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Author: Kim du Toit
Old Vs. New
I know that I am irretrievably old-fashioned, and here’s the latest example.
Former footballer David Goldenballs Beckham was seen proudly showing off his new car, a McLaren 750S, valued at about £240,000 ($310,000).
Now never mind the stupid-money price (I know, the McLarens are supercars and probably worth it, just not to ordinary people like us. Forget the money for a moment, if you can).
Now take a look at this nuts-and-bolts restored/upgraded 1964 Jag E-type Series 1:
It looks so hopelessly out of date compared to the 750S, doesn’t it? And yet it’s on sale for a third less than the McLaren, at $218,000.
That’s also stupid money, but I have to tell you that if I had that kind of stupid money, I’d be driving that Jag already, and not the blingy over-powered and overpowering McLaren. Just for kicks, know that the 750S needs to have its oil changed about every thousand or so miles, an operation which requires the engine to be dropped out of the engine bay, and can cost in excess of $25,000. The Jag? Nothing even close to that in cost, let alone inconvenience. Hell, with a little learning and practice, you could probably do your own oil changes. (Not that I would.)
Take a look at the Jag’s interior:
…compared to that of the McLaren:
Note the thoughtfully-placed accommodation for Goldenballs, or maybe it’s a pee-hole for Victoria in the passenger seat… either way, that interior looks like it was designed by LucasFilms.
Sorry, but no. I love cars, I love performance cars, but to be honest — and this was as true back when I was younger as it is today — that wonderful Jag 3.8-liter engine, with its top speed of about 140mph is far more appealing than the million-horsepower McLaren electro-gizmoded powerplant.
And to be honest: I think it’s far easier to get in and out of the E-type — and that’s a nod to my advanced age.
Beckham can afford the McLaren, and there’s no wealth envy on my part. What I can’t forgive is that he gave his son an E-type for a wedding present — except that he’d had it converted to an electric motor.
The Ears Of Texas Are
…relieved, after Judas Priest unexpectedly canceled their Houston gig a couple days back.
I saw Priest in 1986(?) in Austin, and that concert got me to wear earplugs to concerts ever thereafter.
Let me tell you: I played in a loud rock band for ten years before that, and Judas Priest were LOUD. My ears rang for about four days after the show.
I am frankly amazed that these old farts can still play the shows they do, ditto the Rolling Stones etc. (but not the Eagles, who are pretty much just a mime gig nowadays, apparently).
More power to them, say I, although perhaps the last thing the Priest need is more power.
All that said, I myself have often said that I would (still) love to play in a band — just not a rock band; been there, done that, got the tinnitus. But put me in a quiet little dinner-dance restaurant, playing old 1940s and -50s standards and ballads, preferably in a trio (piano, bass, and Drummer Knob on drums) with a torch singer like Julie London or Diana Krall… I’d be the happiest septuagenarian in history.
I still miss playing in a band.
“Dear Dr. Kim”
“Dear Dr. Kim:
“I have been happily married to my husband for two years now. We met when I was in my late 20s and we tied the knot when I was 31. I’d never had a serious relationship before, and I used to travel around for work – so I’ll admit that I’d slept with a fair few people before we met.
“Not that it’s something we ever discussed.
“Last week, however, my husband told me his best friend had discovered his girlfriend’s ‘body count’ and was horrified by the total. His girlfriend had admitted to sleeping with 20 people, a number judged by my husband and his friend to be ‘extremely high’.
“Then, out of curiosity, he asked what my ‘body count’ was. And, having heard his outrage at 20, I decided to lie. A little panicked, I claimed I’d slept with no more than 15 guys.
“It turned out that my husband was disturbed even by that lower estimate – and admitted that he found ‘so many’ sexual partners to be a little off-putting.
“Yet the truth is that I’ve slept with well over 50 men, so many that I’ve lost count. Now I don’t know what to do. Should I stick to my lie and just hope the subject never comes up again?” — Heels-Up Harriet
Dear Harlot errrr Harriet:
It’s always so healthy to base your relationship on a total lie, isn’t it? Okay, here’s the deal.
The topic is going to pop up again, because your hubby is clearly one of those “vulnerable” men who feels that your previous shags will form the basis of a comparison to his performance — and it might, might it not?
However, having lied and given the number as fifteen, you may as well stick with it; but here’s how to rationalize it. Assuming that you started at age 19 or 20 (I’m going with averages here, as most women “claim” hem hem to have lost their mimsy-wall during their first- or second year at university), that number of fifteen translates into fewer than two men a year in the decade before you met him — which, to be honest, is not that horrendous in this day and age — and if he does bring it up again, show him the math, so to speak. (Maybe even that number will be too high for Hubby, in which case you are in deep shit — okay, deeper than you are already.)
Just pray that one of your female BFFs doesn’t let your actual number slip during a Drunken Party Episode, or as a way of getting a revenge shag out of Hubby, just for spite.
Welcome to the Sexual Minefield, honey.
— 
Bad Back Then, Still Awful
I see that Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheet program has just turned 40, which is proof that you can fool a bunch of the people all the time (provided that you bundle your foul, inadequate software into a compendium suite which just “happens” to work okay with the core operating system which, lest we forget, you also created).
I don’t know a lot about a lot of stuff, and even less about software, except that I’ve been a spreadsheet user — at times, a very heavy spreadsheet user — all the way from early 1980s VisiCalc, to SuperCalc, Lotus 1-2-3 through Quattro Pro, while having all that time avoided Excel because its first iteration was dreadful.
Then I joined a company which only used MS Excel, and insisted that I do too (as well as the stupid Word and even-worse Access. Of course, it required re-learning all my old commands in a new language — not too difficult — but what was difficult was discovering that Excel had not really improved much over the years.
So I quit using the thing, did all my development and report design work in Quattro Pro — which was still the best spreadsheet program extant — and then translated everything into Excel, which was time-consuming and also counter-productive because a great many commands I’d used in Quattro as a matter of course had no equivalent in Excel. (Bear in mind that this was back in the 1990s and early 2000s, and things may have changed since then.)
Also, Quattro’s companion database product Paradox was streets better than pretty much all other such programs back then, which hamstrung me even more.
It always struck me that MS products, like Apple’s, are great if you’ve never used anything like that before. If you have, however, and are familiar with the competitive products, MS always comes up short.
Nowadays, my needs are a great deal more modest than back then, so I use Apache’s Open Office suite (Writer and Calc) because a) they work just fine for me and b) they’re free.
Now, if I have to send someone something I wrote or crafted on a spreadsheet, I just tell the recipient to download Open Office to be able to read the stuff. (I should point out that the Son&Heir used OO Writer exclusively to write his papers all the way through college, and never had a problem — to this day it’s the only thing he writes with — but at his job at Global MegaBank Inc. he has to use Excel, which he hates more than I do.)
So Happy Birthday, Inferior Spreadsheet Product, for what that’s worth. (Nothing, by comparison to Open Office’s Calc.)
Newcomer
So young Tulsi has decided to come over to the not-so-Dark Side:
“And it is because of my love for our country, and specifically because of the leadership that President Trump has brought to transform the Republican party and bring it back to the party of the people and the party of peace, that I’m proud to stand here with you today, President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party,” she said at Trump’s rally in North Carolina. “I’m joining the party of the people, the party of equality, the party that was founded to fight against and end slavery in this country. It is the party of commonsense, and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace.”
My guess is that about 30 seconds after Trump is sworn in, she’ll be dropped from the TSA surveillance list.
to: 
Welcome aboard, sweetie. Just don’t fall back into your old bad habits.