“There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010…”
Igor Panarin, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic academy.
Full story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29504880/
Sweet. Martial law. Rioting in the streets. Alaska “returned” to Russian control.
Quick – someone call Swayze!
.
… not too much, mostly plants.
I get asked about diet a lot. I think that’s what comes from being over 40, a vegetarian for 20+ years, and in pretty good shape.
Michael Pollan
pretty much covers the topic here:
http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/m3u/SpeakersForum/SpeakersForum20090129.m3u
Listen to this one. It’s pretty great.
.
OTTAWA — Adam Doughty is grateful for at least one thing: he dropped his 16-month-old son off at the babysitter’s before driving his wife to work early Saturday morning.
If he hadn’t, the toddler would have been in the car when Doughty hit a runaway bicycle on the Queensway, a collision that caused his two-week-old car to “leave the ground for a split second.”
Bicycle pieces ended up under his 2009 Mitsubishi Galant, and “the front bumper is a write-off,” said Doughty.
Still, he considers himself lucky. “It could have been worse.”
According to Ontario Provincial Police, the bicycle came off a vehicle heading westbound on Highway 417 just before 7 a.m. near Woodroffe Avenue.
Over the next few minutes, it damaged at least three other vehicles, flattening tires and puncturing a gas tank. No one was injured.
Police believe the runaway bike may have caused further minor, but unreported, damage to several more vehicles.
Doughty was returning home after dropping his wife off at work, travelling in the inside lane and could see two cars ahead of him.
At one point, the car directly in front of him changed lanes — “very casually, no warnings, no swerving, no blinkers” — and there on the highway was a bicycle.
Doughty said he assumed the bicycle came off the car ahead of the one that had just changed lanes.
With a wall on his left, and traffic on his right, there was nowhere to go.
“I hit it — there was no avoiding it,” he said. “A few pieces went over me and a few pieces went beneath me. It actually lifted my car.”
Const. Larry Sandell said it was impossible to tell what kind of bicycle it was because “it was in a thousand pieces by the time the ministry got there and scooped it up.”
Police say they do not expect to hear from the owner of the bike.
“It’s pretty cold to be going cycling this morning, so I’m speculating they’re heading somewhere south,” said Sandell. “Probably didn’t even realize it fell off the back of the vehicle. They’ll get a surprise when they stop.”
Lennard Zinn is an idiot. Period. Yet another example…
http://www.velonews.com/article/88555/technical-qa-with-lennard-zinn-weight-v-wind
One of my favorite movie scenes… reminded of it by a post on ST. Name the film, and the actor (who – maybe – also wrote the scene…)
What’s a film about, what’s it really about? What genre does it take?
[Duane: What, like the spine? Like one sentence?]
No, I don’t, fucking boy meets girl, I don’t give a shit about that. Fuck boy meets girl, fuck motorcycle movie. No, what is really being said? What’s really being said, that’s what you’re talking about. ‘Cause the whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level. You know what one of the greatest fucking scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? Top Gun.
[Duane: Oh, come on.]
Top Gun is fucking great. What is Top Gun? You think it’s a story about a bunch of fighter pilots. [Duane: It’s about a bunch of guys waving their dicks around.] It is a story about a man’s struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man.
You’ve got Maverick, all right? He’s on the edge, man. He’s right on the fucking line, all right? And you’ve got Iceman, and all his crew. They’re gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they’re saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways.
[Duane: What about Kelly McGillis?]
Kelly McGillis, she’s heterosexuality. She’s saying: no, no, no, no, no, no, go the normal way, play by the rules, go the normal way. They’re saying no, go the gay way, be the gay way, go for the gay way, all right? That is what’s going on throughout that whole movie…
He goes to her house, all right? It looks like they’re going to have sex, you know, they’re just kind of sitting back, he’s takin’ a shower and everything. They don’t have sex. He gets on the motorcycle, drives away. She’s like, “What the fuck, what the fuck is going on here?” Next scene, next scene you see her, she’s in the elevator, she is dressed like a guy. She’s got the cap on, she’s got the aviator glasses, she’s wearing the same jacket that the Iceman wears. She is, okay, this is how I gotta get this guy, this guy’s going towards the gay way, I gotta bring him back, I gotta bring him back from the gay way, so I’m do that through subterfuge, I’m gonna dress like a man. All right? That is how she approaches it.
Okay, now let me just ask you–I’m gonna digress for two seconds here. I met this girl Amy here, she’s like floating around here and everything. Now, she just got divorced, right?…
All right, but the REAL ending of the movie is when they fight the MIGs at the end, all right? Because he has passed over into the gay way. They are this gay fighting fucking force, all right? And they’re beating the Russians, the gays are beating the Russians. And it’s over, and they fucking land, and Iceman’s been trying to get Maverick the entire time, and finally, he’s got him, all right? And what is the last fucking line that they have together? They’re all hugging and kissing and happy with each other, and Ice comes up to Maverick, and he says, “Man, you can ride my tail, anytime!” And what does Maverick say? “You can ride mine!” Swordfight! Swordfight! Fuckin’ A, man!
m
Yeah, I’m just that cool. Or that other word that means the exact opposite.
Not that anybody’s going to be reading it, but just for the heck of it, I’m going to twitter from Cross Nats. Feed is at http://twitter.com/crosssports
OK. Got that out of the way. Now, the quote of the week:
“My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament… My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon… luge lessons… In the spring, we’d make meat helmets… When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles — there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it’s breathtaking… I suggest you try it. ”
Name that Villain!
M
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Police said a woman was arrested after asking a state trooper whether she could smoke — and then trying to light up a marijuana joint. Honesty Knight, 32, was a passenger in a vehicle that Trooper Eric Perkins pulled over for a traffic violation early Friday. While the trooper was talking to the driver, Knight obtained the trooper’s permission to smoke.
Police say Perkins then asked to see the cigarette, which contained marijuana, not tobacco.
Knight faces a preliminary charge of possession of paraphernalia. She was released from jail on bond, but couldn’t be located for comment because no home telephone number was listed in her name.
Holey moley…
I just limped over to my pile of post-apocalyptic assorted bike parts, and checked out the aftermath of the race. Giant hole in the tubie I flatted, it looks like I ran over a freakin’ switchblade knife.
Here’s the amazing thing; after I flatted, I rode about 1/2 a lap on the flat tire, and there’s no way I could have kept track of the crap I hit. We’re talking *WHAMMMO!*, *KER-PLANG!*, bad 60’s Batman-style sound effect hits on the wheel. When I rolled through the rock garden, it sounded like someone had pushed a recycling dumpster down a flight of stairs.
I was running a set of the Uber-boutiquey Shimano deep section tubular wheels…
Expensive damn race, eh?
Nope.
The wheel is completely unfazed, and as true as it started the race.
Un-freakin believable. They rock. Seriously – I’ve used a bunch of carbon wheels over the years, and I don’t think any of them would have made it through this kind of a nightmare unscathed.
Buy a pair. Or a used car. About the same price… but totally worth it (if your priorities are as seriously warped as mine are, that is…)
M
… of the Seattle Metro cross series, at least.
Totally brutal.
This course was ridiculous. By the time the 1/2 race went off, the course looked like a mine field. There were jagged rocks everywhere, serrated mini sharks-teeth buried just below the sandy surface of the course. Team Redline had – no kidding – twelve (12), that’s 10 and then 2 more, flats.
I hadn’t fallen in a race all season, and I hit the deck 4 times today. 2 of ’em were due to sudden tire calamity, 1 was due to the f-in ridiculous triple barrier that was about 2 inches above knee level for my stubby 27 3/4 inch inseam midget legs, and #4 was due to a knuckle head Cat 1/2 from out of town.
Word to the wise, OK? You’ve just managed to lose over a minute to the lead masters in less than a full lap. It probably isn’t cool to try and storm past the 5 person lead group and chop them all in a corner, riding over the front guy’s front wheel in the process.
Get a clue. Your day is over, you’re “racing” for 45th, get the hell out of the way.
I’m really not quite sure how I managed to finish today; my leg looks like somebody sliced open my VMO and stitched it closed after inserting a lemon. There’s enough inflammation that my patella is getting displaced and it’s making this really groovy “clunk” sound if I try to bend the joint.
Sweet!
This just about sums up the day’s mood…
As bad as my day was, I still managed to salvage a win in the series, running the last 1/8 mile or so of the race with a broken bike on my shoulder. T.M.T. – second coming into today’s race – had an even worse day, and DNF’ed all the way down to 6th overall. I feel really bad for him. He made a giant step up in level this season, and deserved better. Frankly, having the double-points series finale race on a mine-field crapshoot of a course is pretty s***ty. We really should be able to do better than this…
M
From the Kitsap County Sun…
SILVERDALE
A bicyclist who blocked traffic in a Jack-in-the-Box drive-through on the 10000 block of Silverdale Way on Thursday was arrested on suspicion of trespassing.
The 24-year-old East Bremerton man told a Kitsap County Sheriff’s deputy that he was unable to drive and had ridden his mountain bike into the drive-through to order some chicken strips.
The deputy, responding to a call from an employee, found the bicyclist by the window speaking into a hand-held video camera. When the deputy questioned him, the suspect said, apparently speaking into the camera, “The police are here.”
The employee told the deputy that the man had ridden up around 3 p.m. and placed an order. The lobby of the restaurant had closed at 2 p.m. for Thanksgiving, and a sign was posted in the window to that effect.
The employee said her manager had told her not to serve people on bicycles, because of the safety hazard. She explained the policy to the bicyclist, but he refused to leave and told her, “Go ahead and call the police. I’m making a stand.”
The deputy explained to the bicyclist that his behavior constituted trespassing, but he refused to move on.
After the bicyclist had been placed under arrest, he told the deputy he felt he had “a right to chicken strips.”
The bicyclist was booked into to Kitsap County jail, but was later released on personal recognizance.
Sweet. Power to the Pedals, baby…
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