Not even Shane MacGowan could. So don’t you lot even try. Someone’s built their dreams around ye. And a Merry Christmas to all of yis.
Gray Christmas?
The weather wizards have been spot on lately. When they say “a quarter inch of rain,” they do not lie.
In fact, if anything they seem to be hedging their bets a bit, because our widget reports we got something like .39 inch overnight. And it’s still raining.
I will never be smart. But at least I was not stupid yesterday when I decided to go for my first bike ride in 10 days instead of settling for another plodding hike or p’raps daring to risk a short jog.
As I said, the wizards have been batting a thou’ lately, and when yesterday started looking like my only option to ride without mudguards and rain kit for the foreseeable future, I got right after it.
Before the Snotlocker Surprise paid me a visit I’d been planning to check out some upgrades I and the Two Wheel Drive boyos had made to my old Soma Double Cross. After replacing its chain, chainrings, and cassette while trying (and failing) to accurately diagnose and resolve an annoying skipping issue that occurred under load, I finally discovered the actual cause, which was that its ancient Dura-Ace freehub had gone to its ancestors.
Resurrecting the freehub was beyond my limited skillset, and even the pros at TWD shook their heads in disbelief, as though I’d dragged in a pennyfarthing and asked whether they stocked a 53-inch tubeless-ready carbon disc wheel.
While it was possible that some eBay velo-troll might be squatting on a stash of eight-speed D-A hubs, they mused, it might be simpler (and quicker) to rebuild Captain Retro’s wheel with something, uh, newer? Given the choice between cheap and handsome I went with the latter, a stylish Velo-Orange, which goes nicely with the other shiny bits.
What the hell, it’s my second-oldest wheelset, an Excel Sports Cirrus with Mavic Open Pro rims and DT spokes, and it’s been a faithful companion. So we gave it a new heart and it ticked along nicely for a gentle hour in yesterday’s dwindling sunshine.
Speaking of shiny new bits, you may notice that I pulled the ol’ presto-change-o on the blog this morning. I took down the custom header, a scenic photo with the “Mad Dog Media” moniker, and replaced it with a smaller logo and a text header, which makes it possible for me to add a small additional overlay of snark without having to deploy any fancy-schmancy photo-editing software.
Happy solstice
The Duck! City is foggier than the deets about Rudy the Mook’s bank balance this morning.
Alas for The Mook, a judge has ordered that a hard cold light be directed upon his finances in order that at least two of the people he’s run his Scotch-addled yap at may be compensated for the damages they have endured. Like, immediately, as in now.
The judge may have to send over a team of marshals to beat it out of him, like loan sharks collecting from a deadbeat horse player. Sell the footage to ESPN and the ladies might yet get a little sumpin’-sumpin’ off the top. Beats spending the next few months digging holes in his yard looking for moldy shoeboxes stuffed with fat stax wrapped in plastic.
Winter isn’t just coming, y’know. It’s here.
A new dawn
A’ight, y’all, buckle up, ’cause here we go.
I launched the new theme and the Block Editor (curse its name, yes) because like any good test pilot (and many more bad ones) I got tired of kicking the tires and decided to light the fires.
I expect we will find a few bugs in the bird as we tumble along, but here’s hoping we wind up with the cockpit on top and the wheels on the bottom.
Walk it off
It’s gonna be one of those holiday seasons.
The minor plague working its way through El Rancho Pendejo is taking its sweet time about the project. Herself seems past the worst of it — a lingering cough, but otherwise feels fine — while Your Humble Narrator remains in the early stages, making noises like a plumber’s helper working a clogged toilet.
As problems go, this is strictly First World, which ain’t bad for a couple of gabachos who live in the Third. We know people who have real diseases and realer troubles and somehow never go all Gloomy Gus on us.
“Gee whillikers, pal, you say you don’t feel perky enough for a little bikey ridey in the late fall sunshine? Hard knocks for sure. Our puppy just died and the basement’s flooded and the kid just got filmed having gay sex in a congressional hearing room, so we had to quit our jobs, change all our phone numbers, and cancel the Internet. Plus we have Nazis marching around the neighborhood at all hours roaring “Blood and soil!” But I feel ya, bruh. ’Scuse me, back in a jiff, I gotta put out the cat. One of the Nazis set her on fire.”
So, yeah. Instead of being a whiny little gobshite all the time (instead of most of the time) I make my little tee-hees on the Innertubes, drink lots of hot beverages, and take short walks around the foothills trails, all the while hawking and snorting and spitting and in general trying to encourage the boogers to abandon this crumbling temple of the soul and jump on someone else, preferably a cat-torching Nazi.
It even helps, for a little while. Haven’t seen any sniffling Nazis out there yet, but I remain hopeful, if not optimistic.
Speaking of optimistic, the Colorado Supremes whack an underhanded insurrectionist with the fat end of the bat. The real Supremes bat next.
Mad Blog Media 