I spent the best part of 6 hours driving up and down New York State’s highways and throughways, exits and parkways. I had to drive to the airport, and some of the roads there and back, mostly suck a lot The trip through Brooklyn was particularly shitty, because they’re still “fixing” the bridges and overpasses. The closer you get to the airport, the worse it gets. It’s like a scene from the movie “Brazil”. Everything is in a permanent state of repair. It’s a fucking joke. There is also a lot of assholery from some of the monkeys that roam these sad and decrepit thoroughfares. They’ll cut you off, come charging through into the lane you want to move into, and give you the finger when you don’t get out of their way. It’s not like you can gain much of an advantage in traffic that’s continually moving at a snail’s pace anyway, but you can’t expect much from an individual with an IQ of 85.
You want to be going the other way
Getting to the airport was fine, although slow, but I had to rely on my phone to negotiate the return trip. I’ve done the JFK run many times, but not for about four years (before the fake pandemic). I wanted to stop off at my favorite Indian restaurant in Richmond on the way back, and the phone got me there ok. They’ve recently renovated the place and although it still looks terrible from the outside, it now looks horrific on the inside. The only thing I can remember from my last visit was that there was a rubber mat emblazoned with “Pizza… something” on the floor, probably a left over from it’s previous incarnation. Now when you walk inside, all of the the walls are covered with a lurid red brick wall paper. Words cannot adequately describe how awful this looks. If they were going for something that made you feel like you were in a nasty prison somewhere in the backwoods, I think they’ve nailed it.
They assured me that although the place had changed in appearance, the food was still the same, and it was. I spent the best part of $100, because I wanted to get enough to last me for more than one meal, and also took a trip down the street to the Indian sweet shop, where nothing had changed at all. They sold me a nice box of mixed sweets for $11. WTF, I love diversity now. Seriously, everyone was polite and friendly and the guy making my food said he was making one of the dishes from scratch, so it would take some time. This allowed me to program my phone for the trip home. Given that it was Google Maps, it gave me two routes back. One was through New Jersey (no thanks) and the other one was north towards New Haven, Connecticut. Neither of these was the way I had come in the first place, which was the quickest way, and nothing I tried to do was gonna change that.
To make matters worse, they’re rebuilding the airport now.
I simply fucking hate using my phone for anything other than texting, calling or playing music while I’m traveling, and this is one of the reasons why. I opted for the New Haven route, but after realizing I was on the NY State throughway, I thought I’d just stick to that, not realizing that it eventually goes into Connecticut without any warning at all. You only find out when a voice on your phone says “Welcome to Connecticut”. The traffic up there was beastly too. It was crawling along. This is in the middle of what is essentially fucking nowhere. Google sent me back to the Tappan Zee bridge to cross back into New York. Interestingly, it’s still called the Tappan Zee on the Ct side, and not the “Governor Mario Cuomo” bridge, which nobody asked for in the first place. I started to like Connecticut at that point.
It will always be the Tappan Zee for mee
Anyhow, after awhile I started to see things and places that I recognized, so I knew I was on the right track. The cunt of Google directions had brought me on to the I-84, 30 miles east of where I should have been. My food was still warm when I got home though, so it wasn’t a total disaster.
I think I’m going to buy a stand alone GPS unit and stick it on the dashboard when I need it. I don’t want google tracking me everywhere I go. It’s only real usefulness is that it will warn you of speed traps. That’s only as reliable as the person who called it in. Sometimes it’s on the the opposite side of the road. Nobody seems to give a rat’s ass about the speed limits anymore. The default speed seems to be 80-90 mph now. We’re getting into Mad Max territory. Oh, along the route to the airport there were electric signs telling everyone to take public transportation next week. There was going to be gridlock because the UN was in town. Well then, we all must stand aside for these international grifters, their bullshit and scams and take the train. I sincerely hope they are stuck not just in a traffic jam, but in hell for all of eternity.
Happy Friday!