Dogs and Doggettes everywhere, raise a leg to our comrade Khalil Spencer, who hit the big six-oh today.
And now, please join me in singing our national anthem.
Month: January 2014
Special delivery
Yow. Straight from Lycra to neoprene in one fell swoop.
It’s a bracing 12 degrees outside, and the few inches of snow were of the annoying variety — light enough to broom, but glazing slowly upward from sidewalk level, so I actually had to shovel for a change.
Well, we’ll take water in whichever form it chooses in these parts, as long as it arrives in reasonable quantities.
That means no more floods, please. Let’s stick to manmade disasters for a change, shall we?
Time Machine Tuesday
Over at Teh Twitters yesterday a gent praised a non-rant I’d written way back in 2002, saying it was one of his “all-time favorites.”
I had forgotten about it — these things vanish from my consciousness about a nanosecond after I hit the “Send” button — so I looked it up, and y’know, I kinda liked it myself. Even an old blind dog finds a tasty Milk-Bone now and then, it seems.
Written when we still lived in Weirdcliffe, it was prompted by a reader’s complaint (one of many, actually) that my stuff was too negative, which it can be. That my VeloNews.com column was christened “Friday’s Foaming Rant” didn’t help. A label like that tends to set a certain tone, and when I wandered off the Rantinista reservation other critics would jeer, “Call that a rant?” You can’t win.
But if two of us liked it, it must not be entirely lame, so here it is, reprinted in all its faded glory for your entertainment.
ObowmeowCare sucks
It was health care and then some today as Mister Boo, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) and Miss Mia Sopaipilla traveled en masse to the vet for exams and injections.
Turk’ and Mia are not fans of the infernal combustion vehicle, and thus the Subaru rang with yowls of horror and threats of vengeance as we motored swiftly toward our tripartite appointment. Only the unflappable Mister Boo remained at peace (until the vet laid hands upon him, whereupon the mild-mannered little fella promptly transmogrified into the Hound of the Baskervilles).
Back at Chez Dog the cats rebounded quickly, but the Boo — having performed a four-mile walk before his harrowing experience at the hands of veterinary medicine — found himself in need of a power nap. And who can blame him?
I’m feeling a bit stuck myself, but you can’t sleep off a vet bill.
A great day to be a Hobo
It’s easy to forget how many people ride bikes in this town until we get a sunny, 60-something day in January.
I slipped out for a 90-minute ride at midday and Holy Mary, Mother of God, you’d have thought we’d hit Peak Oil and left it bleeding out at roadside. Everybody and his grandma, from itty-bitty kids to grizzled graybeards, was gaily flogging a two-wheeler from Hither to Yon, no doubt hoping to burn a few calories before ingesting many, many more during the Broncos-Patriots feetsball game.
Despite a short stint as an assistant sports editor at The New Mexican in Santa Fe, I am not a fan of the feetsball, which is the polite way of saying that I don’t give two runny shits about a multibillion-dollar industry that temporarily shifts Americans’ homicidal instincts away from actual warfare and toward commerce by encouraging young gladiators to mutate their bodies with drugs and scramble their brains with high-speed collisions.
Cycling has its own issues in that regard, of course. But not the way I do it.
And at least you can watch televised pro cycling for more than 15 commercial-free seconds at a stretch (on a pirated Belgian feed, anyway). That’s how I spent my morning before throwing a leg over the Bootleg Hobo’s top tube. Plus you can be pretty certain the Organization is selling (and the spectators drinking) a higher-quality beer.
Mad Blog Media 