took my first test drives today on bikes. wasnt planned but i was walking home and i just decided to pop my head in to the bike shop where ive got the last two that ive bought. had no intention of taking anything out for a spin but the sales girl was helpful and patient so i eventually took one out, then a second, a third and a fourth. one of the treks i tried had a slightly upscale model, the difference being that the tires where "puncture resistant." they had some sort of kevlar lining. in my head i weighed the potential advances versus the $100 upfront cost. we all know how this is gonna end, right? no way im gonna go for that even if down the road theres a chance it could all even out.
so the last bike i try is the cheapest at $400. its some specialized model with offroad tires that she says is popular with teenage boys. that wasnt a selling point. she was just throwing it out there. i take it out for the heavily traffic .9 miles suggested route through soho and as i turn the final corner headed for the store i feel what i think is a rock in the treads. turns out to be a screw thats well buried into the meat of the tire. i couldnt unscrew it with my hand at least not without considerable effort.
the girl was nowhere to be found upon my return and i eventually retrieved my credit card after waiting about five minutes. i debated whether to mention the screw to anyone else there but i was tired and had no intention of paying for the damage should it come to that. when i had waited long enough i decided to go, only to run into her outside. she had been at their other storefront in the next building over. i walked back in as she had printed up a list of the bikes i had tried at which point i showed her the insolent screw. she thanked me for the heads up and i left feeling..... hungry before recalling the irony of the kevlar tires i would still likely not purchase.
taking "hummer" to another level.
The way you know an Indy car means business is when you can hear it pushing wind before it, a whoosh just ahead of the engine's scream, and now down the front stretch you can hear it, this hurricane with a siren inside it, heralding the comeback of A.J. Foyt, and now there is a whooshwheeeeeeeYOW as he passes, the black Lola moving so fast that your eyes can't follow it smoothly; it sort of jumps and skips across your field of vision. When an Indy car starts to play that jump-skip trick on your eyes, the rule of thumb is that it's doing about 230 mph on the straight.30 And all that can harness all that fury safely is the centrifugal force of that sharp left turn into Indy's first corner.
Beer can camping stove. Or home cooker when the power's out.
Reproduction hallway carpet from The Shining.
was gifted an old ipod touch. heres my first epic time waster.
"The toughest part of writing about San Francisco's Jejune Institute "thing" was trying to describe it, something I attempted to do for this site twice. In a first piece about the citywide game, which was put on by a group called Nonchalance, I went with "[p]art public-art installation, part scavenger hunt, part multimedia experiment, part narrative story." For the follow-up, I added "underground alternate reality game" to the mix. Both summaries missed the mark, partly because of my own inadequacies as a writer, but also a symptom of the project's sprawling originality—it wasn't like anything else out there, and that was part of what made it so fantastic. Thankfully, Spencer McCall went ahead and made The Institute, a 90-minute documentary about the project that neatly encapsulates what made this whole whatever-it-was so wonderful."
On the road home to Brownwood in her green ‘74 Cadillac with the custom upholstery and the CB radio, clutching a pawn ticket, for her $3000 mink, Candy Barr thought about biscuits. Biscuits made her think of fried chicken, which in turn suggested potato salad and corn. For as long as she could remember, in times of crisis and stress, Candy Barr always thought of groceries. It was a miracle she didn’t look like a platinum pumpkin, but she didn’t: even at 41, she still looked like a movie star.
john oliver leaving daily show for hbo.
Brooklyn’s Mansion on the East River
"CASTELLO CAVALCANTI" by Wes Anderson
Bourbon family tree.
starbucks coffee really is awful.
