New year, same old dog

January 3, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Today I managed a third consecutive day of outdoor cycling and field-tested my ability to fix a flat with a damaged digit. All is well. I froze my nuts off, true, but that’s nobody’s fault but my own for underestimating how much heat a fat bastard can generate riding a flat-bar cyclo-cross bike in subfreezing temperatures with a brisk north wind.

A windproof jacket would’ve been smart. Ditto full booties instead of toe covers. Hell, how ’bout staying indoors and drinking whisky out of the bottle? How many 55-year-old fat bastards do you know who are layering on the Lycra for a 90-minute ’cross-bike ride on a football Sunday when they could be in some warm pub drinking Clydesdale piss and sneaking peeks down the waitress’s blouse?

Yeah, I know. Plenty. And I was one of them. Because I am a dog with a mission — get fit enough to do the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Arizona Road Adventure in mid-March without embarrassing and/or killing myself.

Then I will write about it for Adventure Cyclist magazine, cash the check, and use the proceeds to buy warm clothing. Or whisky. Or both.

Dummy of the Day

January 2, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Our first Dummy of the Day for 2010 comes to us courtesy of The New York Times, in a report on the millions of Americans whose sole “income” consists of food stamps.

The NYT reported collecting income data on food-stamp recipients in 31 states, accounting for about 60 percent of the national caseload. “On average,” the NYT said, “18 percent listed cash income of zero in their most recent monthly filings. Projected over the entire caseload, that suggests six million people in households with no income. About 1.2 million are children.”

And what, pray tell, would Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) do to solve the problem? Why, repeal all corporate and individual income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital-gains taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes — and replace it with a revenue-neutral personal consumption tax, the “FairTax.”

Quoth Linder: “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government. You don’t improve the economy by paying people to sit around and not work. You improve the economy by lowering taxes so small businesses will create more jobs.”

Yeah, that’s just what Isabel Bermudez is doing. When she’s not just comfortable getting by living off the government, sitting around and not working, this victim of the housing bubble distributes résumés by the ream and supports two daughters on no cash and food stamps.

“I went from making $180,000 to relying on food stamps,” she told the NYT. “Without that government program, I wouldn’t be able to feed my children.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Dummy of the Day: John Linder. I hope he was better at pulling teeth out of rednecks’ jawbones than he has been at pulling his own head out of his ass.

Hoppin’ John, cornbread and cycling

January 2, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Hoppin' John and cornbread, mmm, mmm, good.

The holiday season is finally behind us, and soon we will be enduring fewer idiotic stories like this and more like this.

I can see why nobody wanted the byline on the first — any “what’s ahead in 2010” story that mentions Jimmy Dobson and the Broncos is not something a scribe at a bankrupt newspaper chain hopes will draw the eye of potential employers in a dodgy job market.

As to the second, it’s beyond laughable that Janet Napolitano’s gaffe about the Underpants Bomber (“The system worked”) is on a par with Shrub praising the insanely inept Michael Brown for botching the federal response to Hurricane Katrina (“Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job”). But I blame the web editor who posted the piece for penning that fatuous nonsense, not NYT op-ed editor Tobin Harshaw.

And now for the real news: I and my dislocated finger got out for an hour on the mountain bike yesterday. It was my second outdoor ride since taking that digger six weeks ago, and boy, was I ever gun-shy. There’s still plenty of old ice and snow on the deck, just like there was when I laid it down, and I tiptoed around it like a Kurd in a minefield. Still, it’s amazing how much easier it is to do an hour outside than inside, even if it involves wearing neoprene. I liked it so much I may do it again today.

Back at the ranch, in honor of our shared Southern heritage, I whipped up that pot of Hoppin’ John and Herself made a cast-iron skillet full of cornbread. Wine was served and an episode of “Dexter” watched on our new-used Blu-ray player. I’d call that a fair start to the New Year.

• Late Update: I did do it again — this time on the Voodoo of Doom, the very machine that laid me low back in November. The Voodoo sports full-coverage fenders, and since things were getting a little slushy with temps in the mid-40s I took it out for a short spin out east to see if the evil sonofabitch would bite me again. Nope. Worst that happened was that the temps took a dramatic turn for the worse on the ride home and I was a tad underdressed. Oh, well, shivering burns fat, too.

Happy New Year (sissy edition)

January 1, 2010November 16, 2010 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments

OK, so we were gonna go out and act up, eat sushi at Jun, washed down with sake and Kirin, or maybe hit The Blue Star or Nosh, surf the culinary wave of whatever they had going on for $55 a person — and then I said fuck it, I don’t wanna.

Instead, I put a pot of beans on to simmer, sent Herself off in search of additional groceries, dashed downtown to Old Town Bike Shop to drop off a mixed case of Bristol beer in partial repayment for their tolerance and generosity, then roared back home to assemble some green chile chicken enchiladas, a pot of Mexican rice and some pico de gallo to go with the blue corn chips.

Around 6 I cracked bottles of red, white and rosé for me, Herself and a friend, who contributed a delicious butternut-squash soup as an appetizer, which was a good thing as I was running about an hour behind schedule, dinner-wise, which should surprise no one who has ever reserved a table at Chez Dog.

During and after dinner we discussed politics, illness, death, religion, Monty Python, higher education, Firesign Theatre, philosophy, cats, dogs, procreation and the perils thereof, hot springs and the future of the Republic.

Whew.

With dinner over and the friend gone home, I treated myself to a nightcap while Herself padded downstairs to whistle up the voodoo that makes her look 29 while I struggle to maintain a youthful 92. Neither of us made it to midnight. Not with our eyes open, anyway.

And now here it is 2010. The beverage of the day is coffee and I have plans to crank out a mess of Brooklyn-style Hoppin’ John for good luck and prosperity in the new year. Herself and I wish you plenty of both.