Stupid Jerks on Bikes

I was nearly taken out by a bicyclist crossing the street today, he was following a bike path that cut across the road. If it wasn't for the people walking towards me on the crosswalk who stopped and looked toward him, I would have been completely blindsided by that moron. Bike paths are the work of the devil.

In a similar vein, this time from that fair city, Philadelphia, comes this post on Craig's List. Here's the original link.

And here's the text for when that ad expires...

luckily missed connection with your stupid ass on a bike - w4w (going the wrong way on passyunk ave)

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Reply to: pers-724042017@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-06-18, 10:41AM EDT



you: chick on a bike with no helmet, no riding smarts, and no clue.
me: chick on a bike with helmet and enough skills & sense to avoid getting us both really, really hurt.

so--there i was. tuesday night at about 8:20pm. riding my bike going east on christian, and then turning left (north--you know. the way traffic goes.) onto passyunk ave. i ride my bike--actually ride, and do some racing. i'm not just a hipster poseur who thinks a fixed gear is the be-all end-all of urban coolness--and i laid down a pretty nice hard, flat turn going at about 18mph. i passed your boyfriend as he turned onto christian but thanks to the big van at the NW corner i couldn't see anything on passyunk itself.

but then, i didn't expect to make that hard, fast turn and be confronted with you, wobbling around on your bike in the dead middle of the street, thus forcing me to ride outside you, even as you continued to bear down on me. as soon as you saw me you started screeching and riding straight toward me, forcing me even more outside, putting us both on multiple potential collision courses--me with you, you with me, and both of us with the parked cars on either side of the street. i managed to avoid the crash, but you f-ed up my night, asshole.

so here, my squawking friend, are a few tips:

1. don't be an f-ing MORON. don't ride your bike down streets the wrong way. we all do it occasionally, but frankly save us all the trouble and take your lazy ass the whole, entire, extra block out of your way, okay? your carelessness could not only have gotten up both hurt pretty f-ing bad, but could have gotten either one of us killed if there had been a moving car, pedestrian, etc. in the vicinity. it's one thing if you decide to remove yourself from the gene pool, but frankly i'm pretty smart and nice and good-looking. you have no right to endanger me and my life (not to mention my enjoyment of a lovely evening tooling around town on my bike) with your stupidity.

2. if you've got time to scream, you've got time to steer. screaming sucks. all you did was freak yourself and me out even more. plus you kept looking at me in a panic, which meant that even as i was attempting to avoid a head-on collision you kept riding toward me. instead of panicking, look and point your bike AWAY from the obstacle. if you look at me you are going to ride into me.

3. wear an f-ing helmet, moron. like i said, i've done some racing. i've seen people dislocate shoulders, break arms, sustain concussions, detach retinas, and receive facial maulings. and those were people **wearing** helmets. clearly you are not a good enough rider to chance it. spend the $$$ and get yourself some protection before you kill yourself.

4. this sort of stupid bullshit bad riding, which i see on a daily basis, makes drivers and pedestrians hate bikes. hell, it makes ME hate bikes. thanks. i spend a lot of time on my bike. thanks for making my errands, my commute, and my training rides more unpleasant, more unsafe, and more dangerous. this kind of shit reflects badly on those of us who ride a lot and do our best to co-exist with everyone else who needs to get around this city.

just remember: next time you--or the person who can't avoid you--might not both be so lucky.

• Location: going the wrong way on passyunk ave
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 724042017

So Long OS X, hellloooo Hardy Heron!

I've been running a Hackintosh for a few weeks now on my half-decent system (Intel Q6600 quad-core Core 2, OC'd to 3 GHz, 4 gig RAM, blah blah).  I have just annihilated my OSX install in favor of the Hardy Heron.

Why?  Well, it's because I wanted long term reliability, and I can't get that running OS X on non-Apple hardware.  There are numerous people hacking away at OS X, but for me (and the routine use of my PC) it was best to get away from the hacks and back onto an appropriate operating system.  I use Ubuntu daily at work, now I will do the same at home.

As for my next PC...well, my wife's Windows XP computer won't last forever.  I have every intention of replacing it with a nice quiet, compact iMac or next-gen Mac Mini and raising the young'uns on Apples.  OS X is indeed wicked awesome - infinitely better than the train wreck that is Vista.  I still remember the day my father brought home the 1st gen Macintosh from work and the impression it made on me.  Running a Hackintosh has made me into a future paying Apple customer...

Excuse our need to be relevant, please...

Not sure about Cod*, but your favorite deadly sandwich does think Weezer's "Pork and Beans" is pretty dang catchy, sorta a Foo Fighters' song for the no longer young of the well-adjusted, and arguably well off, middle class (which may or not be what a Foo Fighters' song is anyway, Weezer's just more honest about it). Moreover, your greasy one was blown away by the logistical feat some producer pulled off in assembly the cast of YouTubelebrities for the video, enough at least to reproduce it here in Bostodelphia:

...

Wait. Oh. Apparently Weezer and Universal music haven't yet bought into the whole participatory culture thing (which is kinda the point of YouTube) to allow embedding of their vid. So, if you're not familiar with it yet, you can wonder over to its confines here.

That aside, I think what Peter Coffin puts together below really needed to be said and shot:



May sound like sour grapes, but this ditty is smarter than the pandering pop Cuomo threw out there, belated Harvard degree be damned.

I've been a bad steak, let's see if I can take some of the Bostodelphia burden off Cod's back by getting back to blogging. Regular posts should start up again this week.

This particular post has been brought to you by a couple of bottles of Founders Brewing's Devil Dancer. Founders isn't actually a sponsor of Bostodelphia, but I probably wouldn't have got to this post had I not drunk two bottles of 13% ABV Triple IPA following a 6.4 mile run through a blinding lightning storm. I guess this post was also brought to you by athletic stupidity and Mother Nature. But seriously, if you can find it (thanks Foodery!), and you like a strong yet thirst quenching brew, try out some Devil Dancer.

*Cod should also chime in at some point about his participation in the Coke and Mentos meme.

This post is Cheesesteak's fault

Damn, I wasn't going to post this because the banality of it makes me throw up in my mouth...but here goes. The Zeal Maestro sunglasses may be out. Zeal's lab doesn't do prism corrections to account for the wrapped lens, so I may end up with distortion on the sides of the lens. Too bad, they're great sunglasses.

Sports Optical in Denver, on the other hand, does do such a correction and in fact pioneered the technique. Interestingly, their lens prices are pretty much the same as everyone else. They also are a Zeal dealer, amongst other brands, so the Maestro may be back in the running. I will be consulting them via phone later this week...

And just as a side note, the Terminator is sporting a pair of Gargoyle ANSI Classics. I am disgusted with myself to even know that, for it is proof that my glasses hunt has hit an unpleasant level of obsession.

Zeal Maestro Sunglasses

Ah, with a new eyeglass prescription it's time for new prescription sunglasses and a descent into sunglasses shopping HELL. Since I'm contemplating biking to work, I wanted a wrap frame. It also had to be lightweight, and not make me look like a triathlete wannabe jackass when wearing them around town. Due to my modestly bad nearsightedness, most Rx sunglasses that meet this description can't get lenses made for me.

I came across the Zeal Maestro in an online review and bought a pair to try out since they are not available in local stores (yeah, this is slightly unethical since I returned them, but I was desperate. Really desperate.) These are perfect. The brown tint is comfortable, more so than I expected. Now, I also need to adjust the earpieces to raise the left one about 5 mm for a comfortable fit. The Maestro is not adjustable. Fortunately, nylon is easily bendable with the application of a heat gun. I am ordering my Rx pair today and can retire my old Rx Ray Bans which were crappily made by Lenscrafters.

If a vote is counted in Puerto Rico, does anybody notice?

Now, Puerto Rico's a great place to be and I have fond memories of dashing through its airport trying to catch a connecting flight on my honeymoon, but let's consider the result of Saturday's primary vote. Clinton beat Obama 68-32.

Here's the thing - no one really cares. PR does not vote in the general election, it has no electoral votes, and this victory is purely symbolic for Clinton. Obama didn't even bother to campaign there, to my knowledge. Additionally, there are many factors at play in any campaign. Since Clinton's been asserting that sexism has been a major factor in her inability to clinch the nomination (as opposed to crap like this), let's look at this post from Democraticunderground.com by poster lapfog_1 regarding the general culture of PR:

Dirty little secret of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico
They are extremely racist. Yes, racist. And it's not about skin color. It's about skin color and place of origin.

Continentals... that is what they call stateside black people.

I lived in the US VI for about a year, but it was an incident in Puerto Rico that sticks in my mind... I and my girlfriend were drinking in a bar, having a quiet time... a African American comes up and sits down next to us... he tries very hard to get the attention of the bar tender (also someone who I would say is "black" though obviously Hispanic/black)...

While he is trying to place an order, we strike up a conversation, turns out he is a film producer from LA, here in Puerto Rico to do a commercial photo shoot... times goes on and he still can't get the attention of the bartender. So I now ask him what he wants, he tells me his drink order, I signal the bartender and order it. When the bartender brings me the drink and I hand it to our new friend... the bartender turns to me and says "you cannot do that... you must leave".

I have never been so shocked in my life.

But the film producer from LA gets up and tells me "no, this has been my whole experience here... everywhere I go... I will never return to Puerto Rico". My girlfriend and I also leave but not before letting all of the other tourists know what just happened and making a formal complaint to the management.

But everywhere we went in the US possessions in the Caribbean, we found the same thing. we were treated as walking wallets (ok it's a tourist trap), and US Continentals were treated as less than dirt.

One post on a forum does not a case make (although Google turns up more), but combined with the lack of electoral votes I think the only conclusion regarding Saturday's big win for Clinton in Puerto Rico is: who cares?