Rest day

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 15 Comments
Time to exercise something other than my fingers on a keyboard.
Time to exercise something other than my fingers on a keyboard.

Whew. Some folks hate Mondays, but I’m telling you, any day I don’t have some undone chore leering over my shoulder is a very good day indeed.

Those of you who have actual jobs (my condolences) with regular days off (you sonsabitches) may not appreciate how sweet it feels for a freelancer to have a 24-hour period during which absolutely nothing of financial consequence needs doing. It’s like finding a Benjamin in your jeans while doing the laundry, pulling a goathead from a tire to find it still holds air, or hearing a lawyer say, “No charge.”

In a word: Fantastic.

Oh, there are a few items that will require a smidgen of my attention:

• I should hear from Voler today about the online store through which our fondest dreams are to be realized (yours, a new Fat Guy jersey; mine, obscene, unheard of and uncountable wealth).

• The Boo remains in recovery from dental work, and the meds are disrupting his regularity (I fear for our brick floors).

• And we’re still a one-car family, so I snoop around now and again to see if there’s anything out there that’s worth the trip to a car lot for one of those conversations (“Mr. O’Grady, what will it take to get you into this fine pre-owned automobile? Just let me talk to my manager. …”).

But mostly I plan to ride the bike. Blue skies, smiling at me … nothing but blue skies do I see.

Editor’s note: Looks like “Bloom County” is coming back. Getting better all the time. …

Editor’s note the second: Himself speaks with The New York Times.

Son of Return to Beyond the Valley of Fashion Friday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

coming-soonAnybody still hanging around here? Hello? (Thump thump thump.) This thing on?

It’s been a wee bit hectic around El Rancho Pendejo since last we chatted.

Le Tour started, and Le Tourists promptly started crashing right the hell out of it.

The mom-in-law popped round from Tennessee.

Deadlines for Adventure Cyclist and Bicycle Retailer arrived and departed, bearing full payloads of merde.

And poor Mister Boo surrendered 10 teeth to the doggie dentist. He is taking his nourishment in gruel form for the next two weeks and I fear for his digestive tract. Also, our brick floors.

But now, the good news: The Old Guys Who Get Fat In Winter jersey shop should be up and running sometime next week at Voler.

Once I get the green light, I’ll announce it here and add a permanent link to the online store at upper right, in the sidebar. Then I’ll just lean back in this titanium-and-carbon La-Z-Boy with a flagon of 2003 Domaine de la Romanèe Conti in one hand and a snifter of cocaine in the other and wait for the money to start rolling in. I’ve already ordered up a sixpack of courtesans, and they ain’t in business for laughs, y’know.

LUGgers, start your keyboards

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The Phantom of the Opera? Naw, just some bald-headed Irish-American unemployable trying to stave off honest work as usual.
The Phantom of the Opera? Naw, just some bald-headed Irish-American unemployable trying to stave off honest work as usual.

The Tour de France starts tomorrow with a 13.8km individual time trial in Utrecht, Netherlands, and Live Update Guy will be there.

Well, not “there” so much as here (Duke City, New Mexico, where Your Humble Narrator whiles away the hours), although there will be some “there” there (mostly Laramie, Wyoming, where Charles Pelkey hangs out his shingle). And there’s MOTS in France, Mons at the Vatican, Larry in Italy, Mbugua in Kenya, Dave in Afghanistan. …

In these days of live streaming video and up-to-the-nanosecond social media it seems odd that a text-based live update like ours still attracts an audience. Still, some folks seem to like it, and we enjoy doing it, so there you have it.

It’s kind of like hanging around a neighborhood sports bar where the innkeeper is always happy to change the channel from golf to cycling, and he never cuts you off and/or throws you out.

So pop on by and say howdy when Le Shew Bigge kicks off tomorrow. It’s a time trial, for god’s sake. We’ll need all the Non-Race-Related Blah-Blah-Blah™ we can drum up.

Tailoring Thursday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The new designs in AMP (which I believe stands for Airies Micro Plus, the same fabric used in Adventure Cycling Association jerseys).
The new designs in AMP (which I believe stands for Airies Micro Plus, the same fabric used in Adventure Cycling Association jerseys).

Fabric samples for the revived Old Guys kit from Voler, just in time for the Fourth of July. God bless America.

Nearly there now. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments

 

On the road again. ...
On the road again. …

It’s July, and you know what that means — Le Homme Gros is getting set to start the Tour de France with Live Update Guy.

All the usual suspects will be on hand as Le Shew Bigge gets under way starting Saturday in the Netherlands — Charles Pelkey, The Man On the Scene (MOTS), the Old Guy Who Gets Fat In Winter (new kit coming soon), and the LUG Nuts Mystery Theatre & Monty Python Spam Spam Spam Eggs Spam Sausage & Spam Appreciation Society, clogging Teh Innertubes with content-free gobbets of Non-Race-Related Blah-Blah-Blah® and the occasional myopic glimpse of what might be going on in the actual race (now where the hell’s my start list and what the hell stage is this, anyway? Is that a roundabout or a maelstrom? Jesus Christ!)

We’re not exactly Phil & Paul, but then they’re not exactly us, either (for starters, they don’t work for tips).

But we do, and we’ll be your servers at Live Update Guy starting Saturday. Would you like to see a menu or do you plan to drink your dinner like everyone else in the joint?