Loose Bolts are Bad

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(All apologies to the fail blog for a little bit of plagiarism)

Following the stunning feat of not dying in Terlingua last weekend, I thought I’d do some light biking around Austin. Riggggggggght.

Sat: Walnut Creek’s BMX loop has some great little jumps on it. Nothing serious, but good for some fun – until you realize that you neglected to throughly tighten the bolts on the stem, causing a sudden shift downward in the spiffy new riser bars. Suddenly I get to switch from mountain biking to hurdles as I try and clear myself from the tumbling chaos that once was my proud bicycle. I would have stuck the landing too, if my feet weren’t so freakishly large. See the picture above for an object lesson in proper torque.

Sun: Given Saturday’s shortcomings, I figured road biking might be a better Sunday option. Flats on a road bike are to be expected. The first one was no big deal, we found some shade, put in a new tube, and moved on. The second one was a little alarming. Standing on the side of 360 with traffic raging by, putting our last spare tube in my bike, we’d pretty much resolved to cut the ride short, given the craptasticness of things so far. On the record breaking third flat, not 20 yards down the road, I just had to sit there and try not to throw my bike down the hill, while Germ called in an Rob-e-vac.

To the Green Mazda Protégé…

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I know its scary, making a left turn across a busy highway, with no stoplight to help you, but I have to tell you you are probably not going to get an embossed invitation to execute your turn. Normally I would tear ass around you, but you were turning into the same driveway as me, making it necessary for me to sit with you in the middle of the road while angry suburban housewives narrowly avoid testing my vehicle’s 5-Star crash-test rating. As you might understand, Green Protégé, this is a little stressful for me as I have not yet had coffee, nor do I like the concept of Subaru and Wade parts scattered all over the fucking road. In the future maybe instead of sitting in the road for a solid 10 minutes waiting for a quarter mile stretch of traffic to open up, you could, I don’t know, maybe drive to the next light and make a u-turn and stop messing with my existence this early ?

Just a thought.

Poor Marketing Choices

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Toby: Bobby, hey do you know if sell out is one word or is it hyphenated?Bobby: I dunno but damn, these freedom-fries and burgers are good.

Or at least that’s how I imagine the creation of the Toby Keith – I Love This Bar (and Grill), went down. I saw one of these restaurants on my very short trip to Las Vegas last year and was praying it was just one of those Vegas-things like drinking at 7am – funny and kitschy but something that you’re thoroughly disgusted by and pretty much guaranteed to have a negative impact on the rest of your day.

Turns out, this thing is actually a chain, and the outfit in Vegas is just one of many bars (and grills) based on a bad country song. The closest one I could find is in Oklahoma City…by god, we will take up arms at the Red River should that idiot redneck, who can’t find sleeves for any of his shirts, try to sully Texas with such an establishment.

Let me be clear about what’s really irritating me here – I known and enjoyed the company of few rednecks and this guy should not be their representative. Most of them do not have mullets, do have all their teeth and 90% their shirts have sleeves. Many of them do have highly conservative ideals (with which I disagree but respect), a rich history in south and a strong tradition of agriculture (you know, the guys who raise all the stuff you eat, like those freedom fries). North of the Mason-Dixon line they’re called farmers, and respected as providing a vital service to our society. For some reason, a 5th Avenue Marketing firm decided that southern-ag-types (rednecks) are bumbling, alcoholic idiots, and country music, which used to actually mean something in its early folk years, has whored itself out to play along by churning out bumfucks like this guy and his ridiculous restaurant.

From their site…

Leave it to country music legend Toby Keith to create a restaurant that offers great food and the best live music in Oklahoma City.

Really, that’s the best hype you can do? Not to knock Oklahoma here (cause that’s just too easy), but that’s not saying much. Apparently they even offer Redneck Loveseats. What the hell is a Redneck Loveseat? Have Toby Keith’s marketing people not seen Brokeback Mountain? The I Love This Bar (and grill) experience also features over 100 pieces of Toby Keith memorabilia. Has this guy been around long enough to generate that much crap ? Are they going through his trash to find Toby Keith Genuine Used Deodorant sticks?

And yes, you will only find fries of the freedom variety on the menu. There really is no hope for the future.

UFO

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Yet more irrefutable evidence has surfaced today from Stephenville TX:

Steve Allen, a 50-year-old pilot, was at a campfire with friends and says the object was a mile long and half a mile wide. “I don’t know if it was a biblical experience or somebody from a different universe or whatever but it was definitely not from around these parts,” Allen said.

That’s right. Proof positive that the entire northeast corner of the state should be forcibly given to Oklahoma, Arkansas or anyone else who would take it. Really. We don’t want it anymore.

As if having Dallas and a town called “White Settlement” wasn’t bad enough now we have a cluster of UFO spotters talking to the national media? I saw it in reddit yesterday, but then I got I heard about it on NPR this morning. Oh my god, this is Texas for christ’s sake, we’re not supposed to do things like this. If you really did see a UFO, do the same thing you did when you ‘accidentally’ kissed your cousin – shut the hell up about it. And if you were absolutely overcome with the desire to discuss this could you please consider not using ‘bigger than a Wal-Mart’ as your primary descriptor? Please?

At the Mall

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I was making my annual trip to the mall to buy my yearly pair of jeans, when I happened upon what is clearly a sign of the end of all things good.

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So we have become some fat and lazy as a country that our mall security gaurds need Segways. Seeing this made me want me commit a mall-crime, so as to initiate some kind of low-speed-segway-police-chase, prefereably ending in this dude executing some kind of flying tackle off his ridiculous scooter, in front of the build-a-bear store (another sign of the endtimes – the mall is full of them). To be fair, the only reason he’d catch me is because I’d be laughing so hard. Maybe he could use his really spiffy helmet as a weapon.

Adobe Customer Service

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Recently, I purchased a very shinny new MacPro for the office. I called up, told apple what I wanted, a week later Brown Santa brought me an early Christmas present. Apparently though, Adobe is not Apple. I’ve spent at least an hour on hold today, on what I believe is my fifth or sixth call in the past three months attempting to purchase a $600 software license for Creative Suite 3, thereby being a good, up-standing citizen. Let me be clear: I want to give them money. For their product. Like that whole commerce thing. And they won’t let me. It’s gone something like this:

Call Number Four–
Me: Look, can I just by this from a store ?

Adobe Rep: No Sir, not with a cross-platform upgrade.

Me: So I can’t buy it from them, and I can’t buy it from you either?

AR: Sir, We’re working to correct a problem in our purchasing system. You could always just buy the windows version, and dual boot your Intel Mac….

(Wade sets phone on fire, walks away)


Call number five took the cake today. After twenty minutes of some really bitchin soft-rock hold music, Adobe-helper-dude comes back on the line –

“Ok, I think we’ve got….” Click. Dial tone.

(Uses old Dell laptop/paperweight to smash melted phone)


Call number six –
AR: Sir, I will call you back in thirty minutes and you WILL be able to make your purchase…

(Melted former-phone/laptop creature becomes Ad-hoc soccer ball)

That was four hours ago. And they wonder why people pirate their software?

Baptists Are Friendly

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Everyone’s favorite neighborhood mega-church, Hyde Park Baptist, is making headlines today for evicting an interfaith Thanksgiving feast that included Muslims from a property they own. My understanding is this isn’t even a holy space, just a church gymnasium on the north side of town (although those baptists get pretty animated…maybe there’s some jump-shot-hallelujah-communion-maneuver I haven’t heard about).
Quoth the Statesman:

The [interfaith] group learned Wednesday that the rental space at the church-owned Quarries property in North Austin was no longer available because Hyde Park leaders had discovered that non-Christians, Muslims in particular, would be practicing their faith there. The event, now in its 23rd year, invites Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Bahais and others to worship together.

Way to make headlines guys. Kind of like how you made so many friends by building your five-story parking garage in the middle of Hyde Park, except this time, in addition to a distinct lack of community-building, you managed to serve up a thanksgiving-sized portion of religious intolerance to boot. Nice use of that short work week.

A Reddit Commentor sums it up better than i could, in a letter to the church:

Do you [HPBC] really believe that doing and saying these things is very Christ like? Do you really think that Jesus, a man who broke bread with prostitutes and tax collectors, would shun people of different faiths?

Galoshes

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When you read this, keep in mind I’m still a little upset about the demise of flannel shirts as an acceptable form of fashion. So really, I’m not the best, most credible source for a diatribe on the current state of peoples clothing. Just the same, will someone please, for-the-love-of-gawd explain to me what’s going on lately? First we have the obscenely over-sized sunglasses. On some of these models, you could use the lenses for a spare windshield on your car in an emergency. Why ? What is the purpose of shading your cheeks with tinted glass ? Wear sunscreen instead. Then there’s leg warmers and tights – ok people, chances are if it’s a trend from the 80’s it was a bad idea, especially if it was made popular by Saved by The Bell. Come on, we’re talking about the same decade that brought Don Johnson and Hulk Hogan to the forefront of cultural-consciousness. If we’re taking stylistic leads from that, we have some problems.

The final straw was Saturday night. We’re eating at Primize and this young lady rolls in to the restaurant in galoshes with a dizzying pattern of skulls on them. Like boots. Giant rubber boots. For rain. Or working in a slaughter house. And, no, it did not rain on Saturday. Nor does the restaurant require you to personally kill your food.

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It’s always good when you can identify the exact point when all hope for the future is lost.

Poor Color Choices

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Maybe I’m just cranky from too much vodka-tonic, but it really looks like they’re ice-skating in hell. Or maybe a Frank Kapra version of Mordor.

Monday

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Some observations….

DPS
Somehow, despite paying the Texas Department of Public Safety ten bucks for them to mail me a new drivers license and additionally, waiting on-hold for thirty minutes, it looks like I still don’t have a card with an updated address. I will additionally be forced to pay another ten bucks at the local DPS office, for another new license, just so the DPS knows where to find me. Bureaucracy is awesome.

Politics
Looks like we’re continuing in our mission to promote democracy and freedom abroad by continuing to provide aide to Pakistan.

Police armed with tear gas and clubs attacked thousands of protesting lawyers in the city of Lahore today, and rounded up lawyers in other cities as the government of the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, faced the first signs of concerted resistance to the imposition of emergency rule.

I’m sure we’re all shocked and surprised. Really.

Clowns
Saturday morning we departed for a mildly epic ride up the green belt form barton springs. It was early and the chaos of children’s birthday parties and pot-smoke-clouded drum circles hadn’t reached fevered pitch quite yet. By the pool entrance, there was a clown in full make-up and costume, bag of potential balloon animals at his side, clearly hating life, smoking a cigarette. A strange picture.

DST
Every year I bitch. Every year it falls back an hour, making it dark as the arctic circle in January by the time I get off work in the afternoon.