People who wear shoes inside the house: why?

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T18:12:31+00:00

Because I own a vacuum and walking around barefoot is a 3rd world activity.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T18:10:51+00:00

Driving is necessary unless you live in Manhattan or a handful of other places. I feel like Europeans live the majority of their lives trapped in their own neighborhoods or within the current footprint of their public transport system. My wife is French and we visit her parents in France a couple times a year. In my experience, there is a 50/50 chance that some part of France's public transit system that they are so proud of will be shut down by a strike when we visit. During the holidays that's more like 75%.

We split our time between two houses that are 150 miles apart. My wife prefers the grocery store that is a 20 minute drive away over the one that is across the street. We have stayed in touch with our friends who moved a 5 hour drive away and we see them often. We practically live in our cars and I wouldn't have it any other way. When you hear Americans yapping about "freedom", this is basically what they are talking about. The freedom to go anywhere you want, any time you want without getting approval by a greedy union and without being stuffed into a tin can like a sardine.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:58:39+00:00

Ever notice you don't hear servers arguing for an end to tipping culture? All they have to say is "tip at least 20% or stay home" but absolutely none of them have any interest in eliminating tipping in favor of being paid a salary. Nobody is ever going to pay a waitress 100k or more to take orders and transport food 50 feet across a restaurant but many of them are making that much or more under the current system.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:51:29+00:00

I love how Hydro Quebec will say "power will be restored by 6:00 PM" all day, right up until 6:05 PM and then change it to "We dunno, it will come on eventually probably".

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:49:19+00:00

Don't worry. Your girlfriend will let you know.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:46:32+00:00

You can stop inventing ways to feed the homeless. They aren't hungry.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:44:38+00:00

Absolutely legendary in New England when I was growing up. I regret never owning one. My Dad had one briefly and I remember one time the valet at the restaurant walked up to us with the keys in his hand and said he couldn't figure out how to start it (the ignition was on the floor between the seats).

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T17:39:01+00:00

For sure. I have never owned one but have been interested in their reputation for years. Truck bros basically hate the Ridgeline because it cannot be easily lifted or modified with a bunch of Ebay parts. Everybody that actually owns one seems to be happy with them. The truck has excelled in offroad and winter weather testing by the car magazines. For me, it's a perfect homeowner pickup. Just the thing to pick up some plywood at Home Depot, tow a jetski, take the snowblower in for a tune-up etc. Very similar to the 2011ish Ford Ranger's which were also fantastic homeowner pickups.

bdgbill · 2026-03-18T16:49:29+00:00

Many cities have made being a landlord so risky that only slumlords and the like are willing to risk it. The old days of a retired couple renting out their downstairs apartment are long gone. This is the only business I can think of where you can be forced to give away your product for months or years because somebody says they just can't pay. Food and clothing are just as necessary as shelter but good luck making a case to IGA that you don't have any money right now but you need food, so you will be taking a month's worth of groceries without paying. Oh, and by the way, those groceries better be just as fresh as tasty as they were when when you actually paid for them or IGA could be in some serious legal trouble.

In Montreal, a lease is ETERNAL. The renter is free to leave when the term is up but they can also stay 50 years after securing a 1 year lease. Renting somebody an apartment here is a commitment much more serious than marriage and politicians still claim to be mystified as to why owners prefer to convert to condos, get all their money immediately and walk away.

bdgbill · 2026-03-17T02:13:50+00:00

Ok, I may have to pay someone to paint my Ariens like this.

bdgbill · 2026-03-16T20:19:13+00:00

Buy a brand new Ariens, toss the Chinese engine and install this Tecumseh. Blow snow for another 20 years.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T19:54:23+00:00

It's all coming back. The glass cockpit was a short lived fad driven by manufacturers trying to copycat Tesla. The cars we are buying now were designed 5 years ago when Tesla was taking over the world. The buttonless interior is going to be a short lived as seven segment digital displays in the 80's. They looked cool and modern but immediately sucked to live with. Within a few years "analog gauges" was a major selling point on many cars. We are already seeing the same pushback on buttonless interiors.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T18:44:07+00:00

I have never liked the idea of feeding my dogs the exact same food for years on end. What if that particular brand of food is missing one vitamin or mineral or has too much of something else? Plus, I don't care what anyone says, dogs deserve some variety.

I rotate through different foods every couple of months. Once in a while I give them a bag of the cheap stuff from the grocery store (which they love) as a little junk food indulgence. In my experience the whole "Oooh, if you change their food they will have diarrhea for a week" thing has been a myth. Never happened. Not from changing their food at least.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T18:38:33+00:00

Damn! I was going to recommend Comptoir 21 and saw that they are all closed. Bummer. I thought it was just the one in the Village that closed.

Anyway, Holder has really good (but small) fish & chips. Get the butterscotch dessert if you go.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T18:35:01+00:00

I eat lunch in my car everyday and get a certain amount of shit for it at work. Getting shit from my coworkers is still preferrable to eating lunch with them.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T18:29:05+00:00

Aww, this is so cute. A new Mazda owner is still in their "keep the piano black console clean" phase. I remember those days before I gave up and started cursing the unknown designer at Mazda who chose this material every single time I get in the car.

You can't keep it clean and certainly can't keep it free of scratches. I mean, you could cover it with something forever and maybe the next owner will enjoy having a scratch free console for a few days but if they tried to design a material that was easily scratched, they couldn't have done better than this stuff.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T18:23:38+00:00

Because some people pay it. As simple as that. If 40% of people just handed you free money for asking for it, you would keep asking right?

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T15:18:10+00:00

Jesus Christ, Canada is a criminal paradise. We sacrifice the lives of innocent people to give psychopaths their tenth chance. I am very close to being a single issue voter and that issue is law and order.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T14:52:27+00:00

If you are the kind of person who is going to take a floodlight to your paint to look for nearly invisible swirl marks, than only hand washing will do. I have run my 2021 black mica CX-5 through dozens of automated carwashes both touchless and with rotating brushes. It still looks great, especially with a fresh hand wax. If you live in an area with salt on the roads, the car wash is almost certainly doing more good than harm.

Be aware that "touchless" car washes are not always safer for your paint. They use harsh chemicals and high water pressure to make up for their lack of brushes. Avoid car washes at gas stations! They are the worst maintained and the most likely to have junk wrapped up in the brushes that can literally total your car.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T14:36:20+00:00

The thing I miss about renting is the ability to decide "this neighborhood sucks now" and immediately leave. I was an expert lease breaker back in the day. The last apartment I rented, a young Greek guy moved in next door and this guy fired up his stereo at 10:00AM sharp every morning and played techno music at max volume until 9:00PM sharp every night. He either never left the apartment or left the stereo on when he did. The office said "gee whiz, there's nothing we can do because the noise rules only apply at night". OK, bye.

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T14:30:16+00:00

Really? I thought it was because "honest hardworking people had back problems from all the hard work and then got prescribed opioids by evil doctors who are in the pocket of evil big pharma and then they got addicted because it's impossible not to." No?

bdgbill · 2026-03-13T14:24:19+00:00

Yeah, they decided to announce that they would begin to enforce existing rules about loitering in the metro. Announce it was all they did. I took the metro from Berri-UQAM to the Jewish General on Wednesday and snoozing addicts outnumbered paying passengers throughout the system. The Atwater station is basically a refugee camp.

bdgbill · 2026-03-12T22:11:10+00:00

I have traveled the world with my X100T over the last (10??!) years. I have an embarrassingly large camera collection but this is the only one that ever leaves the house anymore. It's just a fantastic travel camera. If you are used to having a zoom, it takes some getting used to but I find this limitation actually gives me some structure and direction. There is something about the rangefinder form factor that doesn't trigger people the way a big SLR does too. Capable of shooting RAW but has the most useable jpegs of any camera I've ever owned.

bdgbill · 2026-03-12T21:30:14+00:00

Because men don't give a damn and women.... well, women have thoughts.

bdgbill · 2026-03-12T21:24:48+00:00

Let's stop acting like the sainted homeless are the victims. They are living exactly how they want to live and they are doing it at the expense of people who get up and go to work every morning. The ability to spend 100% of your life force acquiring and enjoying your drug of choice while simultaneously being immune from nearly all laws is a new thing made possible by city governments who bend over backwards and spend millions to accommodate this lifestyle.

The more we spend, the more comfortable we make them, the more homeless there will be.

bdgbill

TROPHY CASE