The Whitest Playlist Ever Made

Omar, a true hero, put together this glorious 'Sunday music and hot coffee..' [sic] playlist for you, my dear listener. It's the iphone-commercial soundtrack aggregator you never knew you needed. Maybe very slightly dated now, but these are the hits, and as such have held up well. I wish homie would update it with some new cuts, but you can't have everything. If ever I need some generically pleasant and chill music to rock out to then this is what I reach for. You could do worse, is what I'm saying.

If you want to take advantage of more of Omar's strong work on the playlist front, then go to the playlist section of his soundcloud page. He's still hustling, posting a new list as recently as 6 days ago. I haven't had a chance to get into that one yet, but likely this week. I'm not busy, if you hadn't heard.

I hope the good and chill jams find you well.

It's the Little Things

I spend a lot of time alone, and as a solo middle-aged person the only kids I interact with are those of my friends. They are good kids, and sometimes they do things that warm my otherwise cold, dead heart. As when they make me a placeholder for Thanksgiving dinner. 

I made a pumpkin pie. They made me smile. I'll take that trade 100 times out of 100. 

T2: Trainspotting and Selective Memory

My love it kills me slowly,
Slowly I could die...

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Caught up with the sequel to Trainspotting (officially: T2 Trainspotting) over the weekend. The movie will probably appeal to you if you saw and liked the original. If not, enh, it's probably fine as a standalone, but you might want to see the original first.

I loved the original, and watched it over and over again on my friend Esteeb's couch back in 1997. Partly because it was both hysterically funny and very grim, and that suits me right down to the ground. Also partly because I was pining over a girl who, in the parlance of the time, kicked me to the curb. That girl was fun while it lasted, but the fallout was severe. Back in those days I was not very well balanced at the best of times, so the breakup sent me into a tailspin, and I spent a few months drinking myself to sleep with 40s of Magnum and trainspotting on the TV. If Esteeb was bothered he never mentioned or showed it, and eventually I got my shit together. Mostly together, anyway. Ish. Together-ish.

The latest Trainspotting movie is very much an examination of what the four central characters have, or haven't, done with their lives in the past 20 years. So: if the original resonated with you at all, and if - just to choose an example at random - you are a middle-aged man that feels like reflecting on what became of his youth, his successes, and his failures, then the movie might speak to you in very interesting ways. Depends where it finds you, I guess.

The song above is an extended-ending remix of a Wolf Alice jam that appears at the end of the movie. The original is great, but the best part is the final chorus, so stretching that out gives it some extra. I loved it. YMMV. Download the MP3 here.

Bringing things up to the present day: Esteeb remains one of my closest friends, all these many years later. A couple months ago he asked me over lunch, 'hey, do you remember that girl with the reddish-blonde hair you dated in college?'

I said, 'the one that I was all bummed about for a while? The hot one?'

He said, 'yeah, that one - I see her at church sometimes.'

I laughed and said, 'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah, I see her, and all I can remember about her is that you shagged her.'

And thus sometimes friendship looks like ignoring my lame drama from back in the day, and focusing on the positive. Esteeb remains the best.
Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving 2018

Desktop Wallpaper Courtesy PDW (link below)

It's been an interesting runup to Thanksgiving this year. I have not posted much because much of what I feel most strongly about is political, and you are probably more sick of interacting with politics than I am by now. I have finished several books in the past few months, and those are usually good for some blog content, but somehow between the time my ideas ferment in my tiny brain and I sit down to type up the words something gets lost: motivation, relevance, value, and much else. So here we are.

I lost my job a couple weeks ago. The layoff was not a surprise; my company got acquired and I started looking for a new job several months ago in advance of any bad news from my employer. My hope was to have a new job lined up and collect a severance, but it did not work out. Got an 8 week severance, which is better than nothing but still not great. The Feds tax lump-sum severance pay like a bonus, so they get around 45% of it. So I got about 4 weeks of pay, after taxes. Glad to get the money, but it's not much to live on. Fortunately I keep my fixed costs relatively low compared to my total income, so I am not in dire straits right now. Biggest cost after rent is health insurance, which is around $700 a month. (If I had a family or dependents it would be 3x that much.) So I can keep the lights on for a while while I look for a new gig. 

The hardest part was that I have not been unemployed for over 20 years, all the way back to when I was still in college. The absence of work and a related set schedule was very demotivating. Why do anything today when I can do it tomorrow? Why get something done in the morning when you can do it in the afternoon? Rinse, repeat. Instead of handling my business in a timely fashion I push it back, over and over again. Not my usual pattern, and not one that I want to continue. 

People have been telling me to 'enjoy my time off'. That's a nice idea, but it is very difficult to 'enjoy your time off' when you do not know how long it will be, and, most especially: I'M NOT EARNING ANY FUCKING MONEY. No idea why people think that is 'enjoyable', but I have heard it so many times that I now gently remind them, 'hey, you know I don't have a job, right? And I still have bills to pay?' No doubt there are people that are very comfortable with that state of affairs. I am not one of them. 

So! Thanksgiving. Being jobless frees me up to ride my bike, and to make treats. So I have been making cookies, and banana bread, and some pies. And riding the bike. Fun for me. I hope that your Thanksgiving is abundant in foods and good company. It gets no better. 

See you out there.


Prometheus Design Werx desktop wallpaper here. 

What are the best cycling bib shorts?

Just Two Men In Tights at Sunset

Updated 17 Nov 2018 to move the Rapha Pro Bib Shorts II to the bottom of the list. The leg grippers are defective, and after getting two new pairs of shorts from Rapha the gripper issue is worse, not better. Unacceptable in a short at any price point, but especially at $275 a pair.
*****

TLDR: it depends on your anatomy, physiology, saddle, and riding style. If you change saddles you may notice that some bibs do not work for you, so once you find a combination that works, stick with it, and change with caution.
I liked Rapha Pro and Eliel Laguna Seca or Hollywood shorts (the chamois is the same in the Eliel shorts, so either one is good).

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I tested a bunch of different bib shorts over the past year in an effort to find something that I liked. Price is a factor because they can get expensive; I got all of mine at some type of discount, either on sale or through a contact at Competitive Cyclist, so you can do the same. I put at least 10 hours in the saddle on each set of shorts, with a two hour minimum for each test ride (after initial break in rides of about an hour). I tried two different saddles (more on that shortly), across several months and these are the bib shorts and saddle combinations that worked for me.

A few words on fit: I am barely six feet tall, with a 32" inseam and a long torso. I have a 34" waist, and wear a 42" regular suit coat. I weigh about 190 lbs, and I am built like a sprinter, not a GC rider. Most of my riding is leaned forward, with my wrists and forearms on the bars, or on the drops. So I roll my hips forward to flatten out my spine and reduce flexion. I used a Specialized Phenom saddle for several months before switching to a Specialized Power saddle (143 mm width).

Tested, in descending order of preference:

1.  Eliel Hollywood Bib Shorts in size L - Excellent shorts, and no issues with either saddle in any riding position. All day comfortable. These are their priciest model, but you can get the same chamois and build quality in their Laguna Seca short. Made right here in California, which is important considering how hard it is to run a small manufacturing business in this state.

2. Specialized RBX Pro in size L - Good shorts, suited for long days in the saddle. The best thing about these shorts is that you can often find them on sale for $125 or less, which is a good price for a premium bib. They are extremely plush, and aimed squarely at maximum comfort. I rated them higher than the Giordana shorts because they fit me better and are easy to find for half as much money.

3. Giordana Lungo Bib Shorts in size L - Good shorts, but not well suited to my body / saddle. They are beautifully made in Italy, with a light, technical fabric and a seamless chamois and only one seam on the legs. You can tell they were designed and assembled with some considerable care, as they hardly weigh anything and it's very hard to make a garment in this way. They feel fine when you first get them on, but I did not get along with them very well with the Phenom saddle. After switching to the Power saddle things improved, but they are still not a great fit for me and I cannot wear them comfortably on a ride longer than an hour. I keep them in the rotation because it's too late to return them, but I would not buy them again. It's a shame, because the fit and finish of the shorts is top notch, and the shorts are superb aside from fitment.

4. Assos T.tiburu_s7 Bib Shorts - These are their cold-weather bibs, and I am not very impressed by them. Build quality is fine, but the chamois does not agree with me at all. Also the front of the short stops well below my belly button, which seems very odd when compared with other insulated bibs I own from Rapha. Moreover the insulation is weak as hell, and they do not actually keep you very warm. Reviewers on Comp Cyclist say they are 'fantastic' and 'extremely warm', but I am here to tell you they are 'not worth it' and 'not for you if you like the way a Rapha Pro Team chamois fits'. Some riders like them a lot, but my experience is that there are better options elsewhere. YMMV

5. Rapha Pro Team Bib Shorts II in size XL- Good shorts until the elastic fails, which happened even before I wore the most recent set on an actual ride. Comfortable, good chamois suitable for most types of riding. The elastic at the very bottom of the leg does not grip as well as it should at the very edge of the cuff. This has happened on both of the Rapha Pro Team bibs that I own, and I think in their next iteration the leg opening will be smaller to correct this issue. $270 a pair it should not happen. It's beyond a cosmetic issue - it flaps in the wind. For reference my legs are 47 cm around where the bibs should sit.

That's my experience. Hope it was helpful.
See you out there. 

Michelle Obama

It's been a few years so it's hard to remember what it was like in the time before the current mentally defective president was elected, and we didn't have a caricature of Disney cartoon villains living in the White House.

Let this article remind you of what it was like to have two intelligent, thoughtful, strong people working together in the White House: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2018/nov/17/michelle-obama-interviewed-miley-cyrus-katy-perry-becoming

The gulf in intellect, manners, class, and ability between the Obamas and the current clowns is so wide you could fit the Milky Way inside it. Also, not for nothing, but Trump is the one who was gifted 400 million dollars from his father. The Obamas come from working-class backgrounds. Money can buy you the presidency, but it cannot buy competence.

Congratulations to the American voter. Again.

Addiction, Again

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. For friends and family that stop by this space - I am not addicted to harmful drugs (my only vices are exercise and sugar), but I do exhibit addictive behaviors if, for example, I am prevented from going to the gym. Understanding why this happens is useful.

I Hope You Voted

Have you had all the electioning you can stand? Me too.
Here's a very good video about dragonflies and damselflies.

You Can't Quit Cancer, But You Can Quit Doing Oxy

Is drug addiction a disease? Per Websters: "a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms".

Brief aside: The Obama administration classified it as a disease and now you can't throw a rock in Orange County without hitting a sober living home. Almost all of them are for-profit centers, with a minimal emphasis on rehab, and a maximal emphasis on making money. They have no incentive to actually help people, because anyone that relapses can just go back into 'treatment'! Thanks Obama! Signed: A 2x Obama Voter

Recently a eulogy for a pretty white girl that died of a drug overdose went viral. There's a lot to unpack here. First, there's the wide range of very empathetic and very useless writeups about the eulogy itself, custom designed to tug at your heartstrings. Add all that digital ink to the ever-expanding list of useless responses to the eulogy that explain how the woman who died is 'in a better place' or 'with God now', which is just more lies people tell themselves so that they feel better about something bad.*

The woman appeared to have had every opportunity to stop doing drugs: an infinite number of second chances from her enabling family, resources for repeated stints in rehab, even support from the system, based on the fact that she "befriended and delighted cops, social workers, public defenders, and doctors, who advocated for and believed in her till the end." (The outcome suggests that their limited energies and resources would have been best allocated elsewhere.) On top of that she had a son, who was the light of her life or some shit, and she could not stay clean even for him. Getting high was the most important thing in her life, and eventually it killed her.

The thing about a 'disease' like drug addiction is that you can cure it simply: stop doing drugs. I do not suggest that this is easy - many things that are simple are not easy (like making biscuits, or dunking a basketball). But as solutions go, it does not get much more simple than that. Consider a different disease, such as lung cancer. How do you cure lung cancer? After decades of intensive research, no one knows! They just poison you until the cancer gives up and hope you don't die in the process. Even this 'success' is a postponement, since the cancer usually comes back and kills you later on. So good luck quitting cancer.

What about a mental illness like depression? You cannot quit being depressed any more than you could quit having a cold. You either wait it out, or you get treatment, or both. Drug addiction has more in common with depression than it does with cancer, but is it a disease?

Sam Harris (and others) assert that there is no such thing as free will. You are beholden to the exceedingly complex circuitry of your brain. It might make you feel depressed, or happy, or make you eat too much, or exercise too much, or commit acts of violence, or acts of kindness, or it might make you do absolutely anything to feel that sweet, sweet feeling provided by the opiates. If addiction is a disease, then it is a disease of the brain, and no part of the current justice system is treating it the right way. I doubt very much that there are many rehab or treatment centers that are doing much to solve the problem cure this disease either.

Armed with that knowledge we can infer that addiction is a disease, and we can also stop making excuses for the people that are afflicted. There has to be some way to treat addicts that will help them stop hurting other people. However, even in the absence of a cure there is no need to feel sympathy for people that fail to get their shit together over and over and over again. Maya Angelou said it well: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

* E.g. 'Everything happens for a reason' - yes, it does, and sometimes the reasons are random and bad, because the universe is cruel and unforgiving and someday everyone and everything you have ever loved will die, including you.