Month: March 2010

Testing, testing

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

Since I’m going to be away from wi-fi for a spell during my Arizona trip, I thought it might be smart to see whether I can update the DogSite via iPhone. Too bad I didn’t think about doing this a couple months ago. The joys of technology may be boundless, but so are the headaches.

Text updates work OK, kinda, sorta — I have to type in the HTML window instead of the Visual window — but pix are a no-go on the Flash-impaired iPhone when using Safari. I tried an end-around using TwitPic, but no joy. Anyone out there with a little more experience? I’m running an old version of self-hosted WordPress (2.6), which may be the source of my troubles. There’s a WordPress app for iPhone, but it requires WordPress 2.7.

You’re out!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Jim Beam) is not only a major-league shithead, he’s a major-league shithead without the courage of his convictions — he dropped his one-eejit crusade against extending unemployment benefits last night.

Of course, “courage” is hardly the word to use here. Dubbed “The Underperformer” by Time magazine in a 2006 article discussing America’s five worst senators, Bunning wouldn’t have dared take such a stand were he not retiring from the Senate. To do so would’ve have taken actual balls instead of the substitutes he played with while pitching baseball instead of fits.

One thing I don’t understand: Why has nobody asked whether Bunning was such a deficit hawk when the Daffy-Fudd cabal was running two unfunded wars? Probably because the press knows it won’t have him to kick around much longer. Lazy pricks.

Crank it up (or down)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
The old beast gets a new crank.
The old beast gets a new crank.

You can quit searching the taverns, flophouses and obits — I’m still very much alive, despite the feddle gummint’s insistence on tinkering with The World’s Best Health Care System®. I just haven’t had much to say. Too busy riding the bike.

I actually managed to log 150 miles last week despite the weather, and I’m finally starting to feel vaguely like a cyclist again. On Wednesday, the DBR went to Old Town for more surgery — this time a Ritchey crankset with 172.5mm arms and 50/34 chainrings — and on Saturday I took it out for three hours and climbed every damn’ hill in town, some of ’em twice.

Weird how the little things can make a difference. I had always ridden 172.5mm cranks until I took up mountain biking. Longer levers were the fashion off road, so I stepped up to 175mm cranks on the MTB and stuck with them when I started racing cyclo-cross. Finally I went to 175s on the road bike, too, thinking, what the hell, I ride ’em on everything else.

But when I got the Jamis Supernova, it showed up sporting a compact crankset with 172.5mm arms. And y’know what? I kinda liked the feel. I’m not grinding along the single-track this time of year — I’m mostly riding the road, or some bike path, and it’s a whole lot easier to spin shorter cranks and smaller rings with bum knees and a big ass.

So chalk up another convert to the Church of the Compact Crank. Now if I could just find a shop that sold legs and lungs. …