3 months on

Wow, I haven't posted for 3 months. I wonder if that's some sort of record.

Some discoveries:

1) I LOVE the new bike. It is so fast and rolls so smooth... When I'd put the hammer down on the old Fuji, it would twist and heave itself foward like the Soul Train. While this was a fine vibe for cruising, at some point you just gotta get there and the Fuji wasn't fast enough. Conversely, the Tricross is MUCH faster to translate pedal effort into forward motion. It just snaps into action. The upgraded shifters are so silent! Instead of the Fuji's clunk and rattle with the Tiagra shifters, the Triross changes gears without any noise at all. Just a push on the lever, and the Ultegra drivetrain just flicks over to the next gear...

2) Winter sucks. From mid-October to late April is 6 months. That's how long we've been cooped up with winter weather. Thus, I have to pick up X-country skiing so I don't go insane like I did this past winter.

3) The GMAT is a tricky mutha. If you're thinking of taking it, you can't study too much - but make sure you study smart. Half the battle is knowing the tricks.

4) The Interweb is getting cluttered. There is no need for half the graphics & ads out there, and planned obsolesence is the result. My PC can do everything I need it to except browse the Web, which used to be the simplest application.

WarGames strategy list

I always got chills whenever WOPR went through a hundred nuclear scenarios at the end of the movie.

This dude listed them, and he is right: some would make awesome drinking games.

RIP Sheldon Brown

The bike world lost a big one today.

Sheldon Brown was the spiritual, technical and Internet leader of the cycling world. No contest, no debate. This guy knew everything about everything, and was super humble to boot. His website www.sheldonbrown.com is a treasure trove of bike info. From beginner articles on clothing & lights to in-depth treatises on Japanese-made 10-speeds of the late 1970s, Sheldon Brown was the man...

To bikes, he was like Carrol Shelby, Lou Manfredini, Tom Silva, Csaba Csere, Massad Ayoob, and Andy Griffith all rolled into one.

Any hobby has extremists, but bike fanatics are true admitted weirdos. He was the only one who could bridge them all.

Bikemagic.com's obituary

Bicycle Retailer's obituary

Dane 101's obituary.

A review of trees

Hmm...

Are trees a good thing ongoing, or just a passing fad?

The 15 most unappealing porn movie titles.

Definitely not safe for work.

My fave: "ATM machines".

You figure it out.

Socrates on Self Confidence Part 1

80's Fiero commercials