Kim du Toit – Page 179 – Splendid Isolation

Ripoff?

May 13, 2024 Kim du Toit Business, Economics, Retailing

Let’s say you went into a little seaside diner feeling peckish, and saw that they had a menu item that read: “2 slices of buttered toast”.

Sounds okay, yes? (I’m going with “normal-person peckish” and not “American peckish” which would apparently require the entire loaf to satisfy that hunger pang.)

Then you see the price: $5.00 for the two slices of buttered toast.

Ripoff? Let’s analyze the thing.

I’m going to give the diner the benefit of the doubt here, and allow their claim that this isn’t Wonderbread and store-label butter, but a “premium” offering. I’m also, for the purpose of the analysis, going to allow that they purchased the ingredients thereof at retail prices (they didn’t).

Our diner, by the way, would be located in the equivalent of coastal Florida, up in the Redneck Riviera.

So using my local gourmet store (Central Market) as a price guide, let’s look at the thing:

Let’s see what the unit cost is. Assuming you’re doing thick-ish (e.g. “not-quite-Texan”) slice size, you’re going to get about 16 slices out of that loaf, assuming that we discard the ends, of course. So: $5 / 16 = 31.25 cents ($0.3125) per slice; or 62.5 cents in total for the two.

Now the butter: even assuming you slather the butter on like I typically do, you’re still going to use about 1/32oz per slice, ergo ending up with (8x 32 = 256; 398 / 256 = about 1.5 cents per slice or 3 cents for the menu item.

Total “cost”: (31.25 + 1.5) x 2 = 65.5 cents ($0.655) for the two slices of buttered toast.

Now for the tricky bit.

Restaurants, from back when I still managed one, typically have had to mark up “cost” by 600% just to break even. (Don’t even get me started on whether that’s the case in NYfC or Califuckingfornia: it isn’t.) This takes into account fixed overhead like salaries, supplies & equipment, utilities, real estate and so on (i.e. what it costs your diner each day before you get a single customer in the door).

So the extended cost of that 2-slice item works out to (errr carry the six) $3.93, before adding a single penny for gross profit. (And just so we’re clear: $5 from $3.93 represents about 27% gross profit — I know, don’t make me laugh.)

Is $5, therefore, a total ripoff?

Not from where I stand, and this kind of analysis explains why you have to take your bank manager along to 5 Guys every time you visit them to get you and your wife a burger.

Here’s the article that prompted this post.

And Fuck Joe Biden, because about three years ago that $5 loaf of bread at Central Market used to cost $2.85, and the $4 butter about $2.75 (because I keep track of this kind of thing, even though the Gummint would prefer that I forget that the chocolate ration used to be 5 grams and not three).

[/Orwell]

When You’ve Lost The Dutch

May 13, 2024 Kim du Toit Freaks & Loonies, Muzzies, Terrorism

Dutch people, as a rule, are famously tolerant and generally speaking, a decent lot (except when occupied by Nazi Germany).

So when the Dutchies use bulldozers and batons to clear out a terrorsymp encampment, you have to know that your cause may be in trouble.

And if the above two links didn’t elicit at least a grim smile from you, we can’t be friends.

My suggestion for riot control, as always, is a little stronger than bulldozers and batons:

Monday Funnies

May 13, 2024 Kim du Toit Funny Stuff

And if you substitute Uncle Sam for the shrew on the left, you’ve about guessed my mood today.

And this neatly sums up my attitude vis-à-vis government:

But let me end with a more positive message to the alphabet agencies snooping around my back porch, seeing as it’s the beginning of the week:

Now say bye-bye, and head off to work.

Classic Beauty: Jane Russell

May 12, 2024 Kim du Toit Classic Beauty

Probably one of the greatest sex symbols… actually, Jane Russell wasn’t. Although she certainly had the body to qualify for the title, she was never overtly sexual like Marilyn or Mae and so she remained a favorite simply as a pinup. I think she was extraordinary.

…and of course, the most famous ones of her, rolling in the hay so to speak:

Astonishing.

Inspiration

May 11, 2024 Kim du Toit Fine Art, Literature

I can’t remember whether I’ve ever told the story behind my first (published) novel, Vienna Days.

Here goes.

I’ve always been fascinated by how people’s lives are shaped and/or changed by massive societal change. Back in the early 1990s, this fascination was focused on the Secession Movement of the late 18th century in Vienna, and I wondered just how it would have felt to be someone who was a typical bourgeois, but over time got subverted by the changing times.

Of course, I’d done a lot of reading about 1880s Vienna (which is what sparked the whole thing) and the first thing that struck me was the fact that the suicide rate among young people in Vienna during this period was the highest ever recorded, and the highest in Europe as a whole. So naturally, that became the first sentence of the novel.

The second thing to strike me was that when Crown Prince Rudolph, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had committed suicide, his funeral procession was attended by tens of thousands of people because, as the story goes, nobody likes a good funeral more than the Viennese. So of course that became the first scene of the novel.

A story idea then began to assert itself. Imagine that a bourgeois young man became seduced by the non-conformist Secession movement, and in secret began to do something that, if discovered, would spell ruin for his career — but he did it anyway, because the allure of this new movement was irresistible. But what could that be?

Luckily, I imagined that he would have considerable artistic talent, hitherto unrealized because of his studies, and that led him to secretly draw pornographic pictures. But pictures of whom?

I had already put this protagonist into a coffee bar where he became involved with a group of ne’er-do-well artists, and one of the people involved with the group was a mysterious and beautiful young woman named Astrid.

I was rather stuck at that point, so I stopped writing to read about pornography of that period, in Erotica (Charlotte Hill and William Wallace).

There I discovered the works of an anonymous Austrian artist, who had drawn his images in charcoal and cryptically signed his work “A1”. Wait… “A” for someone named “Astrid”? Why not? All I had to do was change the time period of the art, from the 1930s back to the 1880s — easy-peasy.

So I wrote the rest of the thing in about two months (I still had an actual job at the time, which took out my writing time, damn it).

And here’s a sample of the “A1” charcoals:

News Roundup

May 10, 2024 Kim du Toit Bad News

So let us begin with Trump News:

...as long as “purge” includes floggings and mass execution of traitors, I’m all for it.

...but when Fuckface Kerry did just that during Trump’s first term and even undermined his policies, that was perfectly okay? Got it.

...sheesh, when even John McCain’s box-of-rocks daughter sees the writing on the wall, the Commies must be feeling nervous.

...you mean, in addition to Wokism, the shit economy, terrible foreign policy, anti-Americanism, oppressive government [list of 200 more reasons omitted]?

...and he didn’t need a fucking teleprompter, either.

In Unspeakable Bastard Government News:

…

...and it being Seattle, those demands will likely be met, along with added obsequious grovelling instead of clubbings and “deportations”.

And in related Travel News:

...I would have thought that this was actually a permanent thing, but apparently not.
#AllMuslimCountriesAreShitholes #ChangeMyMind

In Nutrition News:

...should never have put that disgusting shit on the shelves in the first place.

...hey, Double-Decaf Extra-Cinnamon Latte-Lovers, we’ve been saying that for nearly thirty years.
#SmugPoseurs #DunkinIsBetter #AndCheaper

In Entertainment News:

...what, exactly, did you expect from Australian crowds, if not hooliganism and projectile vomiting? Also keyword: Melbourne.

And speaking of Aussies:

...had a bad relationship or two with Teh Menz, did we? To compensate for the loss of sales as her hetero market dwindles, I see OnlyFannies in her future.