By the blather of St. Phil, with all the revoltin’ developments on this side of the Big Ditch I nearly forgot that Le Tour was to kick off today.
I caught a little of The Guardian‘s live update of the Grand Départ — all due respect, but I preferred the Non-Race Related Blah Blah Blah of them other fellers at Live Update Guy — and then decided to go out and ride one of my own damn’ bicycles before it got too hot.
Any of yis following Le Shew Bigge this year? As you can tell, if Charles, Fatso and I aren’t acting the fool for fun and profit, I’m just not that interested.
Mad Blog Media 
I got a little side tracked marching in the Fanta Se Pride Parade today. Including a “bad breath distance” discussion, if such a word is appropriate, with a foursome of people, one of whom was packing heat, staging a Westboro Baptist Church dissenting view. People are pretty weird. Fortunately, no one shot me.
Would have loved to just watch Le Tour. One of the other people in the Pride March I was hanging with has been a longtime TdF loyalist. But today, we were with the local food bank, which had a place in the Pride Parade marching alongside the Food Mobile.
Maybe tomorrow.
Is it a requirement to carry a bang-bang when you are a member of a baptist church in your area? Or is it that the person carrying simply wanted to shoot the rainbow scarf out of the air before it drifted down upon them? I guess you never know when you’ll get infected, touched or convinced and suddenly become somebody else you just don’t want to be, perhaps like a person that cares and thinks more about others.
Good on you Khal for supporting and helping out others.
Was rather weird. One of the marchers walked towards the Fearsome Four. The woman of the group started shouting “get away from us”. I’m sure she figures that gaydom or whatever must be contagious. Kinda like a cold or flu.
That’s when I wandered over, too. to make sure the lady didn’t end up with a sign impaled in her scalp. So they got on my case, too.
Whatta world.
And you know that if Teh Gay were contagious, these nimrods wouldn’t take the vaccine.
You know I’m contrary enough to wish Gay was socially spreadable and the nimrods did not qualify for the vaccine. We need to do something about the spread of nimrodism, there are too many of them breeding as it is.
When will the CDC get busy on a vaccine/treatment for Creeping Nimrodism? Instead of injections maybe we could deliver it by cropduster. Or Facebook.
Yes, I was up and reading about the race. I enjoy live updates even though they aren’t as good as in the old days. But I would prefer that those hosts of the old days are enjoying themselves and not doing something that they may have done enough of in the past.
Even though the TdF may be considered a mass marketed billboard spectacle, the spirit of racing is there and it’s hard for me not to tune in to it somewhere. It sure is great to see a break get away and win.
The live update at The Guardian isn’t half bad. The CyclingNews one? At least half bad, maybe more. Looks like VN doesn’t even try to do one these days.
the “news” part of “velo news” hasn’t existed for a dozen years. The “velo” part as well, now that I think about it.
You got those folks in The City Different? Or do you have to import them? They were a sizable portion of the fauna in Bibleburg. Grew there like weeds they did.
I should have said “Westboro Baptist Church Style” dissenting view. Not sure what brand of Jeebus Worshippers they were affiliated with.
Wikipedia has an extensive entry on these lovely people. “Primitive Baptist” doesn’t begin to describe them. Cro-Magnon Baptists were more enlightened. I was unsurprised to learn that 11 of Fred Phelps’s 13 trouser stains became lawyers.
No tour news or watching for me today. Might drop into some TdF coverage at the BBC website every now and then.
But, I see on the NWS radar that you are in a sever thunderstorm warning box. Hope all us well!
I’m all for totally making up some tour status updates, and letting the NRRBBB go where it wants to go
LUG may have been the most fun I ever had as a free-range rumormonger. It was great to play Ed to CP’s Johnny. “Hey-o!”
there were a couple or three years where I spent 4–6 hours of the first three weeks of July bouncing between LUG and Joe Lindsey’s play-by-play. Joe had a slight lead in the Fletch reference category, while LUG had the superior audience participation.
Bike racing media had amazing people for the longest time, and then just pissed it all the way.
Joe’s a good dude. Sharp as a tack, excellent reporter and writer. And yeah, there used to be a lot of that kind of player in The Game.
You can still find some good reads out there. Mike Ferrentino at NSMB. Emlyn Lewis, Patrick Brady, and John Rezell at The Cycling Independent. Laura Killingbeck at TCI, Adventure Cyclist, and elsewhere, I’m sure. Andrew Hood at VeloNews. Steve Frothingham at BRAIN. There may be others, but I’ve been off the rez for a while now and don’t pay a great deal of attention to cycling journalism anymore.
NBC Sports is running highlights on Youtube. Here is stage 1.
Old bad habits die hard, it took me seven years to quit smoking and 5 months to use that money to buy a good bike. So I spent $5.99 to watch le tour live at 04:30r dark thirty. Some good riding on the first two days and good racing, Miss the old days of good writing and good satire. I still remember the April 1 sunflower piece. Mayhap did the O’Grady have a hand in that? Good stuff anyway I still love a sport that doesn’t involve balls and people get to see the folks doing it at no fee-based venue.
1/2 inch rai n here in NW Montana so no rooster tail today.
The sunflower piece was all Charles Pelkey. As I recall, he also wrote the April Fool’s bit in which VN sacked me. A fair number of folks were disappointed to hear it was a gag.