Friidom

I spend a lot of time wondering what to spend money on since I have no life. Not that I have any money either but that appears to be a non-issue and I'm all about the non-issue.

Recently I've been drawn to the new MacBook Air because it's the new MacBook Air.

I have no need of one. I have 3 computers and an iPad at home. I pretty much don't use any of them.

So the last week I've been contemplating that. Should I or shouldn't I?

It's all in the never ending search for a "personal statement". Since I've discovered my "lifestyle" I think it's very important that I complete this v2 of me. I need a personal statement and the faded t's, wilderness pouch and ratty old bike shorts circa 1970 ain't getting it done. And I can't get the obvious "personal statement", the tattoo, because, well, it's a tattoo.

Today the MacBook Air fell by the wayside and now I'm drooling over the Frii.

I'm all over this one:

Though I'm not so sure about that plastic seat and I'm wondering about the brakes.

What's not to like here? I'm sure there are those that say this screams "DORK!". If I wanted dork I suppose I could go out and buy a camera and some white socks and black shoes and really ugly shorts and stroll around the nations capital but this thing! Where some might see "DORK" I  see "ECCENTRIC".

This could really be a boon for my "lifestye".

Speaking of which, I can see me here someday:

New York RideStyle Fashion Show 2011 from New York Cycle Chic on Vimeo.

Me and my "ECCENTRIC" bike would fit right in. I don't have any pumps and I can't do the closely shaven beard thing cause I can't grow no beard but I'm sure I have a tie laying around somewhere. v2 of me. It's starting to come together.

Why don't they run?

I bike a lot and play a lot of tennis. Not as much as back in the day but still I get out there and grind it out.

Several years back when I belonged to the Sidwell Friends tennis club I was playing a match while the school's baseball team was playing a game. After my match I moseyed over to have a watch and a girl came up to me and asked, in some foreign accent I couldn't place, "why don't they run?".

You see, she had been watching this thing and couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. The pitcher throws to the catcher, the catcher throws to the pitcher. Every so often that guy standing there will swing a stick and sometimes, though not often, he'll make one of those other 7 people out there move while he makes a dash down the line.

This goes on awhile and on occasion a whole lot of commotion will come from the stands as there is a brief bit of activity but no sooner than you think you've got a bead on something when suddenly they're all standing around again.

Then out of nowhere they'll all go running off the field while the other team goes running on the field and take up the exact same positions and the pitcher starts throwing to the catcher and...

So she just couldn't figure out why there were all standing about.

Then there's football, where large men stand around an awful lot of the time and explode into a brief bit of groping and whatnot and then gather around a circle and discuss the entire affair only to start it up again. And there appears to be teams of gropers as some are on the field for extended periods while others only appear briefly.

I was thinking about this because some tool named Michael Smith over at ESPN seems to think that cars plowing into professional bikers is amusing (hit and runs are always amusing! really. every. time.) but these two sports are treated with serious thought and analyses. He is apparently some kind of football expert so I'm assuming he knows all about this groping stuff.

Anyway, he and another ESPN tool by the name of Tony Kornheiser seem to have some thing against people who ride bikes, like it's some kind of child's play or something whereas with the real sports there is cause for endless discussion.

Of course we don't expect these tools to be athletes so they have no idea what it takes to ride in the Tour de France or even to commute year round in all kinds of weather. I doubt that either of them can manage being out of the reconditioned air long enough to find out.

Asinine

Within about a dozen years of the Wright brothers flights there were war planes and commercial flights.

The Russians put Sputnik up in 1957 using computer power that is dwarfed by todays home computers.

You can take almost any smart phone into a store and scan an items' barcode and see how their price compares to others.


The reason I'm thinking about all this technology and marveling at the advances that are made every day is because I'm just finished the first physical I've had in a very long time and I was wondering why the hell I was bent over some damned table.

What, they don't have an app for that? Somebody could make a fortune. They could call it the Apphole.

After this guy does this he hands me a box of tissues and says "wipe yourself". Now, I've just been probed and I'm searching for some kind of way to man up and for a brief moment I contemplate telling him "you made the mess, YOU clean it up!" in my most menacing, yeah, that's right, MAN here! voice but then I realize him wiping up the mess isn't going to improve the situation.

So I clean up while he's still in the room and we finish up and I'm heading out to get on my bike.

I ride to the closest corner and stop to watch the women go by. Cause that's what men do. I give my best deep voice "How you doin" to a couple of them til one says "asshole" which doesn't improve the situation.

So I head on out for a bike ride. Rats.

I decide to go to this Italian deli to pick up some homemade pasta and I'm bombing down Connecticut ave. cause I'm standing up and hammering cause I got no interest in sitting down, and I'm making most of the lights when I finally miss one and come to a stop. And some tool behind me bombs right through it weaving between the crossing cars. He wasn't costumed and I didn't get a good enough look to see if he was the other half of the CAT-0.

While I'm standing there waiting for the light along comes a girl on one of those cargo bikes and she slows then dashes through the intersection as well.  Dammit.

I ride awhile and a light changes and I'm in a bad mood, and I am man, so I slow but dash across at the first opening and I'm going along when a cop pulls me over and yells at me for running a red light. I never run red lights dammit. This is like the first one ever!

The guy let's me go without a ticket. Nice not to get it stuck to me twice in one day.