The Blaſphemous Bicycler

Tex infected me with this silly blog nonsense. It’s contagious, evidently.

First, the background.

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer
5. Create an arbitrary rule to keep with the whole fives theme.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

• 5 years ago, I was smoking 2 packs a day, eating meat, and not riding a bicycle. I associated primarily with crass bar-people. I considered myself a libertarian, and earned my keep by working for evil corporate overlords.
• Nowadays I don’t smoke, don’t eat meat, ride a bike sometimes, and associate with crass bike people. I consider myself politically confused, and earn my keep working for generally non-evil, non-corporate overlords

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

1. Finish this blog entry
2. suggest a Guy Fawkes ride on the HBG Critical Mass blog
3. Figure out how to get to Jazz Under the Stars in Lancaster
4. Ride my bike
5. Read Siddhartha

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1. Troegenator
2. Appalachian Jolly Scot
3. Ace hard Cider
4. Hornsby’s Hard Cider
5. Lancaster Milk Stout

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?

1. Two chicks at the same time.
2. Buy a shit load of farmland and start my own religious cult. Kind of like the Amish, but replace the Christianity with a Secular Soto Zen Buddhism and get rid of all the farm animals — It’ll be all veganic farming and bicycles instead of horses and buggies.
3. Go to space
4. Donate a little bit to some worthy charities.
5. Sponsor a mission to build 1/6 scale models of Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza on the surface of the moon. When space aliens come to Earth in a million years, that’ll give their archaeologists something to talk about.

What are five of your bad habits?

1. Running this blog
2. Eating too much
3. Using enormous amounts of profanity in polite company
4. Spending too much time in the internet
5. fantasizing about doing cool things someday, when I could be dong them now

What are five places where you have lived?

1. I lived 7 different places during the first 20 years of my life, but none was ever more than 6 miles from where I was born
2. 10 years ago, I moved about 70 miles downstream to the Harrisburg area. I moved 5 times since then, but was always within bicycling distance of work.
3. I’ve averaged 2.5 years per residence
4. I’ve never, in my whole life, lived more than 6 miles from the Susquehanna River, and I think that if I ever move away from it, I will lose all of my supernatural powers, and turn into an asshole.

What are five jobs you’ve had?

1. Paperboy - Milton Standard Journal - Got my first drop-bar ten speed to deliver newspapers
2. Bus Boy - Good Wils Restaurant - Cleaning up after miserable Bucknell Students
3. Burger Flipper - Wendy’s - cooking burgers for miserable Bucknell Students
4. Macintosh ‘Computer’ Salesman - Bucknell University Bookstore (at this point I was a miserable Bucknell Student myself)
5. Network Administrator - various evil corporate masters

I tag:

1. Stankertanker
2. Doc
3. The Donut Guy
4. end pavement
5. analstormtrooper1996

During my recent peruſals of various hiſtorical documents, I was somewhat perplexed by the appearance of a strange letter.

After, a bit of reſearch, I learned that this is the way a true retro-grouch writes the letter S, when it appears in the middle of a word.

I vigorouſly encourage dandified bicyclers of all sorts to make uſe of this wondrous letter in all future correſpondences.

After all, any poſeur can ride his lugged, steel bicycle to any haberdaſhery, procure himſelf a tweed hat, and preſent himſelf to the world as a retro-grouch.

A true gentleman of the wheel, however, applies a retro-grouchy character to all of his endeavors.

Expreſs your sneering condemnation of plaſtic modernity with a grace and panache almoſt unknown in these mournful days of brazen booriſhneſs.

The Long S; a more elegant letter for a more civilized age.

I was in Washington DC for a business trip a few weeks ago. I don’t have HBO at home, but they had it in my hotel room.

While flipping through the channels, I caught a bits and pieces of the HBO mini series John Adams.

My hotel had a replica of the Declaration of Independence hanging in the lobby, and I had a picture of Thomas Jefferson in my room.

And there I sat watching the revolution on TV. It was all very patriotic…

When I got home, I ordered the DVD set. It was astoundingly good.

It was quite amusing to watch the founding fathers arguing at the continental congresses. Whenever someone in a modern political debate goes on about how the founding fathers would agree with his position, he is at least 33% full of shit, because it seems like the founding fathers could barely agree on anything, including breaking away from England.

_{Mr. Dickinson wouldn’t even sign the declaration!}

It’s not all just politics and war, though. The love story between John and Abigail Adams is probably the most believable I’ve seen in the movies.

I really can’t say enough nice things about this series. I was sad when the story ended, and I think I’m going to read the book.

I hope they make one about Jefferson next.

I enthusiastically give John Adams 5 Jihadis out of 5.

Me and my kayak are heading out into the wilds for a few days to explore the waters of north central Pennsylvania, to slay sea monsters, and to win the affections of big-tittie mermaids.

I’ll be back next week sometime.