing to you as my misshapen, GEICO caveman face is to me!
because he's 6'7" when he stands on his wallet
If I fill it with singles, I can be too
Someone upstairs saved you from being ordinary!
Authentic LOL!
You will be, you will be _ yoda
Short person, wait....that’s my domain 😂🤣
Can you imagine the years of panicked meetings at Disney when they were trying to figure out how to deal with the Snow White remake. What do we call them? Who do we hire?
I reckon that one will have to remain in the Disney Vault!
Believe the remake is in production now. But the dwarves are no longer, for obvious reasons.
I think I heard Snow White was not allowed to be white?
Or female.
alright fine
snow brown it is
ahem. Snow Yellow.
Or Tarzan.
Didn't they make Snow White Black?
They cast Rachel Zegler. The Critical Drinker has done a couple of videos on how Disney is reinterpreting Snow White for Modern Audiences.
https://youtu.be/N7diarukx4M?si=fbPcoKNCRUU-90T-
That is a GREAT video! And the accent makes it work.
Guess they're not going back.
what's red, wet, and has seven small dents in it?
Snow White's cherry.
Snow Hispanic, apparently.
Is this what the short statured themselves prefer, or did the perpetually aggrieved foist it upon them á la "Latinx"?
Midgetx?
Those were nice cars back in the day.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsodo-moto.com%2Flistings%2Fdaihatsu-midget-ii%2F&psig=AOvVaw215XPnshJbSVLJtVMV6Ol7&ust=1702013379545000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBQQjhxqFwoTCPCX-4_M_IIDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Who doesn't like the Daihatsu Midget?
The Daihatsu Midget answers the question, "What would happen if a Honda Acty were to fuck a BMW Isetta?"
Midgeaux?
That really doesn’t work when you consider the other definition of stature as status. But I’m sure the language gatekeepers, whoever they are, will come up with something like a “not tall” designation.
maybe we can call them ground adjacent or something
I really shouldn't be laughing this loudly
double plus untall
Little Brother is Watching You Uphill.
let's see you call bushwick bill a little person...
zero chance he can punch me in the face
unfortunately my nuts are in punching range for him
genuinely laughing
Funny how today people think “The Little Death” is a dumb movie because they need to Google it. Was curious as to what would come up. Same difference between the White House.gov and .org although both could be seen a parody.
Why not La petite mort?
I learnt from a fiction piece Jack wrote for TTAC.
Rules For Life #7: Read more than you Google.
I wish more would live by that.
Knew exactly what he meant but wondered what those who didn’t would find. A horrible movie awaits them.
I thought high culture was something that lasted, whereas low culture was consumable and that quality mattered for high culture.
There's a lot of ephemeral high culture. Think Met Gala and balloon dog.
Is the Met Gala high culture, or a pastiche of high culture?
It's the very definition of high culture: it's what nobles and aristocrats enjoy.
And utterly unattainable to the proletariat.
Check.
Geto Boys? Fuck Yeah. Not into rap nor hip-hop, but "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta (1992)" in Office Space is used in one of the most iconic scenes in the history of movies.
Every office jockey that saw that movie and that scene thought "That's real life".
I have never heard of Bushwick Bill until this moment. Then again, Rap and Hip Hop weren't things I was ever into.
Damn, Jack. You cranked that out so fast? That is a gift.
ill let someone else make the joke
I'll do it:
the women in his life don't think so.
Just a post before I go, a lesson to be learned
Traveling twice the speed of sound, it's easy to get burned
God I hate Boomer music and the fact that I know the story behind that song
I'm in the same boat
And it's the boat on the cover of the album.
Two masts! Now that's a yacht that rocks!
But the worst songs ever made are about sailing!
Off topic? Suzy + Toto Wolff are under investigation for leaked FIA information. Suzy screamed "Misogyny!!!!!" when asked about it. Supposedly he had info that he had no right to.
Sounds about right. Also look up Shaila-Ann Rao + Toto from a couple of years ago. I think there's a pattern. At least he's married to this one.
Funny when the FIA said you could put extra stays in to keep the floor from drooping, MB already the parts ready to go.
not suspicious at all
"Earlier in 2023, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was accused of "numerous instances" of sexist behaviour and bullying, including against fellow FIA official Shaila-Ann Rao - a former lawyer of Toto Wolff's."
In the CyberTruck threads I mentioned Terry Bradshaw and the fight scene in Hooper. MBS may be bringing out his inner Bradshaw. "OK MFer, let's get it on". He may have held this in reserve, waiting for an opportune moment.
I'd rather stare at the corner like the victims of the Blair Witch than have anything to do with Toto or Susie. There is no allegation you could make against them that I would not immediately believe.
In the New Yorker profile of Toto from last year, there are multiple paragraphs about how Toto initiated a new, more robust toilet brushing regime in the Merc hospitality bathrooms; he even took time himself to educate the contractors about the best brushing techniques
You see? I'm going to believe that without checking it out for myself.
In 2019, Wolff hired Miguel Guerreiro, a hygiene manager, to travel with the team and to make sure that the Mercedes motor-home bathrooms were spotless at all times. Wolff insisted on a cleaning rota that reflected the various rhythms of the race weekend, and showed Guerreiro how he liked the toilet brush to be shaken dry (twice) before being replaced in its holder. “I want the brush to be exchanged every day or every other day,” he told me. When I expressed disbelief about this, Wolff called Guerreiro over.
“Miguel, can I steal thirty seconds of your time?” Wolff asked. “What did we discuss yesterday?”
Guerreiro replied, “Exactly how the toilets were functioning and how we could improve because—”
“We discussed about the soap—that you can’t really reach it well. You don’t know where the sensor is.”
“Yes,” Guerreiro said. “And the paper, you can’t really see it. . . .”
There were traces of water droplets on the mirror. The door handles needed a wipe. “We have done pretty well, Miguel and I. Everybody laughed about us at the beginning,” Wolff said. But, according to Wolff, the team suffered from less diarrhea and fewer viral infections than their rivals. “We’re talking about feces and all this shitting,” Wolff said. “The point is that I want to set the standards in what I do.”
He's such a dork.
I fight those micromanaging impulses everyday so my employees don't quit or murder me.
I have zero micromanaging impulses and have to do the opposite occasionally.
He's German. That is 100% true.
I loathe the show "Family Guy" but have been subject to a commercial of theirs where something, maybe an inanimate object because Seth McFarlane is so quirky, says "I'm German, I'd like to watch you crap." As a bonus the commercial runs in the middle of the day when kids could see it.
Must be weird being Seth. Talented singer who will forever be known for Family Guy. Can't escape that shadow.
same. though I'd be more likely to believe the story if Sherman had said Ron Dennis.
I heard from someone who was high up at McLaren that Ron, when reviewing blueprints for a factory, had the floor enlarged because one row of tiles would have been cut shorter than the others.
he also banned air tools because he didn't like the sound they make.
"had the floor enlarged because one row of tiles would have been cut shorter than the others."
My aspie brains finds this completely reasonable!
Might have been cheaper to diamond saw all the tiles smaller to a size that fit perfectly.
That - the tile story - was featured in a Henry Catchpole video about 10 years ago.
Good tilers start from the middle so they have even cuts at the edges.
Stuff that white collar tyrants have no idea of.
....and I spit out my coffee this morning. Hoping this turns into a running Toto "facts" thread.
The definition of "anal"!
Anal? Isn't that George Clooney's wife?
No, but almost as strangely, she's named after the carburettors on old Nortons. Perhaps her Dad was a biker?
Really? Wow.
Holley is a decent girls name too, but no way in hell am I getting with Stromberg.
Years ago, before Trump was President, I saw something with his pilots and his personal plane. They were saying he was like that with the plane. The white glove treatment with things never seen. Couldn't be a fingerprint on any chrome. And it was the pilot's job to make it so. Being qualified to fly a converted airliner wasn't the only part of the job.
I voted for Trump twice. I'll do it a 3rd time. I don't like the guy. But, I'll vote for him again in a heartbeat. I'd probably hate his guts if I had to be subjected to something like that on the job.
I cannot WAIT for the shit talking from him when he wins in '24.
He will win until they pull the shades on the voting offices.
They couldn't possibly get away with it twice, right?
Right?
I subscribe to BusinessF1 so read the initial article that prompted all of this. You have the fact pattern correct.
-Shaila works for Toto
-Shaila gets FIA Job
-Toto knew about Red Bull breaching the cost cap - and broadcast it - before Christian Horner was aware
-Ben Sulayem fires Shaila; she says he’s a misogynist
-Susie gets FIA gig (F1 Academy)
-Suddenly Toto is aware of private FIA intel before other Team Principals and the FIA is aware of closed door discussions among the 10 TPs
The kid you hated at school. The FIA isn't in as strong a position as the teachers tho. They came down on that shit pretty hard.
The FIA is very weak - almost all of their revenue comes from the commercial side of F1.
It interesting how the elites are turning the high culture they once produced, into low culture. Another weird modern thing to me observe. Though I guess the boomers are the richest group of low culture fans the world has ever produced.
I wonder if muscle cars are one of the things that went from low culture to high culture.
Simple vehicles, but obscenely expensive.
i love them
The effete boomers are ruining the muscle car hobby too. They are turning them into trailer queens, and only driving them on and off their trailers onto manicured lawns. Sad to see the cars that once terrorized main streets all over the US being relegated to that.
Or molesting them so far past their original form. Hate it when they take a masculine car and add all the modern accoutrements because they can't handle a car designed for young men.
Extremely lame. Nothing is badass about sound deadening and lumbar support.
That is true, but if I had a muscle car I'd probably still put a little pillow in the driver's seat for lower back support!
I'd talk shit but I'm about to put helibars on a sport bike.
Why feel any guilt, Jack? Form follows function and to enjoy the bike, you need to be comfortable. It's your bike; you can do what works for you.
Same thing re late stage boomers and their muscle cars. Sound deadening and lumbar support? If it makes the experience more enjoyable for you, go for it. At that stage in life, attempting to be "badass" is pointless (and probably would look silly). To thine own self be true.
This better not be a certain shmonda smackbird!
there is nothing at all to be ashamed with putting heli-bars on a bike. especially the blackbird. anyone gives you shit, you tell 'em, "try to keep up with me, motherfucker."
Tell us how it goes. You might not be the only one...
I mean they are pretty crap
I don't mind some mods. That's what the muscle car scene was about. But some of the retro mods they are cranking out are just insane. The moment it all started seeming nuts to me was when Year One brought to market $100k + second gen Trans Ams a decade ago. Back when you could still find a $10k TA easily enough. And $100k was real money.
I think there's a big difference between a disk brake conversion kit for safety and a complete interior overhaul to bring it up to contemporary standard. Honestly, it seems like a lot of those guys just want a modern Camaro but would rather spend half a dozen times the price just to not be seen in one to look "cool".
The racer stuff like coilovers and complete frames gets a pass because having it is necessary to go fast and win.
You don't need coilovers or a cage to go fast.
You just need attitude and skill.
Restomods and over the top restorations are still a very small percentage of the muscle cars out there. They just get more attention. I have an oringinal 70 Challenger RT with 57K miles. It has a complete crushed velvet interior from 1983. That was certainly over the top at the time. I don't like it really but boy does it get attention everywhere I go. Good thing it has power steering, the steering wheel is 10 inch diameter at most. That's what they did back in the day.
THAT SOUNDS AWESOME
you had me at crushed velvet interior. you could put a Caravan engine in that thing and it would still be cooler than 90 percent of the restomods out there.
"It's not even velvet, it's velour! CRUSHED velour! Which, it turns out, can't be UN-crushed."
There’s a fine line with modding old cars that I can’t really define. Period/day 2 mods are A-OK in my book. Want discs on your Mustang? K-H 4 piston calipers like the Boss 302 book intended.
The shiftiness of old cars is what makes them fun to begin with.
You're 100% correct. Day 2/invisible mods like forged rods/pistons are great additions.
It's totally over the top just as you say,
But i'd do evil to put this thing in the garage:
https://roadstershop.com/galleries/1966-pontiac-22/
"It's a monstrosity" "It isn't what it was" "Thats ridiculous, all the charm is gone" too bad, don't care, when i hit [Certain_number.txt] you'll find me doing donuts in the haters' front lawns in this
Finding something built with that level of cohesion is incredibly rare. I like what they do.
No Trans Am is worth a hundred grand.
And I love the damned things.
I agree. I've owned a 78 WS6/W72 and currently have a 80 TTA. I love them like crazy. And, they are worth no where near that much.
If an E30 M3 is worth 75k, a Trans Am is worth 100k.
power steering in a porsche--ridiculous!
Why did they take a car with a light front end and try to make it feel even lighter?
No vehicle made before 1995 should have two-tone paint and 20" wheels.
Chip Foose is grotesquely overrated.
Chimp Foods can do a lot but can't make a car look like anything other than stuck in the early 2000's.
How he and Chris Jacobs didn't get attacked on "Overhaulin'" is beyond me. They turned every vehicle into the SAME DAMNED CAR.
I don't know what area you're in, but in the Chicago area, I see 99 percent of the cars being driven not trailered to shows and cruise nights. It's almost like everyone knows they are getting old and better drive them before they can't
But they're too valuable to enjoy, you philistine!
The auctions are driving the hobby into that. One of the reasons Hemmings is turning me off. Always with what a particular car went for. And them pushing their own auction site. When the opening question is "How much is it worth?" and opposed to "How do you like driving it?" you know there's not a lot of passion in the driving it.
You can't even blame someone that did drive it hard but stopped. You start seeing siblings of your ride going to auction and constantly selling for more and more.
The dumb TV restoration shows haven't helped either.
How many more bullshit Black Ghost hoaxes will the auction houses try to pull?
Or did they make the mistake of leaving too many loose ends and people caught on?
They'll wind up any sob story they can until it is no longer profitable.
Fuck any sob story that isn't about a 9-3 Turbo or a Viggen.
The Black Ghost still has legs, largely because a cuck-ass insurance company has devoted itself to promoting the lie.
Should be interesting to see how big that snowball is when it finally stops rolling.
Cars are low culture, even the expensive ones.
Culture tends to come from cities, and people don’t drive - or don’t want to drive - in cities, for the most part.
Wouldn't cars then become more of a display of wealth and exclusivity? Is that low culture?
Money isn’t really the signifier of culture IMO.
Read this book, it’s both amusing and educational: https://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253
This is also good: https://www.amazon.com/Status-Culture-Creates-Identity-Constant/dp/0593296702
Thanks buddy, I'll have a gander at those when I've got a minute.
“Richistan” by Robert Frank is also a good book. The cluelessness of the featured rich people along with the others in the book who adopt a “woe is me” attitude about having the burden of untold wealth makes for one funny book.
I will second "Class"
Exactly. High and low culture are separated by the context required to appreciate it.
Anyone anywhere can appreciate a muscle car. To appreciate a Picasso, you have to know who painted it, why he painted it and what he was on at the time.
Lisa (to Museum Guard): "Isn't this painting magnificent?"
Museum Guard: "Thanks, Lisa! I painted it myself. The real one's in my garage!"
Cf. Tom Wolfe in The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House
Classy people buy boats like your dad.*
This is half true. There are classy lake boat people and river boat people. The river boat people are mostly fun and trash. I grew up a river boat person. The lake of the ozarks, despite the name, are river boat people.
Boats are also low culture, I would say.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/donald-trump-boat-base
Is a Riva Aquarama higher class than a cigarette boat or a $250K ski boat the color of a highlighter or a pontoon boat or bass fishing boat? Probably.
But as with cars, boat ownership and operation is not something associated with cities, which is where “culture” arises.
Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami (ok not a great argument) Manhattan have high culture boat people. Wealthy classy people have wealthy classy boats. I would agree to say it skews low culture. Inboards and sailboats lean high class. I/os and go fast boats lean low culture. Yachts? Trash. Do you here that bezos?
Boats are, in general, far too conspicuous as status symbols to be favored by those who want to project status in a subtle fashion, which is the essence of “high” culture. It’s a secret language - recall discussions here about contemporary discourse - of taste, behavior, luxury beliefs, vocabulary, etc. that non-members cannot penetrate, at least in theory.
Ugh, not those guys named Garrett in the blazers, ascots and captain's hats, I hope.
I'd argue that sailboats and yachts are not low culture...
I’m not sure I agree with the premise that *all* high culture originates from cities (unless you were implying this was a US-centric phenomenon). In the UK - much of UC or UMC culture is downstream from aristocratic culture - which includes a fair amount of non-urban activities, habits, and aesthetics.
I was thinking US-centric, admittedly.
But the small towns of profile in the US only have a profile because city folks descended upon them and brought some culture along!
Here’s a low culture story for y’all, brought to mind by Jack’s oblique reference to stopping up the toilets AND the “person of short stature” discussion:
I went on my last ever field trip in seventh grade, as did everyone else in my class. We suffered this fate as a cohort as a result of some disgraceful and reprehensible behavior perpetrated by a few reprobates and an accomplice of short stature, who was an insufficiently conscientious objector.
After having departed a children’s science museum located in a now-closed mall outside of Chattanooga, a group of school buses pulled up to a Cici’s (Feces?) Pizza - feeding time!
The trick with this late lunch at Cici’s (Feces?) Pizza would be getting ~200 students plus teachers and other assorted hangers-on in the door, fed, and back on the bus in time to make it back home to North Georgia in time for the end of the school day, so that the entire school system’s bus schedule wouldn’t be disrupted.
The first problem happened almost immediately. A gentleman I’ll call “JA” surreptitiously emptied an entire salt shaker into the fountain drink - Mr. Pibb, for anyone curious - of a girl I’ll call “DF.” DF later remarked that her Mr. Pibb tasted “weird,” but this didn’t prevent her from drinking the entire thing. Or almost the entire thing. She began to vomit uncontrollably and may have had a seizure. She had to spend the night at Erlanger in Chattanooga. For his part, JA - who later died of an Oxy overdose - was the prime mover in the chaos. These days, DF is married with kids and works as a cashier at Rose’s, which is like K MART but worse, and is permanently stuck in ~1991.
During the sodium poisoning episode, there were two would-be plumbers at work in the bathroom; “BJ” - who had one of the most impressive rattail haircuts I’ve ever seen - and “KK” - who was a ~75 IQ person of short stature. BJ had conscripted KK into their shared work against KK’s will. Working together, they stopped up every toilet and sink in both bathrooms before flooding each toilet and sink. None of the teachers noticed until the restaurant began to flood, since they were focused on securing an ambulance for DF. BJ’s whereabouts are unknown; no social media of which I’m aware. KK works for his father’s successful spray foam insulation business.
The final act began when another miscreant - “JJ,” who was the only non-white person in my grade (he is biracial) - exclaimed “FOOD FIGHT!,” after which one began immediately. The last time I saw JJ in person, he was working the second window (i.e., the one that hands over food) at the Wendy’s in my hometown. He looked down on me from his perch and said “If I had known it was you, I would’ve spit in it.” I saw him again earlier this month in the local arrest reports.
We arrived back at the middle school several hours after the school day had ended, which snarled the school system’s bus schedule and infuriated nearly every parent in the county.
Nota Bene: I assure you, every single word of the above is true - no embellishments or artistic license.
Pandemonium. Are you ever going to tell us why you dumped all that salt in the Mr. Pibb?
I must admit to being surprised that none of the teachers knew who the troublemakers were and either kept an eye on them, or barred them from going.
There were NO field trips allow by my school district for a good many years - because one kid used the field trip as the first leg in his running away from home. The resulting legal issues for the school put an end to them for the entire school district.
There were lots of troublemakers!
I was perfectly behaved at school, but I would sometimes “act out” on trips - various extracurricular stuff.
Once, during a high school trip to Atlanta for “Future Business Leaders of America,” I decided that - instead of attending any of the activities pertaining to the trip - I preferred instead to ride MARTA (the second and most recent time I’ve done so in my life) to go shopping at Lenox Square in Buckhead with my friends. We were brazen about it. I walked back into our hotel lobby with a Benihana to-go bag and $500+ of clothes, expensive British automotive magazines, etc.
I should have gotten in trouble, but then again my mother was the school system superintendent…
"Hey mom, you need to sign this so I can go on a field trip" as opposed to
"We don't drop a dime on our transitioning students to their parents".
Best field trip I ever went on was visiting the GM Framingham Assembly in Mass. It was supposed to be just for the Vocational High School, and I went to the regular HS. They had empty seats and a buddy went there. The teacher asked if the ones going knew anyone that would like to go. Buddy said my name. The teacher got ahold of me the day before while I was at school. Said "Have a parent write something that they give permission and bring it with you. We'll call your school to say you are with us". I doubt things would be that casual today.
That was 1973 or 74. Wiki says "The Buick Skylark and Oldsmobile Cutlass were added in 1970. " That's what I remember.
For the life of me 50 years later, I still can't figure out why someone wouldn't want to take tour of a place like that. There shouldn't have been any empty seats.
“If I had known it was you, I would’ve spit in it.” The perfect thing to say to make someone think you didn't!
Although I was VERY hungry, I chose not to eat my meal from Wendy’s.
Instead, I went to Taco Bell nearby, where I was greeted by another blast from the past.
Without going into all of the details, there is a long-tenured shift manager at the local Taco Bell who was a Coca Cola heiress who lost her trust fund for the sin of marrying the wrong sort of person. Her daughter is now married to the son of the Chairman Emeritus of Wyeth Pharmaceutical. Daughter and husband live in Geneva, Switzerland (and don’t work, of course).
One of my first crushes was erika the latina at mcdonalds when i was 16. She liked soldiers and thugs not dorky 16 year old white guys. I’m almost positive i saw her working while i was ordering food at the same mcdonalds 20 years later. She looked good. I didnt ask her if she was who i thought she was.
I found myself in our McDonald’s on Christmas Eve about 10 years ago.
Five guys, one girlfriend (who was the DD). We had been drinking at the only bar in town, which had closed at 9 or 10. We were all drunk and VERY hungry. Of course, there was nowhere to eat, except McDonald’s. The Waffle House next door was standing room only.
We went in and ordered 200 chicken nuggets, which they treated as if it was a high roller’s order at The Wynn in Vegas. The guy running the counter was above 5 years older than us - he had dropped out of Georgia Tech. In retrospect it was very sad.
We went to my buddy’s lake house and devoured our bounteous harvest before finishing a bottle of scotch.
I woke up hungover and drove to my parents’ house at dawn.
Potentially being that guy running the counter frightens me.
Hey, what's wrong with dropping out for a bit, backpacking in Nepal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a year or 2? You'll be young forever. No one will hold that against you. </sarc>
One thing the system doesn't care about is YOU. There's a new crop of warm bodies being birthed in the halls of higher education every year. When you age group has it semi-going on and you don't, you can easily be seen as damaged goods. "Life experiences" only count for so much. Most of us are "Average". We have to be.
This may sound a little odd, and I am not a gossip or a busybody, but I absolutely would buy a 300 page book filled with nothing but stories of the *suprising* fate arcs of interesting but otherwise unknown people. Stuff like your posts above this one, stuff like Jack's here: https://open.substack.com/pub/avoidablecontact/p/weekly-roundup-the-dead-ant-and-the-dying-grasshopper-edition
Its funny to me how life works out. Often times sad. Often times simply boring. A few have great luck, a few suffer tragedy. I know the stories I know are almost all mundane, and I warily suspect the only ones that would pull a reader from sentence to sentence are the tragedies befalling several extremely gifted people I've known
But I'd be interested to hear others' short stories of fame and fortune and tragedy and disaster and luck good and bad.
I understand the way you feel, and I have learned in my 34 years that the wheel of fortune can swing wildly in unpredictable fashion.
Life is a contact sport.
Solid line.