Browsing

[sam]

From the Dalston Dynamo Manifesto, which link has gone bad so don't bother clicking:
It's that time of year when you’re thinking about Dunwich. Or at least, people are telling you to think about Dunwich. But really, think about Dunwich. Sure, the ride sounds amazing, but isn’t it a lot of work. Won’t it hurt?

This year there’s a solution. The Dalston Dynamo. All the start line camaraderie of Dunwich, but with none of the pain and suffering of riding all that way to a cold, stony beach and waiting two hours for breakfast.

[sam]

WENN photo

What I am about to say is not going to be popular with at least one of my Top Gear colleagues, but here goes anyway. I'd like to stick up for the bicycle...

[sam]

Mumsnetter Opossum99 wonders: Am I being unreasonable to think about leaving my husband over a bike?

Possum, I think it's clear that what you're really asking is what bike should you buy with the £1000 your OH has offered to let you spend guilt-free. Conveniently, this amount falls within Cycle to Work scheme limit, which is a further incentive to take that job.

Get yourself a folder. It will come in handy when you visit OH in the doghouse he's sure to eventually wind up in again.


Later on mumsnet…

I pulled out of a road, road was clear and as I crossed the junction heard a bang. Looked in the rear view mirror and saw a bloke and his pushbike on the floor… It shook me up but glad the police saw that it wasnt all my fault. The sun was bright which she put that down to not seeing him too.


image grabbed from here

[sam]

Gotta like a post that starts I rode to work yesterday in shorts. I knew the gods would smite my ass today. And so they did.

Also filed under commuting and smiting: It's Not A Race. Covered in the original Browsing thread but so elegantly realised it's worth another plug.

[sam]

Paint your mishaps...

and watch them slowly disappear as the image host swallows them.

[sam]

Hyperbole and a Half deserves all the superlatives thrown at it. Allie Brosh has been MIA online for a little while now. I assume she's either working on her book,* plugged into the socket of her genius and too consumed to unplug, or back to battling the big D. (Or bored with the internet, shock horror.) Meanwhile, here's a panel and a half from Adventures in Depression, published in 2011.



* ah, just noticed this.

[sam]

It's incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don't create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created.



It's so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people's creations. This movie is stupid. That couple's kids are brats. That other couple's relationship is a mess. That rich guy is shallow. This restaurant sucks. This Internet writer is an asshole. I'd better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. See, I created something.

Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create -- be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship -- you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they'll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.

Just remember, they're only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people's work is another excuse to do nothing. "Why should I create anything when the things other people create suck? I would totally have written a novel by now, but I'm going to wait for something good, I don't want to write the next Twilight!" As long as they never produce anything, it will forever be perfect and beyond reproach. Or if they do produce something, they'll make sure they do it with detached irony. They'll make it intentionally bad to make it clear to everyone else that this isn't their real effort. Their real effort would have been amazing. Not like the shit you made.

[sam]

Serious articles about cycling aren't really my thing – I'm just here to have a good time, OK? – but every so often I slow down and read one. Lessons from Exhibition Road kept up my interest (probably all the pictures). That led to Cycalogical, which is worth visiting even if you don't know where Merton is, and the sadly nonfictional Fear of Cycling.

[sam]

Was googling 'Ray Winstone cycling', because that's the sort of fruitless pursuit I get up to, when I came across this link, now also expired:

...drivers complaining about cyclists being a menace is a bit like Ray Winstone crying because a little girl is standing on his foot.

I also liked the description of a bike as "a glorified tent frame on wheels."

Lovely little vinaigrette vignette over at Lovely Bicycle!. Let's illustrate this bit using Ray, as long as he's handy:

As a young girl I once found a stray length of golden chain in my grandmother's garden. It was thin and delicate, the kind of chain meant to be worn with a pendant... I remember standing there and spilling it back and forth from one hand to the other, fascinated by the curves and tangles it made each time it settled on my palm. I would trace the tangles with my eyes and it was an act of meditation.

[sam]

Apparently I built a bike that was previously owned by infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, writes Dave Moulton, who was unable to get that particular celebrity endorsement.



As to his own marquee value,
There was resistance to the name at first. "Not exotic sounding." Was a common comment. The US market had become used to Italian sounding names. Looking back, I probably should have changed my name to “Moltinelli” or something similar.