Vive la révolution!

Today is Bastille Day. The French and the French-at-heart will be celebrating the awakening of democracy on the European continent that was represented by an insurrection in Paris on this day in 1789.

Yes, it’s taken the French a while to work things out—a bunch of republics, a couple of empires and one or two half-hearted attempts at restoring the Bourbon kings. (Is there a band called the Bourbon Kings? There should be. And they should play Zydeco.) Plus a Commune and some années noires.

But nobody’s perfect. And I really like the French.

I particularly love how anyone can celebrate their national holiday. For example—the traditional French waiters’ champagne race—le course des garçons de cafe (like this one in New Orleans)—held all around the world:
  

Well, to mark the holiday from here in the District They Call Columbia, I’m going to give you a bit of Hollywoodized French chauvinism, because I don’t believe it’s ever been captured better than in the iconic scene at Rick’s Café Américain.

You know, where Major Strasser and his boys, full of caviar and Veuve Cliquot ’26, have commandeered Sam’s piano and are belting out “Die Wacht am Rhein”, and Victor Laszlo demands that the house band play the French national anthem. For a few moments, there’s this amazing quodlibet going on between the master race and the conquered, but you know who prevails.

 

Vive la France! Vive la République!

Future, delivered

I’ve loved meal delivery services since the 90s, when TakeOut Taxi brought yummies from a variety of restaurants in the environs of the District They Call Columbia. It expanded on the pizza or Chinese delivery from individual eateries, and it was a boon for everything from coming home from work to an empty refrigerator to being able to call for a full dinner as you started cleaning up from a day of home improvement. By the time you got out of the shower and opened the wine, your wonderful dinner was at the door.

TakeOut Taxi went to hell in this century. I don’t know why. Their fees rose at the same time as their service just crapped out. It must have taken 10-15 years for the Uber Eats model to revive the notion of getting whatever you fancy delivered in accordance with some central SLA. The added benefit is using an app, so you don’t have to deal with cash or credit cards.

(Although, c’mon—don’t be a dick. Tip the driver.)

Well, since all these appy things are deemed the purview of Millennials, it’s no surprise that someone (UBS) has done a study, reported in Forbes, that announces that the young’uns are ordering in at a rate of knots. It goes on to posit that if this sort of thing continues, it could mean the Death of Kitchens (and Kitchen Remodelers), Supermarkets, Packaged Food Manufacturers and Life As We Know It.

The implication is clear: Millennials are ruining things again. Which certainly speaks to the clickbait strategy of Forbes.

I found out about this on Twitter (as per usual), from this tweet:

My response to it is that I’m not a Millennial, but as someone who works full days with hourlong commutes tacked on to the beginning and ending of each day, if I could afford to order delivered meals (or even takeout, although I have to say that delivery beats having to drive, park, pick up and schlep home), I’d do it each work night. From a different restaurant every night.

But I can’t. I take my breakfasts and lunches to work because even getting the cheapest possible thing at local “fast-casual” places or food trucks means $10/day, and $50/week is not in my budget. (I take in ground coffee and use a refillable K-cup at the employee-donated Keurig machine; my employer does not provide coffee or tea, and a small coffee at Peet’s, Cosi or any of the other options is still $3.)

So, I pointed out that these kinds of stories are pure rubbish. And if Millennials are feeling murderous, perhaps they could start by taking out Forbes.

Not much of a celebration

I do not say this very often, and even less frequently in public, but Jesus Bloody Christ. Trying to book a hotel room for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing yesterday was the most excruciating thing imaginable.

Their conference-management site was supposed to go live at 1200 EDT, at the same time as the toll-free phone number. The link didn’t work, and I got nothing but busy signal on the phone until 1207. While I was on hold (when I finally “got through”), I tried booking online. But the site threw an error right at the point I gave it my CC details.

And in that 20 seconds, all the rooms blocked out for the “GHC rate” disappeared.

When I finally got an Orchid (conference mis-management company) person at the other end of the line (at 1237), all he could do was shrug and say, yep—all gone. He sent me to a third-party aggregator, where the rate for my hotel was 2x what the conference rate was, and which did not tell me that they weren’t using my credit card details to hold the room (at $460/night), they were charging my credit card.

It wasn’t until I scrounged around for a phone number for this site—and waited on hold for more than an hour before I got a human—that I discovered that I’ve got nearly $3000 on my card, and it’s non-bloodyrefundable.

GHC is expected to have 20,000 attendees this year (up from 18,000 last year). Whyever on earth did they do such a rubbish job of managing accommodations for those attendees? Last year it was their conference registration site that crapped out. This year they sold out general registrations in 20 minutes, and hotels in about the same period. How the actual fuck could anyone be online trying to snag a GHC registration while also trying to ditto a hotel room? It’s madness.

I had such a good experience at GHC last year. But already I’m hating this one.

75 years on...

As thinking people around the world gird our loins against the Kleptocrat’s reunion with his KGB handler, Vladimir Putin, here’s something I collected back when Germany still had hopes in the World Cup.

The joke operates on at least three fields: sports, climate and history. It’s great on each one.

Possessive case

One of my favorite TV shows in the early days of this century was an ensemble piece called Third Watch. It was about first responders—cops, firefighters and EMTs—set and shot in Manhattan. The stories were for the most part well-written, and you know what a sucker I am for a good police procedural.

But mostly it was the mix of characters, with all their flaws, playing off one another, and growing. Almost like, you know, humans.

I was reminded of one exchange from the show recently. The setup is basically that the older EMT, Doc, and the young legend-in-his-own-mind, Carlos, are discussing an attractive new doctor in the local ER, in whom both are interested. (Even though, truth be told, she is more car than Carlos can handle.) Neither has as yet made a move, but already there is tension between the partners.

Carlos says, “I told you I was interested,” and Doc replies, “What, now we’re in the eighth grade and you called dibs?”

Carlos: “’Dibs?’ What the hell is dibs?”

So I’m wondering how many of my readers will get this reference:

Gratitude Monday: a break in the weather

We caught a break, weatherwise, at the weekend here in the District They Call Columbia. When I stepped out Saturday morning around 0630, I was struck by…coolness. Like, in-the-60s coolness. So I bagged all thoughts of taking a break from exercise and headed out to the local Saturday morning farmers market.

I made a slight detour in my route to check out the progression of the water lilies at the corporate campus next door. And, yep—they’ve taken over more of the pond since the previous week:

  

Even with the detour, and some faffing about at home before I left, I still got to the market about 30 minutes before official opening. So I sat at the little coffee house (overpriced, but at least not Starbucks), wrote in my journal and watched people. This is one of the things I miss most about my current life: the morning observations at a table, fountain pen to paper, sipping a café au lait or a latte.

I was grateful to have the good weather, which enabled me to sit outside, because the coffee shop people had music just blaring inside, in a very small space. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The farmers market is held in the oldest shopping center in the People’s Republic, and the ambience retains a strong element of the Elder Times. The coffee house has gone through several incarnations, but the current one really suits the ethos of the place, so it makes an excellent vantage point for watching the natives. And I was particularly taken by this couple:

The dog waited with absolute focus while its human was inside getting his coffee. Clearly this was not their first Saturday morning there. I was interested to see that, when the human emerged and got settled, eventually he rummaged in his pocket and fished out a treat for the dog.

When the market opened, I wandered around  and bought a baguette and some summer squash, and then headed home. It’s a good day when you’ve racked up your 10K steps before 0900. Kind of sets you up for the rest of the day.

It’s quite rare that you can turn off your AC in July, and just have the windows open. We’re going to get back into more seasonable temperatures (and humidity) this week, so I’m very grateful for two temperate days this weekend.