The Finer Things in Life

Mine also revolve around fine food and drink. I very rarely go out to eat, and when I do it is to local restaurants with a creative chef, not to a chain restuarant where the start with a 14 page menu, select an oversized entree of slop that has been dumbed down to please the "masses". Doesn't have to be caviar and champagne, even if I am going out for barbeque (since I live in the barbeque area), I'm choosy about where I go.

And then when I cook at home, I suppose that I tend to spend a bit more on food than I could. There is a local butcher I love for meats, I try to hit up the farmers market for produce.

And flowers, I always have fresh flowers in my house. Why? Because they make me happy.

But I aint classy enough for that classical music shit. My last pandora stations raight now are Radiohead to Pharrell to Kanye West to Lana Del Ray.

 

I'm not sure why classical music is considered one of the 'finer' things in life. It's a genre of music, not an echelon of high class. I mean, hell, you can be listening to Bela Bartok and calling it classical music. Doesn't mean that music isn't absolute shit, plagiarized from one of the greats and passed off as original. It's still classical music, but it's garbage.

Anyway, I listen to classical music, I love the opera, and I go to the ballet. I cook with good quality ingredients and good quality equipment. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it as best as I can with as much class as I can. I like good wine, good food, good music, high thread counts and soft sweaters.

Alt Alt Focus (the un-finer things in life): I also like shitty movies and don't give a damn about technology brands. My laptop is about a million years old, I have a desktop computer that barely works, and I technically still use my old Palm Pilot from time to time.

 

As far as I can determine, classical music is considered 'high-brow' because when going to a classical music concert it's expected that you're going to get all dressed up, and because it's generally inoffensive enough that stuffy old people will listen to it.

Focus: My favorite wine tends to be on the pricer side, so does that count?

Alt-focus: Poll needs to enable multiple choices, so I can select both 'No' and 'That's fucking disgusting'.

 

Focus: I like nice restaurants as others have said. I don't see why people spend money to go eat at shitty chain places. Especially in Houston where you can literally get anything you want.

Alt focus: I put down "no" because it will only lead to people posting gross photos of their shit. Starting with bewildered. Talking about poop is one thing, but making it a permanent thread will only lead to pictures.

 

You guys know you won't have to see the poop thread unless you click on it, right?

 

So you're one of the 2 people who clicked yes?

 

We've tried the thread before on here, and I think one person posted. Nobody was interested, as they should be.

Of course we could widen the options, maybe a lengthy and detailed discussion on cholera or scat porn involving old, fat people. I mean, if you're going to discuss the grossest thing there is you have to push the envelope.

 

Why can't we just let Stealth do his own thing without bothering the rest of us?

 

Dude, we're not sickos.

 

What in the living fuck people, come on.

I can't believe this is an actual discussion. Take that shit to a fucked up sub-Reddit or something.

 

I could easily blow thousands on good wine and fine food. Last Christmas was caviar and Bollinger champagne. Pates too. This year I'm going to get some black truffles for eggs, pasta, bordelaise sauce and tenderloin. There's a brick of Irish cheddar with black truffle in the fridge. It's amazing. I've got a grilled cheese from hell planned for it. Brie, Camembert, Tallegio. All amazing cheese. Soft, gooey, near liquid mouthfuls of funk. God yes. Also in the fridge a jar of demi glace (about 5 gallons of stock reduced down into a concentrated paste). I can't make a French stew without it. Speaking of the French, their cuisine gives me boners.

Wine. Love Pomerols from Bordeaux, white Bordeaux, whites from Loire (Pouilly-Fume especially). Cote Du Rhones are amazing. Had a Chateauneuf du Pape Chante Cigale 2009 that was probably the best yet. Right now I keep prices between $20 and $40. If I could justify $100 grape juice I would. The Chateau Margaux for $125, locked in the walk-in at Total Wine, sings to me. There's a location in the hoi-palloi part of town that carries Chateau Petrus at $1500 a bottle.

Beer too. I'm really getting into low output Belgian Farmhouse Ales. Typing that made me feel really pretentious. Fuck it.

Non food items? Clothes. I shop a lot at Banana Republic like a yuppie fuckshit. The stuff fits properly and seems more durable. Fruit of the Loom, Old Navy just don't fit me the way I want. I'm not funny, charming, handsome, or nurturing so I might as well dress properly.

Alt. Focus: No. WDT is already the shit thread.

 

Focus: Like many others I'm into good food and drink. I may not care if it's served on fine china or Styrofoam, but I definitely appreciate the results of some damn good cooking or brewing.

Some of the other finer things I enjoy are custom-built guns, as in the handmade bespoke-quality firearms that are produced by serious craftsmen. I got into building them (well, learning to) because stuff like high grade wood, fancy metalworking, and obsessive attention to detail caught my eye at a young age and since I can't afford buying these guns, I just have to make them myself. Not that factory-made guns are bad (they all go boom and kill critters the same), but I find myself appreciating time spent with a very attractive and well-built gun so much more than their plainer counterparts.

 

The understanding is that if you're listening to classical music, you're listening to educated people make educated music. It takes learning about the intricacies of symphonies to appreciate the harmonies and melodies, why a composer would choose to add something in the third act instead of the first, blah blah. Also, the folks playing the music are generally belonging to the 'high class' that they entertain. It's educated, precise, fine-tuned music that stirs only the educated, precise, fine-tuned (ostensibly).

Not to mention all the studies they do about how it makes you smarter, which would be the inverse of anything that is on the radio right now.

Focus: The man is obsessed with fine eating. At least four times a week, I get to eat a delicious, restaurant-quality home-cooked meal made with the best ingredients from our best markets. He always prepares a charcuterie board for nibbling before dinner, and we crack a bottle of wine and be all fancy and shit. I live in a place that has spoiled me for eating terrible food. If the cheese did not come straight off a farm that morning, heads will be rolling.

My commitment to luxury though is pedicures. I get one every two weeks to a month, which is how often it takes before the polish gets all crazy. It is the luxury I cannot live without. Something about having someone massage my feet and make them look pretty makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

 

Pedicures, good wine, good cheese - There's a Dutch market near here with OMGYUMMYGIVEITTOME cheese, good beer, good food, good sweaters, things like that. Yes. I like good things. I won't buy them on credit - but if I can afford them - Yes. I want the good things.

The ONE thing I'm an asshole about - seats at a baseball game. I will buy the most best seat I can afford. "Just going" to the game is not enough. I need to be in the best spot possible. This is not negotiable.

 

I get the sentiment, but it's like saying "I like the finer things in life, like cheese". Well, cheese can be everything from a heartbreaking calcagno to cheez whiz in a can. So can classical music. Some of it's brilliant, but not all of it is educated, that's for damn sure. For every Schubert there's a hundred Ravels and Stravinskis and Nanes. Oh God, Nanes.