Category: Garden-variety snark

Sky high

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

Wow. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome crushed it today in the Tour’s first big time trial, opening up a 10-gallon-can of whup-ass on Cadel Evans and everyone else — including El Fabuloso, Fabian Cancellara, who must be pinching himself to see whether he’s still asleep and having a nightmare.

I was over at Red Kite Prayer, helping Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey track the race for our friends sentenced to cubicle farms worldwide, and we had a record haul in terms of contributions to the tip jar— in no small part to some silly little hooter logged on as Two700c, who complained about “politics” being injected into the play-by-play (oddly enough, it was one of our least political live updates ever).

Two700c slagged me in a snippy note to Charles, which goes to show you that not even the anonymity of the Internet is comfort enough for at least one timid Tea Bagger. Still, I feel obliged to thank him for helping us rake in a pile of coin. I’ll be donating a portion of the proceeds to the Democratic Socialists of America.

If you’re not already joining us for the daily live updates, swing on by. Always room for another pinko in the Party photo.

But it’s not all politics, all the time. Today, for example, I reprised one of my favorite National Lampoon covers to urge readers to contribute to the Cause.

If you don’t support this website, we’ll kill this dog.

Boom-Boom pounds ’em on the pavé

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Chapeau to Tom Boonen for a manly win at Paris-Roubaix — he didn’t much care for the pace of the group he was with, so he shelled them and soloed 50km for the V.

Big props, too, to Sébastien Turgot, who picked Alessandro Ballan’s pocket for second place in the Roubaix velodrome. Conventional wisdom aside, sometimes it’s smart to look over your shoulder, guys. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, right about now Mike Wallace is interviewing God: “So, what’s with all the contradictions in your book? Care to set the record straight?” Why anyone ever answered the door when Mike showed up with a camera crew remains a mystery to me.

Boardroom buffoonery

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

How is it that CEOs manage to corral all the money in this country? Pulling a fatheaded stunt like this doesn’t exactly strike me as an example of top-shelf business acumen. Howard Schultz would have a tough time as a barista with an uptake this slow.

• Late update: And lest you think buffoonery is confined to the boardroom, we have this from Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), this from Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), and this from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). Three very small tinfoil beanies indeed.

Round two

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 19 Comments

Via Facebook, Charles Pelkey advises as follows:

“Pathology is mixed. Nodes are clean, but tissue margins are not. Ready for Round II. The Rolling Stones were right: ‘What a drag it is getting old.’

Charles faces a second round of surgery to clean up around the edges, plus a dash of radiation, but he’s not lying around on the floor, drink-sodden and weeping, the way I would be (and often am anyway, regardless of how well things are going). He was in court today, handling a case, and another client just walked into his office for a consult as we were chatting on IM. So he’s still very much up and at ’em.

In other Velo news (ho ho ho), Neal Rogers has been named editor in chief, replacing the departed Ben Delaney. Please say a prayer, light a candle or sacrifice a goat on his behalf, but don’t blame him for the unintelligible quotes in the press release, which appears to be a Google machine translation of the original Cretin.

My personal fave is attributed to Peter Englehart, CEO of CGI: “His sense of what makes a strong editor will continue to represent Velo as the voice of authority in the cycling space that speaks with authenticity and uniqueness to the sport’s many fans.” But I doubt he actually spoke these words. Nobody can be this stupid, not even a TV guy.