quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

and this totally works:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5150PX0OY9L._SL500_AA280_.jpg

dude probably has a GARAGE in which to put TOOLS and GREASE to make things go.

His garage door opener broke and he doesn't know where to buy replacement batteries in the suburbs.

does he have THE INTERNETS though? i didn't know how to jump start a car earlier this year (at my house thank goodness) and wound up reading from my laptop as i did it.

he probably writes plays on a typewriter

His house is so vast, he has no power cords long enough to reach any of the outlets.

Without his beloved nearby corner store, this man cannot buy tissues with which to dry his tears of loneliness.

oooh man i had a roommate who wouldn't buy milk at the corner store when we ran out, and would instead wait for his weekly or biweekly trip to the supermarket, because he thought it "might be more expensive" at the corner store. this meant i had to buy milk at the corner store on my way home from work ALL THE TIME, so i asked in shock if he'd ever actually compared the prices, and the answer was no. !!!!! (sometimes i like it when friends who become roommates go back to being just friends, it's better not to know things like that.)

lol that is like my mom raising her eyebrows when i tell her that i buy most produce every other day or so, instead of just stocking up for the week, as if it gets more expensive that way???

corner store milk probably is more expensive :|

i've stopped buying larger quantities of milk and just buy it by the pint -- usually the pints of soy creamer from trader joe's do me fine. that way i use it up before it goes bad, and it's cheaper than spending money on something i won't get to use.

corner store milk is slightly more expensive, but i would buy milk and bread there anyway because slogging a mile and a half to the grocery store after work in midwinter for those two things wasn't worth it. the thing that gets me is that he never went into the corner store to find out, despite it literally being on the way home from the subway station.

now i live two blocks from a store and have roommates who replace groceries when we run out though <3 i also buy produce every few days instead of stocking up, i think you wind up wasting less that way.

figure the money i save by not driving ever more than off-sets whatever losses i take by going to the co-op in my hood or the $$$ grocery across the street

lol that is like my mom raising her eyebrows when i tell her that i buy most produce every other day or so, instead of just stocking up for the week, as if it gets more expensive that way???

― into the young coconuts (gbx), Friday, January 8, 2010 4:35 PM (1 hour ago) Bookma

^^^ parents don't remember what it was like to live in a city & have to walk your groceries 10 minutes or so home w/o the aid of shopping cart or car or w/e. aside from some type of basic greens, i usually don't buy veg until the day i'm gonna use 'em. same with meat. it helps that there's a market across from work & within walking distance of my apt, though. if the supermarket was out of the way or inaccessible it would be a slightly different story.

exactly. living across the street from a(n admittedly $$$) grocery totally changes your habits. esp since my mom lives like 20 min away from any grocery store, in the country, and only shops once a week. i'm like "oh shit i need a pepper" and then go buy a pepper

I lived right across the street from the local food co-op in a small town for three years and just bought whatever I needed that day, sometimes in the middle of dinner when I realized I needed a lemon or something. It was actually quicker to walk there than it was to go upstairs. I miss that so much now and it took a long time to get used to planning and buying ahead for a week now that I live a long way from where I like to buy most of my food.

I don't mind stocking up on bread, grains, meat, potatoes, and canned goods for 1-2 weeks at at time (freezing the meat, natch) but I am continually realizing I need a tomato, or a lime, or some broccoli, and I wish the veg market weren't 4 blocks away. Yes, I am that lazy.

i live in the produce section of my supermarket

oh i stock up on grains/canned goods, for sure. but that's like a monthly trip to the bulk section at the co-op

you guys would all cry bitter tears of blood if you moved to the suburbs fyi

Four blocks is nothing, my grocery store is almost a mile away.

If they moved to the burbs they would have cars with which to make 16-bag shopping trips.

that's pretty much the trade-off.

(i live in the city, v. near the grocery store, but have a car i only use to get the hell out of the city. kind of a waste of money but also really nice to have the flexibility.)

I wish the veg market weren't 4 blocks away

Read as vag market.

why buy the milk...

i mean the cow

whatever

presumably the vag market is for when you can't get the milk for free

is that before or after you've married the cow?

eerr... i mean. fuck. bought the cow. fuck.

Cow tools (for buying married cows).

My favorite part is that "I can't walk anywhere" guy lived in Powderhorn, a popular, centrally located Minneapolis neighborhood. After selling his house he moved back to Uptown, which is... a five-minute drive from Powderhorn. Dude wasn't exactly living in the middle of nowhere.

i dunno, you really can't walk anywhere in powderhorn

the park

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/garden/21cold.html

Mr. McCloskey warms himself up by spending time in coffee shops, he said — “an hour will do it” — and by maintaining an upbeat demeanor. Doesn’t his girlfriend, with whom he shares a drafty attic room, get grumpy?

“What makes her grumpy is using resources,” he said. “We’re all about staying positive.” ”

These guys should hook up w/ the manhattan paleo webmasters from last week's article.

I WAS JUST COMING HERE TO POST THIS.

I hate these people so much.

A music promoter whose company is called Sleep When Dead, he hosts shows in his house five out of seven nights, which raises the temperature a good 10 or 20 degrees, or so it seems. “Human beings are remarkably efficient space heaters,” Mr. Ahearn said, and he basks in the damp, warm fug that remains after a performance. Still, his most successful cold-abatement strategy has been romantic: last year he had a girlfriend, and spent most nights at her house.

my little brother would probably loooove to be this guy.

"The damp, warm fug"

I know him.

“Human beings are remarkably efficient space heaters,” Mr. Ahearn said

This was the photo of the guy, yeah?

http://cache.valleywag.com/assets/resources/2007/10/matrix-sentinel.png

Many belong to that hardy genus Artista domestica, a group unusually skilled at foraging in urban frontiers, and long-known for sacrificing “normal” creature comforts in favor of other boons like low overhead and capacious, atmospheric habitats.

This fake binomial nomenclature is the most revolting, precious thing I have ever read.

i'm sure the nyt has done worse. a lot worse.

I know him

u supply the fug

I just have a thing about fake binomial nomenclatures outside of Wile E. Coyote cartoons.

I think it's actually the quotes around "normal" that pushes it over the top.

Space heaters are expensive and, anyway, a placebo at best, he said

AT BEST.

at worst they actually shove ice cubes up your rectum.

Janet Smith's century-old rubble-stone house in Ridgway, Colo., one of three buildings she owns, including a former barber shop, is poetically lovely but utterly unheatable.

i think she could heat it is she didn't insist on being a dumbass

NSFW but as she says 24 seconds in:

"UGH, CENTRAL HEATING, HOW REPELLENT!"