Category: Casual snark

e-DWI

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 38 Comments
The operator of this gas-powered scooter was appallingly sober.

In less than a week after rentable electric scooters hit the mean streets of Albuquerque, we’ve collected our first e-DWI. ¡Salud!

I suppose we could look on the bright side here. Had our early adopter not gotten popped for allegedly e-scooting under the influence — the cops say she got all beered up at Marble Brewery and had planned to hit at least one more grog shop downtown — she probably would’ve clambered into her land yacht and driven home to Belen, an hour or so to the south, depending on how many ditches and medians one inspects en route.

Or tried to, anyway. ¿Quien sabes? Having had some small experience in these matters I expect it’s a lot easier to hide one’s impairment from the John Laws behind the tinted windows of a four-wheeled Ford than on one of their two-wheeled throwaways.

Behind the 8-ball

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Just say no, kids.

I have been behind the 8-ball, and I have been in front of the 8-ball — more than once, too. And after a few too many taps on the glass I usually wound up looking about like this fellow here.

Our preposterous and apparently endless allergy season has me feeling as though someone stepped a little too hard on my Peruvian marching powder — say, with Drano, kitty litter or aluminum oxide — and so instead of riding the bikey bike I have been riding the couch, which is not nearly as fun because it never goes anywhere.

Dr. Mark Schuyler, chief of the Division of Allergy and Immunology for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, said back in April that we could expect this season to run through mid- to late May, and he did not lie.

Or at least I hope he didn’t. If I watch much more TV, put on a few kilos, and shed a few I.Q. points, I’m liable to wind up president.

Just what the e-doctor ordered

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 30 Comments
I’m shocked, shocked, that some people seem to believe that e-bikes are the modern equivalent of the philosopher’s stone.

This just in: E-bikes cure* Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, erectile dysfunction, post-nasal drip, gout, piles, dandruff, denture breath, and the heartbreak of psoriasis (Christ, you don’t know the meaning of heartbreak, buddy, c’mon, c’mon).

* You will note the caveat buried deep in the piece: “(A)ttaining these health benefits requires tackling the problem of poor street design and infrastructure in America. Everything from high speed limits to wide roads to light timing that prioritizes the flow of vehicles poses a threat to older people walking in their communities … and also creates barriers to people participating in cycling.”

It’ll all come out in the wash

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments
Well, I’d say that load is done.

The Wall Street Journal and Daring Fireball consider the clusterfuck that is the Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Ho, ho, etc.

Samsung didn’t give a rat’s ass about their top-loading clothes washers exploding like land mines in laundry rooms. What makes anyone think they’ll lose sleep over $2,000 smartphones that snap like Olive Garden bread sticks when the rubes try to fold them?

We owned a Samsung top-loader once and it became the subject of a Radio Free Dogpatch episode. After dogpaddling across that customer-service vale of tears I wouldn’t buy a life jacket from the sonsabitches if I were standing on the stern of a sinking ship in the North Atlantic, surrounded by sharks wearing bibs with my mugshot on them.

But I’m sure somebody would. And so is Samsung.

• Editor’s note: Speaking of washers, Kevin Drum explains that tariffs caused Americans to spend 12 percent more on these devices than they might have had Beelzebozo kept his big bazoo out of things he doesn’t understand, which is mostly everything. MAGA, etc.

Alto

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Temps remain a bit below normal in the Duke City, but you don’t have to shovel cool.

Stop? Not me.

It was a gorgeous St. Patrick’s Day in the Duke City, and everybody and his/her granny was out and about, trying to sweat out the remnants of Gaelic brain eraser.

I awarded myself a day off from riding other people’s bikes and used one of my own, the Steelman Eurocross pictured in yesterday’s post.

The great thing about a ’cross bike — the original gravel bike, don’t you know — is that you can ride it pretty much anywhere. And that’s exactly what I did. Pavement, good and bad; singletrack; two-track, whatever.

For instance, it’s great fun to zip down Tramway Road from Juniper Hill, pull a U at the bottom, and ride back up the gullied trail that parallels it instead of grinding along next to the hordes of goggling tram-bound tourists.

It would be easier on a modern gravel bike, like Salsa’s Journeyman Claris 650, with its 2.1-inch 650b’s and low end of 30×34. The Steelman maxes out at 700×33 and a bottom of 36×28.

But if God wanted our lives to be easier He wouldn’t have given us Il Douche.