Sunday 5 December 2010

Middle Ground

It's hard to wrap one's head around a lot of what goes on these days. The FBI insider trading stuff seems to be mostly under the radar right now, shoved aside by WikiLeaks and whatever other pages the 24 hour news cycle has turned to. A very credible source has told me that easily a third of this sector is guilty. The technical aspects of who's likely dirty make it really easy to pursue. The henhouse has been left open for so long that it's been super easy to cheat - to the point where it's kind of been "why wouldn't you do it?". It's the freaking douche bag ass hats who need to have this ongoing circle jerk dick measuring party and do absafuckinglutely nothing to benefit the economy (when they fuck up the whole "efficient allocation of capital thing", well that pretty much closes the door on anything good that they might do) and who are trying to perpetuate their totally undeserved positions of wealth and priviledge at the expense of everything else that totally bone what should be a really good system. Just be ethical, and when you fuck up or get beat, take it. But they can't. And the Fed ensures that they don't have to. Ugggh.

On the other hand I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" recently, that fat ass Michael Moore has his head completely and utterly wedged up his own fat ass. Not everyone deserves everything. Populism assumes that everyone's got an equal contribution that he's willing and able to make, while deregulationists (which is almost completely the opposite of what they actually are - they want 100% regulatory guarantee that their way will be THE way) assume that they and their select brethren are the only ones worth shit. I realize I'm oversimplifying the living hell out of it, but that's what I do.

Lobster finger gloves - tremendous win. I suppose I could check the old Garmin file to see what the temp was, but to oversimplify once more it was f-ing cold and f-ing windy today. But good ride anyway.

A shiny new donkey for the person who can accurately predict CX participation trends over the next 5 years. It seems to be an archetypical candidate to be victimized by it's own success. I also think that the legalization of disc brakes will have consequences that are far more profound than what's been popularly considered. Including but not limited to a high risk of obliteration of the sport. There are many layers to that onion.

I love building wheels with carbon rims and hate building wheels with aluminum rims. It's not that I prefer the one over the other, it's that I actually whole-heartedly enjoy and find one interesting, while the other usually makes me want to throw things.

After a few good weeks ofngetting miles in, I feel like I'm starting to regain some strength. Despite the wheezing, hacking, chortling, snorting and otherworldly amount of expectorating that I do (my bike comes home from rides just freaking COVERED in biology, as I fear do many of my ride mates), breathing is not my issue. It's my legs.

Asked to express the sentiment of my last sentence, many to most bike racers would write "it's THE legs.". "The legs felt good today.". I always foundnthat to be odd.

Witenagemot is what an iPad types when you start of typing "write" but leave out the r. Because, you know, witenagemot is a word I've used daily since 1981 at least.

I lost a beer on Friday. A Fin du Monde. Had to be one of those and not a PBR right? I got a 4 of Fin du Monde and a 6 of Two Hearted (it was on sale - you always stock that shot when it's on sale) at Rodmans on the way home Friday night. Get home, put the Two Hearted in the fridge and go to put 1-2-3... ? Where's the 4th Fin du Monde? Since it was supposed to be well below freezing Friday night and exploded Tripel is a smell that no car prefers (and because I'm a desperate alcoholic) I go immediately out to the car to retrieve said beer which must have fallen out in the car. Nein. Huh? I must have picked up a 4 with only 3 in it. If I go back and explain it to Rodmans do you think they'd give me a free one?

A few months ago, after a long and fun ride, while enjoying Fosters Grill and beers with people who'd been on the ride, I said that if I could make it a year without beer or M&Ms I could probably go pro. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but I probably would be a lot less slow.

I have no idea what to get the Mrs for Christmas. Fortunately her birthday is just after Christmas so I get stumped twice for the price of one. She already gets to spend each day with me, what more could she want?

To find out how picky people can be, offer them carbon wheels for sale. To find out the opposite, do the same. The world is strange like that.

1 comment:

Jim said...

>>>It seems to be an archetypical candidate to be victimized by it's own success.

NORBA.

Some of us promoters are aware of the potential problem and trying to think about how to avoid it. The UCI, of course, is trying to help us avoid becoming a victim of our own success by working hard to ensure we don't succeed- read Myerson if you want to know what's up with that.

Insider trading: shocker. The rules are for suckaz - like us middle class a-holes. The damnedest thing though, is it's pretty hard to make war on the privileged without accidentally hitting the middle class with the shotgun blasts.