Monday, July 10, 2006

It's Not Easy Being Green

by Tom Bozzo

A couple minutes into my bike ride home from work, I took a look at my speed-and-distance computer to make sure I was not exceeding the Shorewood Hills speed limit, and saw nothing! Some foul miscreant had swiped it, in broad daylight no less, while the bike was parked in plain sight of the (admittedly no longer heavily trafficked) entrance to our building. I was, as the saying goes, irritated. I was also the first sense I'd had in my time in Madison that portions of Shorewood Hills are underpoliced.

It did explain an earlier incident in which the bracket for my headlight mysteriously vanished under similar circumstances. While I couldn't completely rule out the possibility that the bracket had separated from the bike as a result of the pounding it takes from our cruddy local pavement, I had suspected an incompetently executed attempt to swipe the computer.

In fact, even this time the thief failed to collect the critical part that attaches to the fork and sends the wheel rotation data up to the head unit, so the act is as pure a deadweight loss as any petty theft could be. Or, maybe it's a dumbass gang initiation thing that's fractionally less destructive than the pervasive tagging of commercial buildings that the local authorities seem powerless to stop. Or perhaps it was a McDonald's patron hopped up on saturated fat and high fructose corn syrup gone wilding. Who knows.

Well, there's a month's fuel savings down the drain.

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In other news, the Site Meter registered its 50,000th hit earlier today: the lucky 50,000th visitor had searched "anti whine" at google.it and reached this page. While the milestone is totally arbitrary — most of the regulars nowadays use technologies that bypass the meter, plus the meter had been disabled for a few months last year — the event arrived several years earlier than I'd have guessed when this site registered 10 hits a day. Thanks to all of you who stop by!

Also in the less-irritating department, I saw Wordplay with Colleagues A and B. While this geek tale lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that an Errol Morris wouldn't have left out, it was entertaining enough. I did enjoy a celebrity spotting moment as Tonya (with son Ethan) attended the same showing. Tonya asked if I was going to blog it. Memo to self: get a small, take-everywhere digicam so I can post pictures of Tonya taking out the paparazzi.
Comments:
Sorry to hear that your bike computer was stolen.

(I was going to call it a "gadget" instead, but it didn't feel right. That wireless computer bike device is too cool for such a pedestrian word.)

Congratulations on the big 50,000! (I just got a finger cramp typing out that respectable number.)

Did you get Tonya's autograph? You could sell it on e-Bay for big bucks and buy a new computer.
 
You know, those bike "accessories" can be expensive, and you don't really realize how much you miss them until they are gone!

I feel your pain!
 
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