Wednesday, January 23, 2013

It's Wednesday! Everybody Back Into Bed!

I don't necessarily believe in mindlessly adhering to rules, but there are a few that should be obeyed at all times.  Never date a musician.  Don't eat yellow snow.  And, of course, never ever get a pro cycling-themed tattoo:


I wonder if it was actually supposed to look like an undead zombie Armstrong, or if that's just the way it turned out.

Oh, one more rule you should always follow, and it's so obvious that it hardly warrants mentioning:


Still, I'll mention it anyway:

Never join a team owned by Michael Ball.


Gotcha!  See, I bet you thought I was going to say "Never get a tattoo on your face."  Actually, getting a tattoo on your face isn't really a big deal, since it will be mostly gone by the time you're arrested:


American pro cycling makes the mafia look like a bookclub.  It's stunning to think that actual companies put actual sponsorship money into it--or maybe it isn't, since those companies are criminals too:





Amgen’s strong influence prevailed even though it had pleaded guilty just weeks ago to marketing an anti-anemia drug illegally and agreed to pay criminal and civil penalties of $762 million, a record settlement for a biotechnology company.

This dreadful episode is a classic example of the power of special interests to shape legislation and shows how hard it may be to carry out the reforms needed to cut health care costs.

Whatever.  I'm sooo psyched for the Amgen Tour of California!  Let's take a look at that list of past winners:


Hilarious.

Meanwhile, pro cyclists are now doing all they can to prove how "clean" they are, and Thor Hushovd recently tweeted about his Tour Down Under post-stage meal:

Yes, what could be cleaner than a plate of plain white rice that's bigger than your face?


(Mmmm!  Binding!)

Apparently Hushovd's goal is to not have a single bowel movement for the duration of the weeklong race.

There are some riders who are confessing though:





Dekker said at the weekend that doping had been a “way of life” at Rabobank, with whom he raced from 2005 to 2008. He had previously ridden for Rabobank’s under-23 and junior teams.

The Dutch bank withdrew from sponsorship at the end of the 2012 season due to the repeated revelations of the team’s doping past. In May of last year, former manager Theo De Rooy admitted that doping was tolerated on the team until the aftermath of the Michael Rasmussen affair in 2007, while at the weekend, NRC Handelsblad reported that the team had first initiated an organised doping programme during the 1996 Tour de France.

But wait!  I thought US Postal's doping program was the most sophisticated and comprehensive in history!  Now you're telling me Rabobank had one too?  Those Dutch are better at everything!

Speaking of injustice, there's a chance David Byrne's whimsically inconvenient bike racks at the Brooklyn Academy of Music may not be approved by the Public Design Commission:





FORT GREENE —Alphabet-shaped bike racks designed by Talking Heads singer David Byrne may be on "the road to nowhere" unless they get approval from the city’s Public Design Commission.
The racks, unveiled outside the Brooklyn Academy of Music in August 2012, can be altered to spell out words and phrases. The current words, chosen by Byrne, spell "Pink Crown" and "Micro Lip."

Apparently, Byrne accepts criticism about as readily as he accepts the keys to a brand new car, which is to say that he doesn't:


In 2008 they rejected two of Byrne's bike rack designs. One design, created in the shape of a liquor bottle, was “deemed to be in bad taste,” according to Byrne's online journal.

In an online rant, the "Burning Down The House" singer called the Design Commission "gatekeepers," writing "I wonder how many emerging artists would have the patience for the form-filling, waiting, and political stupidity that is involved in going via the gatekeepers—not many, I would think."

How dare they!  It would be a tremendous blow to the creative culture of the New Brooklyn if these awkward racks were replaced with actual functional bike parking.  Sure, it's a pain in the ass to have to lock your bike to the words "Micro Lip," but you have to understand that people are now paying over a million dollars to live in Brooklyn apartments, so it's absolutely crucial that everything they touch is special in some way.  Plus, who doesn't enjoy it when design is incorporated into practical objects, even if it makes them vastly more difficult to use?  In fact, I think David Byrne should move on from bike racks to urinals:


The David Byrne urinals look like inverted and repurposed hand dryers, because that's exactly what they are.  Is it inconvenient to direct your urine stream into such a small opening?  Yes.  Is it frustrating to hit the "flush" button, only to have your urine blown right back onto you with a mighty burst of air?  Also yes.  But isn't it worth it to be a part of the artistic process?

No.  No it is not.

Meanwhile, in other artisan news, I've mentioned before that "artisanal fathering" is the hot new trend in the survival of our species, and here's a Wall Street Journal article that proves it in your face even harder:


At-home dads aren't trying to be perfect moms, says a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Instead, they take pride in letting their children take more risks on the playground, compared with their spouses. They tend to jettison daily routines in favor of spontaneous adventures with the kids. And many use technology or DIY skills to squeeze household budgets, or find shortcuts through projects and chores, says the study, based on interviews, observation of father-child outings and an analysis of thousands of pages of at-home dads' blogs and online commentary.

You're damn right we do.  For example, I'll often add a little excitement to our supermarket trips by stopping at an overpass on the way home so we can drop frozen chickens onto the windshields of passing cars.  I also like to "use technology...to find shortcuts through projects and chores," which is another way of saying I don't do them and look at Internet pornography instead.  Still, a lot of the stuff in this article is old hat to the seasoned artisanal father.  Take this for example:

He takes pride in pushing the kids to solve problems for themselves. Recently, Mr. Grossbauer stood back and encouraged Finn to figure out how to fetch a ball he had tossed into a milk crate nailed to a tree, just out of reach. After 20 minutes of frustration, and begging his dad to get it, Finn found a stool and retrieved the ball—a lesson in self-control and perseverance, Mr. Grossbauer says.

This is called "distracting the kid so you can drink," and it's the oldest trick in the book.  Plus, clearly Mr. Grossbauer is an amateur, because I find that if you hide a favorite toy in the wall behind some sheetrock you can get through at least a six pack and half a season of "Breaking Bad" on Netflix.  Not only that, but it also teaches the child important hammering and crying skills, which they'll use later when they're pursuing that poetry degree at Bard.  As for the hole in the wall, mommy fixes that when she gets home--or at least I assume she does, because I'm passed out on the couch by then and when I wake up everything's all tidy again, and I'm even in a fresh diaper.

Lastly, here's an iPhone hand-up:


Nicely done.

77 comments:

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

laying down on the job.

Anonymous said...

Ink!

Anonymous said...

PODIUM!!??

le Correcteur said...

podium

le Correcteur said...

Effin proof! Should woulda coulda podiumed!

Anonymous said...

For those keeping score, that was fourth yesterday, and third today. With a little help (EPO) I should win soon.

3G said...

DICK TATS

Anonymous said...

Too ten!

Anonymous said...

Fuck chickens for fuck sake!!

grog said...

10. Oh Babe

Anonymous said...

Almost 10!

Anonymous said...

I rode it twice! Still finished in the sprint!

PBateman said...

that was a rather impressive bit of thievery. Bully for you sir bicyclist, bully indeed.

Comment deleted said...

Like grabbing the ring on a carousel ride.

jno62 said...

Indeed, impressive.

Danny Ray said...

I'm late to the party, but AI brought this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KabOfnbS4TQ

grbiker88 said...

Jesus, that Armstrong tattoo looks like my boss.

McFly said...

"Pink Crown" and "Micro Lip", who is DB consulting? Babble?

The King of Park Slope said...

Possession is an illusion.

Serial Retrogrouch said...

i'm always tempted to grab the dumb-phones of jaywalkers and worse, jay-standers on the bike paths as i pass them.

just to teach them a lesson, not because i have a need for a stupid phone.

ken e. said...

holy rct, layin down the beats!

ZZZZ ZZZZ
GOTS LEEP

babble on said...

Hey! That's how I parent, too! We should get the kids together for a playdate.

Jimboner said...

Snob,
Thanks for the safety-glass encrusted
artisinal chicken, it was delicious.

babble on said...

If he was consulting me you know it would read pink canoe, and you know there would be a tongue in there somewhere, too.

Natch.

babble on said...

That zombie Lance is going to give me nightmares. Where's my drink?

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but I have a technolojikle question for some of your more independent and self sufficient readers who persevere because their dads told them to get their own dang ball down:

Can I put 650B wheals on my 2002 700C/29" er and still use rim braeks?


yiddish?
tevelsh 31583

Anonymous said...

The tongue goes in the brown dingy. As many fingers as will fit go in the pink canoe. It's science.

DB said...

Regarding the At Home Fathering article, in the old days, our Fathers were seen about twice a week, usually with a cigarette in one hand and a Manhattan in the other.

leroy said...

Dear Mr. King of Park Slope @ 12:53PM --

My dog agrees, but notes that repossession is a bitch.

Anonymous said...

a timeless classic worthy of Tatt might just be J. Tomac; rocking the 7eleven colors, drop bars in the dirt, slamming coors

leroy said...

Tossing frozen chickens off the overpass?

Isn't that how Fresh Direct got its start?

crosspalms said...

Artisanal fathers might consider urban orienteering, which involves creative use of public transportation

McFly said...

ANon 1:54,
Have you been Hailing the Black Market?

That's an awesome shot. His boy Eli has been killing it in the Supercross Lites class out west.

streepo said...

Very nice snatch by the phone thief.

Anonymous said...

Love you Lance

mikeweb said...

Artisanal fathering is a fine science. This guy was one of the pioneers.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised the i-phone snatcher had the nerve to steal a phone from a guy in a pink cardigan.

Anonymous said...

@ Danny Ray

That video just introduced me to Artisanal Meditation (I took a nap).

Marcel Da Chump said...

Burning Down the Racks

Anonymous said...

The NYTimes, another fine example of reporting, using studies and "observations" to further your infotainment.

Anonymous said...

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have been born (most of the time) but people act as if they are doing something virtous by producing small replicas of themselves when in fact it probably is the most selfish act two humans can perpetrate in a world with nearly 7 billion people and diminshing resources. And on top of that to name your child Finn and artisanally raise him?

Anonymous said...

Hey, who's the guy at/@1:06 with the car spam?! Don't those spammers know that this is a bike-cycling blog. Oh, I guess they don't....

Samuel said...

"At-home dads aren't trying to be perfect moms, says a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Instead, they take pride in letting their children take more risks on the playground, compared with their spouses. They tend to jettison daily routines in favor of spontaneous adventures with the kids. And many use technology or DIY skills to squeeze household budgets, or find shortcuts through projects and chores, says the study"

Yup, this sounds like pretty much every day when dad was looking after me and my sister on his own - we'd do the bare minimum of stuff around the house and then end up either making or fixing something in the garage or out at the park or beach for the rest of the day. It took actual research to find this out? Maybe New Zealand dads have been way ahead of the curve all this time and the States is just catching up...

Finn said...

Will someone come get me off this damn roof?

rural 14 said...

ant 2nd!
That iphone head delete / phone delete app is mahvelous.

+ home schooling from a stay at home dad -

"go down to the corner store. get me a pack of tarretons. what's the change?" (tm the New Yorker from when scary home schoolers first came out of the religious maniacs house and into the zeitgeist).

F the zeitgeist?

Anonymous said...

All hail the pink canoe! (With apologies to All Hail the Black Market.)

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

Right on rural. My dad would send me down to the neighborhood carry out with a buck to get him a pack of Kools. The change was about $ .35 if I remember right.

McFly said...

We had a wood stove and a garden.

Nuff said.

Anonymous said...

"another way of saying I don't do them and look at Internet pornography instead."

"Internet pornography" is redundant.

Or is it a tautology? Internet= pornography and pornography =internet.

And I just Trademarked the phrase "Artisanal Bachelor."

Artisanal Bachelorhood is defined by looking at the pornternet via an i386 machine.

db said...

I wonder what kind of parenting David Clinger had...

bikesgonewild said...

...ahhh, yes, brother theodore...

...that's not your dad, i mean 'artesanal father-er' is it, mikeweb ???...

...just askin'...

bikesgonewild said...

...ummm - ['she was only a boat builders daughter but that pink canoe was all tongue in groove'...

...'she was only a boat builders daughter but her pink canoe needed a lot of caulk'...


...'she was only a boat builders daughter but i loved to get wet in her pink canoe'
...

...c'mon folks, help me out here...i'm makin' these up as i go...sheesh !!!...


Royal Mounted Police - EPO Division said...

"Those Dutch are better at everything!" Wait until Babble-On's team comes clean. But those Dutch have nothing on Canadians.

AL Vampire Hunter said...

Lance when he was a vampire. Didn't he try and kill Lincoln?

Census Bureau said...

Hey Snob. Every day it's a couple of "anonymous" making the podium. How about you have to post a name in order to podium?

Friendo said...

RICE DISH
FACE TATT
BLOW PISS
DADY DICK

150 heetut

Jase said...

I'm a newspaper reporter. I'm 31, been doing the job 3 years. We have a new cadet. She has to write a story about artisanal bread. (I know, the demise of modern media is self-inflicted,etc. Etc.)
For 2 days I suffer through her calling people and saying she wants to ask about artesian bread. At first I wanted to correct her. After a while I began to take a perverse pleasure in it.
It's nice to feel superior, even as the standards in your profession fall to pants-round-the-ankles levels.

Commie Canuck said...

As Lob is my witness... I thought frozen chickens could fly.

Lennay Kekua said...

I made $40 this week giving blow jobs.

Www. Jobzcorner. Com

Ok, I suck at sucking.

campbell fdy said...

could someone really have read "thousands of pages of blog posts" about artisnal dads? thats fucked up you could shotgun a sapporo in the time it takes them to find the remote

d. byrne said...

Legalize Panda/Human sex now!

Today's Clue ...

totally vegan dildo

Caring Sensitive Cipo said...

My favorite part is when my man meat spits like a spitting cobra and my mind goes all sparkely and the podium girl says, "Cipo! Only seven times today?

Red Nekked Cipo said...

Monster Trucks

Flaming Nascar wrecks involving death and or dismemberment

Warm Budweiser 48 oz Magnums

Monster Trucks

Shootin RPGs at the land fill

Three way with sis & mom

Attempting to breed outside of species

Flaming Monster Trucks

Scranus tatts

leroy said...

She was only a jockey's daughter, but all the horsemen knew her.

My dog says that was old when I was young.

Anonymous said...

David Byrne was doping when he designed those racks.

crosspalms said...

@Jase
Former newspaper copy editor here. Almost all bread is artesian, because it rises...
That said, help a sister out. She's in the same leaky boat we're all in. Besides, every once in a while we get a story good enough to pull our pants back up.

Anonymous said...

my mom baked her own bread, we had a garden where we canned veggies for the winter, we wore hand-made clothes, and my dad biked to work... back in those days this was called poor.

annonymoose said...

@reddnekked cipo-effin' A, brah, effin' A.

Anonymous said...

".... important hammering and crying skills, which they'll use later when they're pursuing that poetry degree at Bard. "

I laughed and laughed.

Worthy of the great S. J. Perelman. I loved the name he made up for the latest French literary sensation:

"Claude Nasal-Passages'

bikesgonewild said...

...leroy...did i overhear your dog say my pink canoe jokes left me up the creek without a paddle ???...

...incorrigible cur...

Uncle Kerosene said...

Get your microlip around my Pink Crown.

Anonymous said...

Looks like David Clinger is back in jail as of yesterday: http://www.jailbase.com/en/arrested/ut-slcs/2013-01-22/david-arthur-clinger-13003111 Doesn'

Anonymous said...

NICE SNATCH!

Abi Banfield said...

Bloody brilliant post, brightened up my day. Cheers bro

Ohhhhprah said...

Hey! That's how I parent, too! We should get the kids together for a playdate!


By parent I mean get freaky. By kids I mean my big, brown melons. And by playdate I mean titty-fucking.

I speak in codes.

Anonymous said...

That snapped that mugshot of David Clinger when his cellmate pulled out his big, black hunk of manmeat.

KSS said...

Hey. Mr. Snob:

RE: running. Read this stuff about barefoot running. This will, no doubt, be a mirthmine. I will say this, though: shit makes sense.