All et up with the dumbass

June 13, 2014June 13, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 36 Comments

Jesus H. Christ, how does Sen. Babbleyap McCrankypants (R-Off My Lawn) keep getting on TV? You’d get a smarter interview from a plastic plant at a nursing home. Or a sack of hair outside a barbershop that caters to the feeble-minded. Or a bag of Chinese hammers at Walmart.

You get the idea.

This bellicose plastic sack of wet war dreams never met a meat grinder he didn’t want to stuff someone else’s kid into. You could scrape enough stupid off his dumb ass to make a six-pack of Louie Gohmerts with enough left over for two Scientologists, a Fox News anchor and the DMV of your choice.

And I would like nothing better than to see some deceased grunt’s mom give him a roundhouse dick-punch with a roll of Kennedy half-dollars in her fist, just plain pop him like the pimple he is. Arizona and the nation would be better served by a Magic 8-Ball full of old Pat Buchanan columns.

Trails and travails

June 12, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

The Bianchi Zurigo Disc atop a descent leading to Bear Creek Terrace.

The three Ws — work, weather and writer’s block, overlaid with a thick coat of pollen — are conspiring against me this week.

I’ve accomplished a few small tasks, but the process has reminded me of being chased in slo-mo through a nightmare by something large and toothy. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be some days to corral 850 words that dollar up on the hoof, or scrawl a semi-funny cartoon. That Watterson fella is like the cops — never around when you need him.

I did manage to shoehorn one two-hour ride in between chores and thunderstorms. It was one of my patented weirdo cyclo-cross outings that took in bike paths, city streets, sandy single-track and lots and lots of hills.

I was full of albuterol and Claritin-D 12 Hour, so the time passed quickly, as it will. But the rain has been tough on the trails hereabouts, especially if you happen to be riding a cyclo-cross bike.

Still, it’s better than being on fire, or heading up the VA, or having your ass kicked by a Lipton Legionnaire.

I’ve not had a chance to follow up on the Old Guy kit, so bear with me. It’ll probably be next week before I have any definitive answers on cost, availability, online store, and what have you. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan to flog that Bianchi around some more. It’s wearing a set of 700×38 Continental Speed Rides now and is ever so much more comfortable to ride, even on Friday the 13th.

Calvin and Hogges

June 7, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Bill Watterson, creator of the fabled and much-missed “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, got back in the game for a while this past week as a guest artist for the Stephan Pastis strip “Pearls Before Swine.”

The famously reclusive Watterson, who sent Calvin and his stuffed tiger sledding into history in 1995, collaborated with Pastis in part for fun and in part to help raise money for Parkinson’s research, according to Michael Cavna of The Washington Post.

Pastis did the writing and some of the drawing, turning Watterson loose in the middle panels. And both apparently had a wonderful time.

“I had expected to just mess around with his characters while they did their usual things, but Stephan kept setting up these situations that required more challenging drawings … so I had to work a lot harder than I planned to! It was a lot of fun.” Watterson told Cavna.

As for Pastis, he said: “It’s just massive … the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

New jersey

June 6, 2014June 6, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 84 Comments

Old Guy kit: The original (left) and the second edition.

No Chris Christie jokes, now — though we are gonna be talking about new Fat Guy jerseys.

Several of you have expressed an interest in reviving the Old Guy Who Gets Fat In Winter Racing Team kit, and yesterday I emailed the fine folks at Voler to get an idea of the process and expense.

They replied straight away, and it seems they still have at least some of my original designs on hand.

So, the question is, do we want to revive one of the old designs, or come up with something entirely new for the 25th anniversary edition?

We’re looking at an order-due date of Aug. 4 and a shipping week of Sept. 22-30. Price is unclear at this point — I’m guessing we’re looking at a cost of $55-60 per jersey, but that is a dramatically uninformed opinion. I’ll speak with one of the sales guys next week and should know more then. Obviously, the more we order, the less they’ll cost.

In the meantime, feel free to chime in with your opinion as regards design: yellow original, multicolored second edition, or an entirely new jersey.

Road to ruin

June 3, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 44 Comments

Libertarian Interstate. Q. How many libertarians does it take to patch a pothole? A. More guns! — Libertarian Interstate.
Q. How many libertarians does it take to patch a pothole?
A. More guns!

I often wonder why folks call themselves “conservatives” when they don’t seem particularly interested in conserving things, like roads that don’t look like the Ho Chi Minh Trail after a bit of roadwork by B-52s.

Bibleburg has no budget for pothole repair — that’s right, I said no budget for pothole repair — and pulled a $2 million emergency appropriation from city reserves in response to a deluge of complaints from the hordes of gummint-hating, free-market patriots who wanted to know why The Pothole Fairy hadn’t left any hot mix under their American-flag pillows.

Months later work has begun on what streets division manager Corey Farkas concedes is “a drop in the bucket of what we need here.”

Because freedom.