Bone dry Broken Bow Country offers far more than high-quality apparel and prints with lonely skeleton cowboys. It comes with an honest-to-God ethos. Not, like most clothing brands, a “philosophy,” not in a stilted, corporate, phony way. No, this is an ethos. Something that would drive a strong, silent outcast traversing the gasping heat of an endless desert. 'Until you're in front of people, until they know you have the credibility and the ethos, they're not going to care for the most part.' The Broken Bow Country Instagram account features feverish videos full of rebellion and culture: outlaw culture. I assumed that all of these creative lanes — clothing design, prints, video editing, and the adoration of music — were the outcome of a collaborative venture, a lean company of artistic-minded men with a heart for a bygone world. So imagine my surprise upon discovering that Broken Bow Country is the handiwork of a17-year-old student at Columbine High School in Colorado. He took the SAT the day before our interview. His name is Colton Patterson, an artist and country music fanatic, who sees his craft as a path to “actually being true and providing something that adds value to people's lives, that speaks to the stuff that they enjoy.” When he first started the Broken Bow Instagram account last December, it was mainly to curate and share videos he liked. He quickly realized that his video edits appealed to hundreds of people. Then it was thousands, then hundreds of thousands. Before long he had half a million followers. “I couldn't believe it. I'm so grateful to have some place, something that I enjoy and love, and have it in front of that many people. I thank God for it. I've never seen them.” He finds humility in this success. “I'd probably be doing stuff like this if I wasn't, like, getting any return from it at all. I'd still be drawing, and I'd still be looking at classic country stuff, so it's incredible that it's something that is, like, actually going down and that I can do for a job.” I ask Colton what people at school think of his brand and his art. “It's hard to get it across to most people. They think it's cool that it's big and it's out there. But for the most part, people don't care all that much about mostly super old grandpa country music and drawings. It stays on the lower key, but people recognize and see it. They appreciate it.” Pop country sucks Colton remembers road trips with his family when he was 6 or 7: “I'd be in the car, my dad would play him on the CD player we had in there, the movie screen. I'd watch 'The Searchers' and 'The Cowboys.' I loved John Wayne.” His great-grandpa always had Westerns on: “All the John Wayne stuff, and I'd just be there and I can't understand what's going on, but you can see cowboys riding around, and I knew I liked it. It's always just stuck with me and the stuff I do.” “I've always enjoyed country music,” Colton tells me, “and it's always been something that I've been connected through with my grandparents and my dad and everybody. And being an artist and liking to do that stuff, I just wanted to put it all out in one place where I could have the things that I liked or that I thought other people liked just in one location. I thought I'd be good at it, and it turns out that it's worked well, and I'm incredibly grateful. just be able to have it as like a collective or an archive of the stuff that I enjoy, and the classics that really don't get brought up that much.” He loves George Jones, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings. He listens to music while making his art so that he can achieve a “flow state,” the heightening of his creative output. Marty Robbins' album "The Gunfighter," for instance, activates the flow state: “If that doesn't get you in the mood, nothing else will.” He also likes “Ralph Stanley, a bluegrass musician from Kentucky." Colton continues: He played with Keith Whitley, actually, if you know, he was the rhythm guitarist in his band forever, before he was famous. And they rolled around together, and he's one of the best bluegrass musicians of all time. He's incredible. You can make a lot of like Western gunslinger type things and also like very sad portraits and scenes and these types, and I think it just works really well for all the cowboy ethos and all the Western mystical cowboy that surrounds the whole genre of country music. You look around, and like in anything else, in any other genre of music or type of thing or like culture that you look in, you don't find anything that's as pure and preaching good qualities and the type of, I'm just trying to think of the stories and the values that you actually get in country music. Because you're telling stories about people that have been through hard times or that are trying to find God, or a lot of it's God-related too. That's a big thing. He pauses. “Cowboys also,” he adds. “I just think cowboys are cool.” I ask him if he was one of those kids who draws on everything. “Yes, definitely. I've drawn forever. It's something my mom does, and it's something that I've gotten good at just doing over and over. It's really just something that I love and have always wanted to use as an actual outlet or something, the way that my business is doing it now. I'm incredibly grateful to just have it as the centerpiece of everything I do now.” He’s not a fan of modern country. His most striking expression of this contempt is an image of Johnny Cash's skeleton making the same rude gesture he once made in life. Playfully, the post’s location is set to San Quentin Prison. “There's definitely good modern country music, but a lot of it is really just trash,” says Colton. He’s hopeful that this will change. He has a special ire for Morgan Wallen. “I trash him on the account. I feel bad for that, but it's, I don't like the way that it puts country music in, and it really doesn't do justice to a lot of it. George Jones is rolling in his grave.” The Applebee’s song, for instance. When I tell him I haven’t heard it, he’s genuinely relieved. “All the values in country music that are worth it, the ones I was speaking about, the stuff that I actually resonated with, are completely lost in most of the stuff that comes out today,” he tells me: Because it's really mostly just about getting drunk and doing whatever, all these party songs, like things you can just spread out and commercialized and put on the radio, and it's not things that are truly speaking to people's emotions and true stories and feelings that people have. Because George Jones or any of these guys, Waylon Jennings, they make songs that are they started off as people that were just pawns of like commercial radio and all the big country stars that were wearing like rhinestone suits on stage But then they actually shifted over to music that was speaking to true, like, gritty problems that people have, alcoholism and women leaving you, things like that, like stuff that you don't want to talk about if you're putting it out to mass radio platforms. And it's truly, it's been lost. It's just not there in new country. I'm hoping that it doesn't stagnate or something doesn't happen, but really it's just my goal to keep going authentically, putting out the content and collecting the things that people like to see and enjoy and have lost in other parts where they're just not being shown. It's really just what I'm trying to stick to as time goes on.Tradition Along with remaining humble, Colton's concerned with maintaining authenticity. “What I realized very early on is that like no one will care about it until you just put it in front of them and you've shown that you can add value to their life," Colton says. "Because I imagine I could have started with the drawings, I could have posted them as much as I wanted, but until you're in front of people, until they know you have the credibility and the ethos, they're not going to care for the most part.” “But having the page and showing that, like, I can constantly find these things and create this collection of stuff that people enjoy watching and that I love — it creates a community and a group of people that you know, like, are familiar with your taste and things you like. It's all just about being actually genuine because you can't get anything across. People know when you're faking it and when you're just trying to move your way up or try to get a little leverage on them.” “Things aren't looking the best,” Colton says. “But culturally, the values you're talking about, I think definitely because in the '70s, you saw people come out of the '60s and they had a conservative revival because you've seen like the peak, like the pendulum swung all the way this way and, like, people are doing crazy stuff. They're like, okay, we gotta come back down and get back to traditional values. And I think that's very much what's happening right now." I tell him that I've seen it also in faith with his generation. “Faith is definitely coming back a great deal. More people believe in God now than ever in the past recent years, at least. I see tons of people my age that believe in God and take it on more. Because people are realizing right now, they're understanding, like, we've gotten too far away. Like it's time to come back and reel in.”

Some of us of a certain age will forever associate used cars with the 1980 comedy of the same name. Particularly memorable is Kurt Russell's performance as master salesman Rudy Russo. When a hapless would-be customer informs Rudy that he's "just looking," Rudy is unfazed and delivers the following pitch without taking a breath: Oh, hey: Terrific. Terrific, that's what we're here for, Stan. Here you can look, browse, peek, touch, feel, taste, smell — do anything you want, take all the time you want — nobody's gonna pressure anyone around here, Stan. … You know something, though, Stan? I really think you gotta buy that car. I think you gotta buy it today, right now, you wanna know why? Cause that Buick is you. The color is you. Look at it: That is your car. Stanley Kowalski IS Buick Centurion Convertible. Now I know what you're thinkin', Stan. You're thinkin,' "Can I afford to buy a car like this?" Huh? Am I right? Seriously, Stan, you can't afford NOT to buy a car like this. Now I'm gonna make it easy for ya: You add this whole thing up, you take in account inflation rates, insurance savings, gas savings, ease and comfort, and you're gonna come out ten thousand dollars ahead just for making this deal. Well, hell! The prestige alone at owning a Buick Centurion Convertible can't be measured in terms of dollars and cents, am I right? The consumer who is "just looking" today is obviously in a much better position to outfox the Rudy Russos of the world. Here Align car expert Lauren Fix tells us everything you need to know about buying used. — Matt Himes See what's out there There's a website called ISeeCars. It's sort of like a consolidation site, and they do a lot of research. And when you look at the used car prices, they're going to have the most current used car pricing on what's a good deal, what's a bad deal. They have some buying guides as well. Certified pre-owned or used? What I really want you to think about is am I looking for a certified pre-owned or used car? You don't have to finance with the dealer. Use a credit union. Credit unions have great rates. You join on the spot. It costs nothing. They want to work with you. Obviously it's based on how much money you have. But if you're thinking I really want a reliable used car, these new cars, all this newfangled technology, I want someone else to deal with the headache. So by the time it gets to me, the headache's gone. They take the depreciation and I get a great deal on a vehicle. Say you want a Volkswagen. Then you go to a Volkswagen dealership and look for what's called a CPO or a certified pre -owned. You want a Ford? You want a Ford dealer. You want a Hyundai? You want a Hyundai dealer. You want a Mazda? Go to a Mazda dealer. You can get a CPO from a lot of different brands. Buying a CPO from the dealer Let's say you go to your favorite GM dealer and you want to buy a Chevy Cruze. It's a few years old, and it's a CPO, which means it's got low mileage, they've checked it out, they've done all the upgrades for the technology, for the technical service bulletins, any recalls, all that's done. And they'll extend the warranty and transfer it to you. Major bonus. Buying a CPO from a different dealer Now if you go to a Honda dealer, and you see a Nissan in the lot and it's certified pre-owned, it's not going to have all that. They will give you a warranty, typically 90 days, but that's about it. You're not going to get the technical service bulletins done. In most cases, you're not going to get the recalls done (unless it's a recall they have to do, like an airbag or an ignition switch). That's on you to go to that dealer and get it done. And time is money for everybody. Now, certified pre-owners are not all the same. They all have different checklists of what they cover and what they don't. The secret of high-end CPOs You can go to a Porsche dealer and see a 2019 listed as a certified pre-owned. Most other brands only offer CPOs from the last two or three years. If a car is modified in any way that changes the look or the functionality of the car (timing, ignition, computer, exhaust), then that's used. However, you could find a car like the one I got. I went to a Porsche dealer, and they had it on the lot as a CPO: 2019, with 5,000 miles. Because it was unmodified. They'll extend the warranty to you for another three years. Plus you get maintenance — no one's covering that. An oil change on a Porsche (I happen to own a Cayenne) is around $1,100. So if that's included, I'm in. The other brand that does this is Ferrari. Now, not everyone can afford a Ferrari. But if you're thinking, I've got the money, and I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, and this is the car I want, well, these cars aren't necessarily half a million dollars. You can buy one for $100,000. It's a lot of money. I get it. It's not for everybody. But if you've got $100,000 and you've always wanted a Ferrari, buy it at the dealer. If you buy it from some independent guy, because he's got it and the price seems right and the color was what you wanted, and he can do the financing and all that, here's what you won't get: no warranty extension, no maintenance extension. Whereas Ferrari gives you a seven-year warranty. In other words, they want you to come back to the Ferrari dealer. As with Porsche, If the car is modified, there's no certified pre-owned. A friend of mine just bought a brand-new Ferrari 488. 2019, but it's basically new: 2,000 miles on it. Really nice car. My friend got the seven-year extended warranty and three years of free maintenance. Now can you imagine what maintenance costs on a Ferrari? Now back to reality ... Longest used car warranties Hyundai and Kia and Genesis have 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty. That's gonna be your longest. Super beneficial to those who are keeping the car. You have a problem, you go back to the dealer, even if you didn't buy it from that dealer. The warranty extends. Volkswagen and the other German brands are the only other companies that offer warranties longer than three years. They'll give you four years, 50,000 miles. Let's say you're looking at an old VW Golf, you think, this is a reasonable car for my kid. It's got a few thousand miles on it. It's two years old. That's a good buy for you, especially if you buy it from the dealer, because you get that transferable warranty, plus you've got the factory warranty. Those are huge factors in buying a used car. $10,000 and under Now what if you're saying, "I don't have that kind of money. I've got $10 ,000 and I need to buy a car. What do I do?" I always tell people before you make these decisions, whatever you're driving, the rule of thumb is if the repair is more expensive than the value of the vehicle, get rid of the vehicle. For example, I've got a $10,000 car. That's what it's worth. I got $8 ,000 or $10,000 worth of repairs. Why would you do that? Why would you put $10,000 or even $8,000 into a $10,000 car? Because you're never going to get $18,000 out of that car. So that's when it's time to get rid of that vehicle and look for something else. Now, a lot of people like to go to private owners. Totally fine. But make an agreement with them to meet you at whatever repair shop you've chosen: "Hey, can you meet me at Joe the mechanic? He's my buddy. He's an ASC certified tech. He's going to go through that vehicle." Even Midas will do that. Lauren's three categories of used car quality Green: This car is perfect. Nothing wrong with it. Definitely buy it. Yellow: This car has reasonably repairable problems. Maybe it needs brakes. Maybe there was damage that might cost you down the road. Maybe the transmission's looking questionable, that's a few thousand dollars. But you need the whole list, just so you know what expenses are coming your way and also to negotiate the price. You know that transmission? It's going to be $500 to rebuild it. Now you've got $500 of negotiating space. So now you can say, you know what, you want $10,000 for that car. It needs a transmission. Either you can repair the transmission for $500 or give it to me for $9,500. So it gives you some negotiating space. If they say no and you buy it anyway, just remember when you buy used [from an individual], there's no warranty expressed or implied, you buy it. It's yours. Have a nice day. There's no recourse whatsoever in any state or any country, for that matter. This is why buying from a used car lot might be a better option. You're protected by a federal "lemon law," which gives you 90 days to report a problem. Red: Run away from these cars as fast as you can. Unless you're a mechanic and you really have the skills and you want to tear out all the electrical wiring and find out if the airbags work and all the safety systems work. Most of them don't. And you won't know that till you're in an accident. This category includes flood-damaged cars. Never, ever, ever buy a flood-damaged car. There is zero warranty even on rust-through protection. Nothing. Now you may say, "I live in Idaho, I'm not gonna have a flood-damaged car." Well, those cars are all over the world. Just think of Hurricane Katrina and Rita way back when. They alone caused around 650,000 flood-damaged cars. Many of them got crushed, but not all of them. And almost half a million of them, and no one knows where they are. So they could end up literally anywhere in the world. And how does that happen? Something called title washing. So the cars all sat in yards waiting for the insurance company to pay, because they have to pay to put that information on Carfax. So if it cost them $500 a car to report it, and there's 650,000 cars, do the math. They're just going to pick and choose the ones that are more expensive or ones that they know are done. They sell the others to salvage yards. And the salvage yard says, "You know, that brand-new Cadillac, that's pretty nice. Low mileage." And it ends up in the system [without flood damage on the title]. A lot of these cars are in the system. Not all of them got totaled. There are ways for you to find out, and we can cover that on another segment. But it's easy to find out if you take it to a mechanic. Look underneath the fuse box cover. If you see mold, you see water, you see moisture — you do not want that car. We've all spilled something on our computer or phone or whatever and you freak out. Imagine it's a car. New vs. used Let's say you've got $20,000 to spend. You could buy a new car, maybe a Nissan Versa or a Hyundai Kona, or you could buy a used car and get something bigger that still has pretty current safety. What do you do? This is the one thing that's going to help you decide. Because I know it's very confusing. You're like, yeah, I could buy a '22 or I could buy a '24. I'm really torn. Well, first off, you have to look at the finance charges. You don't have to finance with the dealer. Use a credit union. Credit unions have great rates. You join on the spot. It costs nothing. They want to work with you. There are tons of credit unions all around the country. Great way to save money. Get their best rate. Then ask the dealer to beat it. And they will. And if they can't, you've got something in play and it's locked in. So that's worthwhile. The other side is call your insurance agent. Hey, I'm looking at a '22 whatever and I'm looking at a '24 whatever. What are the relative insurance costs? You might be surprised. It could be more expensive or less expensive. It depends on the car, it depends on the safety features, it depends on the cost of damages. Electric vehicles are super expensive to repair; so are hybrids. So what happens is the insurance rates are higher, especially when they have more technology, more cool safety features. If the car gets totaled, it's going to be a higher rate. So I'd just like you to do your homework beforehand. It's not just the cost of the car; it's your interest rate Most of all, don't buy anything used online unless you really, truly know that vehicle. If you're buying a new Honda Civic and having six different dealers pitch against each other, that's a different story. With a used car, you have to drive it. You have to see it with your own eyes. It is absolutely buyer beware. I don't care if you're buying a Ferrari or you're buying a Kia. It doesn't make a difference. This can even happen with CPOs. These are what we call ten-footers. In other words, they looks great from ten feet. Then you get up close and it's not at all the car they portrayed it to be. Warning signs to look for Some people are not nice. They have bad intentions, shall we say. I've seen everything from wood chips in an engine to all kinds of additives to stop a transmission or an engine from leaking. The biggest expense of anything on a car today is either electrical or engines. And the engines are the heart of the vehicle. Take a hybrid. You've got two propulsion systems: the electric side and the gas side. So I always tell people to keep in mind: if one side goes wrong, can you still drive the car? Will you have an electric car that only does 30 miles an hour? This happens a lot with super old Priuses or Prii, as I call them. The Toyota Prius has been around for 30 years. If you've got an original one and the electric side's not working, if you run it as a gas car, it's going to be extremely underpowered. So remember that you need everything to work together as a team. So the engine or the driveline components are gonna be super expensive. And so that's what you want checked. You want the engine, the fluids, you want the transmission, or depending on what type it is, have them look at the rear end also. All that makes the wheels move. You want to have them take the wheels off the car. They'll see things that you'll miss, like rust, corrosion, damage, wrong parts, aftermarket components on a newer car. It could be a rebuild. And then, of course, you want to see the title. Dealers will never sell you a CPO or a used car off their lot if they don't have a clear title. if you're buying from an individual, if they don't have a clear title, that's a huge warning. If they're willing to pay it off, fine. So when you go to buy the vehicle, you meet each other at the bank and the bank will take their money and give you a lien release. You don't want to buy a vehicle with either UCC filings, which would be from a commercial vehicle or a lien on the vehicle, because if it's there, you won't own the car. Whoever is the lien holder will have first priority, which is typically a bank or a leasing company. Buying from a lease This is another great way to get a good deal. Maybe you leased a Lexus. You love the vehicle. It's at the end of the term. Maybe you're over mileage and the mileage fee is super expensive. It could be 30 cents a mile. Could be seven cents a mile. It depends what you sign on your lease agreement. And I've done this. I actually bought a car off the lease. I tell the leasing company, hey, I'm going to buy this at the end. The agreed-upon prices are already in your lease agreement. It is not negotiable in any way, shape, or form. There's typically a buyout amount between $100 and $500. They call it paperwork, which is basically taking the paper from one side of the desk and moving it to the other. You will pay out the lien to the lien release company, and it's yours. In some cases (depending on the lease or the state), you have to pay sales tax on the balance of the unleased amount. And then that vehicle's yours. I have a vehicle from 2016. I paid, bought it off the lease. I have no reason to get rid of it. I drive multiple different vehicles every week because I'm a journalist and I review cars. So every week I have somebody else's car, so I don't get to put miles on my own, so I decided to keep it. Everyone's got a different scenario, but don't ever leave money on the table. In other words, if you don't have a lot of miles on the car — maybe you've got 8,000 miles a year and you bought 10,000 or 12,000 miles a year — it makes sense to buy it off the lease. Then you've got a great used car that you don't give to someone else. If you're way over mileage, you have to weigh the cost of the overage. Maybe I should buy it out even with the sales tax. I'll be ahead and I have a car that I know that I bought new at least. And with the economy being what it is, a lot of people are buying off the lease. It makes a ton of sense. Too good to be true?My cousin contacted me on a Mercedes. She was looking at a used car a lot. She found a used C-Class. She said, "This is what I really love. I always wanted one of these. The price is like right in my sweet spot." I said, "Hold on. Before you do anything, what's the price?" And then I looked it up on Kelley Blue Book. And I said, "This car seems too good to be true. Let's run a Carfax on it." They didn't want to do it. So I pull Carfax for her — and anyone can do it, there's a fee sometimes, sometimes there isn't — and it says it's from New Orleans. I think, huh, 2-year-old car from New Orleans, low mileage, way low on price. And I say, "There's three red flags here. This is a no." But she really wanted the car. It was black, it was awesome, it was cool. So I said, "OK, before you do anything, tell them you want to take it to the local Mercedes dealership and have them look at it to see what kind of repairs it might need." And they said, "No, we're not doing that." So there's your second huge red waving flag. So she said, "I don't want the car." And then of course they came down even lower on the price. And she knew right there that they were trying to sell her a bag of goods.

The ongoing speculation of an Xbox handheld recently reached fever pitch after Phil Spencer all but confirmed the existence of one. But is pushing a Steam Deck rival the right thing to do, especially when Xbox is already losing the console war by a landslide? While Microsoft will have the resources to create what should be one of the best handheld gaming PCs for its Xbox brand, many contenders have sat in similar positions and still not come close to beating out Valve's portable. Continue reading An Xbox handheld is all but confirmed as it targets the Steam Deck MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Microsoft DirectX Raytracing, Microsoft Hololens hands-on, Windows Game Mode preview

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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge As slick and polished as macOS is, it can slow down over time, as you add file after file and program after program to your Apple system. After a few years of heavy use, the idea of wiping your Mac and starting again from a factory-fresh clean slate starts to make more and more sense. This isn’t just something to do if you want to clear out the clutter and fix persistent problems, though: resetting your Mac is also important when you’re selling it or passing it on. You don’t want anyone else poking around in your files or your web browsing data, and a reset stops that from happening. Resetting a Mac is fairly straightforward, but you do need to make sure everything on it is backed up before you get started (or at least everything you... Continue reading…

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