Today’s was a long and unproductive stint in the old VeloBarrel. VN.com remains a little twitchy — envision a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs — and this afternoon in addition to the usual hitches in its digital gitalong I started having trouble simply staying connected to the site.
This is problematical if you’re one of the people being paid to stuff bits and bytes up the digi-tubes linking France, Colorado, Wyoming and California. Thus I accomplished very little beyond rearranging the order in which I repeatedly delivered a short selection of choice obscenities.
Beats me what the problem was (and still is). My other usual haunts — The New York Times, Political Animal, DrunkCyclist and this miserable site — are chugging right along. And this site and DC are both WordPress-based models, too. So go figure.
“Is it too early to start fuckin’ drinking?” I IM’d web editor Steve Frothingham around 1:30. “It’s 9:30 p.m. in France,” he replied.
Speaking of booze, Frank Bruni has an item on the Bloody Mary over at today’s NYT.com. Writes Mr. Bruni: “The bloody mary bridges the speakeasy and the herb garden; it’s a liquid salad into which you can not only pour pretty much any kind of base alcohol you like but also sprinkle parsley, basil or cilantro, and, while you’re at it, cram in hunks of vegetables, usually pickled, of many types.”
He then goes on to describe an appalling series of effete East Coast beverages served up by sissified Noo Yawk bistros that must make a Sonoma County wine bar look like a Hell’s Angels clubhouse by comparison.
I was never big on Bloodies, myself. Back in my morning-drinker days the crowd I ran with favored the lowly red beer as a palliative for the daily brain sprain. This was simply whatever cheap lager was on tap at the nearest dive bar mixed with Snap-E-Tom tomato-and-chile juice, repeated as necessary. A wedge of lime upped the vitamin-C content while adding much-needed roughage.
Maybe I’ll have one tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll just get straight into the smack.
Mad Blog Media 
How about a lot of Bushmills and a little coffee?
Hey, Jeff … now that’s a manly drink! Call it Journalism In a Jar.
I managed to get some sort of summer flu. I know I’m sick when I don’t even want a beer or a glass of wine. Turned off Le Bore de Frog this morning, called in sick, and went to bed. Hope all was well elsewhere.
VN.com site seems strange lately. I don’t find the new format particularly geezer-friendly.
K, bummer … I’ve just been wrestling with allergies so far (knock on wood). One of the advantages of working from a home office, I suppose. Get well soon. Before you know it that fine fall weather will be creeping up on us. Hell, it feels like fall right now — it’s been pissing down rain here in Bibleburg every afternoon, and as we speak it’s about 65 with 55 percent humidity. Snow on Pikes Peak, too.
Patrick: I’m always up for an Irish coffee or three (I prefer Bushmills, but Jameson is a good call). Sometimes I like a little Bailey’s instead. I mean, it’s coffee, right? You can’t deny a man his coffee at work. Besides, management can’t hear you slur your words in an IM or an email.
Khal: Get well soon. We can’t have you lying about the house sober.
Here is one for you: last Saturday at the TdF in R’dam, I had the ‘pleasure’ of standing behind some 5’4″ tall Frog who insisted on running to and fro chasing lord knows what sort of sponsor crap they were throwing at the crowd.
After about way too much of it I was about to stick my elbow in his eye socket when I noticed that he had a 1.5 liter Nalgene-type bottle with him.
And at one of the rare chances when there was not some crazy, souped up jalopy cruising by spewing crap, Frog dude whips out some beer and pours it into his bottle. I have no idea what kind it was – could have been Coors for all I know – when I noticed the 10 inches of beer head creeping up the bottle.
Keeping in mind that a 1.5 liter bottle is only about 14-16 inches high, and he was using a 12 oz. size can of beer, I was wondering (and still am actually) how the hell he got 10 inches of foam out of such a small can?
Never at a loss for idiocy, he then proceeded to start drinking from the bottle. All he was able to manage was a good mouthful of foam…. Why is beer lost on some Europeans?? Why????
Still over here in It’ly. Our Legendary Climbs of the Giro EAST clients went home yesterday, happy and tired after tackling lots of tough climbs, great meals and delicious vino. Our tours are multi-sport, cycling, eating and drinking are the three main elements. Now we’re off on a little vacation to the mountains bordering France — we’ll pop over and see one or two stages of that big race in France where they give out the yellow shirt (can’t say any more for fear of the ASO boyz asking for royalty payments)in person if we get tired of riding our own bikes (both road and MTB) and relaxing in the mountain sunshine. As to drinks, here the Aperol Spritz is popular and VERY refreshing, made with some prosecco and a dash of the bitter Aperol concoction. Next, for the more serious drinkers is the Negroni…favorite of our friend Richard Pestes at PezCyclingNews (can we mention that on here?) as well as my father-in-law…..when he visited I turned him on to these and he wanted one every afternoon from then on! I’m sure when we visit for the holidays I’ll need to run down to the hooch store and stock up on the ingredients–Martini Rosso, gin and Campari.
Here in Wisco they do the beer & tomato juice thing too – we always called it a Bloody Harry in the day. Of course, like Lewis Black has famously observed, Wisconsin enjoys some sort of Federal subsidy for alcohol.
Perhaps you should make the velo-barrel a whiskey barrel….a full one.
Larry T: Which begs two questions…
1) You need a vacation? From riding your bike, eating like a god, and drinking Italian libations? Really?
2) Can one have a Negroni at breakfast?
Hard to believe, but YES, we need a vacation. Making sure our clients enjoy the three disciplines of cycling, eating and drinking is not easy, otherwise anyone could do it! We try to make it seem pretty easy but there’s a LOT of work to make these tours go smoothly and looking after everyone each day takes a toll on us after awhile, despite the great riding, eating and drinking we get to enjoy along with them. The stress of being “Zio Lorenzo” – the go-to guy when there’s a question or something needs to be done (assuming I can’t get Zia Heather to handle it!)takes its toll in ways our clients don’t always understand. But 99% of the time I’ll admit to thinking “I can’t believe we get paid to do this” — otherwise we’d have some sort of JOB like most folks. We’re incredibly fortunate to be able to make money doing something we love though we could both probably make a lot more doing something we hated!
I forgot 2) Negroni at breakfast? Normally my response to most questions is “perche no?” (why not?) so I guess you can have whatever you want though I must admit Negroni’s are a bit strong for me as an aperitivo if we’ll be enjoying a fair amount of vino at dinner. Some folks seem to knock ’em back with no ill effects but I’ll have an Aperol Spritz or a simple Campari Soda (or Crodino)most evenings if before-dinner drinks are in order (and in most cases they ARE!)