Mercury falling

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

Summer vanished faster than the public option today. I was forced to retire my usual professional ensemble of shorts and sandals in favor of a ratty pair of sweat pants and moth-eaten socks, though I stuck with the sleeveless T for freedom of movement while rassling typos for VeloNews.com.

It was a slow day in the VeloBarrel, as the crew was scattered far and wide, either at Outdoor Demo, en route to Sin City or playing one-handed spit-in-the-carpet somewhere, and that suited me just fine. I don’t like Mondays, and I really don’t like cold, gray, windy and damp Mondays, especially when I’m staring down the barrel of a five-day work week like the rest of y’all. If I wanted to work, I’d get a job, a self-imposed sentence that I have successfully avoided for 18 years now.

Still, a slow day pushing pixels is not exactly hard labor, and I was able to raise my head for a quick peek now and then to see what was shaking in the hairy-legged world. It was not encouraging.

Dingbat W. Cleon Skousen is apparently enjoying something of a renaissance thanks to Glenn Beck, Texas Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry and other gibbering asshats. Remember your Ed Abbey (“You can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.”)

Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants more troops for Afghanistan. Kevin Drum is skeptical, and so am I, having read a little Kipling and observed some recent history. The Persians, Brits and Soviets all screwed the pooch — I see many bootprints entering, but considerably fewer leaving — and Uncle Sammy is batting cleanup? No, thanks. Bring ’em home, please.

And finally, apparently straight porn makes you gay. But I don’t even like show tunes.

Hinterbike

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment

Interbike starts tomorrow with Outdoor Demo West, and I feel a minor twinge of regret about not attending this year, if only because it’s not likely to be raining in Las Vegas.

Here’s the forecast for Bibleburg. And here’s the forecast for Sin City. I’m not certain that I’m up for 96 with a low haze of Marlboro exhaust, but 52 and raining? Again? With a chance of snow? Already? I’m sorry, but this is not acceptable. Even the aspens are complaining. I’ve only seen a few looking fashionably red and gold; the others merely look sodden and depressed, like leafy winos.

I may or may not be commenting on the festivities from a distance. I’m back in the VeloBarrel starting Monday for some extra-credit editing during Interbike, and one never knows how fast said barrel will fill up, or with what.

Two flowers, gone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, dead at 72 of complications from chemotherapy for a bone-marrow transplant after developing leukemia. Also, Henry Gibson, perhaps best known for his nonsensical “Laugh-In” poetry, of cancer at 73.

I like to annoy my friend Hal with e-mails whose subject is “A pome,” which probably has its roots in Gibson’s “Laugh-In” shtick. And PP&M managed to make John Denver sound good with “Leaving On a Jet Plane.”

Big wheels keep on turning

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
In which I break my own commandment: Thou shalt not use thy iPod while cycling. It's actually an iPhone, and I wasn't listening to music, but that doesn't make it right.
In which I break my own commandment: Thou shalt not use thy iPod while cycling. It's actually an iPhone, and I wasn't listening to music, but that doesn't make it right.

Our long national nightmare is over. Well, mine, anyway. Sorry about yours.

My nine-day, extra-credit stint in the VeloBarrel came to an end last night, so I slept in this morning, enjoyed a medium-heavy breakfast and then went for a ride. The big yellow ball was back in the sky, and I wasn’t the only one enjoying it, but the path was not crowded and so I had time to snap a quick pic of myself — actually on a bike instead of in an office chair — without endangering anyone, including myself.

It was a short ride, because I needed to get busy spending some of the extra money I made. The Forester needs service, the iPhone needs a hands-free kit and I’d really like to buy a new camera. I don’t much like my Canon PowerShot S5 IS — it’s bulky without the corresponding feel of solidity, the battery life is terrible, and the four rechargeable AAs and SD card sit in the same bay, so when you need to pull out the card to transfer pix, well, the batteries pop out, too. Plus the lid to the battery/SD card bay is a pain in the ass.

I’m thinking about the Canon PowerShot G11, but not very hard. The sucker costs a ton, and even with extra money burning a hole in my pocket it’s hard to justify spending $500 on a camera when I already have two of ’em and a wife-slash-accountant who is very aware of this. Ain’t no flies on Herself. She’s small but fierce.

Diary of a mad rumormonger

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments

Another gray day in Bibleburg. Big Bill McBeef popped by to say howdy after his Sunday ride, and he was wearing some old long-sleeved Mad Dog Media kit, at least two iterations off the back, the real warm stuff we got from Aussie about a thousand years ago.

Naturally, being a cyclo-crosser (emeritus), I called him a pussy for wearing long sleeves so early in September. But I was slouched in my office chair with a cup of tea, in front of two large, heat-generating flat-panel monitors, editing copy for VeloNews.com, so there was little doubt as to whose manliness was in question.

We have a moment between revenue-generating chores here, so let’s take stock of what’s going on in the hairy-legged world.

First, Jim Carroll, the punk-rocking poet perhaps best known for his memoir “The Basketball Diaries” and his punk anthem “People Who Died”? He died.

Next, The Washington Post continues to undermine the notion that the media are controlled by a tiny group of media elites. (Thanks and a tip of the Mad Blog tinfoil beanie to Steve Benen at Political Animal.) Honorable mention goes to The Bibleburg Gaslight, which proudly lists the right-wing harpy Michelle Malkin as an advisory member of its editorial board, which is not unlike Sybil adding another demonic contributor to the list of voices in her head.

And finally, my buddy Hal Walter writes about net worth versus self-worth. Take a squint; it’s most definitely worth pondering over a hot toddy as you wonder why you are where you are — and where you left the snow shovel.