Last time I posted about the excruciating process of buying a new car, where even knowing the precise car and price walking onto the lot, it still took four hours and an extra eight grand. Oh, and getting a different color car than the one I requested.
Now that I’ve had a couple weeks to drive the new car, allow me to go all old man on you and complain about all these newfangled cameras and gear selectors and safety thing-a-ma-gogs.
Boy, back in my day, we used to drive ten miles to the gallon. Uphill both ways.
Most of the additions to cars over the past decade are mandated by the government. Others are economically driven, with every car company scrambling to be Tesla Lite. Then again, if I wanted a Tesla, I’d buy a Tesla. They’re not that much more expensive than the Nissans and Hyundais and Fords (Oh, my!) these days. If you want to make me feel like I’m driving a car out of my price range, make it like a Ferrari or Aston Martin. Preferably with an ejector seat.
Instead we get self-driving cars that can’t drive themselves.
Most of the additions are as harmless as they are useless. The gear selector is buttons. No, not a dial. Buttons. Takes some getting used to. I feel like something needs to be turned or cranked in order to put the car in park, especially when the car is beeping at me from multiple directions because it’s shocked, Shocked!, to find a curb in this parking space. I’ve found myself turning on my windshield wipers and blinker in an attempt to disengage the “drive” option.
The car also freaks out about the curb in front of me when I put my car into reverse. The front bumper will flash red, the corner by the headlight will flash yellow, and the beeping will go off incessantly. It’s like, “yeah, that’s why I’m reversing.”
This will not be the only time the car chastises me on my driving. To switch gears, I need to put my foot on the brake. To reverse out of my parking spot or driveway, I need to have my seat belt fastened.
I’m sure those two security features sound perfectly reasonable to some government bureaucrat in Virginia. Changing gears or reversing can cause DEATH if done improperly.
Except for the time I realize, after getting out of my car, that I’m a little kattywompus in the parking spot. All I have to do is reverse about five feet then pull back in. Might not even touch the damn accelerator, but I have to fasten my seatbelt. Fuck it, I guess I’ll just be the asshole taking up two spots right next to the asshole who backed his truck in.
Recently, I took it to an automatic car wash and it wouldn’t let me switch from neutral to drive without stepping on the brake. Of course, hitting the brake while a conveyor belt is pushing me forward ain’t ideal, but if I wait until I’m completely off said belt, the car behind me will be inside my trunk.
Yeah, yeah, I took my brand spanking new car to an automatic car wash. Back in my old days, I’d wash it by hand for 30,000 miles or so, but Daughter’s already scuffed the inside putting on softball cleats. Besides, I didn’t get the color I wanted, anyway.
The middle console can wirelessly charge my phone, which is very cool. Except the phone must be place in one specific spot, and since there’s no glasses holder in the roof (because there’s five other buttons that I don’t know the purpose or ability of), the best place to store them is the wireless spot. So my phone’s usually plugged into the cigarette lighter like it’s 2004.
Sorry, the “power plug,” or whatever the yunguns call it. It’ll always be the cigarette lighter to me, even if it never comes with the heating element anymore. Forget 9/11 or the Berlin Wall, the true generational divide is whether or not you ever burnt yourself on one of those.
To unlock the door, all I have to do is slip my hand under the door handle. Pretty cool and convenient. Allegedly, I can lock the car by simply swiping a finger across handle. The “alleged” part isn’t the action, which I’ve done a few times, it’s the “simply.” Can’t run your finger over it too fast or too slow. Can’t stop or spurt on the glide across. Usually takes three or four attempts. Meanwhile I’ve got a fob in my pocket that only needs one push of a button.
The windshield display takes some getting used to. A digital speedometer, plus additional info about blind spots, a low gas tank, and, disturbingly, the speed limit at my location, show up in the lower left corner of my windshield. Wife thinks it’s too distracting, but I’m fine with it. It’s far enough down that it isn’t in the way of anything. Kinda looks like it’s hovering above the hood, around the height of the license plate on the car in front of me at a red light. It’s a little transparent, like the glasses and occular displays shown on futuristic sci-fi. Like maybe the stuff Tony Stark puts up in the air in the MCU movies. I was sure I wouldn’t use it, because the actual information is only an eye flick lower, but damn, I acclimated to that even quicker than the back-up cameras on my last car. Think of how annoyed you are now at having to turn around in the driver’s seat to back-up, and after you get one of these windshield displays, you’ll show the same disdain for having to look ALL THE WAY DOWN to the steering wheel.
Then there’s the cameras. Oh, my fucking God, the cameras. They have cameras for every damn angle of the car. It’s a goddamn surveillance state.
I’m used to the back-up cameras now. Sure, they probably raised the price of new cars by 10% or more and are singularly responsible for the vast increase in douchebags backing into parking spaces. Taking an extra minute pulling in, in order to save five seconds while pulling out? Really? While there’s ten fucking cars behind you waiting to get into their own parking spaces. Frontwards, like decent human beings.
Still, back-up cameras have a use, primarily because they show an area you can’t see from the driver’s seat.
You know what you can easily see? The area right in front of your car. But that’s where the nimrods placed another camera.
No, I don’t mean a sensor. Plenty of cars beep when you’re about to run into a wall or a car or something. My car does that, then immediately shows a live feed of said object on my center display. Yeah, camera, I can see the giant tree right in front of me because it’s, well, right the fuck in front of me. Not only that, but I can see my entire hood and how far it extends toward said said obstacle. There’s this old-fashioned viewing instrument called a windshield. I know, I know, might as well be an abacus.
I also have side-view cameras that come up when I turn on my blinker. It’s a circular view that pops into the middle of my speedometer or gas usage monitor (the tachometer’s spot from ye olden sticke shifte days). It’s showing the area near the ground next to the back half of my car. My side window shows the same spot, at least up high, and I doubt there’d be something down by my back wheel that wasn’t also high enough to be in my mirror, especially when I’m changing lanes at sixty mph.
Isn’t the blind spot outside my mirror’s view, like directly to my right or left, not back by my trunk? That’s why the “blind spot” mirrors have that little convex on the outer edge. My new car, by the way, doesn’t have those. I guess that’s what the cameras are for. Perhaps the next generation of cars will get rid of all mirrors and just have us watch the screens constantly. Windshields, too.
Not sure if that’s even a joke anymore. Think about the logistics of what I just described. When I want to switch lanes to my right, the car wants me to be looking at my dashboard. Seems like, while moving one’s car to the right, one’s attention should be towards the right. The dashboard seems the last spot the focus should be. Didn’t we all learn “Signal, Mirror, Over Shoulder, Go” in Drivers Ed? Or was that just a SoCal thing because the easiest thing to correlate with cars there was smog?
Similarly, when moving forward, one ought to be looking out the windshield, offset by some glances in all those various windows and mirrors. Yet when my new car drives through a mixture of parked and moving cars, it’s all cameras on deck. My screen turns into an overhead shot of my car (although not really my car, because the roof is one of the few spots not decked with cameras) and a weird, fishbowl amalgamation of the obstacles around me, but really just their toes because, again, all the cameras are facing down. Except for the front one which shows exactly the same thing I see through my windshield.
Another thing that faces down is my side mirrors when I’m backing up. As soon as I go into reverse, they angle down to show the ground beneath my trunk. Did I miss some news story about how all accidents occur underneath a car? Are there gnomes who aren’t picked up via standard lanes of vision? Sure, maybe Daughter’s bike might be lying behind my car, but my insurance ain’t kicking in unless I hit the car parked behind me. And that car ain’t showing up in my mirrors if they’re looking for at the driveway.
All of these cameras also like to keep me in whatever lane I’m in. I appreciate their effort, but I’ve been driving for thirty years now. I think I can keep my car straight. When I drift out of my lane, it’s probably because I see an obstacle farther ahead than HAL 9000.
My wife drives a 2018, so I expected a certain element of Lane Nazism. Her car beeps at her whenever she changes leaves without signaling. It bugs me when I drive her car, but she doesn’t even notice it anymore.
My car doesn’t just beep. It nudges the car back into the lane. Perhaps that would be helpful if it was an accidental move, but usually it’s not. Usually I’m moving onto an offramp or a newly forming lane. Then the car admonishes me to keep my hand on the steering wheel, even though my hands are very clearly on the steering wheel, evidenced by my countersteering against the “correction” (said like the Shining bartender) to proceed into the lane I was merging into in the first place.
New cars: 50% nag, 50% narc. 100% cameras!
Of course, I could fix this “correcting” by simply using my blinker. Except when I use my blinker that damn camera shows up on my dashboard, which is much more distracting and destructive to the driving process than feeling like I rubbed up against a curb at seventy miles per hour.
My main worry is that all these tire nudges are going to mess up my alignment. Or that my car will alert the state of California that I don’t use my blinker and Herr Kommandant Newsom will fine me in order to fund another poll to reiterate the fact that he had no fucking chance of ever being president.
My “gas low” signal comes on when there’s about 30-40 miles left on the tank. Then, about five miles later, the dashboard flashes with a “Refuel now to avoid causing hybrid battery damage.” Um… the gauge still says there’s 24 miles left until empty. Does the battery get damaged when there’s still gas in the tank? If so, maybe they should adjust the “miles left” gauge to be when the battery gets damaged, not when the well is dry. Unless… unless the car… doesn’t think I know I need to get gas? Thinks I’m going to ignore the two other indicators (low fuel light and miles left, not to mention the fuel gauge) and think, what, that this hybrid is a full electric? I’m sure I signed some paperwork to that effect.
All the sass of KITT with none of the turbo boost.
Sometimes when I’m sitting at a red light with cars on all four sides, my car freaks out. It bings and buzzes me, screaming “Check your surroundings.” The screen shows the view from my windshield along with the bug-eyed look at the cars to my left and right. I’m like, “yeah, it’s called sitting at a red light.” Seriously car, if you’re gonna chastise me for merging onto a freeway, you gotta be able to handle your own shit when we’re sitting at a red light. If you were a full self-driving car, you’d be curled into a fetal position before you ever leave the driveway.
If this is the state of our future AI overlords, we’re a hell of a long way from Judgment Day.
When Terminator comes to wipe out the human race, just put a couple of curbs in his way.
Just got back from buying a new car. Let’s see if I can form any cogent thoughts. Like, for the rest of time.
I was going to make a joke about how chafed my asshole was or some other such metaphor for being used and abused, but it’s not really like that.
If I had bought a used car, sure. That process is more like waking up in a pool of vomit (not your own) with an already-scratched lottery ticket, and maybe a note about your missing kidney.
But buying a new car is just a fucking drain. On your energy, your lifeforce. Your self-worth and desire to live. Even when you prepare ahead of time.
Maybe next time, instead of hours online I’ll just lube up beforehand.
Do they let you test drive if you’re drunk? Because being of sober mind and body only makes the process worse. Instead of offering me bottled water every fifteen minutes, how about a glass of wine? Or a handle of rum.
My old car’s been on its last leg for a while. My commute is a brutal 55 miles each direction, meaning I’m burning through about 3,000 miles a month, 30k a year. Thank God for June and July.
This last car actually lasted a year longer than expected because that whole “schools closed for a year” thing meant no commuting. So in the seven and a half years I owned the car, I *only* drove 204,000 miles. Assuming there’s no new pandemic, look forward to my next “Fuck, I had to buy a car” post around 2030.
Some people like buying a new car every year or two. Not me. If I could’ve driven my last one until it was 300,000, I would’ve. Hell, I’d drive a million if the auto industry would let me. Maybe instead of adding more cameras and monitors and shit, they could, I don’t know, develop an engine that doesn’t fall apart as soon as we finish paying off the car.
Unfortunately, the engine didn’t agree with my sentiment. About a year ago, the oil started leaking. Not very much, but occasionally after parking the car, I’d get a whiff coming off the engine. Plus there was some drops on my driveway.
Three trips to the dealership and a couple grand later, the problem seemed to be fixed. Can’t really tell you what it was, because they didn’t fix the right thing the first time. They fixed a gasket. Then it was a mount. When I brought it back the third time, they actually fixed it for free. Like, I didn’t pay for the $500 part they had to order, nor did I pay for the 7-10 hours of labor. Nothing says, “Oh shit, we finally found that thing you were first complaining about months ago” quite like a repair place ponying up for their own labor costs.
That worked for six months or so, but the last time I took my car to the quicky lube (which should totally be the name of a whorehouse), they said there was barely any oil in the engine. They chastised me for going too long between oil changes, and I took it because I couldn’t really remember when I’d done it. I don’t drive much in the summer, so maybe I hit 3,000 miles in May, but had stretched it out another 2,000 when it was mostly trips to the store. Even then, 5,000 ain’t exactly “bone dry” territory, so I assumed my old friend Slow Leak was back.
Three weeks and two thousand miles later, when I smelled what could only be described as a raging inferno of grease and steel coming through my air ducts, I realized Mr. Slow Leak had grown to adult size. Fortunately, I could coast to an offramp with a gas station. Two $12 quarts of oil later, I was able to drive myself the rest of the way to work.
I bought a third quart just in case this leak became a gusher, but turns out I didn’t need it. In fact, after letting my car sit for a week (I drove a rental until I could go car shopping on the weekend), the oil level hadn’t really dropped much from the two quarts I’d put in. So maybe I could’ve kept driving my old car for another few months, topping off the oil every thousand miles or so, but the writing was on the wall. And it’s not like car shopping in December would be less excruciating than September.
Which leads me to my Sunday through the Wringer.
Theoretically buying a car is easier these days. A little online research will show us not only the price range of new cars, but pictures of the specific inventory currently on the lot. Although the websites I checked listed a bunch of cars “In-Transit” with a caveat that delivery dates are only estimations and should not be relied upon. Except none of them listed arrival dates. So wait, you’re telling me it might not arrive by an undisclosed date?
Fortunately, there were a couple dark blue hybrids already on my local lot.
Unfortunately, neither was the car I ended up with. Not entirely sure why. After I showed the guy which car I wanted from his own website, he “went to go grab it.” It looked black, not blue, when I got in it for the test drive, but it was in the shadows and was pretty dirty, so I just figured it was a dark enough blue that the true color wouldn’t pop until it was on the road. Nope. He grabbed the black one. Probably because it’s a “premium color,” despite living in the Sacramento Valley, where summer temperatures regularly top 105.
I did, at least, get a hybrid. With my extensive commute, I figure if I use one gallon of gas each direction instead of two, then over the course of 180 school days, I should be saving 360 gallons, give or take. At $5 per gallon (lol, try $7), I should saved more than the extra $8K for a hybrid pretty quick. I still wasn’t ready to make the plunge on full electric because of the whole plugging in thing. Come back to my 2029 car bitching session to hear about the fire I’m inevitably going to start in my garage when I put in the new docking station.
Yeah, I know I said my next car will be 2030. Maybe I’ll split the difference and purchase it in 2029 after the new model year is released. Speaking of which, the days of getting great deals in mid-September when the new model year came out are long gone. Everything is “What’s on the sticker is what you pay.” Followed immediately by “What’s on the sticker is nowhere near what you pay.”
There’s a dealership closer to my work where the car I wanted cost a couple thousand less. I figured that was my leverage. So the sales guy does the bullshit of bringing in his manager and whatever and allegedly this guy agrees to split the difference.
Of all the car purchasing steps, this pretend haggling over the price is the worst part. Why the fuck does the “Manager” always use the thick marker and scribble all over the numbers the salesperson wrote down?. It’s not Sharpie because it doesn’t bleed through, but it’s thick and bright. Is that supposed to connote finality? Or boldness because they’re give us “such a great deal”? It’s got to be for some psychological reason, but if they think I’m going to be impressed, it’s a failure.
Especially when the end result is the same fucking price. I did at least send him back a couple times to tell me precisely what interest rate my 800+ credit rating was giving me. I knew it was going to be terrible after the past eighteen months of Fed action, but might as well scratch off my morbid curiosity. Over six percent, which is a few percentages higher than I had to pay in the late 1990s when the prime rate was… exactly where it is now. Of course, this was the rate given to me by the car company, so guess who’s going to the bank to get a better rate?
Hell, they didn’t even run my damn credit report. I only found out later when I asked if I could know my rating since I hadn’t run it in a few years. The guy was all, “Oh sure, I can run it. We hadn’t run it, but I’ll run it right now and have you sign off that we did.” Some consumer protection thing. But what the hell? Were they just trusting me when I told them I had an 800 credit score? Kinda defeats the purpose of having a credit score if people can make up whatever number they want and be believed. Then again, if they’re going to be charging over six percent, I guess they’ll just hedge their bets that people like me will offset all the 300 credit ratings who are lying about having an 800.
Then comes Mr. Extended Warranty Guy, the most hilarious part of the car-buying process. You’ve just spent an hour hearing about how wonderful this new car is, how it’s the height of modern technology, one step away from being able to wipe your ass for you. Now Extended Warranty Guy says “Holy Crap, that’s a piece of shit you just bought. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t break down on the way home, much less long enough to finish the five years of exorbitant financing were tacking on.”
After I said no for the third time, Mr. EWG told me about a cheaper option that covers dings, dents, and windshield. I splurged on that because Sacramento roads suck. I had to replace the windshield on my last car at least three times, maybe four, plus another half- dozen chip repairs. One time Safelite quoted me a low price on the phone, then said “unless you live in Sacramento, California.” i informed them that i did. They doubled the price.
I’m sure that what I think is covered won’t be covered when the time comes to fix it. “Sorry, that windshield was damaged by a pebble. Your warranty only covers glass that spontaneously cracks.” But whatever, it only added $20 a month to the payments and if I hadn’t said yes this time, I’d probably still be there today, learning about a $1 a month warranty that covers only the passenger floorboard. We were well past two hours for a car I had already decided on before walking on the lot. I’ll pay $20 a month to make it home before bedtime.
Then comes the signing. Mr. EWG morphs into Paperwork Dude. Seventy-five pages of initials and scribbling, some on a digital screen, some on paper. I think one of the papers I signed acknowledged the use of tire chains. Highway Patrol won’t let me past the snow checkpoints without them. Can I just sign something then?
Some of the papers were about lead. Maybe asbestos. Probably agreed, under penalty of imprisonment, that I’ll vote for Herr Kommandant Newsom when he runs for president. The state of California probably thinks they’re doing a bang-up job protecting my consumerness, but the more there is to read, the less I’m going to read it. Especially when I’ve already sat through Mr. EWG’s entire timeshare presentation and the Siegfried and Roy tickets will turn back into pumpkins at midnight.
The one paper I slowed down on was the total cost, because I wanted to figure out how the $38k, which I had “negotiated” down to $37k, was now showing up as $44k. The top line still showed the MSRP. When I inquired about that, he said my negotiated price was listed under “rebate,” so the taxes would still be based on the original price. That rebate, by the way, was from the state of California because the car is a hybrid, not because I’d showed them the same vehicle priced lower nearby.
Seriously, why does Manager Dude even do the hardcore haggling? Just say you’re giving me whatever price I’m asking for, then blame the final price on “taxes and licensing.” I wasted thirty minutes “negotiating” money already due to me by the state. Sure, maybe if I hadn’t “negotiated” the rebate, the dealership just would’ve pocketed it. It’s what my district does when the state gives them COLA money to “pass through to the teachers.”
Of course the state is going to give me $500 off right before charging me $4,000 in various other fees. This is the same state of California that’s trying to discourage people from getting solar panels because it made it harder to collect windfall profit taxes from the electric company monopolies. Perhaps if I’d bought a fully electric vehicle, which comes with a $5,000 rebate, the fees would’ve gone up to $9,000. Something about disposal of electric batteries.
Speaking of that rebate, when they first quoted me my price, it was $50 cheaper per month because they had “fat fingered” the $500 into $5,000. Allegedly. Considering the full electric rebate was $5k, maybe it was less pudgy fingers and more having no fucking clue what the customer was buying before scribbling over it with your marker.
This might also explain why the blue car I’d asked to drive ended up being black when all was said and done. It was all shiny now, so I could tell for certain it wasn’t the car I’d originally asked the salesman for. But what am I going to do, sit through another two hours of new paperwork for something as meaningless as the color?
If they’ve got a dumbfuck who will accept a rebate as a good-faith negotiation, and who will shrug and accept a monthly payment fifty bucks higher than originally quoted, then why not saddle the schmuck with the black car, too?
Game, set, and match, dealership.
So now I’ve got a new damn car that I couldn’t be less thrilled with. Come back next week to hear me bitch about all the newfangled shit they’re putting on cars these days.
While telling the damn kids to get off my front yard.
I really shouldn’t get involved in this whole college sports “realignment” fiasco.
Nobody comes to this particular blog for sports stuff. There are, from what I gather, at least one or two other websites where those interested in sports might gravitate for their latest “hot stove” insights.
Not that I have insights. No inside info, no breaking news. And by the time I write and edit this bad boy, this’ll be such old news that’s been analyzed and overanalyzed to death.
But The Writing Wombat is where people come for snark, and assuming anybody is going to care about that annual Rutgers vs. Oregon barnburner deserves a shit-ton of snark.
I once opined that the Beavers and Cocks should play in the same conference with Ball State and Sac State. That seems about as random as putting Arizona and Central Florida in the same conference. So consider me an expert.
For you non sports-inclined readers, here’s a quick rejoinder on what the sports landscape looked like up until about five years ago. Then I can better explain just how whack-a-doodle it’s become.
Most sport leagues are divided up for geographic purposes. The reason you always hear about the Boston Red Sox playing the New York Yankees, or the Chicago Bears’ long history versus the Green Bay Packers, or the grueling rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors, is because they 1) play each other more often and 2) are vying to “win” a four to seven team division.
Even international sports divvies up by region. Sure, you might only pay attention to the World Cup, but to get to that World Cup, the teams have to play through regional tournaments. Maybe it’s not fair that the Dutch need to power through the Germans, French, and Italians to make the World Cup while the United States’ gauntlet includes that powerhouse of Trinidad & Tobago, but come on. If the U.S. had to play real countries, we’d never make the tournament and then FIFA would lose out on a bunch of advertisement dollars.
Not that money ever drives any sporting decisions. Qatar totally got the World Cup because of its vaunted sporting history. And Washington is totally right next to Pennsylvania.
The main reason for these divisions comes down to travel costs and fatigue. If the Los Angeles Dodgers get on a post-game plane in San Francisco or San Diego, they might be home by 1:00 am. If the flight’s from D.C. or Philly, it ain’t landing till tomorrow morning.
And bear in mind, those major league players aren’t flying Southwest. They’re got their own chartered flights. The college kids don’t. Sucks to be them. I’d tell them to unionize, but they aren’t making any money so no union would want them.
The divisions work out great for fans, too. The closeness of your rivals makes it easier to travel to those away games. It also means you’re more likely to intersperse with their fans while in all walks of life, which increases engagement.
College sports used to follow a similar pattern. There were twenty or so regional divisions. Most of these divisions overlapped with each other so the universities that were more focused on sports didn’t dominate those silly universities that care about those non-athletic weirdos walking around their campus quoting Kierkegaard.
For instance, on the west coast, we had the likes of USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Oregon in the top division, called everything from the Pac (or Pacific)-8 to Pac-10 to Pac-12, changing the name to match the number of teams. Put a pin in that for later.
The second level of West Coast teams play (at least for the last twenty years) in the Mountain West Conference. You might not have heard of all of their colleges, but you’re at least aware of their locations. San Diego, San Jose, Fresno, Reno, Vegas, Boise. Even Hawaii, which contains both Mountains and the West, but isn’t what normally equated with the western mountains. Rockies and Sierras, yes. Volcanos, not so much.
Below the Mountain West is a handful of conferences, depending on the sport. My alma mater, UC Davis, is in the Big West for basketball but the Big Sky for football.
Yes, colleges can be in different conferences for different sports. This might be something these universities might want to consider before the Pac-12 goes belly up for good.
Many other major and minor conferences spread out across the country. Historically, the Big 10 had its foothold in the Midwest while the Big 12 catered to the Great Plains. I’ll not insult your intelligence by explaining where you might find the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences. All these conferences have unaffiliated conferences “underneath” them.
These conferences have never been particularly static. Conferences poach from other major or minor conferences. Returning back to the Pacific, the Pac-8 added two Arizona teams to become the Pac-10, then Colorado (from the Big 12) and Utah (from the “underling” Mountain West) made it twelve. Colleges would base their decision to stay or leave on recruiting, as opposed to money because, last I checked, universities, particularly the public ones, are supposed to be… non-profit?
The difference between the old poaching and the new is that it used to be on the periphery. Does Colorado fit better with the West Coast than with the Great Plains? Once they legalized pot, I feel like they’re more likely to entice an Oregonian to attend than an Oklahoman. Nebraska followed their move by bolting in the opposite direction toward the Big Ten. Someone from Chicago might not consider Nebraska to be in the Midwest, but being in a conference with Minnesota and Iowa makes a certain amount of sense for Nebraska.
This Nebraska defection was when the conference names started to make no sense. The Big 12, having lost two members, now had ten schools. The Big 10, meanwhile, which had actually had eleven teams for some time (but Big 11 sounds stupid) now had twelve. Everybody just shrugged and figured there was no reason to have institutes of higher learning be able to finish the Sesame Street counting song.
Not sure where the wheels came off. A few years ago, the Big 12 lost its flagship schools, with Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC. This was the first time it seemed to be about money more than wins. The SEC is, far and away, the best conference in the country. Both schools moved from a conference where they were the preeminent power, virtually assured of winning their conference and being in the playoffs to a conference where they’ll be lucky to compete for fourth place. Trust me, Texas ain’t stealing the top recruits from Alabama any time soon.
Still, you don’t have to squint hard to see Texas and Oklahoma being at home in a conference named Southeast.
Then, about a year ago, USC (that’s the University of Southern California, in case you were wondering) and UCLA (the last two letters of which stand for Los Angeles, also in Southern California) decided that, instead of playing in a conference named for the ocean they played next to, they wanted to play most of their games three time zones away. Both schools joined the Big 10 and, starting next season, will be nestled into the standings with the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. Again, that Penn is short for Pennsylvania.
The Pac-12, which had just lost two of its premier programs (well, one premier programs plus UCLA), reacted by doing… well, not really much of anything. If you ignore a problem long enough, it’ll just go away. Unfortunately for the Pac-12, the “it” that their ignorance made go away was six more colleges and a t.v. deal.
Colorado left first, returning to the Big 12 from whence it came, although now that Big 12 doesn’t have Nebraska, Texas, or Oklahoma, so they’ve got to be feeling good about their chances. There were rumors that the Pac-12, now down to nine members, might bring in San Diego State, or maybe Boise State, to get back up to ten or twelve. But first, they needed to figure out that whole t.v. thing.
They were finally on the cusp of a deal with AppleTV. Don’t bother looking for AppleTV on your cable or satellite offerings. Nothing screams great sport viewing like a service primarily watched on one’s phone or tablet. Brilliant strategy, especially once we learned, after its demise, that they turned down deals from ESPN, Fox, CBS, and probably every other network in order to be on a platform that fewer than half of Americans have. Glad it ended up falling apart, because I’m a Google guy and I didn’t want to have to choose between Android and football.
Then, within a few hours of each other on a recent Friday, five more teams left the conference. The three easternmost teams followed Colorado into the Big 12, while Oregon and Washington followed their L.A. brethren into the Midwest. If anything, they did those schools a solid with this move, as now they’ll have a few more games in their time zone.
If you’re keeping count, the Pac-12 is now down to four teams. They’ve got a lot more problems to worry about beyond their name, which is why I can’t find a Pac-4 shirt anywhere. Unfortunately, some of them are still planning on leaving. Personally, I’d stay in the conference if I were them, assuming the conference champion still gets an automatic bid to the Rose Bowl and March Madness. That path just got a hell of a lot easier.
But nope, the Pac-12 is officially in “Last Person to Leave, Turn the Lights Out” territory. Oregon State and Washington State are being mentioned as joining that “minor league” Mountain West Conference they’ve scoffed at for years. Cal and Stanford won’t slum it down there, though. So those two schools, which sit on the two sides of the San Francisco Bay, are flirting with joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. You know this whole DeSantis/Newsom feud is getting serious when Berkeley and Florida State consider themselves natural rivals.
That move was blocked by some of the ACC teams who finally decided to look at a map and realize that, if the S.F. teams were playing on the east coast, then the east coast teams would also have to play out west. Nobody wants to start their games at 10:00 pm. That aversion will cost at least a few more million to overcome.
So here’s your updated crib sheet: The Big Ten has eighteen members, the Big 12 has sixteen. The Atlantic Coast might stretch to San Francisco. Too bad there’s no Canadian Conference or they could extend an invitation to Cuba.
Football will be fine. They play one game a week, usually on a weekend, and the millions of dollars they earn in t.v. revenue can cover some charter flights. The real problem with this realignment is that the other sports have to follow suit. What’s it going to be like for a baseball or volleyball player from Washington who has to play a Tuesday game in New Jersey and a Thursday game in Ohio while also attending classes.
I’m sure that badminton scholarship sophomore is going to be absolutely thrilled with this new set-up. After all, their college is getting millions of dollars. From which the average student gets…. A few more books? Maybe faster internet? Nah. Any money will be invested back into the football stadium. Or maybe a few extra million dollars in the pocket of a “non-profit” regent.
Growing up in Southern California, Six Flags Magic Mountain was always one of my favorite places. So the second my daughter was old enough (tall enough, really), I couldn’t wait to take her there. Unfortunately, when that time finally came around, a few Mondays ago, my first visit in twenty years didn’t live up to those childhood (teenage, really) expectations.
Back then, the various SoCal amusement parks could be broken down by the ages they catered to. Disneyland, despite its Mickey Mouse and Snow White foundation, wasn’t necessarily the youngest option. That distinction belonged to Knott’s Berry Farm, with not much in the way of rides. Mostly Old West shows and maybe a log ride. It was even the first amusement park to offer a kiddie area in Camp Snoopy, although it was added after the time I would’ve been interested.
While the characters and overall motif at Disneyland caters to little kids, many of the best rides are far from that. That’s probably why it has such staying power and parents can’t wait to take their kids. Hey kids, look at Mickey and Minnie over there while I ride Space Mountain again.
Now if you took the characters and the Fantasyland rides out of Disneyland, and add in about ten more Space Mountains, you’ve got Magic Mountain. All thrill rides, no frills. My happy spot.
It’s odd that Magic Mountain became a favorite since the single most miserable day of my upbringing happened there. I was about 46 1/2 inches tall. So I had to sit on some benches with my aunt while my mom and older sister went on and then gushed about all the rides. This was back in 1980 or so when there wasn’t any kiddie land. Or misters or tv’s in line or, really, anything other than thrill rides. Fucking brutal. I hope my mom didn’t pay full admission for me. Or my aunt. There ought to be some sort of “Designated Driver” discount for someone who isn’t going on rides.
Actually, a waterslide park I recently went to was free for anyone over the age of seventy, presumably because they aren’t likely to ride many water slides. Magic Mountain, unfortunately, did not follow that logic, so my mom had to pay full admission when she and I took Daughter, despite not going on any rides. She sat on some of those very benches she left me on back in the Carter administration.
Revenge is best served cold.
My mom wasn’t the only one who paid more than her fair share. All summer long, I tracked prices that consistently showed the day we wanted to visit at $70. There was also a season pass option that would allow us as many visits as we wanted for the rest of 2023 for only $100, including free parking! That free parking made me think long and hard about paying the extra $30 to upgrade from one day, but I would’ve had to get three season passes. It’s not like I would return without Daughter and if the two of us were going to trek all the way to SoCal for an amusement park day, Mother would probably join us again. So $30 extra bucks times three? Meh, let’s pay for parking.
If only. The walk-up admission wasn’t actually the $70 that was showing on the website as recently as yesterday. This paying a little extra for walking up has become relatively common. My local minor league baseball team was the first place I saw it, about fifteen years ago. At first I thought it was stupid to discourage last-minute customers. Hey, what do you want to do tonight? Should we head to the ballgame? Nah, they charge two bucks more because we didn’t buy it yesterday.
Still not a fan of the practice, but much like assholes backing into parking lots, I’ve made peace with it as a permanent addition to this hellscape. You see, discouraging walk-ups isn’t a glitch in the plan, it’s the actual plan. They need to make staffing decisions, and if they don’t know how many customers are going to show up, they have to pay more hourly wages. If they can predict 24 hours in advance, they can staff (or lack of staff) accordingly. Maybe the issues we had once we were inside Magic Mountain were our own damn fault for not “letting them know” we were coming. That would be their explanation, I’m sure.
But shouldn’t an amusement park in the middle of summer budget for a handful of walk-ups?
So I expected them to charge us an extra ten percent or whatever. Tag on the minimum wage they’re paying the employee mumbling through an explanation of how one day costs more than an entire year. Because that’s what it came out to. One twenty per person. Plus parking.
Naturally, we asked if we might just get the season pass instead, seeing as it was twenty dollars cheaper than the daily admission. They said no with some gobbledygook explanation of adding the season pass onto the top of today’s admission. In all honesty, I couldn’t tell you what the total price would be. It sounded like we’d get no discount whatsoever for actually having already purchased that day’s tickets. So for $100, you can come all season, but to come today and all season, it’ll put you back $220.
Our Magic Mountain experience didn’t improve much once we were inside. It felt like a ghost town.
We got there around just before noon, a little over an hour after it opened, but you wouldn’t know that anywhere other than lines for a few rides. I had specifically picked a Monday to avoid terrible crowds, but sheesh, this place felt at maybe twenty percent capacity. Monday, sure, but it’s still a Monday in Summer. Did the former overshadow the latter? Or is this par for the course these days?
Almost nothing was open between the entry gate and the first batch of rides, about a quarter of the way around the park. We walked past closed Dippin’ Dots stands, closed souvenir shops, an entire closed kiddie land. Perhaps this should’ve been a hint about what the rest of the park was going to be like, but it wasn’t a foreshadowing I portended at that moment.
Of course, Daughter wanted to go on the ride she saw from the parking lot first, so we had to truck all the way over to the far corner. Not a bad starting point, since we’d be starting the day at the back of the park while other attendees (if there were any) would start at the front. If more than half the rides were open, it might’ve been a great plan.
Not that we could track how long lines might be like at Disneyland. Because the Six Flags app absolutely sucks. On the way to the Scream we passed a cool looking ride called Full Throttle. It didn’t seem to have anybody in line, but when I checked the app, it said it was a 55 minute wait (that’s where all the customers are!). No way was Daughter waiting an hour for her very first ride of the day, so we continued on to Scream and Colossus (I refuse to call it by its new name), where we found a “Ride Wait Time” TV that showed Full Throttle only had a 15 minute wait. That jibed more with the line we had seen. Meanwhile, the app on my phone still showed close to an hour. Throughout the day, the screens said one thing, the app said another, and neither seemed to have much bearing on reality.
Scream, meanwhile, had a five-minute wait, so we rode that not once, but twice in a row, which, it turns out, wasn’t great for my constitution. I know I’m getting older, but holy crap, that ride zips you back and forth fifteen different directions. Then went on Batman, the Ride, which also had virtually no line and similar movement. I had to take a breather after riding those back-to-back.
I’m fine with loops and corkscrews and most of the other things a ride will throw at you, but those rides did this weird bob-and-weave on the drops that brought up a dizziness I’ve never really had on roller coasters. Clearly my center of gravity ain’t where it was when I was nineteen. I should add to my list of reasons for taking Daughter to Magic Mountain now the fact that, at the rate I’m going, she might not have a ride partner much longer. Then again, Scream pretty much never had more than a five-minute wait (if my app and the screens were to be believed), so maybe I’m not the only one that took a hard pass on that one.
Fortunately I rallied shortly thereafter and didn’t experience that vertigo on any other rides. Waiting an hour for the thirty-second Superman ride, which only goes straight, probably helped.
The lines seemed to fall into that all or nothing range. Less than ten minutes or pushing an hour. Two of the rides with short lines were Ninja, which was state of the art back when I was a regular here in high school, and Revolution. Ah, poor Revolution. The world’s first “successful” loop roller coaster. I’m curious about some of those unsuccessful ones. At one point, Revolution and Colossus were the lifeblood of the park. Now, they’ve rebuilt Colossus to add some upside downs and corkscrews and they’ve rebranded Revolution as “The New Revolution – Classic.” What the hell does that even mean? As far as I could tell by riding it, it’s the same ride it’s been since 1976.
I guess it’s to be expected for a park that adds a new ride every year. The old ones become obsolete instead of classic. You don’t see that happening at Disneyland, though. Matterhorn, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder might not require a virtual queue like their fancy new Rise of the Resistance, but I’ve never been able to walk right on Space Mountain three times in a row like we did Viper. Maybe a paint job is in order? Because every ride more than a decade old at Magic Mountain looked like it belonged at the state fair.
The ones I was able to get on, at any rate. Because on a Monday in the middle of summer, half the damn park was closed. Riddler’s Revenge: closed. Goliath: closed. Lex Luthor: closed. Ninja: closed. Apocalypse, which was my favorite ride and now that Colossus is fancy-dancy upside-down and loop-de-loop, the only genuine, straightforward wooden coaster: closed.
Not just the thrill rides, either. The Justice League building was closed. The carousel might’ve even been closed. The most unconscionable decision on a 100-degree day, they even closed one of the two water rides. Maybe they were pissed more of us didn’t pre-buy access to Hurricane Harbor, their waterslide addendum next door.
Yes, I know amusement parks have to refurbish from time to time, but don’t they usually try to do those one at a time? Also, there’s this wonderful thing called an offseason. Okay, maybe Disneyland doesn’t have a legitimate offseason, but I’m pretty sure Magic Mountain is literally only open weekends between October and April. Tons of time to close down rides for a paint job. And preferably, one at a time.
Especially the water slides. Did I mention they used to have misters in line? How thoughtful!
So yeah, much like childhood friends or a class reunion, the intervening thirty years hasn’t been kind to my simpatico with Magic Mountain. Once upon a time, we were on the same wavelength regarding the proper types of rides and lines and everything an amusement park should be. Now they’re my stoner friend who never left our hometown and has no clue that the rest of the world has moved on to bigger and better things. Even Universal Studios!
A friend of mine calls this the Sizzler Syndrome. He loved Sizzler growing up, but he refuses to go to it as an adult, because he knows he will be disappointed. There’s probably an element of that going on with me, where the things that entice me about an amusement park today aren’t what I would’ve enjoyed back then. But while Sizzler is probably the same it’s always been, I’m standing my ground and saying Magic Mountain is mostly at fault.
It felt rundown, unkempt, and ignored. There’s been talk that many developers want to tear it down and sell the land. Ironically, the reason it’s in Valencia in the first place is because you couldn’t give that land away sixty years ago. Now it’s prime real estate.
At the rate they’re going, a strip mall might be an improvement.
Finishing up some blogging from my recent family trip to Colorado. Last week I posted about the flatland stuff (because, no matter how many times I visit, I’m always surprised at how flat the mile-high city is). The focal point of our trip to Colorado was… Well, technically it was because my Angels were playing the Rockies. That’s what got us to the state. But once there, we decided to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a couple days.
Estes Park
Estes Park, the town just outside the national park entrance, was an odd little berg. You know those small vacation towns: Artists who can’t compete in a legitimate marketplace head to tourist traps where visitors spend boatloads of cash on tchotchkes to commemorate their travels. Not sure who’s shopping for Christmas shit in June, but Estes Park had at least three Christmas stores. Perhaps the pine trees put people in the mood? Not that I saw many people going into or out of them. Good news for the proprietors, though. If they can’t make it selling wreaths and ornaments, they can always open another ice cream shop.
Holy shit, there was more ice cream per capita than there was cannabis in Denver. I shit you not, there had to be at least ten of them on the three-block downtown. Salt water taffy, too. I’ve never really understood the draw of salt water taffy. I’ll have a piece or two, but they all taste the same and are a pain to eat. Can’t imagine there’s enough demand to carry an entire business, much less four on the same block. But clearly I’m wrong. Or maybe I’m not because, again, one never finds them in an actual city. In fact, prior to this trip, I always assumed they were only ubiquitous in seaside villages. You know, the whole “salt water” thing. But I guess salt can be added after the fact.
A mystery even bigger than the number of ice cream (and taffy) stores is their closing time, which for most was 8:00 pm. In a normal town of 6,000, I might expect them to roll up the sidewalks early, but this is a vacation town. The two ice cream shops that stayed open until 9:00 pm were spilling over with patrons for that last hour. I’m no economist, but it seems the extra costs borne from staying open one more hour would more than be compensated by the number of ice cream scoops sold. Hell, one of them could’ve opened until 10:00 pm and still come out ahead. The only thing waiting for us back at the hotel was the copy of Legally Blonde Daughter picked out from the DVD library. Even salt water taffy started sounding good.
At the other end of our culinary day, we found the most wonderful spot for breakfast. Well, not a full breakfast, but donuts! And not full donuts, but mini donuts.
What are mini donuts, you ask? Um… they’re donuts… but mini. Seemed a little odd at first, because the minimum order is four donuts, but they all have to be the same flavor. Wife and Daughter kept having issues with this, even on day two, trying to come up with four flavors for the four mini donuts, but if we wanted four flavors, the minimum number of donuts we’d be acquiring is sixteen. But once you get the ordering down, and once you realize that four mini donuts has about the same dough as one standard donut, it’s just a matter of picking the proper flavor.
But damn, those flavors were decadent. We went three days in a row and had everything from cinnamon sugar to Nutella to red velvet crumbles. Each donut is practically swimming in the flavor. Each is served in its own cardboard to-go container, the bottom of which is coated with the glaze or coating. After eating the cinnamon sugar donuts, Wife poured the rest of it into her latte to make her own cinnamon dolce. And to think we didn’t even make it through half of the menu.
Even better was the motif of the donut shop. It’s named Squatchy Donuts, complete with more Bigfoot paraphernalia that you can shake a stick, or point a shaky film camera, at. I never thought of Colorado as a big Bigfoot area. Always associated it more with Oregon and Washington, but I suppose he shows up wherever there are forests, mountains, and legal narcotics.
If only we could’ve had donuts and ice cream for every meal. Unfortunately, almost every other meal we had in Estes Park was the culinary equivalent of a Christmas shop in June. Our first night wasn’t terrible, as we found a pasta place with a messy baked pasta that was at least worthwhile. Daughter’s mac n’ cheese off the kid’s menu was probably the best part, as they put mini shells in an alfredo sauce and threw some mozzarella on top. She wasn’t thrilled, because it wasn’t her idea of proper mac n’ cheese, but Wife and I thought it was great.
The next two meals were lackluster burgers. On the menu, they sounded great, one with pulled pork and the other featuring bleu cheese and grilled onions. Unfortunately, the meat in both was subpar. I’d think they were frozen Costco patties except I didn’t see a Costco this side of Denver. The other problem was that both seemed to pass “medium” about an hour before they were taken off the grill. Scratch that. Neither was grilled. They were both griddled.
Wife’s options were similarly lackluster. She ordered a grilled cheese that seemed to have one slice of cheese between two pieces of white bread. The following day her nachos promised guacamole but instead had some “avocado” “puree” that again seemed like it came out of a freezer. I know, coming from California, we’re spoiled with avocado, but Colorado isn’t exactly Timbuktu. Half the damn residents were California transplants back in the 1990s and 2000s.
I know these touristy towns don’t have to worry about repeat customers. It probably behooves them to not waste effort on good food. Even if they’re the best in town, nobody’s eating there more than once. But sheesh, can we find the hockey puck store they’re all getting their meat from and shut it down?
Until we finally realized we should just dine at the only fancy place in town.
Stanley Hotel
Our last two meals in Estes Park were at its most famous locale. We went to Post Chicken and Beer, a franchise with a couple locations outside Estes Park (and with a name like Chicken & Beer, how can I go wrong?), for dinner, then returned to the hotel’s Brunch and Co the next morning.
Both times, we had to pay to park. It’s $10 to park, but you get a token that you can use for $5 off food or merchandise. Kinda like a reverse validation. Encourage people to spend money there and not, say, wander around in a certain hedge maze.
Allegedly.
The allegedly doesn’t pertain to the hedge maze, cause you’re damn right I did that, even if it isn’t quite as full in June as, say, the middle of winter when only the caretaker is there.
No, the allegedly deals with this token that might or might not take five bucks off one’s purchase. It’s not that Post Chicken or Brunch & Co didn’t take them. They probably would have. But there was no fucking way I was spending a token that looked like this:
And yeah, I went twice. Why didn’t I spend the second token at brunch? Cause I have friends who like The Shining, too.
I had always heard that the Stanley Hotel tried to distance itself from the fictional Overlook hotel that is based on it. Maybe I’m thinking of the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, which was used as the external shots in the movie. I know they’re the ones who asked room 217 to be changed to 237 in the movie because there is no 237 at the Timberline and they worried people would avoid 217. Then again, the Stanley Hotel didn’t even let the movie be filmed there, so maybe at one time I was correct and they weren’t leaning into The Shining.
Not so anymore. Holy crap, it’s like a Stephen King amusement park. In the gift shop, you can buy anything you want with the word Redrum emblazoned on it. Or ties, socks, dog leashes, you name it, in the iconic 1970s carpet that Danny keeps riding his tricycle on and off. And that hedge looks like it’s a recent addition. Maybe in a few years, it’ll be as daunting as the movie. Not the book, though, because I think it was animal hedges in the book.
Instead of worrying that customers would be hesitant to stay in room 217, they’ve renamed it the Stephen King Suite and charge twice as much for it.
Don’t believe me? Check out the menu at the brunch restaurant:
The brunch food, by the way, was decadent. I got the “Here’s Johnny.”
I also bought the 1970s carpet tie.
Rocky Mountain National Park
I’ve always been a big outdoorsy fan, and thankfully Daughter has followed in some of those footsteps. I used to camp in Yosemite and near Devil’s Postpile every year when I was young. Back in the good old days, if you stood outside a Ticketron at 6:00 in the morning, you were guaranteed a camping spot. These days, you’re put into a virtual queue with all the lazy asses who didn’t roll out of bed until five minutes before the tickets went on sale. I have yet to discover a magic touch.
We’ve taken her to Yosemite a number of times, but most of the time we have to stay outside the park. Unlike Estes Park, the towns “directly outside” Yosemite are still a good ninety minutes from the valley floor, so she’s never been to an evening ranger show or shouted “Elmer!” all night long (Do they still do that? I guess I’ll find out if I ever get to the front of the virtual queue). Still, she’s well versed in the major attractions and how fun it is to skip stones across the Merced River.
So why not branch out to National Park #2? And better the Rocky Mountains than shitholes like Joshua Tree and Death Valley, which qualify more as “Places to Speed Through en route to Vegas” than “majestic works of nature that ought to be preserved.” Seriously, was someone trying to develop Death Valley into a condominium complex? I don’t think the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt’s the only market force conspiring against that particular pipe dream.
Wasn’t really sure what to expect from RMNP, though. It appeared to only have one major road going through, and I didn’t see us backpacking with Canadian flags. So I treated it like Yosemite and looked up shorter hikes with lakes and waterfalls. That’s what national parks are for, is it not?
There’s good and bad news about those lakes and waterfalls in RMNP. Yes, there are plenty of them, and in fact many of them are close to each other with shortish walks in between. The bad news is we couldn’t get to any of them on day #1 because I’d made the wrong reservation.
Timed Entry
At Rocky Mountain National Park, you have to reserve your entry time to the park. A lot of national parks started doing this during Covid, because, you know, we don’t want to encourage people to go outdoors when there’s a disease that spreads indoors. Most of the parks have gone back to no reservations for daily use (including Yosemite, which is second guessing itself after being absolutely swarmed with people this year), but RMNP is still doing its Covid thing.
Some of the reserved entry times were released months ago, but when I checked back in May, only times after 11:00 am were available. I wasn’t opposed to waiting until lunchtime to enter, but if there are hikes and views and such, a morning entry time was more ideal. Fortunately they hold half their entry visas back until the evening before each entry date. Guessing Estes Park and Grand Lake don’t want word getting out that if you didn’t log in to recreation.gov three months ago, don’t bother coming to spend your tourist dollars here.
I was a little worried that I’d be out of cell range when 5:00 hit, but we left Denver at such a time that we would be heading through Boulder right around the prescribed time with an understanding that, if traffic wasn’t too bad and we were ahead of schedule, we’d stop off for some coffee and wifi.
However, while I hovered over the refresh button, I failed to notice there were two different entry passes. One said “Park Access Timed Entry.” Stupidly, I picked that option because, I don’t know, I wanted… park access? I didn’t realize that, for the same price right below it was “Park Access Timed Entry – Includes Bear Lake Road.” Want to guess where all the lakes and waterfalls are?
One last mention of the Timed Entry system. It’s extremely popular. As you can tell by this screenshot where it’s received over 12,000 ratings with an average of 4 stars!
What the hell are these people reviewing? It’s not the park itself, as most of the features and locations have their own listings, with much higher numbers and averages. So they are literally rating the process of making the reservation. The only other thing I can think of is using five stars or one star to show solidarity or opposition with the idea of limiting park access. I guess some people have to review everything. Maybe that’s why every minimum wage employee expects to be tipped now. The tablet’s “just going to ask me some questions,” huh? Boy that’s a nosy-ass tablet. At least now I know I can hit the skip button and just assume I’m the guy leaving a one-star review of a website selling entry times.
Regardless of the reason, I imagine that four-star rating comes from 80% of the people giving it five stars and the other 20% giving it one. Nobody is hedging their bets with a four or a three, right? Either you got your timed entry or you didn’t. Five stars or one. Unless, like me, they were stressing out about wifi availability. In fact, when we wanted to reserve our spot for day two, this time with Bear Lake Road access, we had to leave the park to be back in town for its precious 4G connectivity at the proper time. Maybe that makes it less than five stars? Better yet, how about I just get my park access and double back to the main page to tell the world about it.
Day One
Since we couldn’t go down their precious Bear Lake Road on day one, which was not only the (more or less) only road in the park besides the main road, but was also right inside the park entrance, taunting us plebs as we drove past.
There was another side road we contemplated taking which was closed during winter but which should totally have been fine because there wasn’t a ton of snow on the ground despite the elevation. But evidently it was closed to “prepare” it for the summer season. Totally fine because when we made it to the visitor center, I saw said road from the other end and holy shit, when they say it’s a dirt road, they mean a motherfucking dirt road.
The paved road was bad enough. Some white-knuckled fucking curves there. You don’t realize how tight your sphincter is until you round the bend and the sheer drop-off is now on the left side of the road, meaning a veer of an inch to the right would only result in a legal battle between my insurance company and the car rental company instead pf a legal battle between gravity and this mortal coil.
The views, though, were spectacular. I didn’t expect regular ol’ valleys and peaks to be breathtaking. Sure, the two biggest draws in Yosemite are valleys (okay, maybe Hetch Hetchy is third behind Tuolumne Meadows but I doubt Tuolumne Meadows will open this year), complete with peaks, but those peaks are distinctive. I can pick El Capitan and Half Dome out from an airplane while flying to Southern California. There’s also something to be said for driving down into that valley, skipping rocks across the river. And have I mentioned the waterfalls?
Editors note: Don’t drive down into Hetch Hetchy. Those environmentalists in San Francisco need their pure drinking water, which they can’t possibly get from anywhere other than damming up a pristine natural beauty. Oh, and you’ll probably drown, too.
The valleys and peaks in Rocky Mountain were magnificent not from their distinctiveness but from their lack thereof. Every time we faced a new direction, the myriad of points made the view different. A number of curves had pullouts, and although we didn’t stop at all of them (especially those on the left), each time we saw one, we said, “Wow, that must be the view that this road is all about. That must be what people come to the park to see. Can’t imagine anything better.” Then three miles further, we’d repeat the mantra.
I know pictures of wide-open spaces are as useless in conveying their beauty as it comes. Same goes with fireworks. But too bad, because I’m still going to sic some worthless photos on ya:
We finally came to a full stop at the highest visitor center in the United States. And not just from the drugs. Although one of the cashiers from Pennsylvania said she was having the “best time” with her summer job in Colorado, then proceeded to pontificate about George Harrison’s post-Beatles discography.
In her defense, I was wearing a Beatles t-shirt and she politely asked if I liked the Beatles first which seems an odd question for someone wearing a Beatles shirt. Then again, I can’t tell you how many of my students wear Nirvana, Anthrax, and Pantera shirts without being able to name a single goddamn song. “I didn’t know it was a band.”
No, the reason it’s the highest is elevation. Over 11,000 feet, to be… not really “exact,” but you get where I was going. I originally thought it was on the continental divide, but it was a fair amount to the east, so I didn’t get to drop some water and see which way it would flow. But there was a hike (a staircase, really) from the parking lot up to just over 12,000 feet. Wife made it about halfway, while Daughter and I mustered the courage to walk up some stairs, her with more gusto than I.
The hike isn’t hard from a usual hike-rating system, but at that elevation, everything takes on a different dimension. Some people get nausea and headaches, but fortunately those didn’t hit me. I got some dizziness and, according to my Fitbit, my heartrate rose far higher than on a normal flight of stairs, even a flight of stairs that goes on for a quarter-mile. One of the other symptoms is a lack of appetite, so with those two symptoms together, I should come here to diet.
When I made it to the top, just over 12,000 feet elevation, it was windy. It was beautiful, too. But first and foremost, it was windy.
There was a preteen girl at the top whose mom took her picture while she did a handstand. It took a few attempts before she got it. I guess she’s doing something called “Handstands Across America.” I hope it’s not as dumb as the Hands Across America we did in the 1980s. I remember months of buildup and then when it happened, it was a whole bunch of “that was it? No countdown or live satellite shot or nothing?” I think it was designed to raise money for something like homelessness, or maybe Africa, although I think Africa was saved by a rock concert and there’s been no troubles in Africa ever since. I don’t see how me touching a random stranger helped homelessness. Or Africa, for that matter.
On our way out of the park (in time to get the entry pass for the next day), we stopped by Sheep Lake. There were no sheep. There was a moose, though. We didn’t stick around long enough for the sheep to come home and be all, “Hey fuckface, can you not read what the fucking lake is called?” Then again, maybe the sheep would wisely step aside and let this big ol’ moose hang out where he pleases.
Day Two
On the second day in the park, we finally got to drive down the Hellfire Club of Rocky Mountain National Park. Still couldn’t park there, mind you. My dumb ass tried, though.
I didn’t believe the sign at the beginning of Bear Lake telling us that Bear Lake parking lot was full. It seemed like a very permanent sign and considering it was still before 9:00 in the morning, I assumed it was there to discourage people from driving on the road that they’d explicitly signed up to drive on. I’m sure there were a bunch of people who, like me, didn’t realize there were two options and accidentally bought access to this road. And the sign is designed to encourage them to make their way toward all those beautiful vistas I was relegated to yesterday.
The other option makes less sense, that they limit the entry to this road but still don’t provide enough parking for the number of cars they already know will visiting? It’s like the opposite of the standard used in suburban stretch malls, where they make a parking lot big enough to cover all the hypothetical cars that will show up on Black Friday, so most of the spots go unused 364 days out of the year. Meanwhile on Bear Lake Road, they know precisely how many cars are coming each day, yet the parking lots are all taken up before 9:00 am? Let me put on my skeptical face.
So I also blew past the “Park n’ Ride” lot halfway down the road. It said we could park there and ride a shuttle to the lake. Again, it was a permanent sign claiming every other lot was full. Plus we’d seen no shuttles and if they were anything like Yosemite, there’d be a good twenty minutes between shuttles. I’m not falling for their damn tricks.
A half-hour later, after passing at least five shuttles, we were back in the park n’ ride lot, waiting in a line that rivaled Disneyland. We’d taken the road to its bitter end only to be turned away by the parking attendant who let the car in front of us in for the “last spot.” Still, I think we only had to wait for the third shuttle, which were seven minutes apart from each other, so add that to the drive to the end of the road and back, and maybe my inability to read instructions only put us behind by an hour or so. Fortunately there weren’t any storms or scorchers due for later in the day. We’ll just call this a dress rehearsal for Death Valley, where such a minor setback might make us dehydrated mummies on the tail end.
When we finally made it to Bear Lake, it was beautiful. A simple hike takes you around the lake to view it from all vantage points that looked totally different from each other while on the hike but the pictures of are virtually indistinguishable. There were a few spots that the posted sign considered “treacherous,” which turned out to mean “about as steep as a driveway.” I think the sign’s designation was only meant for wheelchair-bound visitors, but after my disbelief of the parking lot signs, I wasn’t taking any chances. That being said, after circling the lake, I couldn’t tell you which spots were considered more or less difficult. It felt pretty steady to me.
When we returned to the shuttle spot, we had a few options. At least two other lakes seemed a short hike away. Nymph Lake, which would’ve led to all sorts of sophomoric jokes if Daughter hadn’t been with us, was only a half-mile, but it looked small on the topographic map. Dream Lake, which I assume must be pretty, was a farther jaunt, and there was another lake, Emerald Lake, beyond that. I was relatively certain we were on borrowed hiking time with the child. While I might’ve gotten a half-mile out of her, “Let’s go to lake numbers three and four” would be met with open revolt.
If there’s a waterfall at the end of said hike, though…
Alberta Falls, which an odd moniker unless we’d somehow transported to Banff, was less than a mile away. It had been my initial goal when researching Bear Lake Road the previous night. One lake, one waterfall, and I’m good. But all the stuff we read about the Alberta Falls indicated we should get off at the Glacier Gorge parking lot/shuttle stop, not Bear Lake. From Glacier Gorge, it’s less than a mile. But the trailhead at Bear Lake claimed Alberta Falls was a mile away.
I asked the ranger which route to the falls would be best. He said to start from Bear Lake, because it’s a half-mile down followed by a half-mile up, as opposed to Glacier Gulch, from whence it’s uphill the whole way. Then we can exit via the downhill, which allegedly is easier although try telling my knees that. Downhill at least leads to less Daughter whining.
Great info from that ranger. Maybe they should’ve posted one in the middle of the road at the park n’ ride.
What followed was a half-hour of “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” I might’ve made it worse by telling her “This is the waterfall we’ve been hiking to” every time we passed a trickle. “Isn’t it beautiful and totally worth the effort to get here?” Once or twice she believed me. Hilarious until I try to get her to move onward again.
Look! Alberta Falls!
The actual falls were very pretty. You come at them from the side, so they appear to be coming out of the rocks. I kept moving around trying to find a better angle, but head-on wasn’t happening. We walked a little ways on, hoping the trail might double-back to see the falls from above, but nope. Off in a totally different direction. I commented that I might scramble up those rocks because they were totally climbable. Wife reminded me that, pushing fifty with a history of gout, it isn’t the rocks but the scrambler whose limits must be taken into account. Contemplated sending Daughter up to take a picture, because she could run up them without any negative consequences, but it would be a crapshoot whether she dropped the phone onto said rock or over the falls. No way was it coming back as unscathed as her.
In the end, I settled for this vantage point.
Final thoughts
Whereas Yosemite Valley is cozy and local, RMNP is vast and grandiose. Every direction I turned could be a park of its own. We never even made it to the Continental Divide or anything else west of the visitor center, partly because we felt the need to stop every couple miles to view an entirely new vista. There’s an abandoned town up near the headwaters of the Colorado River? Wow, I can’t imagine how many extra days of exploring it would’ve taken for us to make it that far into the park.
And how many daily reservations? At some point, I wasn’t going to have coverage until 5:05 pm, and I would be giving a less-than-five-star review.
I like that so many lakes and waterfalls are that close to each other, with seemingly simple hikes between them. While we opted for only one lake and one waterfall this time, I could totally see opting for three or four lakes in one fell swoop on a repeat visit.
Except for this lake. It was visible in the distance on the day one drive. Guessing it’s inaccessible, but dammit, I want a parking lot right the fuck there right the fuck now. I’d even reserve a different road access to get there.
Finally, we spent a ton of money while there. Must’ve visited at least four, maybe five, visitor and interpretive centers, and probably bought something each time. A National Parks passport. And a journal. And a water bottle. Plus rocks and postcards and those “smash the penny” machines that somehow claim to not be a felony. Two of the visitor centers are outside the park, probably to let those unreserveds still spend money lying about actually making it inside.
It’s easy to justify the purchases, since the money goes to a good cause of preserving these pristine miracles of nature for future generations. Not that they need our money, because it’s funded through tax money regardless of whether we buy a damn thing.
So here’s my question. Shouldn’t my national park souvenir purchases be tax deductible? It’s all going to the same place. The government takes income out of my paycheck and they also get my money for their stupid tchotchkes? It’s all going into the same “Congressional Hookers & Blow” slush fund. I feel like the government would rather us give the money to them than to donate to those whiny charities anyway.
While I’m at it, I also need to renew my passport soon. Where’s my W-2 for that?
Gonna leave you with the view from the back porch/balcony from our hotel in Estes Park. Not a bad place to read a book.
Last week, the family vacationed in Colorado. We spent a day in Denver at the beginning and end of the trip, but spent the majority of the time exploring Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. Going to split my retelling into two, with today’s post focused on the Denver components, both at the beginning and end of the trip. The next post has the mountain stuff.
Rental car snafu
Nothing says “Welcome to Denver” like standing around waiting for a rental car you already ponied up a grand for.
I’ve got member status at a certain rental car agency. Nothing fancy or anything. I never paid for it, nor does it represent my renting from them x number of times in a y-month period. About a decade ago, I was booking online and the reservation asked if I wanted free gold status. Uh, sure. Maybe it was just a great marketing ploy, because ever since then, I’ve scarcely rented from anyone else. Instead of finding the loyal customers and conferring them a status, they conferred said status thus creating said loyal customer.
One of the perks from this status is that I usually don’t have to go through any rigmarole when getting my rental. If it’s not at an airport, they just hand me the keys. At (most) airports, I skip the line entirely and go to a members section where I have . The keys are already in the car and all I have to do is show my i.d. to the guy at the exit gate and he prints out my contract. It works great, even if I’ve sometimes taken a car that’s a level above what I paid for and get the surcharge added on. Still, the lack of hassle is a major plus.
Unfortunately, if they’re going to give fancy status to any ol’ riffraff, sometimes we’re all going to arrive on the same flight.
When we got off the shuttle, some of the noobs were standing around, gathering their stuff, waiting in line. Knowing the drill, I found my name on the board, went to my designated section, and grabbed a car. In the back of my mind, I thought there weren’t nearly enough cars to accommodate the number of people who got off the shuttle in this special section. But no matter, I got mine, the riffraff can riffraff all they want.
Although as we drove toward the exit, we wondered why we couldn’t get the brake light to go off. Kept futzing with the parking brake, which made “Park” go off and on, but “Brake” stayed illuminated the whole time.
Turns out that meant the brake fluid was low. The guy at the checkout gate gave us three options: Keep the car and hope for the best, find an employee to top off the brake fluid, or go exchange the car for another one. None of these options seemed ideal. If we were just driving into Denver for an evening or two of walking around downtown, a little missing brake fluid wasn’t likely to harm anything. But the plan was to be driving hairpin curves at 11,000 feet elevation with a few thousand of those feet three inches to the right of the hairpin. Not a great place to find out precisely how low the brake fluid was.
Find an employee wandering around the parking lot? Yeah right. They were all at the front of those thirty-deep lines of customers.
So we took the option behind door #3 and drove back to the members spot, where no cars were available. So into the long line we went. Thirty minutes later, our names are added to the list of gold members waiting for cars to be delivered from the pleb area, where the non-special renters were having no issues.
In the meantime, we’d managed to stop another couple from driving off in the brake fluid car (partly to save their lives and partly because the car was technically still checked out to me until I could get a replacement). The other couple managed to get into a new car right away despite having showing up twenty minutes after us, because first-class had descended into the Wild West. There was no rhyme or reason. See a car, grab it, and hope it’s functioning well enough to get into town.
When we finally got our replacement car, we had to wait for the rental agent to take me off the brake fluid car and on to this one, putting us a good two hours behind schedule.
Oh, and every time we turned on the new car, it told us it was overdue for service. I know sometimes those messages get a little overzealous. They might trigger at 3,000 miles when most cars are fine far beyond that. But this overdue notice was a tad more extreme. To the tune of 6200 miles and 150+ days overdue. Even by the most magnanimous reading, that’s cutting it damn close to danger territory.
Clearly brake fluid wasn’t the only thing lacking in the eternal turn-and-burn that is airport car rental.
Good thing I didn’t need oil to drive those mountain passes.
Curtis Hotel
The hotel we stayed in was a hoot and a half. It’s technically a Doubletree, but it doesn’t feel like one. But after reading this description, add in the fact that they give you one of those famous cookies when you check in.
Each floor was themed. I didn’t notice it at first, because we were on the “Floor of Champions.” Sure, it was technically sports themed, but it mainly consisted of oversized renderings of newspapers from when the Denver Broncos won back-to-back Super Bowls. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that in any Denver hotel. Hell, every spot in town was trumpeting the recent Nuggets NBA championship. If I walked out of an elevator and saw a picture of Nikola Jokic, I wouldn’t assume it to be a theme.
But the other floors had names like “Pedal to the Medal,” “Laugh Out Loud,” and “Chick Flick.” Oddly enough, they had not only a “One Hit Wonders” floor, but also floors devoted to Hair Bands and Disco. Seems the former would cover both of the latters.
Oh wait, the One Hit Wonders was actually the superhero floor. Holy shit, I hope they paid for the rights to all those Spiderman and Captain America visages, because Disney’s got good fucking lawyers. The Batman and Green Lantern stuff should be fine, though. HBO can’t even keep the shit they own on their own damn network.
They had a thirteenth floor, which many hotels don’t. To double down on this inclusion, it was the horror movie floor. Daughter gave that one a hard pass. If I ever return, I might opt for the video game floor, because I want to be able to play Pac-Man on the walls.
On our return trip to Denver, we requested the Sci-Fi floor, because you haven’t properly vacationed until you’ve exited your hotel room to a visage of Darth Vader on the commode.
The ground floor was similarly tongue-in-cheek, complete with a couch that looked like the back seat of a Cadillac. Its shop was called the five-and dime, while the restaurant (& martini bar) was called the Corner Office, and its food was top-notch. Since we were having breakfast there, I skipped the martini. I sought out their “Marco Polo Ballroom” half-expecting it to be a pool, but alas, it was simply a ballroom.
And did I mention the Doubletree cookies?
Cannabis road signs
An awful lot of the road rental signs (you know the ones, where a local business pays “for litter removal,” although I’m pretty sure it’s just socially conscious advertising) were for local cannabis companies. There was also a dispensary approximately every other business in downtown Denver. It felt a little weird, traveling from the pot desert that is California.
Oh, you thought California legalized marijuana? Well sure, technically. But California also regulated the shit out of it, making someone who wants to sell the product legally have to jump through about 10,000 legal hoops and forms and whatnot. Meanwhile, California is also trying to lower its arrest numbers, particularly for over-indexed minorities, so one’s chances for getting punished for selling it illegally aren’t that high. As a result, illegal pot is still cheaper and more readily available than legal pot and the state has had to (I shit you not!) pass subsidies for legal dispensaries.
So yeah, it’s weird to see a state that actually legalized marijuana without fucking it up. Hell, I bet Colorado even gets tax revenue FROM the cannabis companies instead of sending tax revenue TO them. Who woulda thunk?
One other humorous byproduct: the signs pointing toward the Central Business District had to spell out “Central BD.” Because CBD is bringing in a lot more tourist dollars than the CBD.
Daughter
Are we sure the pre-teens don’t start at eight? My God, if this trip was a clarion call of the next decade of my life, then I foresee lots of booze. I suggest you buy some InBev stock. Maybe liver medicine, too.
She’s discovered earbuds. In many ways, and at many times, they are a godsend. Not in the airplane, of course, like a functioning member of society. On the airplane, she yacked the whole damn way. But the second we need her to answer a question, or respond to stimuli, or, I don’t know, be marginally aware of the world around her, the earbuds are present and accounted for.
When we (finally) got into the rental car, she wanted to play navigator. Then she put her earbuds in because she “didn’t want to listen to SiriusXM, because we always listen to SiriusXM.” Of course, I didn’t notice, seeing as I was driving, so when we finished driving the nine miles that she gave on her last instructions, I asked, “Where to next?” “Hey, what are the new instructions?” “DAUGHTER, IF YOU’RE GOING TO NAVIGATE YOU’VE GOT TO NAVIGATE!”
Daughter tags out one earbud. “Huh?”
Did I mention teenager?
Although in all honesty if she were full teenager she wouldn’t want to play navigator. Instead, she’s entering that awkward Middle School Phase. I taught middle school for one (and only one!) year. It was my first year teaching full-time, and after doing all my student teaching and long-term subbing at high school, man, I struggled. An experienced teacher asked if I’d thought of putting up charts with the students’ names and then give them stars when they did what they were supposed to do. No… No, I hadn’t thought of that. That grade school shit never came up in my high school training.
So, yeah, I could barely handle one year of that “acting older in the ways that don’t count but still like a baby in the annoying ways” before. Now I’m in for another half-dozen?
Once Wife forcefully took the phone from her to take over navigating, Daughter returned to earbud la-la land. I know this because, when I excited the freeway she had no clue a deceleration was coming, meaning the open box of Cheez-Its she was mindlessly munching toppled over spilling all over the back legwell of the rental.
If you need me before, say, 2030, you know where to find me.
Baseball Game
The reason we picked this particular week for a Colorado trip was because my favorite baseball team, the Angels, were playing against the Rockies. We hoped that a team with some of the best sluggers of this generation might be exciting to watch in a ballpark known for homers. Boy, howdy!
The Angels ended up scoring 25 runs, which was the most in franchise history. The 25-1 final score was one of the top five margins of victory in the history of baseball. At first I was going to chastise Daughter, because she asked me to go get her water from the concession stand, and while I was gone the Angels hit back-to-back-to-back homers. Fortunately I didn’t miss all the action as they went on to score 16 runs that inning alone, sending 16 batters up that inning and another 11 in the following inning.
Unfortunately, blowouts get kinda boring, even when it’s your team doing the blowout. Some of the stars we came to see were taken out of the game by the fifth inning. Still, props to a number of Rockies fans who stayed till the bitter end. If this game were happening in California, the fans would’ve left as soon as Mike Trout was benched.
Turned out to be a bad game for Daughter to learn how to keep score. She refused to move onto the next column when the team batted around, opting to just draw in new diamonds for a batter’s second time on the basepaths. The result was this M.C. Escher painting:
This wasn’t my first trip to Coors Field. Back in my single days, I regularly organized travel around seeing a new stadium. At one time, I was up to 60% of the ballparks, but that number has since dropped below the 50% mark. Coors Field is probably in my top five. I love the line of purple seats in the third deck signifying where the elevation is one mile above sea level. The trees in the batter’s eye (beyond the center field wall) fit Colorado’s outdoorsy feel. And when you sit on the first base side, you have a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains towering over the stadium in the distance.
At least you used to have that view. Now they’re constructing high-rise apartment buildings just west of the stadium, right in the way of the mountains. All that damn pot revenue. Gotta build places for the loadies to live not far from downtown.
Fuck. Might have to revisit those ballpark rankings.
The Angels, of course, followed up that record-setting offensive output with a clunker to lose the series. And the series after that. Maybe spread the offense out over several games instead of putting it all in one? Although if you’re gonna go that route, I guess it was nice of you to do it in the game I was at.
Ninety minutes to kill
After we checked out of the Denver hotel, we were supposed to meet with my cousins who moved to the area a decade ago. By the time we coordinated with them we had about ninety minutes to kill.
It’s an awkward amount of time when you’re in an unfamiliar place. If it’s thirty minutes, find a Starbucks and steal some wifi. Two hours opens up everything from movies to museums. Two of the things on our list were the zoo and an interactive museum but neither of those seem worthwhile in that time frame, especially when you factor in taking 15-20 minutes to get there.
So I did what travelers and tourists have done for centuries: googled “Denver kids.” Came back with Urban Air Park. It’s got trampolines and rock walls and shit and, even better, it’s on the way to my cousin’s house.
On the way there we passed a TopGolf, which totally pissed me if because I love me some TopGolf and I really, really, really wanted to hit it from the third deck at mile-high elevation. Might finally hit that goddamn white circle. Unfortunately Wife had already purchased Urban Air tickets, so I guess Daughter playing Spiderman trumps me playing Tiger Woods.
The Urban Air place was great, though. Daughter rode the zipline ten times in a row and probably would’ve went for two straight hours if we’d let her. Instead, we made her race the go-karts around one time before yanking her ass off to Family Fun Time, dammit!
Oh, and as it turns out we have one of these places about twenty minutes from where we live. Oops.
Zoo
When traveling, I try to avoid places I can go to at home. With a few exceptions, like the McDonald’s in Rome that’s something between a fine dining experience and a city unto itself. I’d rather eat something crappy and original than tried and true to offset the ninety percent of my existence where I go for the latter.
Not that I necessarily eat well on the road. I’m looking at you, Taco John’s. I’m open to fast food, as long as it’s fast food not available in Sacramento. Wife always thinks I’m joking when I say we need to go to a Waffle House whenever I see one. You wouldn’t find me anywhere near a Denny’s back home, but dammit, when on the road, Waffle House is great. I was happy when the Sacramento area got its first Cracker Barrel. Now I don’t have to eat there on the road. Nor at home.
Similarly, I was annoyed when I found out there was an Urban Air place back home. What a waste of ninety minutes. One might make the same argument about TopGolf, had we gone there, but I would’ve fired back with that whole hitting a golf ball at elevation isn’t the same. Either way, we didn’t go.
Not sure where the zoo fits in this spectrum. Each zoo has a different mix of animals, but at their heart, there ain’t much difference. Regardless, once Daughter heard there was a baby sloth, guess where we headed?
Unfortunately, we never saw baby sloth. We saw mama sloth, but she was way up in a tree. Whether or not she was holding her baby was hard to discern from down on the ground. Fortunately they had elephants, which we don’t have in Sacramento. But the lions and giraffes and marmosets looked the same. Two frogs were fucking, which was new, but they probably don’t provide that peep show for all the patrons.
The Denver Zoo also takes up a much larger geographic footprint than Sacramento, although Sacramento Zoo is planning on moving to a larger spot in the near future. Based on how exhausted I was at closing time (and the fact that it took half a day to make it around the zoo once), I’d like to put my vote in for it remaining in its nice cozy spot on the outskirts of downtown like it’s been for a century.
One complaint I have about the Denver Zoo is their map. The paths don’t reflect where the paths are in reality, and even the big map signs around the zoo rarely show “You are Here.” Furthermore, no animals were actually listed. Instead, they showed tiny photos of the animal’s face. Sure, some of them were easily distinguishable, like the elephants, but I scratched my head over a few of them. Is that a kangaroo or a horse? I can’t tell, and even if I could, I don’t know how to get there because the map says I’m at the hippopotamus, but that’s clearly a sheep. And the bathroom that’s supposed to be nearby is nonexistent.
The shitty map was probably by design to encourage us to download the app. The lady who gave us the map happily informed us that we could erase the app at the end of the day. Sure. And all it will take is being added to a permanent email list. How about you give us access to an online map that doesn’t require the name of my first-born child. Or, I don’t know, write out “Kangaroo” on the physical map, like zoos and amusement parks have been doing for decades.
Meow Wolf
Our final stop was… How do I describe it? It was… next to Mile High Stadium?
I don’t know what to call Meow Wolf. Art museum? Immobile stage show? Playground? It’s listed as an “interactive art exhibit,” so I guess we’ll go with that. It’s definitely not a museum, because you’re expected to touch it all. Not sure how artistic, per se, but it was definitely visionary. Perhaps they’re using artistic in the meta-sense, because I wouldn’t expect a ginormous sentient pizza at a Van Gogh exhibit:
You take the elevator (excuse me, “portal”) up to some weird alien world. Spaceships and space amoeba and… is that a space mermaid? Right next to the space unicorn with its head cut off . So I guess there’s no way to prove it was a unicorn, except by the neck tendrils. Sorry, I don’t have a picture of that one, but I was trying to avoid pointing it out for Daughter.
Once down on the ground floor, you’re in a standard sci-fi spaceport. You can call recorded messages via payphones (which Daughter had no understanding of), but they were hard to hear with all the other stuff going on. For the most part, we walked around confused for the better part of the first hour, playing some rat boxing and walking through some mirror mazes.
As you’re exploring, you go through a door (or a portal, or black drapes), and find yourself in a completely different setting. When I first did this, I thought we’d messed up and tried to double-back to “finish” section one, but by the time we finished I realized there’s lots of overlapping and crossing back and forth. The first “alternate world” we found was a post-apocalyptic street setting, where you can pose inside the broken down bus or any of the various eateries. I think this is where the sentient pizza place was, which somehow had a room with hypnotic lines:
If you pay an extra two bucks upon entry, which we did, you get a card that “collects memories” at kiosks. We found some of them, missed some of them, but eventually you start putting together a story about, I don’t know, some missing heroes or a conspiracy or something? If it wasn’t well past our bedtime on our last night in town, maybe I could’ve put things into a more logical order, although I assume it’s intentionally confusing on your first visit so you can come back other times focusing on one aspect or another. I thought we were looking for the missing heroes, but all our memories were about “The Convergence.”
This Meow Wolf (there are others in Vegas and a few other locales) is called Convergence Station. I assumed that was because of its location in Denver, near the train station, underneath the interstate, right next to the football stadium. But “Convergence Station” has to do with the storyline. These different worlds or dimensions have converged together, and the memories you’re collecting tell the story of how that convergence happened. There’s also a whistleblower trying to figure out why it happened. Or maybe trying to undo it? Not sure, because by the time we figured out what was going on, we had been there close to two hours and it was almost closing time. Maybe if we had done this on day one, when our internal clocks were still on Pacific Time, or on a day we hadn’t spent five hours walking around the zoo without a cloud in the sky, we cut our losses with only two of the four convergences unlocked.
So sorry, mermaid. I feel like there was something I was supposed to do with you through the viewfinder, but your puzzle will remain unsolved for now.
Pictures
I didn’t find too many out-of-context or wtf pictures this go around. In fact, both of the mildly humorous pics were probably intentional. The first came from the scoreboard at Coors Field during an inning break. When it’s a double-digit blowout, maybe they scrape the barrel for more entertaining factoids. Or maybe they just figured we’d all be gone by then. Regardless, props to this formerly employed person.
The other might seem more legit until I tell you I found it in the Meow Wolf bathroom. But I saw it before we had entered the “portal.” Had I seen it at the end, it would’ve been the most normal vision of the past two hours. Even now, the fact that the cell phone is on it makes it look legit. Even the rubber ducky is something one might drop into a urinal. I can’t be the only one who brings my rubber ducky out on my adventures in town, can I? But man, leave that with someone else when you’re peeing. Where they finally lost me, or grabbed my attention and necessitated the picture, is that third object. Peeing off of a moving bicycle sounds fun, but I highly doubt you’d accidentally drop it in the urinal.
That’s all I’ve got for today. The plan is to be back early next week with stories of Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park.
Just under the (self-imposed) deadline of posting last year’s Camptathalon results within 365 days…
Every year since, I don’t know, ‘Nam, we’ve kept a running log of all the shenanigans, mostly out of context.
I usually begin the retelling with a tongue in cheek “I’m just the scribe, I offer no context or comment.”
This year, that comment is, in fact, accurate. My bout with Covid hit me a week before the annual trip. One of the guys has a granddaughter who is too young for vaccination, so we opted for caution.
The lads, however, took the journal and did their due diligence. But that means, for once, I’m as much in the dark as all of you.
Friday 11:30 Rick arrives, completing the foursome. 11:45 First beer of the day 12:00 Lunch and beer 12:40 Cribbage 12:47 $30 in Dick’s money 12:49 “I lost two beers in the lake.” 1:15 Flag raised, trophy brought out 1:16 “Loser Libation? Oh shit, I can’t play poker.” 1:26 Chris spills his beer 2:19 “Concrete, the most fun you can have with your clothes on.” 2:20 The Champagne of Beers makes an appearance. 2:41 “I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.” 3:15 Garrett uses the word “jalopy” in a sentence 4:05 “That friend of mine who got married in the firehouse.” “I thought he wasn’t that good a friend.” “He isn’t.” 4:35 Garrett: “I can’t wait for the butter toss.” Everyone else: “You’ll learn.” 4:42 “Do you have our squeegee sharpener?” 4:45 Tony did not sanitize his balls. Thanks a lot, asshole. 4:55 “Just close your eyes and enjoy it.” 4:56 Fire has been lit. 5:00 Yeah, I like my liver 5:05 Possible rain between 8:00 and midnight. Time will tell. 5:10 Regarding the Pam & Tommy movie, if you hate blondes with big jugs, don’t watch it. 5:22 “You’re not a cockstar?” “Not anymore. I’m retired.” 6:11 “What’s better than tossing butter in the rain?” 6:30 “Couldn’t be any worse than who he got pregnant.” 6:40 Event #1: Poker 6:49 Garrett can’t shuffle or deal for shit. 6:50 We got the Rockies game. Nice. 7:08 The Loser Libation is almost in play. 7:14 Fucking Sparky! Goddammit! 7:20 Moonshine time, baby! “Burns the nostrils.” 7:35 Chris calls Rick a fucking dirty whore. 7:37 “Hold on, my ass just un-puckered.” 7:38 Man, the Covidian’s gonna be pissed when he tries to transpose this. 7:39 Transcribe or transpose? 7:45 Cookie Break 7:50 “I’m in halfway, I may as well go ALL IN!” 8:10 Sparky is pissed he can’t get the Angels game on XM Radio 8:14 Garrett “wins” the Loser Libation – coffee liqueur 8:20 No Sparky is a dirty little whore 8:25 WRONG! 8:36 Sparky wins poker, Rick second w/ better hand than Chris Standings after one event: Sparky 5, Rick 3, Chris 2, Garrett 0 8:54 Garrett looks up the definition of “Wisconsin Lunchbox.” 9:01 Boontling has a lot of words for masturbation 9:08 There are children around. Shut up. 10:00 Another Mervyn’s Mark? ?? Did you take her Solo + the Wookie?
Sarturday
5:30 Sparky arises, makes coffee 6:00 Rick arises 6:10 Coffee liqueur + donuts = Yum 7:30 Chris joins the party 7:50 Garrett makes it a foursome 8:00 Sandwiches for breakfast, a little whiskey in the coffee, HR Derby location finalized 8:02 Chris makes biscuits w/ ham & cheddar 8:22 “I have a Florida Gators jersey.” “Fucking Tim Tebow. Eat my ass.” 8:23 “People in Florida don’t like Florida.” 9:30 Butter Toss target selected: Picture from an old Playboy Chris “happened to” have. 9:38 Dinner plans. Sparky makes a great tri-tip. I brought mashed potatoes, too, but no gravy. We can all stand around the Playboy and make some gravy. 9:42 First beer of the day opened. 9:56 Can somebody help with a reach around? 10:00 Butter Toss results: Chris 5, Rick 3, Garrett 2, Sparky 0 Standings after two events: Chris 7, Rick 6, Sparky 5, Garrett 2 10:30 Home Run Derby: Chris beats Rick 3-2 in a jack-off 10:33 Sparky beats Chris 6-5 in the finals. Two jack-offs in a row would take some stamina. 10:35 Home Run Derby results: Sparky 5, Chris 3, Rick 2, Garrett 0 Standings after three events: Sparky 10, Chris 10, Rick 8, Garrett 0 11:32 Cornhole 11:53 Results: Rick 5, Sparky 3, Chris 2, Garrett 0 Standings after four events: Sparky 15, Rick 13, Chris 11, Garrett 2 12:36 “Take this how you like, but I have never turned down a sausage.” 12:50 Lunch: Sammiches and Garrett’s wife’s great potato salad 1:10 Thunder. Then hail. Gentle, but a lot of it. Angels at Mariners on XM. All tents have been covered. Wine in my cup. Good thing we got three games in early. No more Angels game. 1:19 “I have never had a conversation with a drunk guy and said ‘You sound like a young Isaac Newton.'” 1:20 More hail 1:25 More thunder 1:30 Light rain 1:40 More thunder, but dry for now 1:55 More hail 2:45 Thunder and steady rain 3:26 Observing a way, way, WAY overloaded pickup truck with camping gear and canoe tied on top. “They have been parked for quite a while.” “Someone’s pissed.” “All I wanted for Father’s Day was to take my family camping and make love in a canoe.” 3:30 Garrett has been in his tent for over an hour at this time. 3:31 “The mood is a little bit wet on the outside.” 3:33 The overloaded truck has started again. Should I stay or should I go? 3:38 Go! 4:10 Rain has (mainly) stopped. 4:48 Event 5: Cards Against Humanity. Plague infested missing members are control group. 5:30 Garrett wins his first event 5:42 Control group finishes in second place. Random placement of cards is funnier than us. 5:43 Sparky finishes (official) second, thus winning Camptathalon 2022. First win since 2013. Final Standings: Sparky 16, Rick 15, Chris 12, Garrett 7 First time everybody won an event? Maybe? 5:50 Tri-tip on. Tortilla tacos! 6:04 “The best part is the half glass of vodka” 6:11 The pickup truck returns
Draft: Best Sequel (Snake draft: Pick order goes down in round one, up in round two, etc.) Sparky 1. Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan, 2. Star Trek 6: Undiscovered Country, 3. Pitch Perfect 2, 4. Top Gun: Maverick Garrett: 1. Anchorman 2, 2. Revenge of the Sith, 3. The Dark Knight, 4. Goldmember Chris: 1. Godfather 2, 2. Return of the Jedi, 3. For a Few Dollars More, 4. Temple of Doom Rick: 1. Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, 3. The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly, 4. Superman 2
Draft #2: Disliked Sports Teams Rick: 1. Boston Celtics, 2. Dallas Cowboys, 3. St. Louis Cardinals, 4. BYU Chris: 1. Pittsburgh Steelers, 2. Denver Broncos, 3. San Diego Chargers, 4. L.A. Dodgers Garrett: 1. S.F. Giants, 2. San Jose Sharks, 3. Cleveland Browns, 4. Seattle Kraken Sparky: 1. Boston Red Sox, 2. N.Y. Yankees, 3. Houston Astros, 4. Nebraska Cornhuskers
Draft #3: Favorite Bands Garrett: 1. Tool, 2. AC/DC, 3. Korn, 4. System of a Down Chris: 1. Metallica, 2. Perfect Circle, 3. Van Halen, 4. Duran Duran Rick: 1. Van Hagar, 2. Motley Crue, 3. Hall & Oates, 4. Charlie Daniels Sparky: 1. Counting Crows, 2. Airborne Toxic Event, 3. O.A.R. 4. Led Zeppelin
Draft #4: Most Hated/Overrated Bands Sparky: 1. Pink Floyd, 2. Grateful Dead, 3. Michael Jackson 4. Police Rick: 1. Red Hot Chili Peppers, 2. U2, 3. Madonna, 4. Eagles Chris: 1. Beatles, 2. Nirvana, 3. KISS, 4. Milli Vanilli Garrett: 1. Taylor Swift, 2. Nine Ince Nails, 3. Primus, 4. Mylie Cyrus
Draft #5: Favorite Albums Chris: 1. Master of Puppets, 2. 1984, 3. And Justice For All, 4. Parabola Garrett: 1. Undertow, 2. Follow the Leader, 3. Hybrid Theory, 4. Mesmerize Rick: 1. 5150, 2. Hysteria, 3. Back in Black, 4. License to Ill Sparky: 1. Recovering the Satellites, 2. 10, 3. Yourself or Someone Like You, 4. Appetite for Destruction
I’m of two minds about the new The Little Mermaid remake? Reboot? We need a word for the animation-to-live-action movie reinvention, as they’re becoming more and more of a thing. Even if Super Mario Brothers went the opposite direction, to much success.
Actually, I’m of three minds, the third relating to whether or not I should blog about something as timely as a movie currently in theaters. It will mess up my usual timeline: two weeks plodding through 300 words a day followed by two months to edit. I’m not going over it with a fine-toothed comb, or really even improving it one iota. But editing doesn’t help my daily word count, so I wait forever, then just do a quick once-over.
The last step of my normal blogging process is to think of the perfect quip about five minutes after posting it.
I suppose I could wait until The Little Mermaid comes out on Disney+, but at the rate they’re going, the window between that and when they yank it off said service is probably smaller than its existence in theaters. As Daughter continues her candlelight vigil for The Mysterious Benedict Society. I haven’t even told her Flora & Ulysses got yanked, too.
I saw the movie in question when it opened on Memorial Day weekend. Not sure I was overly thrilled to see it. The original, while groundbreaking at the time, kinda pales in comparison to the animated musicals it spawned. The message of wooing a man by looking pretty and shutting the fuck up hasn’t really aged well, either. Although I suppose it’s no worse than Beauty and the Beast, which tells us that true love can only grow through abusive outbursts sprinkled with a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.
That being said, Beauty and the Beast was stunningly beautiful as one of the last non-CGI animated movies. Or maybe it was the first CGI animation? That ballroom scene is still breathtaking.
Thus I was very interested in Hermione and the Beast (I don’t have to italicize it if it’s a bullshit title, right?), the first of these newfangled non-animations. Nonimation? Trademark, motherfucker!
Hermione and the Beast was fine. Still haven’t shown it to Daughter, since animated Beast is much more child-friendly than CGI Beast.
I haven’t seen the Aladdin remake, but it’s certainly on the radar. We saw the stage play in New York, which I assume the live-action movie steals some extra songs and visuals from. I’m sure at some point I’ll watch it and try to swallow my Comic Book Guy “Worst Robin Williams ever!” comments for Will Smith. I like the Fresh Prince (I side with Chris Rock after their kerfuffle, but that doesn’t negate Will Smith being a great actor), but the reports are that instead of turning Genie into a Will Smith character (which, ironically, is how it’s played on Broadway), he tried too hard to play Robin Williams, which ain’t in his sizable repertoire. But again, I haven’t seen the movie, so I’m the last person who should be reviewing it. Unless it’s social media, then we can totally get in arguments without reading the articles we’re arguing about.
The one live-action remake I haven’t seen, and have little interest in seeing, is The Lion King. The reasons why dovetail into my first mind about The Little Mermaid, which correlates with the first half of the movie. Or the bottom half of the mermaid. Because when it was a tail, I might as well be watching a cartoon.
The Lion King, you might be surprised to learn, features animals. (Sorry, should that have come with a spoiler alert?) So the “live-actionness” of it is… computer animation. Sure, we’ve had the complicated technology to make animals appear as if they’re talking since Mr. Ed. It’s called peanut butter. But I don’t think they trained a capuchin monkey to hold a baby lion aloft to an adoring crowd of other lions.
If the animals are being computer animated, they’re still animated. So the only thing that’s changed from the first movie to the second is replacing Matthew Broderick with Donald Glover. Don’t get me wrong, I love Donald Glover, but he’s not in the movie. Just his voice. Which makes it, say it with me, animation.
That’s how I felt about the first half of The Little Mermaid. Sure, recasting the bird with Awkwafina was funny, and Daveed Diggs was a crab, but Flounder was pretty much Flounder. Am I supposed to be impressed that Sebastian was marginally three-dimensional? His eyes were creepy.
As an aside, Daveed Diggs was woefully underutilized. I know he didn’t have much to work with given the requirements of the role, but they added Ariel singing along during “Under the Sea” and allowed the bird and fish to muscle in on “Kiss the Girl.” To make matters worse, they added an extra fast-rap song and gave it to fucking Awkwafina instead of Daveed Diggs? I love Awkwafina. If I want the perfect combination of sassy and spazzy, it’s either her or, ironically considering the cast of The Little Mermaid, Melissa McCarthy. But if I want fast-talking rap, I want motherfucking Lafayette from Hamilton, especially if his character’s in the same room as the damn bird when the song happens.
So I spent most of the first half of the movie wondering why the hell we needed an animated remake of an animation movie. Sure, Halle Bailey (not Halle Berry, although it shouldn’t surprise longtime readers that I assumed the former Bond girl was associated with the movie, because if I can’t tell the difference between Cheryl Tiegs and Chrissy Teigen, I’ve got no fucking chance with a couple Hailey B.’s) was fine, but everything had that “filmed in front of a green screen” feel. Ever since Les Miserables, it’s obvious now when they’re lip synching to something they sang in the studio before filming. So when the mermaid is doing her twirls through the water with her hair floating every which way, it feels disconnected from the song she’s singing. I counted at least ten scene cuts.
They also added a song for Eric, pining away for the mystery woman who saved him, and it’s painful. He’s running around his castle and down some stairs while a faux-1980s power ballad warbles out. Might’ve been great if it wasn’t done better in Frozen II. Again, if we’re going to be live-actioning this shit, it’s gotta be better than the cartoons.
Shit, I just realized we’re about a decade away from the live-action Frozen. Can I send forth a hard pass on that one now? Frozen III, I’d be fine with. Frozen without Josh Gad and Kristen Bell? Are you high?
My opinion shifted dramatically right about the time Ariel lost her tail. And her voice. Shit, maybe I’m falling for the first movie’s premise. But trust me, it had nothing to do with whether or not mermaids should shut up. Besides, she has at least two “internal” songs, so she’s substantially less quiet than her redheaded forebear.
The reason I changed my opinion was because the dynamic of the movie changed. No more twirling in front of a green screen with her fellow actors locked in a sound room somewhere. Instead it was two or more actors interacting with and responding to each other. I think it’s called… acting?
Here’s where I finally answered my question of why does this movie need to be remade with real humans. Human actors can do facial expressions. Or point or furrow her brow or smile. Halle Bailey (C’mon, she’s got to at least be named after Halle Berry, right? If that’s your last name and you name your daughter Halle, you’re clearly signaling something.) does a great job of conveying the frustration, the desperation, of not being able to talk. Some scenes felt right out of The King’s Speech.
Although Ariel can’t talk, she can communicate. It wouldn’t seem strange to make a rom-com where the two characters have some barrier to clear communication, right? It’s the entire premise of, well, every rom-com I’ve ever heard of. Sometimes one of the main characters is vacationing in Italy. Other times, it’s just a misunderstanding, but the entire genre is based on falling in love despite some failure of clarity. Hell, the Hallmark Channel wouldn’t exist if characters could get their head out of their ass long enough to say, “Wait, are you Santa Claus?”
The best scene that couldn’t exist in the cartoon version is when he complains about not even knowing her name. She points to the constellation Aeries, which he had just showed her and named off. She got him to say Aeries, then put her hand on his mouth after the “Aerie,” then kept pulling down on his lip. After working through things like Ariem and Arieb, she pulls down on his lip slower to get him to Ariel, then nods. Okay, maybe a stretch, but it was cute. Eric is falling in love with her despite her lack of voice, not because of it. The way to a man’s heart isn’t to look pretty and shut up, but to engage with him despite the barriers.
Now that I mention it, does Eric ever even learn Ariel’s name in the original? Doesn’t really matter, because we shouldn’t teach our daughters that their names are important when wooing a dreamy mate. I also think the live version added a caveat that Ariel was cursed to forget her goal of getting Eric to kiss her. Again, maybe that was in the original, or maybe it was added because they realized that with a good actress, the whole “get the guy to fall in love with you without speaking” is amazingly simple. And if she could do it on her own, we wouldn’t get to need to hear both Awkwafina and Flounder screech over Daveed Diggs in “Kiss the Girl.”
Did the eels mess up the kiss at the end of that song in the original? I seem to remember it was just a “setting the mood” song, and that he clearly wasn’t going to kiss her because, hell, she hadn’t even helped him figure out her name with a seductive lip pulldown. In the live action, when there’s no reason in hell they wouldn’t kiss on the romantic boatride, Ursula sent eels to topple the canoe to prevent the kiss.
Okay, so I went back and rewatched the original “Kiss the Girl.” A few things jump out. First, he did learn her name, but only because Sebastian came right out and told him, thus taking away Ariel’s agency. Which means the crab speaks English, or whatever language he’s using. And nothing’s more romantically realistic than a guy trying to guess a lady’s name only to hear a strange Jamaican accent whispering it upon the air. Of course, this takes away any agency Ariel has in her own storyline.
In the original, she’s also trying very hard to get the kiss, which might confirm my belief that she knew her goal the whole time. Not to get him to fall in love with her, but just to get a kiss. So she’s just jamming her damn lips in front of his face every time he tries to get any conversation going.
Oh, and Flounder and the bird intruded their singing upon Sebastian’s song in the original, too. My bad, Awkwafina.
The boat does indeed flip over at the end, but the YouTube clip I saw failed to convey if that was intentional or not. I’ll assume it was just a mishap, because if Ariel can’t have agency, why should Ursula? A villain is just a villain. They can’t have any realistic motives or incentives to see their plans through. The foil must know he’s a foil.
I know, I know, agency? She’s a Disney princess, LOL.
She ought to be thankful she’s even awake during the whole process.
Wordle had quite the snafu with one of its recent words. Some might even call it a kerfuffle. Except kerfuffle is more than five letters.
I wish I were a daily Wordle kinda guy, because it’s a quick diversion that gets my brain going. Unfortunately, I have a tough time remembering to check it every day. So I love these “controversial “words, because when people whine on the socials about how hard it is or how it’s not a real word, I interpret it as “Oh right, let’s to Wordle.”
A few of those recent “come on back now, y’all” words have legitimately been tough. Circa was a little annoying, but once I tried parch, I knew it probably ended with an -rca, and there ain’t a lot of words that do that. Kayak also could go take a flying leap. The only thing worse than two letters being repeated is a y that is neither the first or last letter of a word. But again, once you realize it isn’t the first or last letter, there aren’t many options left. I might go over par, but no way am I holing this one out.
The par reference comes sports writer, Joe Posnanski, and it was one of those analogies that, as soon as I heard it, fit exactly with the experience. Wordle is always a par four. If you get it in three, it feels like a birdie. If it takes you five, you’re frustrated, and by the time you’re on your double bogey shot, you’re bearing down like nobody’s business,ready to throw shit against the wall if you miss one more goddamn time.
The golf analogy goes further, because if your first word is all gray, it’s like you’re off the fairway or in a sand trap, and it this point the best you’re likely to do is par and that will feel like an accomplishment. Similarly, you might get on the green (three or four letters correct) on the first shot, only to miss three putts in a row. Progressing from snack to shack to slack feels exactly ike missing a slew of five-foot putts. Or maybe you’ll try “lunch,” knowing it isn’t the answer but hoping it’ll tell you if that second letter is n, h, or l, and you can’t tell me that’s not the same as intentionally short-putting.
The recent word I found easily enough, but that sent some people apoplectic, was snafu. Not sure why people were complaining. Most people gotta be trying the first three letters pretty early in whatever progression they’re going through, right? Pretty sure I birdied it, because it’s a quick progression from story (my usual first words) to snafu. I assume I went story to sneak (one of the reasons I go with story is because there are a lot of -ea- words to zero in on vowels after I have an idea of a consonant or two), and once I know it starts with an sn- and has an “a” either third or (unikely) last, I’m in a very finite world. And thanks to the reminder that people were passive aggressively whining about the word, I knew it was likely to be an obscure word.
But come on, people, snafu is no “parer.”
What do you mean it’s not a word?
WTF is an acronym?
Yeah, I’ll admit it. This history teacher had no clue of this particular word started as a World War II acronym. I should’ve recognized it by that rather suspicious “FU” at the end. But somehow, it’s morphed into a standard word, as opposed to its “FU” brother, fubar.
This sent me down the rabbit hole of other words that showed up around snafu and fubar, trying to figure out which ones originated specifically from the war experiences and which just happened to show up at the time. Some of them are obvious: decompression, draft board, and dry run, for example.
Others, it’s guesswork. “Biological clock” first showed up in 1941. Is that because men and women were pushing forward certain activities before shipping off to war? Like gee, if one of us isn’t likely to make it to 25 to “get married,” let’s put the biological clock before the horse.
Centerfold also appeared for the first time in 1941, as well, because the men’s biological clock kept ticking after they left the homeland, too. Fellate, as well, for those not willing to let the biological clock tick all the way to fruition.
Drag queen also first appeared in 1941. Although, according to Fox News, those didn’t exist before your local library started hosting them.
Holy shit, golden shower first appeared in 1942? And yeah, it has the same meaning. That means my grandpa knew about… My grandma was aware of…
Quickly moving on!
One less scandalus examples that probably fit closer to the fubarness of it all: Conference Call first appeared in 1941. Hopefully they were a little more worthwhile back then, because defeating the Nazis is probably a better use of “No sorry, you go ahead,” than meeting quarter three quotas. But now I can’t get past imagining Winston Churchill saying, “Hello? Is this me?”
Fubar means Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Eighty years later, even if you don’t know the acronym, there’s still a general understanding of when something is fubarred. To be honest, I didn’t know the “Beyond All Recognition” part for at least a decade after I first encountered the word in Saving Private Ryan. Of course, in the movie, they don’t explain the acronym, but once you figure out the context of a situation that falls apart, then the FU becomes pretty obvious. It helps that it’s at the beginning of the word, not the end, making it such an odd sounding word that as soon as you hear it, you know it can’t be naturally occurring.
Although maybe the reason fubar sounds funnier than snafu is that we encounter it less often. One doesn’t enounter many fubarred activities, and one we do, we’re hardly in the mood to bust out a funny-sounding acronym from when great-grandpa was fighting Nazis.
Snafus happen more often, so the word has become normalized. Unless you’re a semantic asshole whining about Wordle.
The reason snafus happen more often is the very definition of the word. The first two letters, I’ve learned in my Golden Shower Rabbit Hole (great name for a band!) since the Wordle snafu, stand for “Situation Normal.” The rest of it, you can probably guess, stands for “All Fucked Up.”
Except I don’t think that’s how we’re using snafu these days. When I encounter a snafu, it’s a minor hiccup or inconvenience, a bump on the road. It might be “all fucked up,” but it’s preventing “situation normal.” Given my understanding of the average G.I.’s interaction with upper brass, and my own existence as an inconsequential cog in a huge government bureaucracy with at least as many forms and regulations as it has employees, I read the the acronym as a shoulder shrug when having to deal with the convoluted bullshit of requisitions and retainders and student success scores and why the hell aren’t we going to attack the Germans at the weak part of their line?
The education world is filled with “Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.” For instance, at my school, we teach on a block schedule, so I teach a different batch of students, sometimes a different subject altogether, between first semester and second semester. This year, I taught two senior classes all year, starting over with a second batch of students in January. In the fall, both of these classes started with over forty students. First period had forty-two, fourth period, forty-one. This term, those classes have eleven and ninenteen students. Many are taking it for the second time after failing (sometimes with me) first term and, wouldn’t you know it, those students have a tendency to not show up for school. So in practice, my first period class regularly has four students, while fourth period has about ten.
Needless to say, it’s not easy to teach the same content to one class of forty and another class of four. While most teachers incessantly whine about large class sizes, I’ll actually take forty over four any day. Except for the grading day. With forty, I can get conversations going. At the very least, I’ll get an eye contact or two. My class of four, naturally, sit on opposite sides of the room, all the way in the back, so I don’t even know where to face while I’m talking. And that simulation where they’re buying and selling pearls or handshakes from each other? How about y’all just do some vocab today instead.
There appears to be some method behind this scheduling madness, in that our counselors and administration decided to frontload seniors before senioritis kicks in. My economics class is one of only two classes they need to graduate, so give it to them first term. Then, if worse comes to worst, a student can fail in the fall and have one more chance. Provided they show up.
Entirely logical reasoning. If only it had been communicated to us. Instead, our instrustions were to spread our twelve classes out equitably across the schedule. So we put six classes in fall and six in spring. Had we known all six of those fall classes would be at or above forty and all those in the spring below twenty, we probably would’ve split them eight and four.
Now, as we’re making plans for next year, we’re taking it upon ourselves to put more senior classes in the fall than the spring. Want to guess how full those spring classes are going to be now? I’ll give you a hint. It’ll be situation normal.
Another example: My district promoted my principal to the district office six weeks before our accreditation review, leaving an interim principal to answer questions about what the school has been doing for the past five years and what it’s planning to do for the next five.
They also promoted our registrar to the district office. Or maybe she retired. Not sure, all I know is we had a registrar back at the beginning of the year, and now we don’t. Because they didn’t replace her. Instead, they just put a registrar at another high school in charge of tracking grades at two high schools. She’s never set foot on our campus, she just emails us nastygrams about when grades are due.
Those grade, by the way, are due at the same time this year as they were last year, even though the state of California forced us to move the time of our school day one hour later. So now our grades are literally due a half hour before school ends. But don’t forget we’re expected to teach and assess all the way to the end bell.
But again, these aren’t speedbumps, temporary setbacks, nor sticks in the spokes of progress. They’re how things are run, expected day in and day out. A feature, not a bug.
When I logged into Twitter a little while ago, I saw that”Married With Children” was trending. The TV Show, not the state of existence.
I’m not exactly sure how the whole Twitter trend thing happens. I rarely see what’s trending. It’s a separate tab from the newsfeed. I usually just log in to see my rapidly dwindling news feed, and only stay on long enough to get pissed off at both Republicans and Democrats (with an additional heaping of scorn toward my favorite sports teams). That only takes, what, three swipes down?
Are there people who log in to Twitter to see what is trending? It’s not even hashtags anymore. Married with children was showing up as a three word string, not a one word hashtag. Has Elon trained the AI to read our entire message? Then why the fuck am I spending hours conjuring up my pithy perfection?
Might explain why I’ve only tweeted once in the past six month. One, my work blocks access (including phone signal), and Bee, by the time I’ve thought of something funny to say, the event’s two weeks old. People probably think I’m boycotting Elon.
Anyway, whilst lurking but not tweeting, I ended up on the wrong tab and noticed that people were discussing a tv show that’s been off the air for 25+ years. The show was hardly trendy even when it was airing. Don’t get me wrong, it was required viewing for this high school, then college-aged, toxically masculine American dude, but it wasn’t what one might call a societal juggernaut. Had it not been one of the only properties on a new network that nobody was watching, I doubt it would’ve lasted beyond a season or two.
Doesn’t seem the type of show to get a reboot. Or a sequel, although now’s a good time to excoriate people on using those words interchangeably. Reboots and sequels are different things, people!
Sometimes it can get confusing. For instance, the “Girl” Ghostbusters (not my preferred moniker, but if I said “the 2016 version,” you’d say “which one was that?” and then we’d settle on “the girls one”) is a reboot, even though it features all the original actors (playing different roles), whereas Ghostbusters Afterlife, the more recent one, is a sequel, but it doesn’t feature the original actors. And now they’re making a sequel to this sequel, not to be confused with Ghostbusters II, the original sequel.
The new incarnation of Quantum Leap on the other hand, keeps being described as a reboot but is obviously a sequel. With none of the original actors. Or charracters.
Then there’s the last Spiderman movie, which is… both a reboot and a sequel? Fuck it, I stand corrected. They’re the same thing.
After a little digging, I discovered Married… With Children was trending because it was the star of the show’s birthday. No, not Ted McGinley. I’m talking about Ed O’Neill. So happy belated #77, Ed! Or Al. Or Jay. Regardless of what name you go by, it won’t have many letters.
Not sure why someone’s old show was trending on his birthday instead of, I don’t know, his name? Then again, if his name was trending, I would’ve assumed he died. Maybe trending what someone was famous for instead of their name is that one of the algorithms Elon Musk is changing. He sure as hell isn’t decreasing the number of unsolicited political ramblings from people I don’t follow.
The trends of Married… With Children tweets on his birthday followed two general trends, the first of which is whether Married… With Children is even what Ed O’Neill is famous for these days. Modern Family would seem more relevant here in the 2020s, but oddly enough, it wasn’t trending. Maybe that’s because Twitter is populated by Gen Xers like me. Modern Family was probably trending on Instagram or Tiktok or whatever. it’s no Great Toto Divide, but no Gen Zer is going to suspend their offension long enough to admit that the former is funny.
That seemed to be what Twitter was abuzz about on his birthday. Which Ed O’Neill characer is more iconic, Al Bunday or Jay Pritchett? Married With Children or Modern Family?
I was hoping to settle the difference by picking the show that lasted longer. No such luck. According to IMDB, he was Jay Pritchett for 11 years and 250 episodes, Al Bundy for 10 years but 260.
Something struck me as I went down the list of pros and cons for each Ed O’Neill show. Who’s a funnier cringe-inducing child-man, Bud Bundy or Phil Dunphy? On the one hand, they’re both dorks who say inappropriate things and are utterly unaware of how they’re perceived. On the other hand… they were both born in the late 1960s or the early 1970s?
Then there’s Kelly. The first instinct is to compare her to Haley (or Alex), but Kelly was well into her twenties for a substantial part of the run, so let’s extrapolate where she was going. I could totally see her being Claire, tangentially associated with real estate because the actual realtor doesn’t know what he’s doing before taking over the family business. She might have been written as a prototypical dingbat blonde, but she was expert at getting what she needed out of people.
Peg Bundy? Please. If I have to explain the difference between her and Gloria, you’re not trying. And, naturally, how they speak to their husband, who is the same man. Interestingly, my first instinct was that Gloria was hotter, but that might have to do with the fact that I was in my thirties when the latter show came out. As opposed to my early teens, when anyone over the age of nineteen was an old hag. But looking back, the going-nowhere shoe salesman definitely married a few notches up on the hot-or-not scale.
And Ted McGinley is totally Cameron.
The more I think about it, Jay Pritchett is merely an alternate reality Al Bundy who made it out of the shoe store, who won the lottery and traded Peg in for a younger Columbian. Alternate reality works better than sequel to explain how Kelly and Bud ended up married instead of siblings. Things went right for one of them, wrong for the other. If these were soap operas instead of sitcoms, Al Bundy would sport a goatee.
The other topic of discussion on Married With Children Trending Day, which I assume is now a national holiday on every Ed O’Neill’th of April, was how a show like Married… With Children could never be made today. I agree, but not for the reasons most assumed.
The common belief, if Twitter mentions are to be extrapolated to the general population, is that Married… With Children would never survive in the current woke society. Not sure I buy that. The fat jokes might not land in these “body positivity” times, but most of the jokes could easily be found in any recent sitcom. Kelly was a nympho so dumb she didn’t realize the jokes being made at her expense. Haley, anyone? Ninety percent of the early Bud jokes would be perfectly at home with Luke and Manny.
Another successful sitcom from the past twenty years, The Big Bang Theory, also made countless crass jokes. It might seem more “woke,” because the dorks, who are often the butt of jokes in other sitcoms, are shown in a compassionate light, but they were still the butts of most of the jokes. When they weren’t mocking social outcasts, they were mocking the normies. Oh, and Penny was originally presented as a nympho so dumb she didn’t realize the jokes being made at her expense. Yeah, American sitcoms are so p.c. here in the twenty-first century.
Don’t even get me started on Two and a Half Men.
That being said, I agree with the tweeters who doubt Married… With Children is in line for a revival. But mainly because there’s little difference between it and Modern Family. Sitcoms have been recycling the same tropes for seventy years now and we’re kinda done with it.
Not just sitcoms. When’s the last time a comedy’s been the “It” movie of the year? The Hangover? By the time Hangover II came out, nobody cared.
We consume media differently these days. If I’m going to a movie theater, I want something better than the experience I’ll get at home. Special effects and big explosions aren’t as cool on my phone as they are on a big screen. Adam Sandler is.
If we’re not watching comedies in the movie theater, we’re watching them at home. Or on our phones. That means we’re not watching sitcoms. Why would I waste my time watching the rehashing of seventy year old tropes when I can just watch Lucille Ball or Redd Foxx or Jerry Seinfeld deliver them with more panache. I love me some Cheers, but damn, other than Woody and Rebecca replacing Coach and Diane, you’d never know if you’re watching an episode form season three or ten. Sometimes I’ll queue up an episode when there’s dead time in my economics class (cause, you know, it’s about running a business or something), but whenver I’m reading through the episode summaries, I’m like “Wait, which episode is that?”
Even a decade ago, sitcoms still had that “Water Cooler” quality. Not only Modern Family, but The Goldbergs, Blackish, and How I Met Your Mother (still blocking out that final season). but I think those were the canaries in the coalmine, using gimmicks to remain fresh, not realizing that those gimmicks would expose the tropes even further. I hoped The Good Place might usher in a new age of sitcoms with serialized storytelling in which the characters grow and their situation changes from week to week. Unfortunately not much has followed in its footsteps.
At least not on terrestrial American tv.
I still watch sitcoms these days. Shows like Schitt’s Creek and Letterkenny contain characters with nuance, who occasionally, but not always, evolve as a result of their extraordinary situations.
Also, they’re Canadian.
Neither of these would make it on American tv, not least because the conversion from Canadian metric would make them show up like scrambled porn on American tv’s. Beyond that, the characters talk and act like normal people, which means they cuss. In Schitt’s Creek, the cursing is minimal and could probably be bleeped for an American audience, but man, I’d hate to hear Eugene Levy saying the “Welcome to Schitt’s Creek” billboard looks like he’s [bleeping] her right in [bleep].” If they tried to take the cussing and references to drugs, sex, and biological functions out of Letterkenny, an episode would fit in a thirty-second commercial break.
Ironically, the two shows that prove why Married… With Children would never be made today are probably more crass and insulting than the Bundys. The various groups in Letterkenny are the hicks, the skids, the degens, and the Natives, and the show takes the piss out of all of them. The level and amount of crassness they jam into twenty minutes would make Al Bundy blush. I watch with subtitles, but still have to back up twice an episode to listen to the five jokes I missed while gutturally laughing over the first five shit references.
Schitt’s Creek was chock full of “awww, how sweet” moments,” especially in the latter seasons, but what drew us all to the show at the beginning were at someone’s expense, often the same socially-awkward dingbats and sluts that the nascent Fox sitcoms laughed at.
They even allow Katy and David, the resident sluts of Letterkenny and Schitt’s Creek, to admit to what Kelly Bundy could only hint at. Not only do they know when the jokes are made at their expense, they’re probably the ones making them.
So I take back what I said. Married… With Children could still be made today.
The Writing Wombat 