TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese man puzzled by food mysteriously disappearing from his refrigerator got a shock when he found out a woman had been living in his home for months without permission, police said Friday.
WTF??? How do you not notice something like this? What is it about Japan, why are they always the source of all the really weird stories?
Mainstreaming Terrorism to Sell Donuts - from www.littlegreenfootballs.com
"I didn’t believe this story when people first started emailing about it; but sure enough, it’s true. Dunkin Donuts, the venerable old fried dough seller, is the latest American firm to casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the kaffiyeh, via Rachael Ray"
Someone please tell me this is satire. People can't really be this stupid, can they?
The bike rack in the garage in our office park is falling apart. It's one of those old school racks; looks almost like a parade barricade with an extra bar along the bottom to hold your front wheel. The vertical bars in between which you put the wheel are rusting at the welds and some of them have broken (or been broken) loose. To secure the bike, you actually have to loop your chain/cable around the horizontal bar at the top. Otherwise, someone could just remove the vertical bar and make off with your ride. If they were really ambitious, they could just take the whole rack; it's no longer secured to the ground. I leaned against it the other day and almost knocked it over, bikes and all.
We have a message board at work, so I posted a facilities request alerting them of the problem. They forwarded that request to the property management group and on Wednesday, they're going to be replacing the rack. Maybe I should petition them to name the new rack after me... like a new wing at a hospital or something.
So, I'm riding to work yesterday morning. On the down-side of a bridge, I'm cruising at about 30ish. Coming at me (the wrong way on my side of the road, but up on the sidewalk) is another guy on a bike; looks like one of the DUI Brigade. You know the guys; they've been popped for DUI too many times, have lost their license and now their only mode of transportation is some beat-up, too small for them, 20 year old K-Mart bike. As I pass him, I hear him shout something, but couldn't really catch it over the wind rushing by. I was about 20 or so feet past him when it filtered through. I'm still not 100% sure, but I think he said something about me being a circus freak. I'm way more confused than upset about it, because I wasn't even wearing anything outlandish. I had on a plain, black pair of cycling shorts, plain white Nashbar jersey, my backpack and black Specialized shoes. Oh well, WTF ever. If that's what makes you feel a little better about your sorry lot in life, you go pal.
Three gd flats in three consecutive rides. It's enough to make you chew your own foot off. I'm so sick of this, that I'm seriously thinking about hanging up the whole bike commuting thing right now. Any savings I'm realizing in gas are being negated by the costs of tires and tubes. In the past two weeks, I've bought two tires and three tubes. I replaced the original cheap, crappy tires that came on the bike with a set of Continental Ultras; the rear tire didn't even last a day before I flatted. I was a little over half-way back to the car when I ran over two shards of glass so small, I couldn't even see them to avoid them. I didn't even really need to boot the tire, but I threw a couple of patches on the inside of the tire just to be sure. The front tire (so far) has held up like a champ, it's the rear that's been giving me fits the past week. Perhaps my ass is just too fat for any but the strongest tires they make. A set of Gatorskins would probably alleviate my problems, but I'm sure they're spendy. I saw in my email when I got home that Performance Bike is having a sale through the weekend. I'll have to check it out; maybe they'll have something I can afford.
Any advice from anyone who happens to be reading this will certainly be appreciated.
Every day is a learning experience.
- Quick release skewers are waaaay better than a solid axle and hex nuts
- If you have a solid axle and hex nuts, make sure that your multi-tool has a wrench that fits the nuts
- CO2 pumps are apparently not air-tight; if the canister seal is broken and you leave the pump in your seat bag, when you go down at lunch to patch your tube, the canister will be empty
- Coworkers who offer to give you a ride to your car after work = AWESOME
..under the belt and aside from a few mechanical mishaps here and there (with which Dave and the guys at AJ's Bikes and Boards were able to assist me), everything seems to be going quite well.
Some lessons learned:
- Have spare tires on hand, not just spare tubes
- If you have a CO2 pump, you should also have a few spare CO2 canisters
- A mini patch kit is a good idea even if you carry a spare tube
- Make sure the tension on you pedals isn't too high, because the screws that come with your cleats are surprisingly easy to strip out
I'm not sure if it's just me or if traffic has actually been noticeably lighter the last few weeks. I paid $3.59/gal on Friday and by this morning, it had jumped to $3.65. That's the likely reason for fewer cars on the road, and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. At the same time, I have noticed a few more people on bikes in the morning. With the industrial areas I ride through, you always see the blue collar guys that either can't afford a car or lost their license, but I'm seeing more of those guys plus a few more people who actually know the rules of the road and are riding bikes that don't look held together with duct tape and chewing gum. I've even seen one or two more bikes at the bike rack here at work. That seems to be inconsistent though.
It may not be for long though. I've been getting lots of questions from coworkers as well as from people I don't even know, about my commute, how I clean up, how I manage to not reek, etc... It's pretty cool. One of my manager's bosses even told me I was his hero. That was pretty cool. Now, if only I could find an angle to work that into a raise...
May is National Bike Month.
