Breaking News: Thinking About Thinking About Thinking About Something

Firstly, remember how someone got mad and decided to sell my book on eBay?  Well, the auction has finally ended, and the book has fetched the staggering sum of Fifty-Five Camp USA Fun Tickets (formerly "American dollars"):

This just goes to show that:

1) Some people will pay for anything;

and

2) Not liking me is actually a good investment.

Secondly, if you consider the exquisite design and seamless functionality of this website, you may be stunned to learn that I actually suck at technology.  For example, I have one of those smartphones, and I sometimes use it to read the New York Times.  However, no matter how many virtual toggle switches I toggle I cannot get the stupid "app" not to flash me little alerts when big news stories break.  For example, when Hillary Clinton's head was about to explode, my phone kept updating me on her condition.  Now, I wish Hillary Clinton nothing but the best, but I don't need updates popping up on my phone screen while I'm busy trying to take pictures of my genitals to send to people who say mean things about me on Twitter.  It really takes me out of the moment.

At the very least though, it seemed like when the New York Times would flash me a news update it would be about something really important, like Hillary Clinton's head is a ticking time bomb, or the House of Representatives has finally voted to procrastinate for a few more months--until Friday night, when my phone starts telling me this:

In Reversal, Armstrong Is Said to Weigh Admitting Drug Use

Is he admitting it?  No.  Is he saying he's thinking about admitting it?  No.  Someone else who won't say who they are is saying that Lance Armstrong is thinking about admitting he took drugs.

Lance Armstrong confessing is a big, juicy story.  Lance Armstrong "weighing" a confession is not a story, at least not that warrants a "breaking news" alert akin to the Secretary of State's head exploding.  It's more of a current events cock tease.  Does anybody in the world think he hasn't been weighing it?  I'm sure Hillary Clinton also weighed whether or not to bite her husband's penis off during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and in fact she's probably still weighing it, but I never saw the New York Times publish a story about that--though obviously if she actually goes through with it that would warrant a banner headline.

It must be nice to be able to use the New York Times to build buzz for your upcoming book:

“Cycle of Lies will prove definitively that his [Armstrong] extraordinary career had nothing to do with the bike,” David Hirshey, HarperCollins’ executive editor, told the Post.

Yeah, right, nothing at all.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this book manages to prove that Lance Armstrong never rode a bicycle.

(So I guess what I'm really saying is, "How do you turn the fucking alerts off on the New York Times app?")

Speaking of how out of it I am, a reader forwarded me a review of a £25,000 (or US$3,000,000,000,000) bicycle, and I had no idea that the guy from "The Young Ones" was now a car reviewer and closet Fred:

But that's only because nobody from "The Young Ones" ever managed to catch on in America.  The closest any of them ever came was Rik, who was in that movie "Right Said Fred" or whatever with Phoebe Cates:

(That's Rik, not Phoebe Cates.)

I actually saw the Fred movie in the theater because I was the kind of teenager who really liked British TV shows (a huge dork, in other words), and as I recall it was basically just Rik running around looking like John Lydon.

Needless to say, it was not a hit with American audiences, though according to Wikipedia the Australians loved it:

Although it performed poorly at the US box office, it became Working Title's first financial hit and was (for a time) the most successful independent film ever released in Australia.

Because Australians will laugh at absolutely anything with wild red hair:

If you ever want to smuggle a bunch of drugs and guns into Australia, just flash one of these at customs:

You'll saunter right in as they're doubled over with incapacitating mirth.

Anyway, according to Sayle, aluminum is actually more compliant than The Crabon:

To ride, the Aston feels like many other high-end, carbon racing bikes, much stiffer than the alloy frame I own, transmitting every bump straight up your arms...

That's enough to get you killed over at "Bicycling."

By the way, 25,000lbs may seem like a lot to pay for a Fred sled, but just keep in mind that you get this enormous monochromatic display that looks like a universal remote from the late 1990s:

Yeah, that's way cleaner than an iPhone mount.

Of course, if you're a huge Fred a phenomenally expensive bicycle can be just the motivation you need to keep you riding through the winter--unless you live in Florida where they don't have winter, in which case I feel sorry for you (because you live in Florida, not because you don't have winter), or unless you live someplace where the winter is on the wrong side of the calendar, like Australia, in which case this:

(Gotcha!)

The three people in Australia who read this blog are laughing so hard they'll be calling in sick for the rest of the week.

But what if you live in someplace like Portland, where they have sort of a half-assed winter?  How do Portlanders stay motivated?  Well, as a reader informs me, they write poetry:

Yes, if this doesn't keep you riding than you might as well just take the bus:


January —
The darkest time of the year
the rainiest month
the post-holiday sluggishness —
a bike commuter’s biggest challenge
Festive Christmas light brightened my December commutes
now gone

Leaves, vanished from the trees
dissolved into lingering dark mush on the road

Bitter darkness surrounds me
Blindly, I bang into multiplying potholes

"Take the bus" is also good advice if you're unable to avoid potholes, like this person.

By the way, let's look at that forbidding January weather in Portland:

(How is this different than any other time of year in Portland?)

You call that winter?!?  The two people in Minnesota who read this blog are laughing like Australians who have been exposed to wild orange hair:

(I'd laugh but I might stab myself with a snotsicle and bleed to death.)

This guy doesn't even bother to wear clothes when it's above 40 degrees.

Still, I enjoyed the alliteration in the phrase "Blindly, I bang into multiplying potholes" almost as much as I enjoyed it in the title of this Craigslist post about a "beautiful, tawny beard:"

Beautiful Beard at Bedford L - w4m - 30 (Bedford to 1st Ave.)
Date: 2013-01-06, 12:36AM EST

I was really regretting taking the train instead of my bike, but your beautiful, tawny beard almost made it worth it. Please never shave. 


Yeah, but how did it smell?