Good Commercials

This commercial gives me goosebumps; I hate to admit it, but it does. It's just such a good commercial, and anyone who knows me probably understands why it speaks to me. If there's one thing I love, it's learning new random things about obscure stuff.



And Oh, My, Science. This one is hilarious. I mean, I am sitting here in my living room laughing hysterically at this. God it's good.



This commercial is really funny too. I really like the Skittles advertising strategies.





And I love this one too; I've posted it before.



I vaguely remember maybe having seen this at some point in the past. Pretty good but not as good as the Pinata or King Midas one.



I have never seen this, but it's short, and long silent shot is awesome.



I like this one too.



And now for a different candy advertisement that I also like alot.



And I love this one, for the way he disposes of the the ice cream cone.



This is good for the "PORQUE?!"



Hahaha, I have never seen this, but it's pretty great.



Ok that's enough of that. I'm off to study. I guess. Gah!

I'm tired...

... and I miss Naomi.

The Hapkeyers

So Will and I were talking about our new Biker Gang / Club / Crew, The Hapkeyers. He designed a logo for us, and with a bit of feedback from me (the ratio of effort was about 99 Will : 1 me) this resulted:


I'm gonna get some iron-on-transfers to make some shirts / bandanas / baclavas for myself, and anyone else that wants some. Kyle and I for sure need some before the next alleycat, that much is certain.

Also, I registered a blogger domain for our nonsense bike crew. So far of course, there's nothing there. BUT, it exists.

New Hapkey

So this is the Murray miniature road bike that I found in the trash the other day. I took a hairdryer and my fingernails to it, and removed the decals (one of which completely covered the seat tube). Kind of a pretty light teal color actually; I wish the fork was the same color as the frame, but finders can't be choosers. I was going to single-speed it for Naomi, but a couple considerations means that I might not:

1. The crankset is an old cottered one, and the large chainring is part of the drive side crank, so I can't leave a reasonable sized chainring on there.
2. The outer ring (and the only ring, if I remove the inner one) sits very far outboard, yielding a horrendously big ratio if I shoot for a tolerable chainline
3. The bike is really heavy, so that the gearing would have to be very very low to be able to get up any hills.

I was even contemplating making a 5-speed out of it (only rear shifting), but upon closer insepction, points 1 and 2 above argue against it.... making it a 5 speed would only save a bit of weight (front derailler, one shifter, some cabling). But I might still do this, as it will make it a bit simpler / cleaner looking.

Anyway, not too bad for free ninety nine : )

More Mushroom

I just made up some chicken and vegetable stirfry, and through a big morel mushroom in there..... it was delicious. Sauteed in onion, garlic, sesame oil, and soy sauce.... mm mm mm.

Hellkat Hustle II

So I just finished my first alleycat : )


We showed up at ACME Bicycles, and were given a Manifest telling us what locations we had to hit, and a Map indicating (roughly) where the places were. Then, we had to leave our bikes in an alley, and hike across the street quite a ways to another alley. All of a sudden, they blew a horn, and we had to sprint to the bikes and then just go. Kyle and I, of course, had no idea where most of these places were, outside of what the map told us. So we rode together, discussing the crumpled and tattered manifests and maps as we were racing along.

The route we made up took us all the way from 3rd and Main at the river to 51st Street South... About 18 miles, all told. It looks like nonsense, but if you compare it to the map they gave us, to get from point A to the end at point K (L is my house @ the end, not part of the route), you'll see that it was really a pretty solid route, especially for being planned on the fly.


The tasks at the checkpoints varied from climbing under a pier, to re-airing up your tires after a checkpoint master deflated them, to running up stairs with your bike, to ransacking an abandoned castle for a laundry detergent container to carry around for the rest of the alleycat, to riding ACROSS A DAM IN A RIVER (through about 2-3 inches of water). Everyone got one "pass," that you could use to skip something you didn't wanna do; we used that on the challenge on top of a grocery store, where we were supposed to drink two slurries of random food stuffs (you could choose from "spicy" or "chunky." Turns out one of that had buttermilk, coffee, etc. in it. Both were sickly reddish-pink-spotted. I'm glad we skipped it).

When we first started out, I was definitely setting the pace, but by the end, he was in front. We climbed a hill that only 2-3 other people managed to climb; all 23-24 other people had to walk their bikes up (I got a "+" on my manifest for that feat, as I did it fixed.... but I was definitely a bit out of it after that... it was helpful to have Kyle to take the lead for a while after that). Also, we both saved each other a couple wrong turns, since each of us was mistaken about the route at different points. So, we figure that by our powers combined, we saved each other quite a bit of time.

At one of the last stops, we realized we had to decide what we were gonna do at the end. I proposed an all out sprint from the second-to-last to the last checkpoint, but Kyle suggested we just split the prizes for whatever two places we took (maybe sell them on Craigslit and split the cash). He said the sprint was alright, if I really wanted to... but I wasn't sure I could definitely win it, so I agreed to the split deal. When it came down to it, he ended up ahead at the very end, so he took with first(!) and I took second (!). He won a custom handmade messenger bag (it's HUGE). I won two shirts from a local bike collective, or company, or something, and a book of black and white bike messenger photographs.

I felt a bit bad that we kinda worked together, but the third and fourth place finishers also rode it together the whole way, and a bunch of other people were following other riders along the way. So basically, it was kinda the thing to do, it seems.

Anyway I traded one of the shirts to the third place finisher for a hipster cycling cap; he had won two of those. (Incidentally, he was the kid that taco'd his rear wheel at Critical Mass the other night). Kyle and I both agree that it'd be shady to actually sell the thoughtful prizes we got, so we're gonna keep them. I'm very happy with that, since just 2 days ago, I decided I was gonna bite the bullet and actually buy a stupid cycling cap... and now I have one. It's like this but says the name of the LBS on the side.
*update: swapped the hat for one that fit better and was more the look i'm shooting for (the first was pretty irregular)*

Rockin. I guess I'm one step closer to being a hipster, but I can promise I will never ever wear girl jeans; several other competitors told me that my calves could never fit in them (haha!).

All in all, AWESOME. Will definitely do the next one.