Monday, October 22, 2012

One Year Ago Today

the anti-serotta: waterford road frames are good.

no, they aren't made with 753 anymore, and their custom lugs are kinda goofy with the integrated cable guides, and they don't come with proper fluted seatstay caps or horizontal dropouts, but waterford lugged frames are good and a good value these days.  you can get downtube shifter bosses and simple lugs and a nice paintjob.  this is not serotta with shitty, overpriced frames; this is a company that will be around a while.  they are the only lugged contract builder/factory in the united states and do great work for rivendell and boulder bikes and others i'm sure.  i'm also sure that richard schwinn isn't wringing money out of the company so he can have a music room or huge bmw.  how can you tell?  their frames cost less than most every custom builder out there.  they are committed to lugs and steel.  they are the anti-serotta.  fuck  yeah. 

$26,000 a year

$26,000 a year.  that's the median income last year.  with median household income at $49000 a year, the next time some says that families making $250,000 a year are struggling, tell them to kindly go fuck themselves.  with wage structures like this, our economy will always be fucked.  folks making $26,000 a year each are not saving anything for the future and are spending every single cent they make just to get through another week.  everyone, even the miserable koch brothers, suffers when much of our country is so close to poverty.  we are a stupid nation and we deserve what we are going to get sooner or later.

more on ancient & modern

you really need to support the best band ever and get their new record.  or cd.  or 8-track.  something.  it's an album that begs for repeat listenings.  it's an ambitious and coherent record.  it takes some of the themes familiar on the last few albums and expands them and expands upon them.  the complete, 8-mekon lineup sounds energized and involved.  it's amazing how much of an anchor lu edmonds and his electric saz are now.  just as big a part of the band's sound as suzy's violin or rico's accordion.  it's an outstanding addition to the rock 'n roll formula. 

terotta tankruptcy

looks like we won't have them to kick around much longer.  still, when the owner's house is up for sale $1.1 million, you might want to consider buying a bike from someone not so interested in selling over-priced bikes to subsidize an extravagant lifestyle.  if he wasn't so interested in living like a robber baron, perhaps the ti frames wouldn't cost 3 times what some better custom ti frames cost.  assholes.  i'm sure he's already squeezed as much cash out of the company as he can for himself; the workers will have to settle for unemployment.  for a million and a half you can buy the serotta factory.  how the fuck did they think they could sell 5000 bikes a year??

for the love of pete, somebody buy saab

i know they deserve to die for not having a proper manual transmission available in the new 9-5 aero, but if somebody doesn't buy the company, i'm not gonna be able to get my desired car: a 6-speed manual 9-5 with the hirsch performance upgrade and better-spec interior, fjord blue or metallic black with the black leather interior and all the options.  chop chop motherfrakkers. 

even the liberal new york times isn't, version 4978201

this is a liberal?  no, of course not, but according the new york times and national public radio, he is.  for the record, bork was no intellectual; he was a movement conservative, narrow-minded and ignorant.  rather than his denial being a low-water mark for american politics, it was instead a pattern that the senate democrats should have maintained in later years to keep the current crop of dim-witted reactionary retards, scalia, thomas, roberts, alito, off the court.  america would be a better place today if the borking was a rule instead of an exception.

this is how science is supposed to work

well, not the koch brothers funding part.  and not the hysterical ill-informed denials.  and not the political bullshit, but the fact the the koch-suckers thought they were buying a brain-dead, climate-denying hack, and instead bought a reasonably thoughtful scientist is pretty fucking funny.

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