this recentDANKbags photo brings to mind from deep in the photographic memory another second avenue bike lane shit photo bro from a simpler time when horses walked the streets, a 6-pack of tallboys was $5 and the bike lane ran in one direction
some day a real rain will come and wash the pollen off the rubber baby backup bumpers on the loading dock at Meany Hall until then little light sprinkles like bike to work day rains will just swirl the pollen soup creating small patterns on surfaces that remind one of a bigger picture out there
When I was your age they called it “Bike to Work Day” which in my mind translates as “honey can you pick me up after work because it might rain later day” But now they call it “Bike Everywhere Day” or something like that. Which brings me back to this red bike, the most piece of shit bike I’ve seen in a long time. If this is your bike please don’t take it personally really riding a bike, any bike is great and it beats driving or taking an uber or riding the bus and I hope to see the proud owner of this bike cruising across campus someday because as you can see they love their bike and lock it up with not only a u-lock but two cable locks too. I’ve seen a lot of bikes that suck and this one really really really sucks. I’ve pulled thousands of bikes out of tangled piles in donation dumpsters. I’ve seen some shit bikes but this is the cheapest possible cheap shit MSRP completely full of cost cutting measures right down to the straight seatpost the lack of bottle cage bolts and the bolt-on front hub the bottom bracket and the welded on fucking crap chainring. A bike like this retails for about $189 at walmart but it costs about $14.50 to produce in a factory in China, even less if you up your order to 10,000 units. The coaster brake allows the kid to putoff the look of a brakeless fixed gear which is hilarious because it’s so Fast Friday ago and this kid was in 1st grade back then. But in reality this bike is unsafe at any speed over 7mph. Parked on the bike rack at Atmospheric Sciences I just can’t stop staring at it and shaking my head because it’s such a piece of shit painted red as if dumping a gallon of febreeze in the alley behind the dumpster will mask the smell but it only makes the alley smell more like piss and shit and vomit with a hint of febreeze. For $189 you could buy a solid used bike at a place like Bike Works and ride it to work everyday for a long long time.
I prefer to take a holistic approach to my compartmentalization. This site has been up for 731 weeks or as I like to say 14 years. Since 2005 not much has changed here and not much will change. you cannot make this site mobile friendly or download the app or do whatever the kids are doing these days while they stare at their phones.
Some things however have changed out there on earth and they're growing like weeds.
little plastic wrappers on the little plastic straws on the little plastic juice pouches
May 6, 2019
recently I’ve been noticing piles and piles of spent toner cartridges stashed in the corners and closets within the seedy underbelly of the large education factory that I roll around most weekdays. But the other day I stayed at the house of a friend’s friend and in the morning had a convenient cup of coffee and since then I’ve been visualizing thousands of kiddie pools filled with cashed keurig k-cup pods in a seemingly endless variety. I know it’s just a drop in the bucket just a scratch on the surface of the tip of the iceberg of our insatiable appetite for shipping containers full of plastic shit from China. If in one weekend visit I burned through four of those cute little fucking pods pulling the spent one and chucking it in the garbage only to replace it with the promise of a fresh clean convenient pod… ...what if I stayed at the friend’s friend’s house and saved them up for one year in kiddie pools in their backyard? How about 5 years? Just one little tangible indicator of consumption. Like toner cartridges tossed aside by 80,000 students, faculty and staff. And they say we’re moving towards being a paperless society. Yeah right, and the fax machine will kill the bike messenger. Or how about how the fucking mountains of styrofoam coolers and packing material those guys at molecular engineering collect reminds me to remind you to ask those guys down at DANK bags about their 6-pack ring collection.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not claiming to be some kind of green guru environmental expert on recycling or something or anything or something I’m just noticing things. Ask me about disposable diapers and asswipes and how anything that says “flushable” is not even close to ok to flush. I drink a lot of coffee and sometimes I use a reusable cup. I drink a lot of beer so I have a kegerator but not because I’m worried about saving the earth. Finally, in closing, I ride a ride a bike but not for environmental reasons, it just makes sense.
each time I pass an armored car that's parked in a random bullshit spot I mumble to myself "I heard those guys are dicks" and I smile thinking of Seth
I like to say phantom ass-pocket-U-lock syndrome which is a specific form of phantom nostalgia syndrome, poets like to use the word saudade, but that guy in the hard hat is on the phone saying "please send 25 over to link together a grip of starbucks straws with a wad of gum on the end so he can fish out the five dollar bill that's down there"
sometimes reading a book review is enough and there's no need to read the book
It’s easy to poke fun at office workers when you get to pop in and out paying only brief visits once or twice per day. Long enough to smell what was in the microwave or who wears too much perfume or catch a snippet of empty conversation about parking or traffic or TV or the weather.
some offices I visit once a day evoke strong feelings and reminders of why I am not a 9-5 office kind of guy.
"The phrase is sometimes used without derision, when a person's activities might be perceived as merely reinventing the wheel, when they actually possess additional value. For example, "reinventing the wheel" is an important tool in the instruction of complex ideas. Rather than providing students simply with a list of known facts and techniques and expecting them to incorporate these ideas perfectly and rapidly, the instructor instead will build up the material anew, leaving the student to work out those key steps which embody the reasoning characteristic of the field." -wikipedia bro
I like to think a HCDE student spent her entire winter quarter designing a bottle cage and 3D printing it. She got an A- on the project then took it over to Recycled Cycles and got $5 store credit for it. The next day I picked it up and took a photo then chucked it back in the bucket and bought two Profile Design cages in pristine condition for less than half the price of her big project.
my friend neighbor got this at a thrift store a few months ago and brought it over to see if I could revive the blownout brifters but I could not and it's been in my garage ever since collecting dust. I did take it out to take this photo. Viewing this bike through the eyes of a bike mechanic that refurbished a shit load of used bikes I feel just a bit shy of tepid. As my former mechanic self I might not touch it and sell it dirt cheap as-is. I might strip it of its useful parts in order of excitement for me they are: the el diablos, the rear derailleur, the brake calipers, the stem and the cranks. Then I'd chuck the frame as far as I could. ( I did suggest my friend take his new used bike to Bike Works and have them set it up just like he likes ) This bike doens't do much for me except remind me of 33 John because he rode one in 1997 when we both worked at Elliott Bay. If anyone can delaminate carbon fiber 33 John can. exploit the bond between carbon and aluminum. enjoy the strange creaks and crackling and croaking of a frame pushed past its limits. ride a bike into the ground remove the parts you like and repeat. Strong-like-ox 33 could play Grizzly Adams in a bike messenger centric remake. I remember when he was working Zen Courier and he destroyed the hood of a Honda with his fists after the driver cut him off and he would have gotten to the driver too if the construction workers building Benaroya Hall didn't call the cops. I remember when 33 was dispatching at Elliott Bay and he took a minute to sing the Gilligan's Island theme song on the mic repeating the opening line many many times in a row cracking himself up. I remember the "promotion" to dispatcher didn't suit 33 too well, sitting in a small windowless room with a phone and a radio is a long way from roaming the streets on a bike especially when you rip gnarly farts all day everyday like 33 John.
One hot summer day in September 1987 about 1:20:43 pm I was delivering a small copy machine and seven three inch binders to a residence in Redmond for Davis, Wright, Tremaine. It was such a nice day I thought I’d bike the long way around on the Burke Gilman Trail. I got as far as downtown Bothell when a chicken came out of the brush and ran under my front tire. With the extensive weight on myself and the bike the front wheel ran over the chicken injuring it and gave the tire a flat. With only nine minutes left to make the delivery, I strapped the dying chicken on top of my satchel hoping to find a vet hospital on the way to my delivery. I threw the bike over my right shoulder, carried the copy machine under my left arm and satchel on my back with the notebooks and chicken. I ran to Redmond and made my delivery, but it was too late for the chicken. I called in to dispatch and Chris Van Damme answered, I told him of my plight and Chris being an animal lover, sent me off to give the bird a proper send off. So I started on my way back looking for a nice place to dispose of the chicken. On my way through Woodinville a sign caught my eye, CHICKEN. I ran over the train tracks to where I saw the sign and lo and behold ARMADILLO BBQ. We threw the chicken on the grill, slapped some sauce on it and I’ve been in love with their food ever since.
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