Wednesday, December 11, 2013

It's Black Wednesday, Your Day For One-Stop Holiday Shopping!

Christmas!


From the Old High German Krammüs, the word "Christmas" shares common linguistic root with the word "cram," and it was originally a Pagan winter festival in which the nobility opened the village grain stores for one day and allowed peasants to take as much as they could carry.  Naturally, in an effort to maximize their haul, the peasants availed themselves of any available bodily orifice, and "Krammüs," or the "Day of Cramming," was born.  Then when Europe became Christianized they worked Jesus in there (double entendre fully intended) by changing the name to "Christmas," and people started wrapping the gifts in festive paper instead of inserting them in their body cavities, and next came Santa, and the Grinch (originally a folktale about an avaricious Christmas-hating rabbi, though Dr. Seuss eventually stripped the antisemitic veneer from it), and "frenching" under the mistletoe, and rampant consumerism and all the rest of it, and ultimately the whole thing came full circle a couple weeks ago when a Kansas City man was arrested outside of a Walmart on Black Friday with four 24-inch flat-screen televisions and a 10-pack of bath towels secreted inside his posterior.

This is all true.

I went to a college.

Anyway, no doubt you're in the throes of holiday gift shopping, and what better gift to give your favorite cyclist than a gift that benefits me?  To that end, I'm extremely pleased to announce that hatting concern Walz is now offering a BSNYC hat-and-book combo!


What's that you say?  You don't want to advertise me on the bill of your bike yarmulke?  Yeah, Walz thought of that, which is why you can "combo" the book with pretty much any hat you want:


By the way, I'm here to tell you Walz hats are excellent whichever you choose, and I should know, since I often don't wear a helment and also I'm balding.

And...AND...the book will be signed*, because I'm signing a bunch of bookplates and sending them off to Walz pretty much right after I finish typing this.

*[Unfortunately the book will be signed by me and not somebody interesting, but you can't have everything.]

So click "Add to Cart" and consider your holiday shopping finished.

Or, if you're looking for a gift that doesn't involve hats or my book, you can always buy your friends and family a wolverine:


(A wolverine.)

Wolverines feast on carrion, have been known to attack bears, and make awful pets who pose a mortal threat to all members of your household, especially children.

So go with whichever, but if I were you I'd stick with the hat-'n-a-book from Walz.

Caveat emptor.

(Though a wolverine in a BSNYC hat would be pretty adorable, until it scratched out your eyes.)

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that "Testicycles," as forwarded by a reader, make a great stocking-stuffer:


Just wear protection before you stuff them in your stocking.

Speaking of me, the results of yesterday's poll are in, and 66% of you said I should keep my Specialized:


I was kind of hoping it would go the other way since that would have given me an excuse to get a metal frame that can accommodate actual fenders, but there it is.

At the very least, maybe I would have pulled the trigger on this baby, forwarded by a reader:


It may not be a Fuji Roubaix, but it is a Fuji Monterey, and don't go thinking of using the word "Monterey" in your next business venture, or else Specialized will sue.

Meanwhile, Specialized potentate Mike Sinyard has called the Café Roubaix guy to make the nice:


Much of the backlash against Specialized focused on the litigious reputation of the company, so I asked Richter directly if he thought their change of face was genuine, or if he felt the company was forced into it by the social media backlash.

“I tend to be a very leery dude, but (Sinyard) was very contrite. Very genuine,” Richter said.  ”I’m not sure (Sinyard) even knew this was going on until the rest of the world did.

“We had a good talk.”

Wow, that's amazing!  I also pretend I didn't know what was happening and blame the underlings when I get caught being a giant asshole.  I must be the CEO of Specialized too!

And that's how Mike Sinyard learned the true meaning of Christmas:


(BKJimmy)

The end.


83 comments:

yeah Cleveland! said...

P!

Anonymous said...

top ten

Serial Retrogrouch said...

third

McFly said...

I bet you sure could use a cold one couldn't you Clark?

Perros De Maiz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

El Diez de mejor

mikeweb said...

Merry Cram-mas everyone.

Anonymous said...

Everyone ordered their testicycles?

Jasper said...

Early doors

t said...

weed.

Marcel Da Chump said...

Wildcat Combo Machine.

samh said...

Truck nuts for my bike? I quit.

Anonymous said...

SCRO OGED

crosspalms said...

Heartwarming! So every time a bicycle bell rings, a lawyer gets a retainer?

Anonymous said...

Specialized produces a product called a "brain"

mikeweb said...

I'll take one of the Badger and Cobra combos please.

Can I get that with overnight shipping?

Oh, and please throw in a testicycle too.

JB said...

I have crabon Testicyles with a Ti connecting loop. Much lighter, duh.

Olle Nilsson said...

Barely top twenty? This Venge is going back.

ken e. said...

present.
robot says "goesnya"

Olle Nilsson said...

This is why I read this blog. I learn so much that mainstream media doesn't want me to know.

I'll take a hat if I can combo it up with some fries.

Anonymous said...

Is that real tomato ketchup Ed?

Comment deleted said...

Oh, ok, it was just a misunderstanding. I'm going to go back to buying Specialized bicycles now. In fact, I think I'll get two.

No, wait, make that a wolverine.

wishiwasmerckx said...

Ken E., Peter Goesnya? I went to high school with that guy.

Small world, eh?

wishiwasmerckx said...

He sat right next to Phil McKracken in homeroom.

Anonymous said...

yeah, that's cute.

Anonymous said...

Hollow bearings will offset the weight of testicycle!

commentatorbot_219347 said...

but (Sinyard) was very contrite. Very genuine,”

And when he got off the phone he'll have a few curse words for the guy that beat him and make up for it by demanding more C&D's.

Now for the other 100+ Cease and Desists sent in 2013, the only thing they got was legal bills. And how about those other companies Sinyard litigated to dissolution?

The problem is solved when Sinyard is gone and leaves Merida with nothing but debt.

That's the bike business!

dick said...

balls

dick said...

nuts

dick said...

twins

babble on said...

OMG that bike did make me laugh. Heh heh. Remember, shame is over-rated. Heh heh. I love it. Aaaaaaaand, it would be good on rollers in front of a giant flat screen tv if you're into that kindov thing. Heh heh. Or maybe dooders had a weak back or something.

You're missing the obvious, doll. Beavers make better pets than wolverines. And didn't you know? Every day is pet your beaver day. It's true.

I'll take an adorable signed beaver wearing one of yer coveted yarmulkes, please and thank you.

Comment deleted said...

Have you accepted Krampus as your holiday savior?

How can somebody who steals sack-fulls of cute babies on Christmas Eve be all bad?

Mehjor Taylor said...

Snob - I hope Rubena is getting a lot of click thrus for the "Euro Spondee" ad. Brilliant!

Etherhuffer said...

Need a stocking stuffer for missus. Let's see, wolverine or Tasmanian devil monster with an eroding face? Tough call....

Anonymous said...

1) Please don't sign beavers. I once tried to rescue one from a wire snare and it tried to bucktooth my testicycles.

2) Rollers are scary Babble.

3) Sinyard is scary.

4) Black Friday was scary.

5) Christmas and Jesus, both are really scary.

I am going to need a bunker I think. I can take my Snob books in there with me I guess. No death in the blog today. Good work.

And as always, fuck the robot test.

Comment deleted said...

Herschel,

Gruss vom Krampus!

Anonymous said...

Check this out - Why You Should Never Bike to work tohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-leonard/biking-to-work_b_4426504.html

Satire so biting he should have his own blog.

cycle

The Grinch said...

Thanks for the shameless self-promotion of all bike snob nyc christmas gift ideas. Rampant consumerism yourself!

Anonymous said...

I'm late!
I was checking out R Kelly's Instagram. Black panties! Hilarious.
While he was "under instructions not to leave the state of Illinois", he would come to Galena in his Maybach and hang out for a week.

Anonymous said...

BKJimmy! Amazing work.

Early best comment of the day going to Crosspalms.

Yarpo said...

Snob, you totally should have pulled the trigger on that Fuji Monterey! Then you could take it down to the actual Monterey/Carmel area, find that douchebag Mr. Venge Review Pantsalot, and OWN his ass when you drop him him like a sack of turd bricks climbing up to Jack's Peak. Pick a nice day for the beautiful views, wear one of your Walz caps, and put girly-pink streamers on the handlebars, for maximum pissed-off-icity. Laugh as he cries. Practice your wolfish grin.

Then? Ride down from Jack's Peak both backwards AND on one wheel, passing him AGAIN, and I guarantee the humiliation will cause him to spontaneously explode!

Sure, humiliating another human being is terrible and wrong, but watch the video again and your Mission will be all too clear.

Oh yeah, don't forget to start this momentous day with breakfast at Holly's Lighthouse Cafe in Pacific Grove. An Epic Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, or so I learned in elementary school.

Mmmmmmmmm...waffles.

He's there for the taking.

More Anonymous than Usual said...

I'm not making this up: the Law firm representing Specialized in this fiasco is called Smart & Biggar

Anonymous said...

I don't know Babble. It's hard to pet a beaver without a tail smackin'.

They say it's a warning sign. I say its foreplay.

Anonymous said...

And that is why I never bring my wolverine to the airport, she keeps feasting on the carry-ons.

leroy said...

So my dog says he was hanging around Times Square, showing visitors how to play three card monte, when some unhappy tourist exclaimed (either rhetorically or generally) "who's going to pay for all this BS NYC?"

To which my dog replied, "just put it on my bill."

I told him not to waste his time with a cease and desist letter to Walz.

balls™ said...

I get it! Snob would give his balls to sell a few more copies of the book!

I hope I get a beaver in my stocking for Christmas. And by "stocking" I mean my pants. And by "beaver" I'm not talking about Castor canadensis.

JLRB said...

I have Specialized testicycles - big red swooshing S painted on each ball.

Should I paint over the Ss, sell them on eBay, or convert them to vaginaccyles?

Etherhuffer said...

@Leroy
A duck walked into a pharmacy and asked for chapstick. The pharmacist says "Cash or check?" and the duck says "Just put it on my bill."

leroy said...

@ Etherhuffer --

The classics never go out of style.

Beth said...

So can those of us of the female persuasion purchase ovaricycles?

I mean, I'd search for myself, but I'm at work.

ken e. said...

and his cousin, nya nyason...

Comment deleted said...

Beth, what do you need one of those for? You already have a Monthlicycle.

McFly said...

A big set of nuts hangin' off my Smella Itailia is just fuckin' redundancy at it's finest.

Beth said...

So? I don't have only one bike, ya know.

Proving I am not a robot seems especially difficult today. Does this mean that maybe I am one??

Anonymous said...

And....CD for the win.

RoadQueen said...

CD just won the internet.

Anonymous said...

yeah, that's great.

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

That old fuji is actually a nice looking bicycle...if those stupid handlebars were replaced with some curly ones like they ride in that tour de france race.

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

The only thing I hate more than those stupid truck balls is the idiotic 8 inch diameter chrome smokestacks the bumpkins run on their diesel pickups.

Olle Nilsson said...

Beth, that's what all the robots say. Busted!

Olle Nilsson said...

rct, that and some proper fenders. On the fence about the steel pie plate.

Linyard Sinyard said...

OOOh that smell..

JLRB said...

ANON 1:08
Anonymous said...

Check this out - Why You Should Never Bike to work
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-leonard/biking-to-work_b_4426504.html

He forgot the number one reason nobody should ride cyclingbikes to work: So I get the whole bike infrastructure to my self

nscadu 9 said...

Surely, you cannot take the poll results to heart. Sell it. Lose it amongst all the other bikes stored in your Williamsburg loft, call it your gap bike while you wait for you custom Seven, commute on it and only lock it with one lock. Anything! Just get rid of it and cram some metal in its place.

Anonymous said...

snobby, a little late, but some advice on the S-works:
1. start using it as your commuter and use a crappy lock as nscadu 9 points out
2. Get it stolen within like a week.
3. file a police report
4. file a claim against your condo / homeowners policy
5. Receive check for $2-3k after the $500 deductible
6. purchase a new bike or better yet spend the money on something else, you have more than enough bikes.

Anonymous said...

It was so cold in nyc today that not a single fred passed me on my morning constitutional and I wasn't shoaled by a single Citi Biker on my commute into work. Yay me.

Anonymous said...

My ex had a Fuji Roubaix. That was a nice light steel bike.

After the divorce she bought a Specialized Ruby, the "women's" version of the Roubaix. I guess she really wanted to stab the knife into my heart.

Etherhuffer said...

@ge Roubaix

Um,pie plate. Look up 1975 Sekine pie plates. Coolest piece of crass advertising ever.

Spokey said...

top 6,000!

babble wants signed beaver?

I'll go with that too. You can keep the hat

Hot Karl said...

Oh I get it now. It's a trail/roadside emergency kit. You poop in the hat and wipe your booty with the book pages.

Jeenyus.

JLRB said...

By the way - thank you for posting the Cousin Eddie still - I must dig out the DVD and watch that movie tonight or I will remain a scrooge throughout the holly daze.'

Screw the brown paper packages tied up in bows. Two words set the tone for the season:
Shitter's
Full

Olle Nilsson said...

Etherhuffer - wow. That would be a shame to remove one of those.

Anonymous said...

RE testicycles, I really was as naive as this: I was all clicking & looking & wondering like "what are they for?" Like "O I wonder what marvelous panoply of useful items might be secreted away in their bally embrace. Surely the ball-merchant will tell me the product's many cycling-related uses via his electronic storefronting type device apparatus." Took a minute to realize that no, they have no purpose, except to BE FAKE BALLS.

Etherhuffer said...

@Roille Figners

The faux testes are for the benefit of identifying Dodge Pickups. They have no benefit to cyclists however as the Dodge Truck has usually just run you off the road or killed you before you see the plastic nutsack.

sancho panza said...

Snob
Your interest in etymology may be peaked by this: helmut, holster and hell all share the same historical root. See what you can make of that.

Anonymous said...

I got nothing, guess I'll have to cover or hide myself.

ouabacher said...

Roille, 'round here THE BALLS have no allegiance......EH, a grasshopper walks into a bar.....timeless

Underwriter said...

Snob's book should come with a pair of Babble's panties, both of them autographed (especially the panties) .

Anonymous said...

I take back my vote about keeping the Specialized. I like the blue Fuji better, being a sucker for interesting bikes.

McFly said...

It puts the shit in the drain or it gets the hose ah-GAIN.

JB said...

Who's signing up for the 130-mile Tainthammer ride?

Anonymous said...

"Wolverines ... make awful pets who pose a mortal threat to all members of your household, especially children."

The 1994 direct-to-video family classic Running Free would argue otherwise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODjN5NaFaQo

Italian Anti Defermation League said...

Snob, when you blame a monkey named Vito, no one believes you.