Two Wheels Good

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The past couple weeks have been very busy. I was in San Ramon for work one week, and then San Francisco for work the following week, and then Boulder, CO for work the week after that. SF and Boulder were cool but yeah I don't care to talk about it either.

What I do care to talk about is this new thing that I'm doing that gets me out of the house. I am back on two wheels on the regular! Except now I have to provide the motive power in addition to the steering/braking inputs.

This here is a Specialized Roubaix in the best color they offer (black), which is the color I brought home. My bike is a different than this one in that the groupset is not as high-end as the one pictured here, so the one I bought cost quite a bit less. That is good news because it functions the same and I had a lot of other ancillary stuff to buy. Like pedals. And tights. And the shirts with pockets on the back. And a helmet. (Borrowed one from my friend but you are supposed to get a new one after 3 years and his was 10 years old.) And a little computer to track your data. So much data. Fortunately I had shoes left over from when I did spin class several years ago - shoes are expensive. Actually all of it is expensive, because cycling overlaps demographically very heavily with golf.

Cycling is very much a rich, middle-aged white guy hobby. I am not rich, but I do not have kids and I have the middle-aged white guy thing on lock. The big question is whether or not my back will hold up. So far it's okay. Not great, but okay. That will have to do for now.

More to come as I get caught up on the book reviews and maybe, if you're lucky, politics. Get excited.

Retro Style

In creating the post on Ready Player One (see below) I got sucked into a rabbit hole of 80's references, Gotcha shorts, and, happily, some pretty great retro OP polos.

Thanks to the internet some of this stuff is not too hard to find, and some of it is reasonably priced. If it fit me I would pay $40 plus shipping for this sweatshirt (that stripe! that collar! 100% cotton!). Some of it is expensive; not sure I would pay $80 for a shirt made 30 years ago - I would attempt to find a modern equivalent, but at least it is interesting.

Full disclosure: this is the last sweatshirt I bought, so YMMV. The thing about buying a garment like that is unless you lose it or let some girl 'borrow' it then it is likely to be the last sweatshirt you ever buy. That is one of the reasons they don't make them like they used to - the other is that loopwheeled shirts are very expensive to make, especially if you pay your employees a decent living wage like they do in Japan. Still: it will last as long as you do, which is saying something. I got mine because it reminded me of the same garment that my grandfather used to wear when I was a kid. He had gotten several on the cheap in the late 40's and wore them for decades. You can do the same: browse the collection at the History Preservation Associates and buy yourself a hoodie that will last a lifetime. You deserve it.

Not Bad for an Afternoon: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Just because a lot of people like something does not mean it is good. (See: McDonalds food; Game of Thrones books; Big Bang Theory; etc.) That said, Ready Player One is a fun, easy-readying story with some cringey flat spots and occasionally horrendous dialog that will keep you entertained for the few hours it will take you to finish it. I think it will do very well as a movie, because the script writers will be able to even out the low points and punch up the weakest elements (the romantic storyline and dialog are, and I cannot overstate this, spectacularly awful) while keeping the parts of the story that make it compelling.

That the author's second novel resorts to the same first-person trope as the first suggests that he may be out of ideas. Or that he is a hack. Or both. He definitely seems like a hack in this novel, but it succeeds in spite of itself.

Highly recommended for: anyone that played a lot of atari in the 80's; anyone that spent time in front of an arcade cabinet at the local 7-11 on the way home from school in the 80's; anyone who knows the serial number for the original star trek Enterprise; anyone who owned a 20-sided die and prayed for a vorpal sword + 5; anyone who enjoys references to the classic that was the Last Starfighter.

History Lesson: Liberty or Death by Peter McPhee

Liberty or Death really good! It is overflowing with detail so if you want to just get the gist of it you can get the kindle version and read the middle chapter that summarizes all the authors theses. Or if you can get your hands on a summary or abstract at a discount that might be good too. 

I read the whole thing and while the overarching themes are easy to recall there are many dates and places that are lost to me; it turns out that I do not need to remember the exact dates for the various revolutions, counter-revolutions, wars, internecine conflicts, and terrors that swept through France between 1789 and 1798. The big picture stuff is quite enough. 

This book overlaps well with Capital in the Twenty-First Century in that some of the root causes of the French Revolution are directly attributable to economic inequality, and Piketty explores them in some detail in his magnum opus. 

Full length book recommended for history buffs. Abstract or abbreviated version highly recommended for everyone else. 

I Read This: The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland

Sweet Katie was kind enough to share this book with me. I read it and I didn't get it. The story about a woman having what seems to be a mental breakdown. The meta-stories are about aging, mid-life crises, careers, 'love', newspapers, and probably some other stuff I did not pick up on. It is an easy book to read, but not a very easy book to understand. What I did understand I did not think was interesting.

I do not do well with books that have unreliable narrators, and that is a core element of this novel. SK liked the book, and she is a good and smart person that reads a lot, so I think there is a good read in there if that type of book is your jam. It is very audience dependent. Read it and decide for yourself.

Caught Up in You by 38 Special

Please press the play button and soak this scorching hot all time classic slice of pop perfection into your face. DO IT.

Two drummers? TWO DRUMMERS. You might want to go dance around a little, blow some rails (that was a thing in the 80's), sing along, or just watch the period-correct video and try to figure out which of those people you would have been if you were that age in 1982. (I'm the guy playing video games and drinking beers, obvs. Talk to girls? Fuck no. Why would I do that?)

Based on video evidence we can infer that many other things were hella dope back in the day: pay phones (lol), chest fur (on the men), tight ass jeans (men and women), shirts that are at least two sizes too small (men, and still a thing today), t-shirts tucked in with a belt (what the actual fuck?), hot blonde bitches playing you for free beers (also still a thing today). Not a thing back in the day? Bras, apparently. I'm not saying I'm into the look, but I'm not not saying it.

This song came out in 1982. Let that sink in for a minute. Some of my younger readers were not even born yet. The last girl I went out with wouldn't be born for another five years(!). Point is, this is an old song. Related: I am old. You're probably old too! How did this happen? No idea. Not much to say about it except this song makes me forget about being old for a few minutes. Actually, it does not make me forget. It just makes me not care for a few minutes. Two very different things, but it will have to do for now. At least until Destiny 2 comes out.

See you on the dance floor.