Last week I had my first automobile-bicycle incident. At the end of a weekend that was just shy of 50 miles, I was riding from College Park back to Silver Spring. While riding down University, I stopped at the light for New Hampshire and made eye contact with the woman driving a yellow Nissan Xterra behind me. She kept her distance. After about two blocks, nearly to Carroll, she was still behind me. Then, as I’m cruising down University I see this yellow flash come from my left and pass directly in front of me. Squeezing my brakes, I came to a slow plow-down-the-passenger-side of her vehicle, leaving a justice-scrape from the clips. As I continued my journey, I pushed forward the mirror and finished with a springy bounce backward toward the pavement.
Remembering in an instant how a certain friend fell and her shoes stayed clipped, I twisted my legs as the pavement approached to release my shoes. It almost seemed over before it had begun. Next thing I knew I jumped to my feet and pulled my bike onto the curb. My knees were scraped. That was all. I was pretty certain. I exchanged information with the driver and got back on my merry way to Silver Spring with blood dripping down my shin.
My wound, a couple of days later. I shaved around it so that I didn't rip out my leg hair when I changed bandages.
I didn’t have time to stop and clean up before meeting Preston at Starbucks. Maybe I should have started cleaning my leg in the bathroom rather than the sitting area of Starbucks.
Looking back, I’m pretty certain that the driver thought I was moving much slower than I actually was. She likely thought she could blast past me and turn before I got there. Instead, she just turned directly into me.
Lesson for drivers: cyclists are likely moving much faster than you think, not pedestrian speed. Typically they are moving 18 to 25 miles per hour. Occasionally faster.
Lesson for cyclists: drivers don’t realize how fast you’re moving.
Often times on a good hangover, I enjoy going to Eggspectations for a bloody mary. Problem was, I realized that hangover “brunch” always shifted into hangover “afternoon meal”. Sometimes as late as 4pm. I couldn’t bear having a breakfast drink in the afternoon. Something seemed very wrong about it. Wrong like Sobe selling out to Pepsi or like Christina Aguilara singing in Spanish.
To remedy the situation, I demanded that Preston, David and I go to Eggspectations at 8am on Sunday. I was not a popular person. I was, however a persistent person. We arrived by 9, which is far better than I had expected. “One bloody mary, please.” But apparently, Montgomery County was one step ahead of me with a law that prevents people from being happy before 10. I don’t remember voting on this. I’m sure I didn’t.
After living successfully for over six months without owning a car, I decided that I finally need to purchase a bike so I can get around town quickly. Because my bus only allows a folding bike, and because only folding bikes are allowed on the bus and metro during rush hour, that’s the route I went.  Because of the wheel size and because of how low to the ground everything is, it is certainly not a good bike for distance, but so far it has proven to be useful for getting around.I am proud to report that my helmet does not mess up my hair as badly as I thought it would.  Looks like I won’t be needing a hairmet after all!
This weekend turned out to be about everything Simpson. First, the movie. Best. Movie. Ever. Then there was the endless episodes of Tivo’d Simpsons. Then, the crowning moment: the trip to the Kwik-E-Mart. 11 7-Eleven stores across North America were converted into Krusty-O’s-selling, Squishee-squeezing, Buzz-Cola-chugging, pink-donut-hocking Kwik-E-Marts which were run amok by 20-somethings taking pictures. Do you know what Squishees, donuts, sugar-coated cereal and cola does to a person? I don’t remember! Good thing we documented it.
A couple of weeks ago my car died on the way home from work. Spraying fluids, smoke, convulsions, the whole bit. I can’t say I’ll miss it. This car has been trouble from the start. This comes only days after I realized that with gas, insurance, parking, and maintenance I’m paying a good $500 a month. So instead I will pay $3 an hour for Flexcar, including gas and insurance. At 10 hours a weekday, that comes out to about $600 a month to get to and from work. Plus, I get to drive a nice 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid. Or if I want I can take a Honda Element for the same price. On top of that, it forces me into an 8-minute walk every morning and evening, since the car is a few blocks away. It’s really nice to be living somewhere that I can walk or take the bus or subway everywhere I need to go.
Now to figure out how to dispose of the POS car. Anybody need a 1994 Honda Accord steering wheel?
Last night we attended “BarBarella-Q”, a screening of Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy which was part of the “Summer Camp” movie series at the Hirshhorn Museum. While the movie was terrifically camp from the zero-g spacesuit strip with music by Burt Bacharach to the floor, wall and ceiling shag carpet of her space ship to Dr. Durand Durand’s Excessive Machine (yes, Duran Duran took their name from the movie), what I found much more interesting was that hundreds of very interesting people would stand in line to see a forty year old film that was a box office flop. And never since I moved to the DC metro area have I seen such an un-diverse group of people. It was almost uncomfortable. Out of the 200 or so people that they fit in the theater, I counted two black men and an Asian guy. Is there something uniquely white about camp humor or about science fiction? Also interesting to note is that nearly all of the men in the audience were either older straight men or young gay men.
“What’s that screaming? A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.” -Jane Fonda as Barbarella
Last weekend David and I went to the Silverdocs festival, which is a documentary festival put on every year by the American Film Institute and Discovery Communications, since AFI has a major office and theater here in Silver Spring, and Discovery’s world headquarters is here as well. There were many great films shown that covered topics of social injustice and politics. You know, the things that really matter. However, the one documentary that piqued my interest was Helvetica. No, no. You understood me correctly. It’s a feature length documentary about a font. Hey, where are you going? Come back and finish reading this! Like I was saying… a font.
I had never realized until seeing this film, just how ubiquitous Helvetica is. It was designed to be easy to read and neutral, to not take on any meaning of its own. Which is why it is seen in signs worldwide. When you read a sign written in Helvetica, you don’t think “oh, that’s a pretty font” or “that font is edgy” or “wait, is that a lowercase ‘I’ or a capital ‘L’?” No, you think “that sign says ‘move the fuck out of the way or you’re going to get killed!” The message is not lost.
The name Helvetica is Latin for Switzerland, its country of origin. A much nicer sounding name than its original name from 1958: Neue Haas Grotesk.
I highly recommend this film to all fellow nerds.
In other modernist news, Philip Johnson’s Glass House has been opened to the public. However, seeing as how the tickets are sold out through the end of 2007 and that entry costs $500, I think I’ll hold off on visiting for the time being.
So I’ve been busy lately helping out with our neighborhood block party. Working on the website, helping out with the advertising, etc. Things seem to be winding down now that the event is over, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to write something here soon.
We decided to pull out all the stops for our 4th anniversary tonight. We ordered Pizza Hut and sat in bed to watch The Road To Wellville on NetFlix’s new “Watch Now” video-on-demand service. Afterwards we upgraded David’s computer to Windows Vista since his upgrade disc came in the mail. No one has ever accused us of being sentimental. Although our original intent was to watch Misery, but we decided that would be inappropriate for tonight.
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Limbaugh to move to Costa Rica if healthcare bill passes. Hurry up, Congress! (Rush, Costa Rica has universal healthcare) http://is.gd/a4J9n2 days ago
@lukas42 Seriously! I went there for Clarke's 2001. 1 copy in catalog. 0 on shelf. Last checkout was 2003. And their media selection sucks. in reply to lukas422 days ago
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