Category: Things that don’t suck

Rise of the machines

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

We seem to have a rebellion on our hands here.

First a video camera gets snarky with me on Thursday, and then yesterday my backup hard drive commits suicide and tries to take the iMac with it.

I’m talking refusal to boot, the blue screen with spinning wheel, all the dire portents of the End Times, which the Bible tells us will be heralded by an Irish-American bearing a smoking Visa card to the Apple Store (see the MacBook of Jobs, Ch. 10.6.8).

So I forced a shutdown, unplugged all the peripherals, reminded myself of the first of the Four Noble Truths (life is qualified by suffering), and hit the power button.

Banzai!

A series of diagnostics indicated that my 2TB miniStack v3 Firewire drive was FUBAR, and today the wizards at Other World Computing agreed and told me to return that bad boy for regrooving. It’s the only product of theirs that’s ever failed me, and they’re taking care of bizniz, more power to their Torx wrenches.

I won’t be able to back up my bullshit until they send a replacement, but I expect that the world can get by with only one whiff of my stink for a few days.

Showing the colors

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Turkish working on his tan
The Turk’ suns himself in the living room.

You know what’s even better than not watching Ol’ Whatsisface gnaw through his lower lip while pretending to be sorry for what he did instead of for getting caught at it?

Riding your own damn’ bike for the first time in two weeks on a sunny, 55-degree afternoon, that’s what.

My pipes felt a tad rusty after the flu, and I wished for a big hit of albuterol, but that would’ve been doping. So I made do with a cough drop and a hefty dose of moral superiority.

Before getting back in the saddle I mounted fenders to the Kona Rove, which is next up in the Adventure Cyclist review queue.

Ever fit fenders to a disc-brake-equipped bike? Me neither. What it takes — for the front wheel, anyway — is a pretty abrupt bend in the left-side fender stay, a long-ass bolt and a spacer of some sort. I used about an inch of the plastic housing from a cheap pen liberated from a motel, which saved me a trip to the hardware store.

After two weeks on the disabled list I resembled a cyclist about as much as Ol’ Whatsisface resembles a penitent, but like him I didn’t care. It was enough to be out there.