How many good things have I been so lucky or blessed to experience this week?

When the weather breaks enough to ride into work in fingerless gloves, a wool layer thinner, sans long johns and balaclava, that’s a good time.

When you take on the previously undefeated office foosball champ, slam fireballs at him from the back row, take a few blurry bombs yourself, and emerge victorious ten-eight… man, that’s a good time.

When the KickBack’s you bought on Valentines Day Special arrive, each box containing two little heart-shaped candies from our sweethearts at Xtracycle, and then they install in about 15 minutes, and then within 30 seconds you can tell that things you thought were perfect have just gotten even a little bit better, that’s a good time. Totally.

When the new laptop shows up, it’s a sturdy chassis with a rock solid keyboard and comes up flawlessly, that’s a good time. When you figure that, with your schedule, it’ll probably take a week to build it out as a dual-boot XP/Ubuntu lappy with all the updates and packages you want, and then you knock it out in a couple of hours, that’s a really good time. Then when Ubuntu sees your wireless, your NVidia video card, and your sound card without any special procedures or workarounds, that’s a great time. When it proceeds to suspend to RAM perfectly, that’s amazing, and when it handles suspend to disk perfectly without any tinkering whatsoever, that’s an unnervingly good time, and you’re not quite sure which world you woke up in. But wherever it is, you want to stay, for good times abound there.

When you came into the third week of the month looking like you were going to hit your goal for riding miles real early, then go away for a 3-day weekend, then get sick and miss several days in the saddle, and come into week 4 lookin’ like you might not make it, that’s a challenge. When you close out week 4 with some take-the-long-way commutes and up-before-light rides through the deep dark woods, including one where it’s almost 50 freaking degrees, and then snuggle right up to your goal so you can hit it on the last day of the month, boy howdy that’s a good time.

Add in all the kissin’ and cuddlin’ and huggin’ I get on a semi-regular basis from them kids and the wife, and it gets a little hard for even a pleasure pig like myself to take. But I’ll take it, and make it look easy doin’ it.

Now, back in my oats-sowin’ days, before there were loved-ones to celebrate with, I’d have a week like this (or at least one that didn’t suck) and I’d return home on Friday afternoon with six tall-boys and a pack of delicious foreign cigarettes. I’d step through the door, check my messages, power up each stereo component, give the amp’s volume control a hard turn to starboard, and share this little gem with anyone in a 2 mile radius who wasn’t fortunate enough to be standing next to a running table saw or a revving Harley Davidson.

And on this splendid, sixty-three degree partly-cloudy Friday afternoon, I’m gonna share it with you. This one’s for those of you out there that want to be free, free to do what you want to do. It’s for those of you that wanna ride, that wanna ride their machines without being hassled by the man. And of course, it’s for those of you who, once upon a time (or, ya know, today) have come face to face with Friday night, trouble in your eyes, and proclaimed, “I wanna get loaded!”

Woo! Woooooooooooooo! WOOOOOOOOOOO!

I guess it’s just been that kinda week.

As a side note on the above, I’d set a goal of 340 miles for February, when I park Nigel tonight that’ll leave just eight more for the morning. Perfect, just need to find a coffee shop about 4 miles away. March gets lighter, warmer, and there’s 3 more days, so 400 seems like the right spot to shoot for. That’s just 15 more miles each week, just one more pleasant hour spent crankin’ with reasonable vigor through these Mid-Atlantic forests as green pixels starts to emerge in the branches. I think it’s gonna be a good time.

Have a great weekend! Do eet! Doo eet now!

[Update]: This week: 101 miles and change. This month: 340.45. That’s clearing the bar and hoping your t-shirt doesn’t catch it on the way over. What a goddam gorgeous morning.

Fuck You.

I just got through a Sunday Comic yesterday and pronounced that it had nary a funny comic in 5 pages. Why oh why can’t I see “You Gonna Light That Pipe” in my Sunday paper?

(many thanks and can’t. stop. laughing. to Camp Heatwole.)

I hadn’t meant to take a vacation from blogging last week, but events came in waves and it was all I could do to keep my head above the surface.

The Wife’s Big Birthday Bash week crescendoed and crashed through the President’s Day weekend, featuring dozens of munchkins, their parents, a couple pecks of oysters, several bottles of wine, leg of lamb roasted on a spit, a whole grilled salmon, and major reconstructive surgery on the house.

Thursday I woke up solemn and prepared to serve jury duty by blasting Screaming for Vengeance, showering in ice cold water and slapping my grim, squinty, clenched face in the mirror.

“Don’t you have jury duty today?” Rebbie hollered from downstairs.

“I do,” I yelled back, then growled to myself, “and this time… it’s personal.”

“Don’t forget to take a book!” she called back.

I rode down to the courthouse on Nigel. It was a cold morning, colder than the pans hanging from the Scales of Justice. And windy, windier than the… Winds of… it was really windy. Pretty morning though, if I hadn’t been committed to holding some poor sap’s fate in my hands I totally would’ve taken the long way through Rock Creek Park.

I arrived at the courthouse early, passed through the metal detector and wanding without incident, and headed for the Juror’s Office. Once there, an extremely polite young man took my summons and returned with my Juror’s Badge. I don’t think that the badge officially deputized me, but I sure felt like one of the fingers at the end of the long arm of the law! And I was itchin’ to point that finger at the first evil-doer I saw.

But first, they directed me to the Juror’s Lounge where I was to wait until they called my name and number. The Juror’s Lounge was cavernous, and had several large flat-screen televisions. National Treasure was playing when I came in, and, I must admit, I was annoyed at the distraction from my meditation on Justice. But I studied the film, the looks of virtue on the Good Guys’ faces, the phrenology of Bad Guys, dramatic recreations of scenes in which the Good Guys seemed to be doing something illegal (stealing the Declaration of Independence), but which they clearly should be forgiven for (they needed the map, they were going to give it back, and if they hadn’t taken it first then the Bad Guys would have gotten it and probably used it for toilet paper!). Also, the presence of a virtuous hot chick with moxie totally cancels out whatever’s wrong about breaking into places and stealing documents… if you can convince her that your quest is righteous (after you’ve kidnapped her). Also, Bad Guys will not hesitate to fire pistols with silencers in crowds.

It was a lot to take in, but after an hour or so, I was pumped up and ready to serve up a hot platter of fiery, delicious Justice to one of my Bad Guy fellow citizens, and I was pretty sure I could tell whether they were Good or Bad by what they looked like, or their accent if it came down to it. As luck would have it, they called 72 names, each with a badge number, and mine was among them.

They pulled us out into the hall, and the enthusiastic young man who’d deputized me in the Juror’s Office came out and told us to meet outside of a courtroom on the second floor. Upon our arrival, another gentleman came out of the courtroom and started calling our names and numbers again, this time to put us in lines of six, and to lead each line, four lines at a time, into the courtroom to be seated. We were told the barest facts of the case by the Judge (who didn’t seem the least bit wrathful now that I think about it), and then he asked some very general questions to the whole room. Once we’d all weighed in on the general questions, he told us he’d be bringing each of us up to answer a few questions from him and then from the attorneys. I was in the last group, so we were told to go to lunch and to return in two hours to answer questions.

Two hours! How was I to keep my burning desire to administer justice to the fullest extent of the law at full boil for two hours? But then, thinking more about it, I realized that they knew what they were doing. We’d come out of the Juror’s Lounge as bright, glowing irons, but could not be strong, sharp, balanced instruments of Justice until we’d been pounded on the Anvil of Boredom, and finally dunked repeatedly in the cold waters of a very long lunch.

So I went to a little local burger joint called Hooter’s, had a burger and a root beer, and read my book. I returned to the courthouse feeling a little off from the burger. Hooter’s food was not very good, I imagine they must’ve had an off day, otherwise I don’t see how they could have been as crowded as they were. I was concerned about that, since I figured I was going to have to ascertain the guilt or innocence of an evil-doer with gut instinct, and my guts weren’t going to be able to bring their A-game, but one of the other Fists of Justice sitting next to me assured me that there’d be evidence. They think of everything.

At last the judge started bringing potential jurors from our section up to the bench to ask them questions. I’m sure they were asking things like, “What if you have to pass judgment really, really hard, think you can do that? Think you have the guts to give this guy what’s comin’ to him?” And I was ready to answer “fuckin’ A!” But then, halfway through the row in front of me, the judge announced that they thought they’d gotten a big enough pool, and the rest of us could return to the Juror’s Lounge.

Upon returning, I saw that they’d been screening Flight Plan, in which Jodie Foster demonstrates that Good Guys are sometimes Bad Guys, Sean Bean is not always bad, and that you should never sleep on an airplane. Evidently, this was considered too advanced for beginning jurors, so it was stuck on the menu screen before they finally turned it off and left us with a bouncing “DVD” icon. After another half an hour they started calling a panel, and I prepared, again, to deliver swift, terrible justice. About halfway through the roster, another woman announced over the PA system that the judge did not need a panel after all. Apparently the defendant could just feel the swiftness and terribility of the coming justice, and decided to beg for mercy like a wussy. Either that, or the judge had gotten a Mushroom and Swiss Burger at Hooter’s and was busy sustaining his digestive system’s objections.

Either way, that was my last chance. They thanked us all for our vigilance and dedication to punishment, and sent us home. I was still pretty pumped, it was hard not to let the U-Lock of Justice soar through the windows of a few evil-doing motorists on the way home, but I held my wrath in check.

Friday, I woke up sick. Saturday, I woke up sicker. Sunday, I woke up sick but not as sick as Saturday. Administering sweet, sweet retribution on behalf of the state is stressful to the immune system, such is the price of fulfilling one’s civil duty.

But I’m feeling much better now. How was your week?

This is the prettiest bike I’ve ever seen, and I can only imagine that the fit and ride are even better. Congratulations Jim!

The neighbors are going to note its resemblance to a fire engine, as I have already. Therefore, it’s important to remember that the correct answer to “Where’s the fire?”, or any other fire engine related question, is: “In my pants.” In fact, if you get tired of answering questions about the components, “In my pants” will still do the job.

“That an 8-speed drivetrain?”

For me it happens at: 18:31:30, Feb 13, 2009

To find out when it is for you: perl -le 'print scalar localtime(1234567890)'

I’m trying to wrap up a bunch of things before I head out for the weekend to continue feting my lovely, charming, older-woman. But I’ve got two for you, both from dead rock stars.

First, a classic from the late Lux Interior. Bad Music for Bad People is still one of my top 50 of all time. I haven’t seen ‘em in years, but knowing that the world is now without him still hurts some. Stick out your can one last time for the garbage man, won’t ya?

The second tune’s from a rock star dead 12 years, but I only found out about it this week, so my sad lower lip is still sticking out about it. I had no idea that Patty Donahue of The Waitresses died in 1996. I wouldn’t even say that they were particularly influential to me, but I liked them and her particularly, cute, sarcastic chain-smoker that she was. She knew what this boy liked.

Have a great weekend y’all, see ya next week.

My verdict on Joaquin Phoenix’s performance on Letterman the other night is that it was fucking genius. But that’s me, it agrees with my Discordian spirit, and I definitely am part of the Kaufman cult. Mr. Perrin has more interesting things to say about the whole thing.

But my regard for James Wolcott suffered somewhat, both from his pissy little tantrum and from the shot at Kaufman. If the film doesn’t make it, it won’t be because of anything Phoenix did on Letterman. More likely, it’ll be because Americans would rather watch Michael Bay spend a hundred million dollars wanking than see a quality adaptation of Dostoyevsky.

I know this is South Carolina and all, but come on. How far’s the bullshit got to go before the citizens of Columbia defenestrate Sheriff Lott and elect someone who knows the difference between effective community policing and “Tough on Celebrities” political theater?

Besides which, Mr. Phelps is a national resource. You don’t think the Canadians and Dutch won’t try to offer him citizenship? I bet Holland would be more than happy to provide him with a bell-ringer of a bong and a big pile of the triple cripple if he’ll bring ‘em back a wheelbarrow full of medals.