SimAquarium 2.0 - The Guppy Strikes Back

Alert to Opera Users, SimAquarium 2.0 is back and this time it might be too complex for it's own good. With the old version, you could allow your fish to swim around mindlessly and breed while earning bucks to buy the higher priced and apparently sterile elite fish. This time it's all about reality, fish breed, but fish also die. To date, my little aquarium has seen nearly 23,000 fatalities, with a near even amount of births. I'll put it this way, guppies ain't shy. Additionally, some fish won't breed unless the tank is clean or dirty, some need additional food added, some need growth hormones and others fertility treatments or medicines. It's odd, but undoubtedly it smells better than a real tank.

my sanford and son side

I'll admit it, when my neighbors stack up large piles of trash, and by large i mean larger than what will fit in our parish-supplied 250 gallon trash can/homeless shelters, i will usually give them a quick glance to make sure they're not tossing out something reusable. There have been times when i've thought of snatching up a discarded 20 inch bmx bike, to build some sort of strange grocery-getter/coffee shop cruiser, but i've never pulled the trigger, that was until a few weeks ago.

Behold the apple of my eye...

Yep, i found this one in front of a house recently sold. I guess the previous owner wanted to move out in a hurry and threw it on the road. Remember the Shogun Kaze? a super tricked out funny bike they sold way back in the day, well this one's not that cool, it's just a set of pipes by comparison, but ... it was free.

I took it home and whipped out the tape measure, 58 c-t, with a 57 top tube. It's not like finding a C-Record Colnago covered in rust or anything, but as a beater, it will more than do.
Immediately i thought about making it a cross bike, so i threw on some old campy tubular wheels that Brian gave me (Relax Taylor, this was merely a concept, they're still yours for the taking) with my old Vittoria Tigre tubulars. All was good on the workstand, but when i aired up the tires the clearance on the front fork was a no-go. So i can either go with a skinnier front tire, or try to find an old hybrid 700c fork with canti bosses if i want to go with these wheels. I'll probably just stick my fatboy training wheels (700x28) on and use her to get to work and back, a rainy day commuter. My cross days are LONG gone (so help me GOD)
Check out that pedigree on the seat tube, Gonzales? That's the land of cycling greats like the Doc, Ward Webb and the Robert clan. I'll have to ride it hard to do them proud.

mucho chagrin

It was with that, that i learned the fate of my precious letter to the editors of Esquire regarding Scarlett Johansson. I guess the accusation regarding Tiger Beat was too much, but it still makes me grin.

Natalie Portman said to listen to the Shins and it will "change your life". I love Natalie, so of course she was right. The Shins changed my life in this way:

I WILL NEVER LISTEN TO THE SHINS AGAIN.

These guys played on SNL this past weekend. To match the charisma coming out of their show, a person usually has to travel somewhere like the waiting area at Jiffy Lube. Dull and dying, they cranked out their first tune. They tried to save face by doing New Slang second, but it hobbled in much the same way. Ouch, not good.

I finally found some better music in the form of Modern Times by Bob Dylan. This was the soundtrack of my weekend in Manresa and it's really great. Rockin at times, in a French-Settlement-roadside-honky-tonk-kind-of-way. At other times straight out depressing, but all in good fun. The good kind of down. A word of warning, this album doesn't shuffle well with others. At times it got in with other recent purchases like Snoop Dogg, Journey and Gnarls Barkley (what can i say) and the result was not favorable.

back in the blog saddle with good news

First blog entry of 2007!

Yes, it's been a while, but well worth the wait.
Here's the official announcement, we are very excited to announce that we are expecting Baby#2!
Baby to be named later will arrive some time around August 7th.

More on this story as it develops!