When it comes, you'll feel the weight of it

Sorry about the lateness of this update, but I've not had enough time of late to give y'alls a proper update, and after last time's somewhat half-assed effort, I wanted to give more smiles per mile this week.

Earlier this week I ordered the parts that will go into the next evolution of Africabike (see this post for the last evolution), and to start, it will include one of these, a new fork, and hopefully, room for a big honkin 2.5" slick. With luck, the thing will float around the 50lb mark, and will therefore be capable of splitting or crushing any road hazard it may come across. Bryan suggested a snare for errant marmots off the barend-mirrors. Progress updates coming soon.

Also, a big reason I have been short on time, I've finally finished moving into my new apartment, and everything's all wired up. I'm very proud of how well i've been able to hide speaker wire, and the rear channels themselves are neatly integrated into some BENNOs, with two comfy POÄNGs and a LACK. Skål!


Since last time, I also got a chance to represent the shop at a bicycle advocacy event at WGBH's studios. It was nice enough, though I was up against stacks of Solo cups, and suffice to say, I lost that battle.

Recently, I've been engaged in another battle, with AT&T and Sony Ericsson. Which is to say, apart from making unreliable devices (which, I'll say it again, makes it sexier for the same reason as an Italian car), S-E has been quite good, apart from their expectation for me to be ok without phone for 10 days (no go). AT&T just sends me through many loops and from call center to call center. Tomorrow, I'm going to one of their "authorized handset exchange and repair centers" near the Pru, and supposedly, they'll be able to tell me whether or not I should send in my phone for warranty replacement. This is important, as in the AT&T universe, the way one finds out about a denial of warranty replacement is an automated charge for a new device. Not at subsidized value, or even market value, but new replacement value, which means I would pay $160+ for my Z750a, which can be found new on eBay for south of $50. Sigh.

I saw a midnight showing of the new Transformers movie with some people from work, and I was severely disappointed with how quickly my beloved R8 was split in half (not a spoiler, it's in the ads). Otherwise, an appropriately absurd Michael Bay explosionfest. Not very much plot, some excellent robot battles, bittersweet product placement, and as much "so bad it's good" acting as one would expect from Shia the Beef, Meghan Fox, and most glaringly, Tyrese. John Turturro was good though. He's up there with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and Harry Dean Stanton in an ability to make most roles work.

Also, apologies for the non-sequitur, but I just saw a Blockbuster ad on TV. Granted it's at 00:45, but really? Blockbuster? I thought they were dead.

The weather's been miserable of late, but tomorrow, which is my day off, is finally expected to be dry, so hopefully I can get a nice long ride in between other whatnots I have to get done.

For this week's video, some remarkably familiar scenes, courtesy of Nintendo of America