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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. Ok, but counterpoint: the "and paying the price" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. But even with that lift, it's wrong. If you compare the similarly priced products--a First Class seat today vs. a Coach seat in 1970--the flyer today is getting a waaaaaaay better product. It's a product that the flyer in 1970 would only dream of. And for a small fraction of the price of a Coach seat in 1970, the passenger flying in Economy today is getting a product that is in some ways worse. But in some other ways it's better. As you point out, the Coach seat in 1970 was bigger.* There was more leg room. You sometimes got a meal and a drink.** But let's be real honest about that meal. It was bad. It was actually often borderline inedible. But it was also your only choice. Because back in 1970, airports didn't have restaurants that offered to-go meals in them. In a standard 1970 airport, you had one bar and one restaurant, both of which were places that were owned by the best friend of the local city councilman. They were by-and-large pretty terrible. Ok--the one in Albuquerque offered a damned good breakfast taco. But that was an exception. But the idea of grabbing something from Campisi's or Chik-fil-a or Whataburger before your flight and eating it on the plane? It was unheard of. You were going to get the equivalent of a Stouffer's tv dinner that was either badly overcooked or badly undercooked (often both), and that was it. Your entertainment was going to be a 13-inch television screen mounted in the ceiling of the cabin five rows in front of you. It would show one movie. That's it. You've already seen that movie? You don't like that genre? Too fucking bad--read your goddamned Time magazine and shut up. Now you get wifi (which airlines are starting to offer for free). Or you bring your iPad with you with the movies you've already downloaded. In 1970, you couldn't have dreamed of having those entertainment options in your home, much less in an airplane. I get it, brother--I'm old, too. I find myself prone to nostalgia. But I do still have a decent memory. And I'm going to tell you that the Golden Age of Commercial Aviation wasn't that great.*** *The Coach seat in 1970 was wider solely as a function of the aircraft used. The Lockheed Electra and other propeller-driven aircraft were still widely in use on domestic short- and medium-haul flights. And those planes had a wider fuselage, which allowed for wider seats. But if given the choice between flying on a Lockheed Electra and a 737-200, you'd never choose the former. The 737 family has always had a 3-3 seating configuaration in coach. And from 1967 to today, the 737 has always had the same width: 12' 4". So when you're comparing similar aircraft types, the seat width is exactly the same as it was in 1970. ** The free bottle of alcohol was a short-term promotion offered by Southwest in 1973, but it has become part of the airline's founding mythology. Southwest was facing a cash-crunch in 1973 (only its third year in operation). In an effort to drive Southwest out of business, Braniff started a fare sale and offered $13 fares between DAL, HOU, and SAT. That was half the standard fare on Southwest. In response, Southwest also offered a $13 fare. But it kept its standard $26 fare and offered a free fifth of Chivas, Jack Daniels, or Smirnoff with it. The idea was that any business traveler on an expense account would pay the higher fare and get the free booze. But one important note on this--you observe that this was pre-deregulation. But regulation only applied on interstate routes. The intra-Texas route was always deregulated. That's how Braniff could start a fare sale in the first place. So the entire story could only take place in a deregulated environment. *** Ok--there was one aspect of it that was fucking great, and you're omitting it entirely. The Stewardesses. They were hot. Airlines could still get away with hiring only young hot women who met a weight restriction. And because of the societal whatevers back then, they were almost (1) uniformly unmarried, and (2) interested in being married to a guy who could afford to fly. As a counterpoint to that, I've got nothing.
  2. It's still magical if you want to pay the amount that people routinely paid for air travel in the era when "air travel was magical." The average cost of a flight from JFK to LHR in 1970 was $550. Adjusted for inflation, that's $4,500. If you want to spend $4,500 for a flight from JFK to LHR, it's going to be magical. You're likely going to be in First. You'll walk right up to BA's First counter and a very lovely agent will check you in within five minutes. Then you'll walk right through security with no line directly into the Chelsea Lounge where they'll pour you a glass of Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle. Then you go to your plane and your lay-flat seat. That's a fuckton better than the shitty coach seat that you would've gotten for the same price back in the Golden Age of Commercial Aviation. The OAG Pocket Guide is a master schedule of all airline flights. It comes in four regional versions--one for North America, one for Europe, one for East Asia, and one for South & Southwest Asia. Inside, it lays out by airport every destination to which that airport has nonstop flights. The flights are organized by departure time and identify the departure time, the arrival time, the equipment, and the airline. So the entry for Austin would look like: AUSTIN, TX Albuquerque, NM 0645 0805 738 WN 0915 1040 73G WN etc. It's an easy reference guide for anyone who does a lot of traveling to immediately see what flights are available between any given city-pair. With the internet, it's obviously pretty obsolete. But before all airlines were on sites like Expedia, it was the only place that had a comprehensive listing of all the available airline options for whatever destination you wanted to go to.
  3. I think their rejoinder would be that after a decades-long siege, they didn't have much left to lose. Gaza was slowly being strangled. Israel has speeded up the process, but it is a process that Israel started a long time ago. And if that's the price to pay for fundamentally undermining Israel as an independent and hegemonic state, then it was a price worth paying.
  4. Among Sun Tsu's many instructions for warfare was to "know yourself and know your enemy." If this was Hamas's plan from the outset--adn I think there's plenty of reason to believe that it was--then Hamas is demonstrating that it knew its enemy. It's a pretty serious indictment of Israeli leadership, culture, and society that it is living up to Hamas's expectations of how it would react to October 7.
  5. Well that explains his sudden bout of forthrightness, doesn't it?
  6. Don Bacon thinks he can retain his seat in Congress by being truthful and representing his district, and I just think that's the most adorable fucking thing I've ever seen. Goddamn it's expensive to be stupid in America. That's not true. America stood up and actively assisted in this horrifying ethnic-cleansing genocide.
  7. Why in the ever-living fuck is this guy still on this team?
  8. The important thing about building a nuclear reactor on the Moon is that Trump is in the Epstein files.
  9. It seems to me that if you're going to London, you probably ought to stay in the UK both to avoid flights and to limit unnecessary customs difficulties. In the UK, I might do 1) The Caledonian Sleeper to Edinburgh and spend a few days in Scotland 2) The Night Riveria Sleeper to Cornwall and check out that (really under-visited) part of the country 3) Oxford or Cambridge I'm going to push back on Paris a bit and the concept of saving it for a trip with future Mrs.Midtown. I'm going to tell you--chicks dig it when you know your way around a European city, especially Paris.
  10. I mean, sure. Why not? The concept that the House of Representatives is representative of very much of anything is pretty much dead. All we're doing now is putting a second bullet in the head of our democracy.
  11. So the footnote is interesting in that it "excludes Northern Ireland." I really have no feel for public opinion on this issue in Northern Ireland because (1) Brexit has impacted them so differently with the agreement to retain an open border with the Republic, and (2) it blends in with so many other sectarian issues. My sense is that those numbers for a referendum would have to be a lot closer to 70% to get Parliament to order another vote. Labour just really doesn't want any part of it.
  12. At the extreme risk of stating the obvious, this feels like a pretty fucking huge game. A win would get us within 3.5 of the Astros and tied for the wild card (notwithstanding a pretty fucking underwhelming road trip).
  13. Good thing we didn’t need a closer at the deadline.
  14. By the way, what the hell ever happened to the ROT Rally? I haven't heard of that even in years. And maybe more to the point, I haven't heard the motorcycles downtown in years. Is the ROT Rally just dead?
  15. I really like Clark's. I go there probably once a month with Mrs.LL. They don't reserve spots on the bar on the patio. So you can just show up and get a seat on a Friday afternoon, order a martini, watch the people along West 6th, and slurp down some damned good oysters (and a very good lobster roll).
  16. Having traveled around Europe for the last month, I have to observe that Israel really has no international sympathy at this point. They had everyone's support after October 7. Now, they have none. It's far worse than how the United States frittered away the international support we had afer September 11, which is really kind of hard to imagine. As an aside, it's kind of weird how the only foreign-language television programs most international hotels show are news channels. But there you have it. So as an English-speaker in a European hotel, your television options are typically limited to BBC, CNN International, and Sky News. Fortunately, I speak German. So I could watch ARD and ZDF. I also understand enough French that I could watch France24. And let me tell you--every one of those news stations are wall-to-wall coverage of the genocide in Gaza. And that's how they' style it: "genocide." And the video--and there's a lot of video of starving children and Isreali-blocked food aid--support that characterization. Bevo and Magic can bloviate all they want here on a college-football message board. It doesn't matter. Israel has turned itself into an international outcast. And the diplomatic consequences are starting to be felt. France and the UK will recognize Palestinian soveignty. Those are the two big European players in the diplomatic sphere. And that's the first step; it won't be the last. International pressure akin to what South Africa experienced is coming. And as was the case with South Africa, the United States is going to be late to the party. But it'll eventually get on board. Israel is absolutely killing itself here.
  17. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous when you have Sprague's across the street and Jolie Rogers around the corner.
  18. Vienna is also a helluva good food town. You would expect it to be when maybe a third of the population was born outside Austria. We had some absolutely fantastic Asian and Middle Eastern food in Vienna. Last Thursday, though, we went to Doubek. It's really wild because they don't use any electricity or gas in the kitchen (apart from lighting). Everything is cooked on fire, either directly or indirectly in an oven. It's really cool to watch. Of particular interest to my Cajun and Cajun-adjacent friends @Brisketexan @Kyrie Eleison @Pescado_Rojo is what they did with the Carabinero. It's a prawn, but it looks a bit like a really long crawfish. Anyway, they cooked the thing and then tossed the heads into a press to extract the tamale, which was then made into a sauce. It was goddamned incredible.
  19. Vienna is full of actual history. It reminds the movie buff of Belloch's statement to Indiana Jones who is holding a bazooka to the Ark of the Covenant: "We are only passing through history; this is history." In the Imperial Treasury, you have the crown of the Austrian Empire dating back to the 17th Century. But in another room, there is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which dates to the mid-10th Century. Next to it they have a reproduction of Durer's woodcut of Charmlemagne wearing that crown. Charlemagne never wore that crown. It was made a few generations after Charlemagne died. It doesn't matter. It's cool. You also have all the relics. The Spear of Destiny. That's great. But you also have a tooth of St. John the Baptist and a piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper. Oh, and a strip of Jesus's loincloth and one of the nails from the Cross. But those are of dubious provenance. What’s not are Charlemagne’s Bible and bag. These are things Charlemagne actually touched and used 1,200 years ago. In the Capuchin Crypt, you've got all the tombs. The saddest ones are the children. And there are a lot of them. And then there are the ones of the children with the mother who both died in childbirth. There's more than a few of those. The best though is Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico. He's down there. And his tomb is always decorated by visitors from Mexico. But if you are interested in history in Vienna, don't skip out on the Army History Museum. They have the car in which Franz Ferdinand was riding when he was assassinated, along with his bullet-pierced uniform.
  20. So another quick-hit from Vienna. We are at the Hotel Imperial. It’s a Marriott property, and I have a lot of points/status. So I booked one of our rooms on points, and the other got a nice upgrade to some sort of junior suite. All great. Until yesterday, when a rain storm moved in. When I tell you it was raining in the junior suite bathroom, that doesn’t really describe it. Like a lot of water coming from all over. Mrs LL’s hairdryer and some of her makeup was destroyed. So to apologize, we got another upgrade. This time to the Royal Suite. It’s … adequate.
  21. Israel is killing itself alongside its genocide of the Gazans. Public opinion in America is shifting radically against it. Public opinion in Europe is almost unanimous. To survive in that neighborhood, Israel needs friends. It’ll soon have none.
  22. The thing about Obama is that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.
  23. The thing about anti-redhead discrimination is that Donald Trump is on the Epstein List.
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