Under This Decorative Title There Are Words And Pictures!

New York City is doomed.  I give it 20 years at most before we make present-day Detroit look like the golden age of Rome, whenever that was.  I'm not talking about being doomed because of the natural disasters, either.  I'm talking about the fact that the rich people here have officially become too incompetent to spend their money:

Yes, even when armed with $1.5 million in purchasing power, they still can't find two-bedroom apartments in which to live:

But after a year and a half of aggressively looking, the couple still haven’t been able to make a deal. And that’s after broadening their search from South Williamsburg to nine other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and loosening their purse strings to a maximum of $1.5 million, up from their starting point of $800,000.

“I’m so frustrated,” said Ms. Jepson, noting that most apartments in their price range were either “chintzy,” or in a residential-commercial space that made getting a loan tricky. “I feel like we have great credit, all the financial documents and are willing to pay more, and we still can’t find what we’re looking for.”

When you can't find something you're looking for, there are generally two reasons:

1) What you're looking for doesn't exist;

2) You're not very smart.

Since two-bedroom apartments costing less than $1.5 million do indeed exist--even in post-hipster Brooklyn, and even without "chintz"--then it's probably time to start coming to grips with reason number two.  If our gentrifiers have indeed reached this profound level of ineptitude then I really can't see any hope for our civilization.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the New York Times, a model wants a bicycle for the Christingmass:

What She’s Hoping to Get: A bicycle. “Whenever I’m stuck in traffic, I always see people riding past, and I love the carefree feeling I always get from them,” she says. “Not to mention it’s a very environmentally friendly way to travel!”

I haven't got the heart to tell her that what she's mistaking for "carefree" is actually periods of inflated smugness punctuated by moments of abject terror as motorists do their best to kill you.

And while I'm on the subject of giving, if you're still looking for holiday gifts I recommend the following in order of how highly I recommend them, the topmost being the most recommended and so forth on down.  I hope that makes sense.  I guess I could have just said "in descending order" but it's too late now.  Fuck it:

1) These:

These are books that I wrote.  You can buy them anywhere they sell books, including the Internet, and you can even buy them in some places they don't usually sell books, barring the frozen food section at the local supermarket.  I don't care which one you buy.  Buy one, buy both, or don't buy any for all I care.  Jesus, I'm sorry I even brought it up.

2) Something from our sponsors.

By "ours" I mean "my," and by "sponsors" I mean the people who advertise on this blog.  Go ahead, look on the right side of the page, it won't hurt you.  One of those business concerns is probably selling something somebody you know would like.  If they don't, get some new friends.

3)  I don't care what you do beyond that.

Honestly, I really don't care what you do beyond that.  Go buy that model a bike for all I care.  Just buy my book(s) first.

Speaking of books, just because I wrote some doesn't mean I'm smart.  Paris Hilton also wrote a book, so there you go.  That's why it seems silly to expect me to use words right, as the person who sent me this email apparently does:

The pudding was named after the town, thus the TOWN is the eponym and not the pudding. It's an eponymous town.

Eponymous is one of those words that's maddeningly misused, mostly when referring to Led Zeppelin albums. As an artful wordsmith, I thought you'd like to know.  And besides, you're screwing up the Universal Simulation that is the entire point of our eponymous Universe.

This is in regard to last Friday's post, and while I genuinely appreciate the clarification I also can't help feeling both nonplussed and eponymous.  Yeah, I went to college or whatever, but the simple truth is that I don't have some kind of fancy education, nor was I even remotely intelligent or motivated enough to make the most of the mediocre one I got.  Just to give you a sense of my academic background, the most successful person my college ever graduated was this guy:



So there you go.  Again.

Also, in my defense, I did look up "eponymous" in the dictionary before I used it and this is what I found:

Then I clicked on the pronunciation and heard this.

By then I was so confused I'm amazed I managed to post anything at all.

Nevertheless, I'll make every effort to be more linguistically accurate in the future.

Eponymously,

--Wildcat Rock Machine

PS: Now onto the rest of the post.

Right.  So this past weekend I made the bicycle ride.  Specifically I made the mountain bicycle ride, and even more specifically I rode from my home to the traihead almost entirely on dirt paths and in about an hour.  (Suck it, Brooklyn.)  Anyway, if you've been riding a bike for more than six days you've doubtless heard a gazillion "Thank god I was wearing my helment" stories, but it's not very often that you hear the opposite.  Well, here's an "I wish I hadn't been wearing my helment" story for once.

So there I was, riding through the forest and gloating about how I don't live in Brooklyn anymore, when I encountered a rocky section of trails.  Here's what the section looks like:

It's actually pretty tricky if: a) You're approaching it from the other direction, which I was; and b) you suck at riding a bike, which I do.

Anyway, the first time through it I "dabbed," and so I made myself ride the section again, and then I "dabbed" again.  "Aw, fuck it," I thought.  "At least I don't live in Brooklyn anymore.  Suckers."  Then I clipped back in, continued on my way, and ducked under a low-hanging tree branch, at which point I promptly--not to mention painfully--wedged myself under it with my own head:

I can assure you it hurts when your own helment gets mashed onto your scalp like that, so I then turned around and looked at the eponymous branch with a nonplussed expression on my face:

Now, I always wear a helment when I do the mountain bicycle cycling, yet I totally would have cleared the branch if I had not been wearing a helment, since it's that extra inch of styrofoam what done me in.  And here's the resulting dimple:

So yes, since I didn't fall head-first onto those rocks, but I did get wedged under a tree branch, then I do wish I hadn't been wearing a helment.  Plus, because it's now got a tiny dimple in it, I'm sure I'm supposed to replace it--which I'm absolutely not going to do, even though its structural integrity is now compromised and I'M TOTALLY GOING TO DIE!

By the way, you're also supposed to replace your helment if it gets exposed to dandruff, styling products, or temperature fluctuations in excess of 5 degrees Fahrenheit [or mumblemumblemumble degrees celsius].

Of course, you might also point out that I'd have cleared the branch if I'd been riding a 650b bicycle instead of a 29er due to the additional clearance afforded by the slightly smaller wheelsize, but combining a helment debate with a wheel size debate can be fatal, and at the very least we'd all have to replace our helments afterwards.

Speaking of helments, did you know that a cardboard bike helmet could revolutionize head?

Oh, wait, sorry.  That's not right.  Let me try that again:

Damnit, still not right!  This SRAM DoubeTap computer mouse is so balky!  Why don't they go electronic already?!?  OK, one more time, as forwarded to me by a reader:

So how does this revolutionize head safety?  It's a protective shell you put on your head.  Now if was a suppository that somehow protected your head then that would be revolutionary.  Sure, it might be a bit uncomfortable, but at least you wouldn't get helment hair.