Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[bironi]

Have my appointment with the auto body shop on Monday. Accident was December 27th. March 4 was the soonest I could get it repaired. Volvo dealer's body shop said May 20th. Both places said they are seeing more accidents than ever. A lot of it is ye olde deer & beer, but the body shop guy said increase is all "people going too fast not looking where they are going."

And it is making things more expensive for everyone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/b...inflation.html

I'm with your body shop guy.
Definitely what I see in my corner of the country.
Rules without enforcement aren't working.

[htwoopup]

Back in the North Country where it is above freezing and only 75% of the ski hill’s runs are open. In the first week of March.

Plus the 62 miles of xc skiing and fatbiking and snowshoeing trails are officially closed for the season.

It is still beautiful here in all honesty.

The grump is that this means that the xc skiis and equipment that I took down from the attic could have stayed there as I didn’t get to use them once this year due to lack of snow.

The snowshoes never once came off their hooks in the closet this season.

And, I have to change the fatbikes from their studded tires to their regular summer fat tires as they may as well go back south to be used on the beach and the fat bikes weren’t used even once this season due to the trails being closed due to lack of conditions to protect them from further damage so that they can be hopefully used for MTB in the summer.

But that is all the first world part of this grump.

The big real world grump is I am not sure how the earth that my generation is leaving our grandkids will be able to support them and the rest of humanity and other animals.

[johnmdesigner]

Dispatch from old NY

There has been a lot of media coverage lately about just how bad it is to live in NYC right now. I have lived here for 40 years so no real amount of shootin, wackin, stabbin surprises me. The fact that I cannot afford to go out drinking at these prices is unfortunate, but my fridge is well stocked and who needs to go out in Harlem after dark and get shot. In fact, many of the aspects of bad behavior that are surprising here are the ones the inhabitants inflict on each other.

The latest phenomenon is the Cross-Legged Asshole. I remember when Manspreading was the big thing, and you will sometimes encounter those who still cling on to this behavior. But crossing your legs in a subway car with 5 feet of space between the seats at rush hour is now the new normal. Maybe this is the new TikTok thing or some sort of group sponsored bad behavior. And the worst offenders are the men. I can perhaps understand the women doing this considering the threating environment they are traveling in. But the men? And the middle-aged men are the worst. Try politely asking them to uncross their legs and sit up straight because the train is crowded. Imagine the look of death you receive.

Maybe it’s an expensive college thing (my train goes past Columbia). I got into a car the other day to find all these college boys sitting like Jay Gatsby in his solarium with their toes almost touching. All those white sneaker soles pointed up high while their manhood safely crushed and protected by a scissor hug that would make Daryl Hannah blush. All oblivious to the pain and discomfort they are causing those who try to enter.
Perhaps Columbia is reluctant to offer a class entitled “How not to be an Asshole in NYC”. Or perhaps the parents who are already paying $70K a year are unwilling to spend another dime to properly train their offspring.

True I am an old fart, and do not understand the minds of those who filter the world through their phone to make sure it is real. And I am tired of having strangers rub their dirty shoe soles on my clean pants leg.

So, I dusted off my old pair of Frye Prison Boots recently. They have leather heels with the consistency of granite and sound like Frankenstein when adequate pressure is applied.

Now I stride onto the train with confidence, crushing a pinky toe here, scuffing a white-on-white sneaker there. “Oh, pardon me but the train is crowded, would you mind uncrossing your legs?”
It seems to be working.

My only concern is what I am going to wear when it gets warmer.

On the return trip some asshole across from me had to put his dirty feet on the center pole and block the entire row. “Excuse me”, I said as I stepped over his leg and grazed his knee with my rock-hard heel “You have a condom stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

People sometimes ask me why I stay here. The Jamaican man playing steel drums in the subway today was sublime.

Cheers!