Modern Vespa

I really love shiny yuletide stuff

This is both cold and hot at the same time.

The rose tinted glasses phenomenon especially concerning vehicles.

The Vespa's and Lambretta's I owned and pretty much everyone else's in my Scooter club were unreliable, slow and polluting, why would I long for that particular misery again?

Classic motorbikes and cars are the same, expensive and unpractical.

Why do so many middle aged/retired people with too much disposable income at their fingertips buy such outdated modes of transport?

I prefer to buy newer machines and spend my excess cash on travelling on my bikes and experiencing new places not wheeling out some old machine and reminiscing at some coffeee shop or "old mans meet up"

Coddy,

I am with you. Give me a new scoot with reliability. I know many folks like old classics - but I do not like being broke down on the side of the road.

Backstory: The Scooter Collective is a great group of folks in Minneapolis that plan rides mostly for small frame scooters. On the big annual group rides, they have to have a recovery truck follow the pack to pick up all the old two strokes that crap out on the ride.

Night Hawk song: "There I done it, there I said it, there you have it, I don't regret it".

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

Who knows? Might be because they remember the good times and not the bad ones. Maybe, they like getting together with like minded people for meetup on said machines. Possibly, they like doing restorations more than taking any more long rides. Example: I know a guy that has a Royal Enfield 500 bullet. It has frequent problems, which he enjoys fixing. He told me it's the perfect motorcycle for someone who enjoys owning one more than actually riding one. Whatever floats your boat.....

I have a lot of nostalgia for vehicles I have owned in the past.

I have no desire to own and drive one again.

My current vehicles are better in every regard.

My hot take of the day: if you don't get your Vespa muddy occasionally then ya not riding it right

It's still fascinating though, apparently.

Never worked for me no matter how many times I tried.

I am officially going on record as being skeptical of that one.

You're totally OK with the two preceding it though, right?

Yes. Definitely.

I'm puzzling over what an unperceived might be. I don't think I've ever seen one.

[rimshot]

Prolly tried Velveeta.

*Might* be biased, but have you tried Wisconsin cheese?

It was much classier than that.

Spam cubes dipped into Velveeta fondue.

Washed down with Cook's Brut.

Damn. If that doesn't do it....

I have! I lived in Milwaukee for 3 years. Most of the Wisconsin cheese is quite good.

Except for Colby, of course.

I had a guy laughing at me as he sped by while I was broke down. He was a neighbor so no loss, especially when he saw me later putting home.
My philosophy has always been the ride isn't the destination.
I'm pretty sure he spent many years on a home built sailing boat to sail home to NZ.
One day I'll check on his progress.
To each their own.

In my time I can only think of two areas where I buy new. Food and Personal electronics. Mostly, okay.

It's ironic to me, when I got into old vehicles, the timing was off. Meaning they weren't old enough to be cool yet in the beginning, and now people are frightened of them because they're so old. I totally missed the middle when they were hot hot. 😂

I did 4k worth of vintage repair work Probono during the pandemic just to have a familiar feeling at my fingertips.
I did a similar thing for myself during the same time period. Both are gone to me now, but exercising that area was golden for me. Something therapy couldn't do.

The only thing I have to say, is they don't pollute more or less than anything else designed today. Except scooters today will never last 50 years, and that environmental pollution is here to stay and stay and stay.
So put that in your Christmas Pipe and smoke it! Cheers!

Colby, Wisconsin, 1885 🙄

There is an AI that was written before the Big Bang.

I see your Great Silence and raise you Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures":

I'll meet your Vader and raise you a rocket ship.

https://plus.nasa.gov/video/nasa-rocket-engine-fireplace/

What about dipping her hair in your inkwell?

Never worked for me no matter how many times I tried.

nope

I'm more willing to listen to a very famous rock star's opinion about drugs than the wife of a president who probably had/has zero experience with drugs. Because it was ok for me to drink at home when I was a teen, I never had the urge to rebel by drinking outside the home with friends. Because of that, I never developed binge drinking issues like most of my peers. I also didn't try illegal drugs until I was in my 30s, and then it was only weed, and I only partook for a couple of years. The last time I used marijuana was at my bachelor party in June, 2002. Were it to become legal in Texas, I'd consider edibles. I know that "experts" have said that MJ is a "gateway drug." But I think it depends on the individual. Not everyone who uses it moves on to other drugs. Not everyone who tries it enjoys it - Both of my brothers have tried it, and didn't like it. Our dad smoked a lot (from what I've been told) back in the day, but quit after getting a "bad batch" and almost ending up in the ER. Some people are more susceptible to addiction than others.

Exactly this. And there are all kinds of addictions.

nope

The particular politician's wife I was thinking of was married to a former Hollywood acting star, so even her experience & exposure to drugs was probably greater than the average person. When I was a senior in HS in small town Wisconsin (my graduating class was 110 students), during a discussion about drugs one of my classmates stated that, "there are no drugs on this campus." A fellow student who looked like the stereotypical 80's stoner perked up and said, "I can get you any drug you want on this campus within 30 minutes." He made it clear that he wasn't a dealer, but he knew who was. From my own experience, the first time I saw weed was my first year of college - I just wasn't exposed to it, though some of my classmates were. So I agree, experiences vary. Exactly! Removing the mystery and allure of doing something illicit, in my opinion, will help keep usage down. And along with legalizing, regulating it for quality/strength needs to happen.

I grew up in a town with five prisons. So ...

Skids,

I know that being Irish and drinking heavy is a stereotype. I do want to relate a personal experience from years ago when I was 23 years old.

I was on an extended see Europe trip when I got out of the US Navy. I was in Barcelona camping (traveling cheap) when I meet some young (same age) Kids from Ireland. They wanted to know if I wanted to go into town drinking for the night.

My prior experiences over drinking at night ended when the sun came up. Not so with this Irish Crew (Boys and Girls). We kept it up for three days. If you passed out, two of them would carry you to the next bar and lay you down in a booth. After getting back to the camp, I had the shakes and slept for 24 hours.

Also, allot of singing while drinking. Interestingly, I knew a bunch of those songs from college. I guess I found out where they came from. Stuff like, "There once was a guy from Nantucket, whose ...... was so long he could suck it" Chorus,, "Oh roll your leg over, roll your leg over, it's better that way".

Much less intoxication today - and no singing.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

The amount of hubris exhibited by the typical flat-earther is amusing and simultaneously alarming. How did we turn into a nation full of uneducated cocksure idiots?

And so help me god, if you're a flat-earther and you come at me I will ban you on the spot. I have absolutely no interest in debating the merits of your moronic theories of celestial movement or your ice wall or any of your original "research".

Oh, you think you Americans have a monopoly on flat earth idiots? They can be found all round the globe.

I see what you did there.

That said, I have a maxim that I try (and sometimes fail) to live by: the more removed I am from someone else, the less I feel entitled to judge them, since I don't have insight into their particular world view.

Thus, I am quite willing to judge my fellow Americans, with Canadians coming in a close second. Brits probably come in third or fourth, and the further away (both culturally and physically) the less I have any business passing judgement.

You mean all across the flat disk? Or on both sides of it?

So many questions....

How do you get to the other side?
How do you explain mountains on one side not mirrored on the other?
Where does that hot goo from volcanoes come from?
Why didn't any of the big asteroids tear a hole in our planet and make it donut-shaped?