Thursday, September 24, 2009

Drinking And Driving

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Found outside the train station in Loches, which is, like, in France


"This song is about drinking and driving, so we call it 'Drinking and Driving'."
-Henry Rollins, "Who's Got the 10-1/2?"


The French (of all people) has been doing their part to stem overpopulation, at least as far as the French countryside is concerned, where there seems to be about 0.03 people per square mile. Not that this in itself is that big of a deal, except that the French countryside is HUGE, at least from what I've seen; driving away from Paris for three solid hours didn't take me past even one city. In comparison, try landing in New York City and then driving for three hours in any direction, and count how many cities that takes you through.

The speed limit on French highways is 80 mph (130 kph), also, which is perfectly safe because there's barely any traffic on French highways; the $25 - $30 tolls take care of that. French secondary roads are another story, especially on the miles and miles of un-named roads that stretch between the farmhouses, where everyone still drives like a bat out of hell even though there's room for only one car on the narrow strips of blacktop (it's between you and the other guy as far as who's going to pull over first). Good thing the French all seem to be pretty good drivers, or at least they know what road signs are for. I couldn't imagine trying to get away with half the stuff in the States that they're able to pull off over there.


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Rottweiler piss

France is also good for cheap beer; the local market sold 500 ml (17 oz.) cans of Ottweiler for 0.38 Euro (about 57 cents American), plus there's no sales tax or deposit over there, either; a 57 cent can of beer is a 57 cent can of beer. At the same store, 500 ml cans of Kronenbourg-- the French version of Budweiser-- went for 0.77 Euro. If you wanted to do nothing but drink cheap beer and eat bakery-fresh loaves of bread year-round, as I imagine some people might, you could pull it off for maybe three dollars a day (unless you're a real stinking drunk).

Cheveu, like, they're from France, also.


Cheveu -

(these files are now listen-only)

"Superhero"

"Dog"

"Herman Choune"


(If you want, you can find the entire Cheveu LP at the formidable Biannual Haircut)


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5 comments:

Lightning Baltimore said...

Citroën makes the ugliest fucking cars on the planet, imo. Kinda funny that the French word for lemon is citron.

Brushback said...

I know what you mean, though there's a Citroen C! that looks kinda cool.

Everyone over there drove a tiny little compact car (like, barely bigger than a SmartCar), which you have to because the village streets are so narrow. All the cars are brand new, though; I didn't see any clunkers, though I saw a '74 Buick Regal which looked way out of place.

The parking spaces are all small, too-- they paint them so that they're smaller than the spaces over here. They're like the size of your thumb.

Chris said...

Ottweiler strikes me as a very non-French name for a beer.

Brushback said...

Yeah, I don't think the Ottweiler was French, but Kronenbourg is a French beer...

Brushback said...

The mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files.