At any rate: one down, two to go. I can’t wait!

I’m a little more than one third of the way done with my new years resolution. Today was my 17^th ride to/from work. To celebrate hitting the 1/3^rd mark, I took the northern route home through Sierra Madre. (Map below.) Stan recommended this route the last time I talked to him. He was totally right. The bike lane along Orange Grove and the section of Sierra Madre in Pasadena was awesome, and there were way fewer stops than my normal route. I don’t know that I’ll be taking it in to the office any time soon — the road in to Sierra Madre is, um… steep — but it’s great for coming home.

Some things I’ve learned over the past few weeks:

• I don’t enjoy riding home when it’s over 100, although the middle 90’s are fine
• Cars put out a lot of heat. It’s really uncomfortable being next to them at stop lights
• The Arboretum feels like a giant air conditioner when they’re watering the north end of the property. Which is really nice after sitting next to aforementioned hot cars.
• I need exactly one gear to get to/from the office. So perhaps I’ll get a single speed as a backup bike.
• If you’re putting a new chain on your bike, be sure to read the instructions carefully, least you destroy the chain pin. (Not that I did this. No sir. Not me. Although many, many thanks to Stephanie for taking the bike down to Stan’s and getting the chain fixed!)

Oh, I must remember to give glowing mention to the trunk rack I got a couple of weeks back. It’s a vast improvement over a backpack. No messy straps hanging all over me, no ugly sweaty back when I get to work. If you’re looking for something big enough to carry a change of clothes and a person’s worth of wallets and gadgets and keys, I can’t recommend the Novara “Deluxe” Rack Trunk quite enough.

So anyway, yeah. Yay bike commuting. I’m genuinely enjoying both not being in the car and getting outside more often. I’ve lived in the land of inordinately good weather for almost 14 years now, and I really can’t believe that I haven’t taken any advantage of that until now.

The rules, such as they are:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers. (Right click the mosaic to copy and save.)

And the questions/answers:

1. What is your first name? Corey
2. What is your favoriate food? sushi
3. What high school did you go to? East
4. What is your favoriate color? blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Bob Roll
6. What is your favorite drink? Martini
7. What is your dream vacation? Tofino
8. What is your favorite dessert? Scotch
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? retired
10. What do you you love most in life? Stephanie and Fletcher
11. What is one word that describes you? caffinated
12. What is your flickr name? cap

Why can’t you let me move files without manually editing your repository? This is very upsetting.

Dear Corey,

Why in the hell do you still use CVS? Seriously. It’s the 90’s now. You can move on to something better.

xoxo,

cp

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC announced Monday morning what listeners to Adam Carolla’s radio show have known for a while: The comedian will host the broadcaster’s adaptation of the BBC’s “Top Gear.”

Carolla will join drift racer Tanner Foust and TV construction guru Eric Stromer as the show’s presenters. “Gear” targets auto enthusiasts and mixes racing, stunts, challenges and celebrity guests.

I’m very much not sure how I feel about this. Top Gear is — after Always Sunny, of course — the best show on television. (If you ignore Clarkson’s whole anti-environment thing, of course.) Why remake something that’s already that good? Aside from the whole not having to come up with an original idea bit, that is.

Well, either way, I’m going to watch it. At least once. (per-episode.)

Perhaps the best part of biking to the store is that it feels more like a fun outing that it does an errand. It’s nice to know that TJ’s is within easy bike distance for small runs.

By way of brief product review, we use a pair of TransIt grocery bag panniers for the Dogwoods run:

They can hold our produce for the whole week and come with shoulder straps to make shopping with them easy. We even took them on a bike camp out with Fletcher’s scout troop, on which they very capably carried our sleeping bags and tent. Recommended.

Likely I could just behave like a normal vehicle, take the lane and make the turn, etc., but somehow doing that off a side road on to Rosemead seems like a less than great idea. Anyway, I don’t mind cheating in this case.

The ride could not have been more pleasant. It was cool in the morning and not hot in the afternoon. Morning traffic was great. One driver waited at a four way stop and waived me through such that I wouldn’t have to come to a complete halt, which was totally cool of him. None of the cars got all up ons when I took the lane, which I did at every intersection. Exactly one car got within three feet of me. SGV drivers: thanks!

It took me about twice as long to ride — almost exactly an hour each way — as it does to drive on a bad day. (Although not an atypically bad day. Few of my drives in count as “good.”) That said, I got two hours more exercise than I would usually get, so I consider it a big time-saving win.

The home route through Arcadia’s peacock country may or may not be the best way to do things. I’m looking to avoid traveling on Rosemead or Colorado West of Baldwin, and this seemed an easy enough cut through, however I took a couple of wrong turns and ran in to some dead ends. Huntington in the morning was 100% reasonable; I’ll probably give it a go on the way home next time.

I’m planning to ride again next Thursday, and hopefully twice the week after that if all continues to go well.

Here’s the thing: the more of the rest of you hipsters who decide to maintain a Zen-like aloofness and remain above such pedestrian things like politics and democracy, the more influential my vote will be. Past evidence suggests that you are more likely to vote against me than with me, so please, don’t vote.

Remember that today is SuperDuperTuesday. So bust out that senior citizen camouflage, hit your polling place and make democracy happen. You can find your polling place using the magic interwebs machine.

(True story: when I got to the Forgetful Acres rec room this morning, there was a huge TV blaring “VOTE YES ON {blah blah blah}” ads right outside the polling place. It was awesome. They turned it off when I pointed it out.)

(For those of you keeping score at home: Obama and “no.” See also CLV’s voter guide.)

Hillando Clintrissian

Here’s the thing. The Millenium Falcon was hers to begin with. She only lost it to Bill on a bet. Then she got caught up in that whole Cloud City thing in the Bespin system, which proved she could govern, I guess, but she’s kinda hoping you won’t remember that she totally sold out the Rebels to Darth Vader. That’s how J’han Solo wound up encased in Carbonite and Leia ended up in a bikini on a chain. Hmmm. Actually, not so bad! And Hillando did do some nifty piloting against the New and Improved Death Star. Didn’t she also record “Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)”?

The Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat must replay the final 51.9 seconds of their game last month because the official scorer ruled incorrectly that Shaquille O’Neal fouled out, the league said Friday.

So before the next Miami at Atlanta game tips off, both teams are going to put they players they had available during the last game on the floor, set the scoreboard to 114-111, Hawks, and play for a little less than a minute. Awesome.

Next, a shockingly uncommon occurrence: a professional athlete beats the hell out of some dude and gets arrested:

The Herald cited a police report, which said Rice arrived at his wife’s house demanding to know what man she was with and what he was doing at her home in Coral Gables, Florida.

He then found the victim, Alberto Perez, hiding in a closet and began beating the man while screaming obscenities at him, according to the newspaper.

You know, it’s just sad that somebody with all the privilege of a professional athlete would… HOLY R. KELLY, BATMAN, DID HE REALLY FIND THE DUDE IN THE CLOSET!!!??? The article does not state whether or not the victim is a midget.

So there you go. Yesterday’s bizarre NBA news. I’m not quite sure how to gather all of my thoughts on the matter together, but I believe that Lakers center Andrew Bynum has some relevant thoughts on the matter:

Happy 2008, everybody.

Run:

It was December 24th on Hollis Ave in the dark
When I seen a man chilling with his dog in the park
I approached very slowly with my heart full of fear
Looked at his dog, oh my God, an ill reindeer
But then I was illin because the man had a beard
And a bag full of goodies, 12 o’clock had neared
So I turned my head a second and the man had gone
But he left his driver’s wallet smack dead on the lawn
I picket the wallet up then I took a pause
Took out the license and it cold said “Santa Claus”
A million dollars in it, cold hundreds of G’s
Enough to buy a boat and matching car with ease
But I’d never steal from Santa, cause that ain’t right
So I’m going home to mail it back to him that night
But when I got home I bugged, cause under the tree
Was a letter from Santa and all the dough was for me

D.M.C. :

It’s Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow’s on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistle toe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl’s
But each and every year we bust Chrsitmas carrols
(Christmas melodies)

Run-D.M.C. :

Rhymes so loud and prod you hear it
It’s Christmas time and we got the spirit
Jack Frost chillin, the orchas out?
And that’s what Christmas is all about
The time is now, the place is here
And the whole wide world is filled with cheer

D.M.C. :

My name’s D.M.C. with the mic in my hand
And I’m chilling and coolin just like a snowman
So open your eyes, lend us an ear
We want to say 

Run-D.M.C. :

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

• Every play must be a bingo
• Normal dictionary rules do not apply. (That is: words may not be challenged)
• Definitions for each word must be provided
• Score is not kept
• Everybody wins

Stephanie says that this is what happens when couples who rent from Blockbuster aren’t careful with their returns.

Thanks to CMM for pointing this one out! It, truly, is amazing.