Hey, asshole, there are four n’s in ‘nnnnghh.’ “
President Very Very Large Brain dictates a letter to Nancy Pelosi.
I hope someone wiped the spit off it before delivery.
‘Dear Madam Speaker. …’
Hey, asshole, there are four n’s in ‘nnnnghh.’ “
Hey, asshole, there are four n’s in ‘nnnnghh.’ “
R.I.P., Frank Berto
Frank Berto has joined Sheldon Brown in the Great Big Bike Shop in the Sky.
Bicycle Retailer has a note up, as does René Herse Cycles.
At the former, Jim Langley notes in comments:
“Gearing always has and probably always will mystify new cyclists — and Frank, as technical editor, made sense of it all for legions of readers through his columns in Bicycling magazine. It can’t be overstated, the impact Frank’s writing had on our industry and sport.”
Condolences to his family, friends and fans.
The IT Guy
The problem with having an Apple orchard is that you’ve got to tend to the sonsabitches when you’d rather be doing something else.
Like, say, making money so you can afford to tend to the sonsabitches, or even buy a new one now and again.
I have five outdated Apple products in heavy rotation around the rancheroo. Three need OS updates, one needs a vigorous cloning, and the fifth — well, let’s just say that it’s devolved to running Adobe Photoshop 4.0 in Classic mode.
And yes, I said Adobe Photoshop 4.0.
“What’s it all mean?” you ask. Why, it means that yes, yes, yes, it’s time for another thrilling episode of Radio Free Dogpatch.
P L A Y R A D I O F R E E D O G P A T C H
• Technical notes: This episode was recorded with an Audio-Technica AT2035 microphone and a Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I edited this hot mess using Apple’s GarageBand on the 13-inch 2014 MacBook Pro. The background music is “Asunder,” from Taylor Howard at Zapsplat.com. Typewriter sounds courtesy of Tomlija at Freesound.org. Emperor Palpatine comes to you from the Dark Side, while “Alarm!” comes from “Das Boot.” And “The G4 Awakens” comes straight from the 1999 G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac, which don’t need no steekeeng updates because it’s immortal, thank you very much. Lemme know if your iPhone is still working 20 years from now. But don’t ask me to work on it.
Slainte, Katie
You can’t always be the windshield. Some days you’re the bug.
It happened to Katie Compton yesterday at U.S. cyclocross nationals in Tacoma. She never looked quite herself, barring one stellar, gutsy, downhill pass early on. But she never quit — she hung grimly on to finish third behind Clara Honsinger and runner-up Rebecca Fahringer.
“Yeah, I’m disappointed, but mostly I just didn’t feel that great, and it’s always hard to not have your best day, but that’s OK,” Compton told Cyclingnews. “It’s good to see Clara and Becca riding as well as they are.”
And it’s good to see the 15-time national champ gutting it out to the finish, clawing her way back onto the podium when it looked like a lost cause, and praising the two riders who finally dethroned her. She may have lost the jersey, but she’s still a champion.
‘A musical warlock’
Frank Zappa’s “Hot Rats” is 50 years old. Great googly moogly!
Read all about it here, and scope out a six-disc anniversary boxed set of the work at Zappa.com.
Writes Jim Farber at The Guardian:
The dense and raucous jams that inspired the final cuts have been fully restored, and assembled in an order that makes the development of the official versions clear. “It provides context for the final product,” said Ian Underwood, who played a plethora of instruments on “Rats” and who is the only musician, besides Zappa, who appeared on every track. “Like ‘process art,’ you can hear all the things leading up to a track, so you get a feel for how it arrived at the end. It’s also interesting to see what didn’t work out along the way.”
Willie the Pimp would be s’proud.
• Editor’s note: This constitutes our official observance of Zappadan 2019.
