__________ is/are overrated.

[Max Rockatansky]

Here you go again...

No, that was Reagan.

Wait! That's someone who actually is overrated!

He had one hell of a zinger about getting a car in the Soviet Union. 

[kphoger]

I am pretty much looking more and more upon medical, engineering and law schools as essentially vocational training centers for doctors, engineers and lawyers.

I seem to have lost track—what's the thing that's overrated here? Men? Women? Rules? Harry S. Truman? County judges?

Ugh, I'll use the pliers and extract the "Chipmunk Librarian Degree" or "Gender Refrigerator Studies" clap-trap that I bet at least one person wants to say, but won't say it, so we'll just pretend there's not a 238-pound elephant in the room, even if it actually doesn't matter a hill of beans what others do with their lives.

Actually, if I'm reading things right, it's actually law degrees and medical degrees that are apparently overrated.

Wild.  Like, if someone had said that in reply #4 or something, everyone would have thought it was a joke.

[formulanone]

I am pretty much looking more and more upon medical, engineering and law schools as essentially vocational training centers for doctors, engineers and lawyers.

I seem to have lost track—what's the thing that's overrated here? Men? Women? Rules? Harry S. Truman? County judges?

Ugh, I'll use the pliers and extract the "Chipmunk Librarian Degree" or "Gender Refrigerator Studies" clap-trap that I bet at least one person wants to say, but won't say it, so we'll just pretend there's not a 238-pound elephant in the room, even if it actually doesn't matter a hill of beans what others do with their lives.

Actually, if I'm reading things right, it's actually law degrees and medical degrees that are apparently overrated.

Wild.  Like, if someone had said that in reply #4 or something, everyone would have thought it was a joke.

That was absolutely not made clear in the initial stages of discussion.

[kphoger]

Actually, if I'm reading things right, it's actually law degrees and medical degrees that are apparently overrated.

Wild.  Like, if someone had said that in reply #4 or something, everyone would have thought it was a joke.

That was absolutely not made clear in the initial stages of discussion.

That's right.  The post that started this line of conversation claimed that all college degrees are overrated.

(I didn't have time to go back through and study this thread, so if this has been mentioned before, my apologies)

College/university degrees.  And they are FAST becoming more over-rated and useless with each passing day.

Then he moved on to "truly useless" ones.

Or nowadays the insane levels of (unforgivable) debt that is being incurred for truly useless degrees.  I have zero sympathy for those people.

Just imagine if Steve Martin hadn't changed his major from philosophy to theater!  [/sarcasm]

[Roadgeekteen]

Here you go again...

No, that was Reagan.

Wait! That's someone who actually is overrated!

He had one hell of a zinger about getting a car in the Soviet Union. 

Definitely a top tier president for humor I will admit but mid at best for policy.

[hbelkins]

Did someone say Harry Truman?

[kphoger]

the Mona Lisa

inflatable lawn decorations

[wanderer2575]

the Mona Lisa

Humorist Dave Barry:  "You should definitely visit the Louvre, a world-famous art museum where you can view, at close range, the backs of thousands of other tourists trying to see the Mona Lisa."

[Rothman]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

[GaryV]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

I don't know, Fred Flintstone seemed to like it.

[bugo]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

Can you get good barbecue outside the South and Kansas City?

[Max Rockatansky]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

Can you get good barbecue outside the South and Kansas City?

Sure, just visit Stacy's in Phoenix.  He had one of the ten best BBQs in the U.S. the year after he opened:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WFqhDtzpqLpaAaxx5?g_st=ipc

[webny99]

Perhaps "overhyped" would be a more precise term, but: Day-before-Thanksgiving traffic. Sure there's more traffic on the interstates and long-distance routes, but traffic is actually lighter than usual for most commuters since so many take the day off. Traffic was notably heavier than usual on Tuesday evening but much lighter than usual tonight.

NYC is a notable exception because of the bottleneck getting on and off Long Island.

[LilianaUwU]

NYC is a notable exception

because there's always traffic in NYC.

[Max Rockatansky]

Normals people love their stories about miserable traffic on normal people roads, what else is new?

[Scott5114]

Normals people love their stories about miserable traffic on normal people roads, what else is new?

Which are the abnormal people roads?

[LilianaUwU]

Normals people love their stories about miserable traffic on normal people roads, what else is new?

Which are the abnormal people roads?

No normal people would follow roads like CT 136 in their entirety.

[Max Rockatansky]

Normals people love their stories about miserable traffic on normal people roads, what else is new?

Which are the abnormal people roads?

Well, in my neck of the woods we people who would use CA 198 and CA 25 versus the hellscape or Pacheco Pass.

[vdeane]

Perhaps "overhyped" would be a more precise term, but: Day-before-Thanksgiving traffic. Sure there's more traffic on the interstates and long-distance routes, but traffic is actually lighter than usual for most commuters since so many take the day off. Traffic was notably heavier than usual on Tuesday evening but much lighter than usual tonight.

NYC is a notable exception because of the bottleneck getting on and off Long Island.

I think it's interesting that the media always talks about the traffic before holidays but rarely the traffic after them, when the latter is usually worse.  I also noticed that one of the highways ABC News cited as being congested due to the holiday is always super congested (the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, if you're wondering).

That said, there are places in the country that feel holiday traffic much more than we do in upstate NY.  As much as we like to complain about the Thruway in summer and around holidays, it's nothing compared to literally anything along the Northeast Corridor.

[kphoger]

Which are the abnormal people roads?

Lima, OH.

Normal people don't drive like this:  https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxowVnDn2md4Huru7

[dlsterner]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

I stopped at the one in Troy NY (near Albany) about three years ago after hearing the hype about good barbecue in the northeast.

I was underwhelmed.

[Rothman]

I probably said it before, but needs to be said again: Dinosaur BBQ restaurants.

I stopped at the one in Troy NY (near Albany) about three years ago after hearing the hype about good barbecue in the northeast.

I was underwhelmed.

Consensus is that it has gone downhill.  Went last night and the meat was okay, but everything else was underwhelming.  Time before that was somewhat better.  Not going back.

[1995hoo]

Perhaps "overhyped" would be a more precise term, but: Day-before-Thanksgiving traffic. Sure there's more traffic on the interstates and long-distance routes, but traffic is actually lighter than usual for most commuters since so many take the day off. Traffic was notably heavier than usual on Tuesday evening but much lighter than usual tonight.

NYC is a notable exception because of the bottleneck getting on and off Long Island.

I think it's interesting that the media always talks about the traffic before holidays but rarely the traffic after them, when the latter is usually worse.  I also noticed that one of the highways ABC News cited as being congested due to the holiday is always super congested (the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, if you're wondering).

That said, there are places in the country that feel holiday traffic much more than we do in upstate NY.  As much as we like to complain about the Thruway in summer and around holidays, it's nothing compared to literally anything along the Northeast Corridor.

I'd suggest that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the worst day. People spread out their departures over the days before the holiday, but the majority of them all come home on the same day to return to work or school on Monday.

I think Thanksgiving Day, and day-before, traffic was worse 40 years ago than it is now because back then people didn't spread out their departures as much. I remember us always having a full day of school on Wednesday, and pretty much no parents took their kids out of school to leave early. I remember when I was a little kid, we left for New York on Thursday morning (which was miserable because my mother refused to allow us to eat lunch on Thanksgiving so that we'd be sufficiently hungry for dinner). But that started taking eight hours to make the drive when it should have taken four, so we started leaving on Wednesday night after rush hour ended. When other people got the same idea, and we started arriving in Brooklyn after midnight, my parents said "no more" and we started to stay home. Our relatives drove down once, realized we weren't lying about the traffic, and decided the drive was more trouble than it was worth for, essentially, a meal.

[vdeane]

I'd suggest that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the worst day. People spread out their departures over the days before the holiday, but the majority of them all come home on the same day to return to work or school on Monday.

That's been my experience.  And for the summer holidays, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and whatever day is the end of a natural long weekend for July 4 (assuming it has one) are the worse days.  But the media never talks about them - only the days leading up.

and pretty much no parents took their kids out of school to leave early.

The fact that people do this still shocks me.  Maybe that's why I was surprised that Columbus Day traffic was so high in New England last year - the idea that a holiday during the school year could be a major travel weekend was foreign to me.

[Scott5114]

I think Thanksgiving Day, and day-before, traffic was worse 40 years ago than it is now because back then people didn't spread out their departures as much. I remember us always having a full day of school on Wednesday, and pretty much no parents took their kids out of school to leave early. I remember when I was a little kid, we left for New York on Thursday morning (which was miserable because my mother refused to allow us to eat lunch on Thanksgiving so that we'd be sufficiently hungry for dinner). But that started taking eight hours to make the drive when it should have taken four, so we started leaving on Wednesday night after rush hour ended. When other people got the same idea, and we started arriving in Brooklyn after midnight, my parents said "no more" and we started to stay home. Our relatives drove down once, realized we weren't lying about the traffic, and decided the drive was more trouble than it was worth for, essentially, a meal.

Our traditional thing to do when I was in school was for my parents to take me out of school on Tuesday morning (I already had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off) and we'd drive up to Kansas City, experiencing basically no extra traffic. But to beat the Sunday rush we would leave on Saturday morning, which also gave us the luxury of having Sunday to unpack, decompress, return the rental car, etc. In more recent years, we started leaving Friday, because after spending Tuesday evening and all of Wednesday and Thursday with family, by Friday everyone was starting to get on everyone else's nerves. Leaving the house to do something else wasn't really an option because everything—except the rural Interstates—was too busy Black Friday. So just going home Friday became the more attractive option.