Tag: Things that totally suck

Boring And Gray

Modernism, Real Estate

I know that colors tend to come and go as fashion statements, and maybe soon it will all change.  But I have to agree with the people complaining about this trend (now referred to as the “Grey Plague”):

‘Tasteless’ homeowners have been slammed over a trend of ruining pretty homes with dreary paint-jobs, supersized fences and Astro-turf lawns, dubbed the ‘Grey Plague’.
A number of examples have been shared online in recent weeks, showing how once picturesque white houses, often dating back centuries, have been transformed into ugly, grey mountains stripped of greenery and often with imposing front features.

Here’s an example:

Yes, that’s the same house.  The picturesque, somewhat eccentric Victorian cottage has been turned into some neo-Bauhaus nightmare, the shrubbery replaced with… concrete, and the family dwelling has come to resemble the offices of a small architectural firm.  To call the change “ugly” is to understate the matter.

I know, I know:  it’s a private property issue, so all you librarians can go back to reading Lysander Spooner or Atlas Shrugged.  Of course you should be able to do what you want with your property — but as it’s in the public domain (being oh-so visible from the street), I likewise have the right to express my opinion that it looks like shit.

The other bitch about a modern trend has to do with this fascination for the color gray / grey (depending on which side of the Atlantic you live;  both are correct).  From the linked article, look upon this foul eyesore, and despair:

For those who’ve never been to Britishland, allow me to mansplain.

Both these pics were taken on a sunny summer’s day — but, as the old joke goes, that’s not the way to bet when it comes to British Weather.  At least 80% of the time, it looks like this:

…cold, damp and dreary.  In a word: gray.

Now use your imagination and add a gray day to the white house in the pic on the left-hand side, and to the gray house on the right.  That’s right:  putting a gray house into a gray day turns “dreary” into “gloomy”.  Kinda like Edinburgh on any day, come to think of it:

(That was taken from my hotel room just after lunch, in October 1999.)

I don’t really mind gray — light gray — as an interior color, although I think it tends to make the room feel a little cold.  In fact, the walls in our current apartment are light gray and while we’d pick a different color (e.g. pale blue or a very light tropical-beach-sand color) if we had our druthers, the gray doesn’t offend.  However, the outside of our apartment complex is a dark gray, similar to the gray Victorian above, and that makes me want to bring the dynamite, especially when (like today) it’s overcast, chilly, drizzly and as New Wife calls it, “positively British”.  Here’s what I’m talking about (taken at about midday yesterday):

Change that to white walls with gray accents, and we’re talking turkey.  As it is… ugh.

Anyway, as I said at the top, maybe the fashion will change and gray will be replaced with some other color.

My luck, it will be avocado green.  Then there will be murders.

Back To The Classic

Modernism

Thanks to Alert Reader SeanF, I see that I am not alone in my hatred of Modernist architecture:

A new study finds 72 percent of Americans prefer traditional architecture for U.S. courthouses and federal office buildings, including majorities across political, racial, sex, and socioeconomic categories. The survey was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of National Civic Art Society and polled more than 2,000 U.S. adults.
These findings come in light of the possibility of a Trump administration executive order, appropriately named Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, that would require that new office buildings in Washington, D.C. be classical in design. Among other things, the order would revise the 1962 “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture,” which forced modernism to be the official government building style.

Indeed, the picture in the article states it better than anything:

Needless to say, the Ungodly have set about trying to stop this most worthy cause:

In response to the leak of the potential order, a bill entitled the “Democracy in Design Act” was proposed by House Democrats to overturn it.

…which simply reminds us that winning back the House in November is Job #2.

One of the most heartening things about this website comes from people who write to me and say, “I thought I was the only one who believed in this kind of thing” , and who were astonished to find a kindred soul in both my writings and the support of my Readers.

Now it’s the Federalist ‘s turn to do it for me.  How gratifying.

No More Bill

Bad News, Travels, Writing

I see with great regret that the peerless travel writer Bill Bryson is closing up his inkwell for good.

In an age when cheap airfares and package tours — not to mention online “visits” through media such as Gurgle maps and InstaGram — could have made travel writing about as relevant as toenail clippings, Bryson’s refreshing, no-nonsense style has defied the trend.

I first encountered the man through his Lost Continent: Travels In Small-Town America.   I found in Bryson a kindred soul because at the time, Longtime Buddy Trevor Romain and I were doing very much the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale:  once a year we would take a long weekend off work, pick a part of the U.S. that we’d never visited before, and fly in (he from Austin and I, at that time, from Chicago).  Then we’d rent a car and set off, destination unknown and only the return flight’s departure time as a deadline.  The Golden Rule:  No Interstate Highways.  Even major U.S. roads with only two digits (e.g. U.S. 30 or Route 66) were treated with suspicion, and we’d get off into the back country roads with alacrity.

We were often asked why we did this — and we did it for nearly a decade — and our reply was simple.  We did it to remind ourselves why we had both left our country of birth and settled in this new, this wonderful and this dauntingly-large and diverse land.

To say that we met interesting people would rank among the great understatements of the century:  in New Orleans, Queer Tom and Opera Kate (an out-of-work opera singer working as a barmaid);  the lady in a little town outside Portland who collected frogs of all descriptions (stuffed, porcelain, wooden, whatever) and displayed them all in her restaurant;  the huge guy in New Hampshire who, when we asked him if he’d ever played football lisped:  “Nope.  I got weak kneeth”;  and the slightly-batty breakfast diner owner in Rhode Island who wore the most eccentric earrings we’d ever seen, a different pair every single day;  these, and many, many others were encountered in our travels, and gave us both dinner-party conversation topics and “Remember when?” reminiscences that survive to this day.

And during every single trip, Trevor and I fell in love with America all over again.

So when reading Bill Bryson’s books, it was like reading about one of our own “Blue Highways” trips (the name taken from the title of William Least Heat Moon’s book of the same ilk).  And when Bryson settled in Britishland, it gave rise to works like the astonishing The Road To Little Dribbling  and Notes From A Small Island  — books which, because I’d been to the U.K. often myself, made me nod my head because I too had been to Little Dribbling, only it was called Upton-Under-Wold, Thirsk or Lesser Foldem.

I cannot recommend his work highly enough, because he is an extraordinary writer who sees everything through a pair of clear-sighted lenses and not rose-tinted ones.  Never one to suffer fools or stupid things, he still talks about them with affection covered by incredulity.  If you’re looking for a reading project for the winter, you could do a lot worse than read everything Bill Bryson has ever written.

And Bill:  good for you.  While I am distraught at your retirement, I am forever grateful to you and your wonderful works.

As to why he’s getting out:

“I would quite like to spend the part that is left to me doing all the things I’ve not been able to do. Like enjoying my family, I have masses of grandchildren and I would love to spend more time with them just down on the floor.”

I can think of no better reason.  Give them each a hug from me.

Speed Bump #922

Grammar Nazism

When did the noun “gift” become a verb?  “I gifted her a birthday present” sounds retarded, not to say redundant or even worse, pretentious.

It’s even made even worse by adding the superfluous preposition “with”.  “I gifted her with a birthday present” sounds so stupidly convoluted and verbose, it could be Jesse Jackson speaking.

There’s a perfectly good word to describe the act of giving:  it’s called “giving”.  By definition, when one gives something to someone, it’s a fucking gift.

I know that I am somewhat guilty of turning a noun into a verb is that I call this same foul trend “verbing” — but of course I’m being ironic by turning the concept against itself.

Don’t get me started.  Every time someone spouts that nonsense, I want to gift them with a kick in the groin.

Silver Linings, Gloomy Futures

Business, Men & Women

Not every business has been adversely affected by the Chinkvirus and Gummint lockdowns:

A businesswoman who sells sex dolls has revealed how her company has been thriving throughout the pandemic, and that she’s noticed an increase in sales each time a new lockdown restriction comes into place.
Jade Stanley, 36, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, launched her company Sex Doll Official in 2018, and sells and rents plastic sex companions, some of which can cost up to £8,000, to ‘lonely’ customers.
The mother-of-four explained that due to widespread isolation during the coronavirus crisis, she saw surges in sales every time there was a change in lockdown rules, insisting customers want ‘more than just a sex toy’.

However:

She also revealed that she’s noticed a much bigger demand for male and transgender sex dolls, and told there’s a ‘big market’ for couples who want to involve a ‘safe third party’ in the bedroom.

That might just be the thunder of horses’ hooves you’re hearing in the distance.

So just what does this little hotbed town of kinky sex look like?  Something like this:

…and further down the High Street:

However.

Alert Readers may have noticed in the above pic one of Kim’s Favoritest Places In Britishland:  Greggs, purveyors of  fine pies and finer sausage rolls.  Things are not so rosy there:

Since reopening on July 2, the Newcastle-based firm’s like-for-like sales averaged at 71.2 per cent of its levels from 2019 for the 12-week period to September 26.
Greggs was performing well before the crisis its shares hit a record high of 2,550p in January. But they closed yesterday at 1,219p, down 47 per cent in the year to date.

So to all my Brit Readers, I beseech you:  start Kim’s “Every Meal With Greggs©” program with immediate effect, and to hell with your waistlines.

Your sex dolls won’t complain, I promise you.

Control

Bad News, Technology

Regular Readers all know that I treat the Internet Of Things (IOT) with deep and hostile skepticism.  I hate the idea of driverless cars, “remotely-controlled” appliances and -household systems, and don’t even get me started on “smart” guns with embedded chips.

Here’s a decent takedown of the concept:

After a week of tinkering, he effectively turned the coffee maker into a ransomware machine.  When the user tries to connect it to their home network, it triggers the machine to turn on the burner, spew hot water, endlessly spin the bean grinder, and display a pre-programmed ransom message while beeping incessantly.  The only way to get it to stop?  Unplugging your now seemingly possessed coffee maker entirely.

I know that all this is The Coming Thing, and we should all just bow down and accept its inevitability.  My standard response to this kind of attitude has always been quite simple:

  or the more heated

or even

Stick shifts and car keys, bolt-action or pump action rifles, revolvers, “dumb” coffee machines, house keys, pen and paper… y’all get my drift, right?

Fuck automation, and fuck the Internet Of Things or Skynet or whatever the hell they want to call it.

This post comes to you courtesy of the Internet… goddamn it.