Musings? Is that the word I'm looking for?
Improving people's lives through synergistic innovation and continued improvements for a better tomorrow.
That's more like it.
Good amount of riding in this week, which I'm happy about. The humidity is brutal though. It's looking like I'll try being competitive for cross season. Most of my Spooky is together now (as in, it's in the same place), I just need to dig up bar/stem/post/saddle/tires. I've got time. I will update this very post with pictures soon.
In other bikey news, Africabike broke another axle, but Bryan told me about a great option from Woodman Components in the Bill Extrem RSN hub. It's got a super burly 12 mm axle with the ends machined to fit through normal dropouts. To match this monster, I found an old Mavic D521 at the shop, (with ceramic coating no less). This 36 spoke beast will finally be a wheel worthy of my steed, and likely the heaviest wheel around by a good measure. Fab. Last week, Chris, Dan B. and I went to Boston Beer Works, where I had never been before. I was quite tired, but I ordered a sandwich I didn't really want anyways. The sandwich was lunch the next day. This is only notable because I got a very special, very rare onion ring sombrero, which was even given a special celebratory box! I was quite honored.
For this week's video, an example of why everyone should watch every Extras (there's only 13 episodes), starring Sir Ian McKellan
Last weekend, Thom P. got married! The wedding was fun, and lots of people were there. Even Bryan! Congratulations to Thom and Miriam! Exclaimation points!
Some sad news on the Africabike Evo, it seems the 1" disc tab equipped rigid fork was a typo, and nobody makes a cheap fork to that spec. If anyone has/knows of such a thing, please let me know, but until then, that project is being shelved. I know IF or Igleheart could do it, but going custom would be against the spirit of the AB, not to mention I have to pay for other stuff now...
New cross bike! I'm getting a Spooky Supertouch, which I decided to get as soon as I rode Marcus's and it was miraculous. This will also be my first SRAM bike, as I rather liked how the Rival stuff on Marcus's bike worked. I'll keep posting progress on the build.
This Sunday I'm going to the MIT Flea market, and who knows what I'll come back with. Last time I got this monkey wrench from the 1940s, and there's all manner of awesome obsolete tech there from Newtons to Wizards. It happens every 3rd Sunday from 9 to 2, and it's totally worth checking out.
This week's video is a return to music, with Blur's Clockwork Orange inspired "The Universal", one of several excellent videos from the group.
This year's 4th of July was in many ways a repeat of last year's, with a bunch of people from Glenville getting together, though this year there were more people and more food, hanging at the esplanade, and watching the fireworks. It was best 4th I ever remember having. I wonder how Bryan's 4th was.
So it was my birthday on the 7th, and now I'm 23. Doesn't really feel any different.
Versus (née OLN) is on all day at the shop now, for their tourxtravaganzafest coverage of the TDF, and while granted, there is lots of bike racing between the bullriding, fishing, and cagefighting, I'm struck by the strange choices (and resultant implicit viewer demographics) by advertisers during the tour. Cadillac I get, as the CTS is meant to be the europhile's Caddy (and it seems they're actually making the wagon which is cool..though I'd still sooner a 3 wagon), and the bike company ads are logical, but some of the others paint an unfortunate picture. Between solicitations for "natural male enhancement", hair loss serums, debt consolidation and credit checks, impotence cures, and the occasional visits from Billy Mays from beyond the grave thanks to the magic of Mighty Putty, it seems the expected viewership is largely comprised of broke, bald, impotent men that have sprung leaks. These men also have the money for a $40,000 car and a fancy carbon bike. I suppose that's where the debt came from. All that's missing are the VH1 Classic/Comedy Central staple ads for the unfortunately named vocational school UTI.
TopGear has started their new season, and so far, it's been up to form, with one particularly tremendous segment involving Ken Block, Ricky Carmichael, James May, one Subaru and one Suzuki in some beautifully composed all terrain gymnastics. You can see it here.
This week's video goes out to Chicagoland people, all of whom are apparently familiar with this ad.
On Thursday I went on my first longish road ride in a while, and while it was threatening rain the whole time, it never materialized, and it just stayed muggy and humid. It was a nice ride though, about 60 miles, most of which was just the same route I always used when I was living in Brookline.
On Friday I was given a ticket to see a show at Club Passim in Cambridge. I had never been there, but I had nothing else to do between 8 and 10, so I went. There, I saw Robbie Fulks, who I had previously not been familiar with, and he put on a great show of excellent twangy music. He even did a special rendition of Billie Jean.
Thom's getting married, so Greg "The Leg" Montello organized a pub crawl on bicycle all over Cambridge and Boston. We started at Redbones, where I had a great big messy pulled chicken sandwich. It was quite good, especially after I was urged to close the open faced sandwich by someone who had noticed my confusion with the arragement. After that, we rode to all manners of watering hole and, had all manner of refreshment on the way, including a cocktail whos name escapes me and something that tasted just like Fresca. We finished the night at the Blue Diner, where we had breakfast food at 3am. It was a lot of fun, lots of people rode on the back of the Africabike (pictures were taken, but I'm not sure by who exactly), and even Bryan was there!
I know it's been covered, but I'm still taken aback by the number of celebrities that have been dying all over the place. Especially in the cases of Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, who strangely enough were both 50 when they went, their presences seemed like they should have just continued forever in one way or another. Arguably, given that MJ's significant work came about over 15 years ago, the full extent of his influence and significance was already out there, and his demise marks just one of the possible endings to his "whatever happened to..." story, but what of Billy Mays, who seemed like he was just hitting the prime of his career?
In honor of those simpler times, here's an ad for L.A. Gear, starring Mr. Jackson.
Given the company's affinity for almost surreally 80's ads, is it any wonder they collapsed in the 90s?
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.
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
Not a whole lot to talk about this week, but I am past due for an update.
I'm pretty much moved into the new place, though I still haven't solved my speaker wire routing issue. There's also some sort of surge and hiss being created when I connect my laptop's port replicator to my receiver, and the DVI-HDMI connection is scaling all wrong, so there's still fettling to be done. On the plus side, I didn't realize how well the silver R8 from my desk fits in with all the Panasonic silver. Sadly in all this setup time, I didn't get to take any new pictures of Bryan (so I'm using one of Jason's).
I had some pain from my lower right abdomen a few mornings ago, so I decided to go on an XC ride on my full-rigid singlespeed. It did not go well. I went to the hospital the next day and they did a whole bunch of tests, though the findings were somewhat inconclusive. I'll keep people posted...
As something of a follow-up to last week's late-night TV talk, I've been very impressed with The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (which still feels weird to say). As a taste of that (and my first Hulu embed-yay!), today's video is a bit from the show, where Conan goes to a Foley stage at Universal Studios. Thanks to Jason for pointing me toward this one.
