28 July 2014

Things that are over-rated

Walker Percy had a character say “the two most over-rated things in the world are sexual intercourse and Johns Hopkins Medical School”. (Quote from memory)

Let's not limit it to two.

Whole Wheat stuff other than bread. Whole wheat pasta dissolves before it gets to the al dente point, Whole wheat tortillas fall apart at non-trivial times, that is, when the enchilada is on the fork headed toward the mouth.

Applewood smoked anything. It doesn't make the smoked food taste of apple, any more than cherry wood furniture tastes better thatn any other type. The only type of product worth mentioning pecan, but not the wood. is The green husks that surround the nut are treasured by cogniscenti. Mesquite burns too hot, hickery is not native.

Expensive wines. Even in blind taste tests experts have a hard time telling the difference. I now coin a new term: “Wallet-Snobbery”, meaning “you will never know the difference because you can't afford it”. This applies to so many diffferent things (you've never driven a..., you've never tasted a..., you've never fucked a...) that I see the phrase gaining popular use soon.

Heirloom Veggies. Robert Aton Wilson (thought I was gonna cite Heinlein agin, didn't you) wrote “there are two kinds of fools. There are those who say 'this is old therefore this is good', and there are those who say 'This is new, therefore this is better'”. I do like the colorful potatoes, though

Pre-CBS Fenders, pre-Norlin Gibsons, and all that collector bullshit. For me, a guitar is a tool, plain and simple, and if it does the job then I'm happy. This does not mean that I buy lao gai products. OTOH, I also have a few shelves of autograph first editions, so I understand the feeling.

Anything with a lowercase “I” in front of it. Pad, pod, book, tune. Not bad per se, just over-rated.

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