Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for October 03, 2018

Sometimes when nobody younger than me is around, I take the atlas off the bookshelf and look at the maps.

Lesson #2, lose the bow tie.

I like the bowtie.

I still have a Thomas Guide behind the driver’s seat of my truck.

well, I’m a few years over 30 and I don’t own a physical map

Owning a map wouldn’t help them, they wouldn’t know how to turn it on nor where to put the batteries.

And most of them can’t read a map anyway. Why bother when they can just plug in origin and destination on their GPS. But I do admire the ones who CAN READ MAPS and don’t rely entirely on GPS. At least their likely to be able to find where their going when their GPS is down.

And the secret to keeping those pesky kids from asking to borrow your vehicle is to drive a stick shift.

My physical map always works without batteries and amongst all of the skyscrapers that are blocking GPS satellites.

They love vinyl LPs and turntables. They’re now obsessed with typewriters. Globes, atlases, and road maps are next.

I have grown grandchildren that are confused by an analog clock. No lie.

At least Goat gets dressed up for a date, whereas his date shows up naked.

I enjoy maps.. period

Come the next Carrington Event and they won’t be able to find their way out the front door of their house…

I remember when gas stations gave maps away for free and you could use them as place mats in the car.

Maps will come in handy if a solar flare knocks out the satellites that help with GPS.

Just when you think Pastis is beginning to lose direction, along comes this! :D

Used to have the bound metro maps for the area I lived, in addition the large Ran McNally book of the US. Was fun as a kid, or teaching my kids, how to read, measure distance, and follow along when traveling. The only physical maps I use anymore is when visiting a foreign country – will get the walking maps for the cities we’re visiting.

Quite certain my parents don´t own a physical map anymore.

I love my gps and phone, but I use a physical map as well. Recently I heard map sales are up, and the reason is that they’re actually useful to get an overview of the entire area. My job entails going to a LOT of places I’ve never been over a state wide area.

Not too many people using a map drive over the edge of a pier, which GPS users apparently do from time to time.

Uh huh. And last Friday I trusted Skynet Maps, which told me I could drive from Huntington, WV to Toledo, OH in 5 hours and routed me through Columbus during rush hour. Don’t trust Skynet. Stay on the interstate.

Real men don’t use maps. That would be like asking for directions. ;-)

We’ll see who’s lauhing when the grid goes down and their phones are useless!! We didn’t get this old by accident!!

Always get out the real map to make sure the electronic one makes $cents. The electronic maps have a way of taking you on tour when you do not want to go on tour :-)

Goat can keep his maps and still be hip: put them on a mobile device. When I’m traveling anywhere, I render all my maps as PDF docs and load them on a Kindle. Works great.

The green bowtie reminds me of money.

Obsolete in our smarty-pants phone age; maps (maybe), film developing, payphones, phonebooths (where would Superman change now?)…

I can’t even read paper maps without glasses now, so I feel older than Goat.

I thought Stephen said he can’t draw cars.

Oh, sure if you’d rather do it the “easy” way…

Maps are very good for planning trips and they know the difference between a logging road and a freeway. Can’t tell you where you are or optimize travel time.

I used to be a map-maker, so I always use a paper map first. And I keep a compass in my car, too.

Honestly, I love my Google Maps and GPS on my phone. Greatest invention ever, plus easing a totally irrational fear I have of being lost.

A road map? Damned few over 30, too.

GPS tells the pizza delivery to turn off of 7th street onto State Line Road and go three miles. But State Line Road ends in one mile at the sleazy biker bar.

I taught land navigation with terrain maps that show the hills and rivers. I would make up stories about why the town was built here and why the highway bridge was there.

I like paper maps, keep several in my car. And no scrolling around ads.

unless they are backpacking where there is no cell signal

Old goat is dating a young kid, maybe he should work for the Trump admin.

I do. Get lost once in an area without cellular data and you will too.

She was just trying to get his goat and it worked.

Even though I have a TomTom GPS in my car, I have a couple of road atlases under the driver’s seat and four or five maps in my glove compartment. To me, when you’re driving somewhere you’ve never been, there’s no such thing as “too much information” to get you there.

some people act like there are no maps in GPS apps. Plus you can zoom in and out, and have different views. Is what you do with those maps.

By the way, I am over 30

Hey Nineteen

No we can’t dance together

No we can’t talk at all

Maps have advantages, they never need a new battery, or fail when you lose the signal.

No GPS or ‘smart phone’, but using my computer Google map of place I’m going to, & print out a map. Have a huge map collection but changes in the last 40+ years make them useless.

Don’t let it bother you, Goat.She’s just jealous because she never learned to refold a road map.

I have a road atlas AND a Garmin Nuvi.

I still use maps and damn proud of it too!

I love maps! I still have them! Than again, I did just turn 50 so there is that.

Who’ll be laughing after EMP knocks out GPS service and you’re desperately hunting for a back road out of town before the nukes hit?

My first brush with electronic directions was on a mapping site on the computer. It said turn south and go a half-mile, then turn right and go two miles, then make two left hand turns (a u-turn) and go back three miles to the four lane, then turn south and go one mile.I mentioned it to my coworkers, and one of them pointed out that it should have had me turn left on the four lane, go to Atlanta and go all the way around the beltway there, and come back one more mile than the drive north. It would have put me in the same location also.

It merits noting, there’s a lucrative market for antique maps. In fact, map collecting has seen something of a resurgence in the last decade. Personally, the map I’d love to put my hands on was actually a prop in the 1998 movie, “The Mask of Zorro,” a wall-sized map of the historical territory of Mexico, printed on fabric.

poor goat

I am 26 and I own a physical map of my home state.

I have a bunch of (increasingly out-of-date) road maps, but they live in a desk drawer and no longer in my car. The only maps in my car are the ones that came included with the Owner’s Manual and related stuff in a folder, and I don’t use them. I check out any unfamiliar routes on computer before leaving home….

But it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m an Old Fart and Goat looks like a kid to me (pun intended)….

They stop laughing when the GPS blanks out and reboots in city traffic. Maps are always readable.

When I started driving my first car in 1968 I always kept a state map and a city map in my glove compartment. I never got lost!

that is my dad in a nutshell (He’s 50)

I’d’ve been laughing more because he kept the map in the trunk…

To everyone in the comment section complaining because young people don’t know how maps work and rely entirely on GPS: first of all, this is simply false. Most of us know how to use a map and compass. Secondly, when accurate maps and compasses were new technology, people probably complained that new generations rely too much on them and wouldn’t know how to navigate “properly”, with sticks, stones, the sun, moon stars, and wind-most of which is fairly easy to learn, and even now this knowledge is not lost. So, please stop complaining.