Ahh … another Saturday unsullied by work for vampire capitalists. Doesn’t pay worth a damn, but it has its advantages nonetheless.
For example, today we’re looking at a high in the mid-50s, which strikes me as pretty good cycling weather. And there are containers of freshly made green chile sauce, chili con carne and vegetable beef soup in the ’fridge, so the day’s eating is more or less taken care of — assuming I don’t decide to assemble some chicken enchiladas to slide under that green chile come dinnertime.
The trick will be to stay far away from the computer, wherein all the evil tidings dwell. There remain four red-ass baboons running for the GOP pestilential nomination — ook ook ook chee chee chee! — and they are flinging dung at each other with a will in advance of Tuesday’s primaries in Arizona and Michigan.
There’s plenty to do around here without all that smelly old shit. Herself is off to Function Junction for a couple of days to handle some library business, and Bouncing Buddy Banzai the Spinning Japanese Wonder Chin has managed to FUBAR his right eye, which requires the application of various pills and potions, and eventually surgery.
Poor little dude has not had much luck with the medicos. Neither have we. Every time we take him to the vet I hear the sound of someone’s Mercedes payment being made. Cha-ching!
Once Herself gets back, I’m off — to the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Sacramento. Never been to one before and I’m looking forward to it, if only because I’m in dire need of a road trip, some sort of Gathering of the Tribes. Plus there will be editors there, and occasionally where one finds editors, one finds paying work.
What I’d really like to do is hit the Arizona desert for a week of running and riding. But since that pays, um, not at all, an actual play date may have to wait until I unearth another patron of the velo-arts or two or three.
It’ll certainly have to wait until after the primary. You couldn’t pay me to set foot in the state until someone’s policed up all that GOP poo.
Mad Blog Media 
You guys are busy! Enjoy your great weather.
Dear Buddy is lucky to have Herself and You. Buddy’s breed is prone to eye problems so his delightful feline companions cannot be blamed for his ailment – right?
Your chile sauces sound wonderful. I’ll have to start making it. Your kitchen efforts have provoked me to buy and use several different chile powders, mapache (I’ve run out), and chipotle. I also use a harissa spice mixture.
I watched on Cspan Book Tv (also online) the last part of author Morris Berman’s appearance
in an Arizona bookstore. His book is “Why America Failed: the Roots of America’s Decline”. One of his points was how we must always have a war or adversary; our historical nature of self-congratulation; national character of solitude and the curious mix of Orwell’s and Huxley’s visions in America today. He also hit on the growth of cruelty in the US, citing remarks made by Paul and Perry during the debates as examples.
Hey, Libby … Buddy might disagree with you. Since he’s been with us he’s been to the vet a ton, and he hates the vet the way the GOP hates Obama. I’m surprised he hasn’t run away to join the circus.
The eye issue is genetic, for sure. We knew he had a cataract developing in the right eye and the other day he suffered an anterior lens luxation that basically turned the eye into a silvery marble. The surgeon says he still has some light sensitivity there, but recommended removing the eye.
There’s apparently no rush, as long as he doesn’t seem to be in any pain, so we’re going to put it off a while. Poor little guy already had one surgery in the past seven months, to remove bladder stones, and if we don’t have to cut him right away we’re not gonna.
NAHBS? Have fun! I threatened to go last year but riding my own bikes in Moab won out as a winter escape. One of these days I’ll get there, if for no other reason than to see Dario Pegoretti in person, I still laugh when I think of the film those overpriced, made-up-history clothing folks paid to have made about him. Watched the Bill Maher bit via the ‘net last night. Comedians all over the USA should be paying the Repuglicans for providing free material for their acts – Maher’s must have been 75% devoted to that silliness. Meanwhile over here ol’ Sil Berlusconi skated yet again in another trial. This proves the slogan on the Italian courtroom walls, “il legge e uguale per tutti” (the laws are equal for all) but it seems that if your name is not TUTTI, but Berlusconi, that doesn’t apply.
Larry, m’boys Brent Steelman and Mark Nobilette won’t be in attendance, looks like. But the Paul’s Components folks will be there, along with the Bruce Gordon and Soulcraft mobs, so I won’t be totally among strangers. Plus Mike Deme of Adventure Cyclist and Matt Wiebe of BRAIN will be there, so there will be single malt.
Dirt Rag, Bicycle Times, Momentum and Mountain Flyer will be there, too, so maybe I can persuade one or more editors to lower their standards and kick some work my way. Single malt might come in handy there, too.
SOPWAMTOS will be there? That should be fun – I wish they’d revive the golden toilet seat award program, there are a few industry folks who are very deserving these days! Might even be one or two at NAHBS though I don’t think you can call the hand-built bike makers a true “industry” which is fine by me.
Write if you find work! But then maybe ‘Bob and Ray’ didn’t air west of the Hudson.
Buddy is indeed a fortunate dog. Agreed no cutting unless really really called for. Is there an eyepatch for Chinns? Would add nicely to the Kanakazi image.
Gotta live the Repugs! Sanatorium called Mittens a LIberal. I mean really as a Librral I’m all for inclusion, but I draw the line at having Mittens in the neighborhood. Too damn expensive.
Hope Herself has a good time in the company of other librarians. We’d do well with more of ’em.
Ben, this may be one of the few venues that a Bob-and-Ray reference has a prayer of being understood. Every time I whip out one of those Herself snickers and mutters, “Old man. …”
What ho from Library Land in your neck of the woods?
Weird, in a word.
Last interview the staff kept asking “How would you protect us from the Board” and the Board kept asking “tell us how you’d communicate to the staff ‘shutup and just do your job.”
Not a healthy place, but it would have been a fun gig.
Ya, Herself is right. Bob and Ray are the only comics my dad and I have in common. He didn’t even care for Allan Sherman that much.
If I remember correctly the halting of the Golden Toilies was not voluntary. Some of the recipients weren’t very happy about getting such an honor and applied pressure to the Interbike folks, who then banned the proceedings.
File under “can’t have nothin’ nice”.
Correct, Derek. The Golden Toiddies slammed to a halt at Interbike Anaheim after management had a mall cop halt the traditional parade, mumbling something about blocking the aisles, fire regs and some other lame-o bullshit.
There was a brief revival in 2005 at Interbike Vegas, but there was no parade of befezzed Self-Appointed Co-Dictators for Life and dancing girls twirling titanium hula hoops. More’s the pity. Interbike has developed the sense of humor one might expect to find in a Young Republican attending Reed College.
I was there in Analheim for that! Wasn’t that the year Grant Petersen got the “self-appointed guru” award? I agree with your description of the bike biz these days – if it wasn’t for our Italian friends coming over to Interbike I doubt I would bother with it anymore.
From the size of that battleship, I take it your Better Half is either carpooling or bringing the local library with her? God, I took summer cruises on smaller USN vessels.
Ain’t it a beast, K? Chevy Tahoe. Swear to God it’s as big as the house I lived in on Mill Street at Tejon back in ’74. And for sure it wouldn’t fit in the garage. Took up the whole damn’ driveway.
And yes, Herself is carpooling. She picked up a colleague in Denver and the two of them are fetching along a ton of gear — video cameras, tripods, the usual metric shit-ton of female garments. … Hey, y’think maybe they’re shooting a porno and forgot to invite me?
Forgot to invite you? Boy, that would be a bummer, wouldn’t it? You could shoot the whole damn thing inside the Tahoe and never even set it to rocking….
Part of me should be mad that you have rhymed this fair city with a word beginning with “excrement” but then I would be lying. The Big Tomato needs something fun and exciting.
It will definitely be something more interesting than the local Tall Guy Ball Players Arena fiasco.
And without the recent influx of Eurotrash associated with the ToC each of the past few years, this might be the only bike show in town this year. It should be a good time for all on hand!
Know anybody looking for a job? http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/02/news/velo-magazine-seeks-managing-editor_207445#post-comments
They could use some help there. Perhaps one of the obnoxious jerks who find fault with everything they put up there will take this job? Nah. Even with the requirement of Facebook, the discourse there is still pretty toxic these days. Perhaps road cycling REALLY has become the “new golf”?
Gents, my former colleagues really are up against it over there. Until Brian Holcombe shifted from managing editor to web editor, there was just one person running two websites, VN.com and Singletrack.com — Emily Zinn, Lennard’s daughter. You wouldn’t believe the hours she was putting in. It must’ve been like working in a Foxconn factory.
There’s apparently been some consolidation involved in Brian’s taking the helm of the web op’. The site had been playing second fiddle to the mag, whose staff would pitch in when possible (although the tech guys, Nick Legan, Caley Fretz and LZ provided regular columns).
Now it seems to be an “all hands on deck” arrangement. I don’t know the specifics because I’m too busy being delighted at not working there anymore to bother anyone who still is.
But anyone who wants to shit on those folks should consider that they’re putting out a monthly magazine, a ride guide, a Tour guide, a buyers’ guide and two websites — plus covering the Olympics, the classics and the grand tours — with a full-time editorial staff of four people and a smattering of free-lancers, including Andy Hood and LZ, who are contractors, as I was.
Meanwhile, the pirate crew in San Diego keeps buying events and hiring senior executive deputy assistant vice presidents for this, that and the other. The Invisible Hand of the Free Market seems to spend a great deal of time massaging its own wand.
For a bunch of tri-geeks, Competitor sure doesn’t know how to “run” things. Alas, with the noted triathletes propensity for not being able to ‘steer’ a bicycle worth a damn, is anyone really surprised by this?
Not I. But then again when Bob Babbitt was running that ship there was not a lot of overhead, $$$ or eyeballs on the old Competitor Magazine circa 1994. That was an awesome SoCal centric magazine.
Maybe they can ‘keep their heads above water’ for a few more months until the Grand Parade around TLoTCESM and things may work out. Not that I even read what they produce anymore but I wish all of them well.
I was going to leave a snarky comment at VeloNews but it requires a Facebook account, which I refuse to acquire.
Patrick, you hit the nail on the head. They keep acquiring more work to do and use Foxconn like work rules to make sure the galley is being rowed fast enough. Meanwhile, its more of the Landed Gentry topside leaning on “the help” to get shit done, to use a phrase from Downton Abbey. Sounds familiar. I hear it from my other half regularly.
I feel bad for the working stiffs. VN needs to jettison some overhead and hire people who GSD. Of course, this is what really happens: http://www.cvoharley.com/smf/index.php?topic=50403.0
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