Welcome to the 2nd post of its name, dedicated to the glories of the bike gang.
Oh oh! sweet bike gang: I love thee like PBR
Whilst your glory, I cry out
in thunder and wet-brake squelch.
Men both machined and firearm-ed
Stagnate helpless afore our might
While you and I, bike gang...
hand-in-handlebar...
Ride on through the night.
I didn't take any pictures, because I was too drunk. So while looking for something suitable, I found the above map to my old house. I don't live there anymore, so following it won't get you anywhere. It doesn't have much to do with the bike gang, really, save that the marked underpass is currently under construction and caused a couple of detours.
For more on the sweet, sweet glories of the bike gang, see here.
When you're so drunk you can't even focus with that random attractive girl who's trying to make conversation / get you to dance, even while she completely blows off your friend... you know it's a good night.
Song of the Day: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Me & Mia
I took all my puppy-raising books back to the library yesterday. I just don't think I can handle the drastic lifestyle change on my own. So to the the only close friend in the past few years who has actively encouraged my getting a puppy... not today, and probably not for a few more months, at least. Sorry. To everybody else... okay, maybe you're right. For now.
Alas, it's a catch-22. While puppies = great way to meet women, I don't think I could handle caring for one while I live alone. Of course, some good roommates would work too.
Song of the Day: Billy Bragg & Wilco - At My Window Sad and Lonely
Richey deChico. Avid golfer, recreational boxer, and all-around sporting sort. Resides in north Jersey. Proprietor of deChico & Sons Moving Company. Alleged ties to racketeering and organized crime, but no arrests or convictions.
Song of the Day: Ben Kweller - The Rules
I went to Vegas. It was the diamond's bachelor party.
woman of unnamed occupation: so who's the best man?
me: uh... uh... I guess that's me.
To see our gloriously fine suits, you'll have to make do with the picture above. Until we wear them again.
post-Vegas:
me: yeah, the trip was perfect, exactly what it was supposed to be: lots of glorious stupid masculinity. but it was starkly centering, too. I mean, it was like, okay, vegas is *not* my town. that's not who I am.
blue: is it anyone's town?
Song of the Day: Neil Young - On the Way Home
I stayed at work pretty late last night, till around closing time for the bars here in Tucson. This always makes for an entertaining bike ride home, since my route goes by most of the bar scene.
At an intersection with a separate bike line in the center, a car pulls up to me next to me.
the driver (slurred): hey! is that a cop car behind me?
me: um, no... that's a pickup truck.
the driver: okay, great.
She then peels out, jumping the curb into an illegal left turn.
I bike down through a two-lane underpass, and I'm immediately surrounded by 5-6 cars all zipping past me, laying on their horns and yelling to me and each other. I can't hear anything they're saying over their horns, but they seem pretty excited about it. Meanwhile, I'm figuring one of them is going to hit me, and I'm just wondering if it will be by accident or on purpose. Then a cop car pulls out from out of nowhere and slides into the middle of their pack. I'm thinking, okay, I guess I'm gonna witness a DUI bust... But the cop just drives along with them as they keep speeding, yelling, and laying on their horns. I'm not really sure what he was looking for.
I was pretty excited to get back to my quiet, pitch-dark, and very safe neighborhood street (above).
Song of the Day: The Clarks - Last Call
In college, I definitely strategically placed books and other items around my dorm room so that they could be noticed and used as conversation pieces. I still put some effort into arranging my bookshelf, with my more visible bookshelf (above) holding books-to-be-noticed, and my less visible shelf with the less interesting books. Far fewer random people come through my room than a dorm, of course, but I get pretty excited when someone sees my shelf and says, ooh! look!
Somehow, though, I still keep a bible on my shelf. Although it's not personally important like the London and Melville above it, it still seems too important in general to not be on the shelf.
On a completely separate note, I get very embarrassed when it's the day after I was really drunk, and, despite any previous conviction that PBR has magical properties and cannot cause post-drinking discomfort, I am extremely hungover. It's not that it was necessarily actually embarrassing: I think it's simply that I'm embarrassed to be hungover at all. Although it happens often enough.
Song of the Day: Wilco - In a Future Age (Alternate Take)
Saucy brute and the diamond had a bunch of us over for a big dinner, with homemade pasta and homegrown tomatoes. It was delicious, of course... whenever saucy starts to say, yeah, I don't know how good this will be, I just explain to her what I'd be eating instead, and she quits hedging. The company was also far superior to most of my dinners, and I got to share some homebrew with a fledgling brewer.
Saucy and the diamond are getting married in October, and they asked me to give the best man's toast. (Maybe I should note that it was the bride that actually asked me...) Dinner with the bride and groom and their friends was a great brainstorming session for me.
Song of the Day: Wilco - Summer Teeth
Okay, it's [action]-story time.
So, I was driving to the grocery store, when I see this ridiculously cute girl riding her bike. Now, it's been a long time since I've actually seen a girl I could ever become interested in, so I think that I'd forgotten that they existed. This random girl-on-bike could have been one of those. It also got me thinking about how women get about 10 bonus hot points if riding a bike (that's on the (0-10) * (0-10) attractiveness scale). But I digress...
So then I start thinking, damn, I need to do something exciting again. At this point it was all subconscious, but I'll explain the cause at which point it surfaced in this stream of consciousness. So after the grocery store I start to get a sleeping bag and some food together to go drive up near Sedona and backpack and look for elk. Then I decide, wait! I know what's causing this! It's just like that Sports Night episode, where Dan gets writer's block, then gets it cured when he meets a hot volleyball player because he remembers why he grew to love writing in the first place... like Jeremy said, it's the same reason anyone does anything: for beautiful women!
With this epiphany in mind, I resolved to go to work posthaste, and do some Impressive Astronomy. But while biking in, I noticed lightning! The monsoons have arrived! It felt much cooler, even if it actually wasn't. The oppressive laziness of the 105+ summer was shifted, shrugged off from the city. So I biked around for a while. Then I came to work, and told everyone that the monsoons had come. So we began to make plans on where to go watch the lightning tonight. Then I decided this had to be recorded.
Now it's 4 pm, and I still haven't done any work, Impressive Astronomy or otherwise. And the red sox game is on the radio. Ah, well.
Song of the Day: Marah - The Dishwasher's Dream
