June 26, 2019

Horse 2562 - 30 Binary Dilemmas

1. Mac v PC
PC - I live mostly in a world where I need to get work done on a PC. My favourite video games are on PC. This means that only the incidental things to do with entertainment would be on Mac and I survive quite happily on Android.

2. Coke v Pepsi
Pepsi - I have no good reason for preferring one over the other but I like Pepsi more.

3. Cats v Dogs
Cats - Cats are their own people. You live with cats as though they are individuals with their own independent agency. Dogs are far more dependant on you. Cats will make the active choice to like you. The personalities of both cats and dogs are both bigger than the size of the creatures.

4. Ford v GM
Ford - People generally win despite the ambivalence of Ford; GM has in the past taken a more active role. The Ford equivalent in most market segments is in my opinion a better choice.

5. McDonald's v Burger King
McDonald's - The burgers are definitively better at Hungry Jack's/Burger King but they are also generally more expensive and slightly unwieldy. There is something wonderfully rank about nastiness of a McDonald's multi-stack cheeseburger.

6. City v Country
Country - The serenity of country towns is lovely. People have more time for you and more time to do nothing. When some big thing does happen in a country town there is a greater sense of community because it happens to more people proportionately at once.

7. Summer v Winter
Summer - Both are enjoyable in their own way but summer doesn't come with fingertips that scream at you because of the cold, nor does it come with your face leaking everywhere.

8. Books v Movies
Books - I think that because it takes longer to engage with a book and because it requires more emotional investment, the book will always be better than the film. The only example that I can think of where the film was better than the book was the Lord Of The Rings because Tolkien is tedious.

9. Baseball v Football
Baseball - This is giving away the obvious Americentricity of this set of questions but I think that I like the idea of baseball forming the long soundtrack of summer than I do having to sit and watch a football game.

10. Liberals v Conservatives
Liberals - I don't like the lip service that either side pays in order to co-opt politics into doing bad things. Politics should be about governing well and I think that means looking after the citizenry. Conservatives in an American context are more concerned with looking after the rich. I favour incompetence over cruelty.

11. Fly v Cruise
Fly - Flying puts you in so many more different places than cruising can. Admittedly I have never been on a cruising holiday but the idea of being on a thing which is going to make you seasick, which is like an incubator for the flu, and which has a greater risk of ending up at the bottom of the ocean, doesn't appeal to me.

12. Coffee v Tea
Tea - Coffee is almost always utilitarian and functional. The perfect cup of tea though, is amazing. You can have bad cups of coffee. You can almost never have a bad cup of tea unless it has gone cold.

13. Team Edward v Team Jacob
Team Jacob - I only really have a vague idea about the Twilight franchise and so I care not an iota about the story but the idea of a sparkly daytime vampire defies all of the standard literary rules about vampires. If you are going to play in a fictional made-up universe, then you should at least play according to the accepted fictional made-up rules.

14. Oranges v Apples
Apples - This is literally asking you to compare Apples and Oranges and then make a choice. Apples can be put or made into cider, calvados, pies, cobbler, salad, etc. What do oranges do for you apart from making sure that you don't get scurvy, and indicating that it is half time in a football game?

15. Scrambled Eggs v Fried Eggs
Scrambled Eggs - Deep down, everyone knows that they are classier.

16. Cook v Burn
Burn - Cooking over hot coals is better in every respect than cooking on a hot plate. Even when the flames are burning fiercely and the smoke gets in your eyes, even though the smoke and chemicals that are coming off of whatever you are burning is likely to give you seven different kinds of cancer, there is nothing quite like sausages which are burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw in the middle, burgers that taste like kerosene and chemicals, onions that have caramelised, and standing outside with a set of tongs in your hand which makes you look like an expert (even though that's totally not the case).

17. Video Games v Board Games
Board Games - You get more fun by sitting across the tabel from someone and staring them in the face, than you do from playing video games.

18. Snakes v Badgers
Badger - Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom MUSHROOM!

19. Dinner v Dessert
Dessert - You have to stand up for what you believe in. Don't eat dinner at a restaurant - eat three bits of cheescake. Don't fill up on bread - it is designed to make you take less notice of how little dinner there is for the money. Skip both. Get the nice cake.

20. White Bread v Brown Bread
White Bread - It is a worse choice most of the time however, if you want to make a toastie in the sandwich press then brown bread is not up to task. Most of the time white bread is only marginally inferior to brown but you need to be prepared.

21. Black Coffee v Coffee with Cream and Sugar
Black - I am convinced that places like Starbucks deliberately use syrups to hide the fact that their coffee is second rate (see number 12). Do not be deceived. Demand the real thing and judge the coffee for the coffee. Do not trust the mermaids, they are false prophets who pursue false profits. They are like the Sirens in Homer's Odyssey. They will sing a song in order to shipwreck you upon the shoals of bad coffee. Get out of the blue and into the black - they give you this but you pat for that.

22. Organic v Conventional
???? - Not enough context has been provided for the scope of this dichotomy.

23. Salt and Vinegar v Sour Cream and Onion
Salt and Vinegar - So close. Salt and Vinegar is clearly the superior choice here because in the top tier of crisps flavours there is only Plain, Salt and Vinegar, Chicken, Barbecue, and Cheese and Onion.

24. Pork Bacon v Turkey Bacon
Bacon - I take offense to the use of the term "pork bacon" here because by definition Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork. Turkey bacon is a substitute for bacon; usually for religious reasons but it is still only a subsitute. Bacon does not need the qualifier because it is not only the default but the zenith.

25. Mickey Mouse v Dora the Explorer
Mickey Mouse - The Mouse has been polished to the point where he no longer has a personality. He used to be a trickster, in a trio with Donald the hot-head and Goofy the affable klutz. Dora is vacuous and stares into the camera; which gives you the impression of interactivity but there's not not going on behind those cold brown eyes.

26. Facebook v Twitter
Twitter - This is the decision of whether I want to be sad or annoyed. Facebook is replete with people taking photos and it gives you the impression that everyone is having amazing lives but on Twitter, everyone openly wishes that you are disembowled with spears if you stray outside their particular political orthodoxy.

27. East Coast or West Coast
East Coast - WNYC, WBUR, WBEZ, WAMU, WFYI... there are no K's.

28. Dutch Wooden Clogs v Chinese Iron Shoes
Chinese Iron Shoes - I am not sure that these even are a thing but they sound amazing. Just the mere mention of Chinese Iron Shoes is enough to make me think of Isembard Kingdom Brunel in some kind of steampunk Qing dynasty fantasy land. You never know when an unexpected train is going to show up. Brunel needs those Chinese Iron Shoes for his iron football match; which is played by players in suits of armor and kicking an iron football.

29. Telekinesis v Teleportation
Telekinesis - Presumably the ability to move things with your mind, also includes the ability to move yourself with your mind? If so, Telekinesis includes a slower form of Teleportation; which would make it more useful, more of the time. It'd be really useful in that restaurant when you want to move bits of cheesecake.

30. Freeze To Death In Antartica v Burn to Death In The Sahara Desert
Freeze - Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate, To say that for destruction ice, Is also great And would suffice. Freezing to death comes with the cold embrace of eternal silence as opposed to the pain of being on fire.

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