On a run to the post office last week, I happened across an old mail delivery bike in the lobby. It made me smile, because A) well, it’s a bicycle and if you’ve read any of the other posts on this blog, one thing we love is bicycles, and B) people probably used to get pretty excited waiting for mail to be brought on those two wheels. In an era pre cell phone pre email pre loss of actual life lived (replaced by digital friends, digital memories, digital life) handwritten letters were a way to reach out.

For our generation, a pile of mail is hardly anything to get excited about. If your piles look anything at all like mine, your mail consists of a bunch of bills (gross), some take out menus, the free neighborhood newspaper/newsletter you rarely read, junk mail, and sometimes wrongly addressed bits and pieces. This makes me frown. When I first realized this sometime last year, I decided to take it upon myself to begin a letter writing campaign, an effort to reach out to those whom I care and think about and felt deserved a little bit of my attention and time. Certainly more time than it takes to blast out a quick email. And then, maybe their little dismal piles of mail will begin to be not so dismal, when they see an envelope made out to them in my chicken scratch, and open it to find page upon page of barely legible (but loving!) handwriting.

I guess I got too caught up in the big idea of making other people smile to realize that nobody would take the time to write back, and that one sided letter conversations can only be so fun. So I slacked off. But seeing that bike made me want to bring smiles to faces and rays of light to mailboxes across the country again. So I have reinstated my letter writing campaign. Unfortunately my move to NYC has taken away about half the people I used to write to as I see them on a nearly daily basis now. So this is my announcement- if you’re sick of nothing but bills and junk, and would like a little handwritten sunshine straight from my little heart, leave a comment with your mailing address, and wait with baited breath.

I’m sick of emails and texts and instant gratification. I want old school courtship- long rambling letters you wait for days upon weeks to receive. And maybe if I write enough of them, someday someone will write back…

There’s nothing to make an otherwise boring situation interesting like a good heckler. Obviously, by the nature of that statement, a bad heckler can be close to the most painful thing ever, but: when it’s good, it’s good.

What’s even better about a heckler is that their material doesn’t have to be the best. It just has to illicit a response from the person being heckled. For instance, a comedian totally destroying someone in the crowd, or an athlete punching the fan in the face.

While cruising digg, I came across this video of a press conference going on with O.J. Simpson’s lawyer. Now, I could care less about Stabby McKill Kill and his latest legal trouble, but I have to say this guy made watching it totally awesome. He is almost so great that I wonder if he wasn’t a plant. He looks a bit like one of Val Kilmer’s characters in The Saint.

Other great hecklers in history include:

1. Joe Rogan in Vegas:
   
2. Jamie Foxx destroying a fellow comic:
   
3. And of course, the classic “Jackass” sequence from Happy Gilmore:
   

Do you have a great heckling moment caught on video that I forgot? Leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it to the post.

I suffer from a couple vices, the most prominent being shiny gadgets, bicycles, and caffeine. My favorite purveyor of the latter comes from a dark brown substance known as coffee. Sometimes it’s hard to justify getting out of bed without the oh-so-delicious promise of coffee-induced twitchiness to get me through the rough early hours.

Lately, I’ve been living with relatives of a friend while looking for an apartment to call home. The last coffee maker I had went out with the trash while we tried to cull the unneeded belongings, and because these relatives don’t drink a lot of coffee, I truly miss having the ability to brew up a hot cup of nervous energy instead of shelling out 3 bucks at the local shop.

Not having experimented with the fancier types of machines, I leaned towards the drip-percolate style machines that your mom had on the kitchen counter, which produce a reliable if not too reliable cup of coffee, especially when paired with a digital timer and automatic start feature. Throw in a filter, a couple scoops of grounds, 2 cups of water, then “set it and forget it.”

The problem with those machines is that it’s hard to just do a single cup. You inevitably end up wasting a perfectly good filter, too much coffee, or the end product just doesn’t taste right. Now, I know about the gold filters (which I’m tempted to try but don’t have the cash for), and I don’t even want to hear about those “single-use” rip-off pods.

The point is, my current locale has one of those old-fashioned “coffee press” gizmo’s. Don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s a glass or plastic cylinder with a plunger that separates the cylinder into two compartments when depressed. It took me a couple minutes of staring and mental juggling to figure out that all you have to do is throw in however much coffee you want, then add boiling water. With those two ingredients in place, you put the lid on, slowly push the plunger down, and VOILA: the perfect amount of coffee, in a container, ready to take to the desk with you. And even better, you don’t need a single volt of electricity or a filter to make this gizmo do its thing.

Sometimes, old school just works. And I’m just a twittery mess.

If anybody is interested in acquiring one of these, don’t google like I did for “coffee plunger gizmo.” It won’t yield very good results. The technical term for this product is a “coffee press” and can be found from various manufacturers at Amazon.com. Here are the search results all ready to go, or check out these super classic designs from Bodum available in 3-cup, 4-cup, and 8-cup sizes.

For a limited time, you may stream the entire new cover album “From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II” on New Found Glory’s myspace page. Set to drop on the 18th, I dare to say this album will do very very well. A follow up to the original “From the Screen to Your Stereo” the featured guest vocalist list on Part II reads like a whos who of the current mainstream radio scene. Singers include- Adam Lazarra of Taking Back Sunday, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Chris Carraba of Dashboard Confessional, Sheri Gilbert and Sheree Dupree of Eisley, Will Pugh of Cartel, Max Bemis of Say Anything, and Lisa Loeb. This veritable all star cast combines vocal talents with NFG on a number of tracks including standouts King of Wishful Thinking from Pretty Woman, Love Fool from Romeo and Juliet, and Kiss Me from She’s All That.

There’s really not too much for me to say except that I’ve spent the last two days on myspace streaming this album again and again. There’s something so fun about cover songs. If you’re a fan of NFG, you’ll dig the cd. If you’re a fan of the original songs, you’ll probably dig the covers. If you don’t dig it, well. Then I guess you don’t. But at least give it a fair chance. Just a bunch of friends getting together to sing songs they like from movies. Man, sometimes I really wish I could sing well. Or at least not terribly. Until then, I’ll sing along (out of tune, out of key, and a beat behind) to these fantastic covers!

For those of you who read my links post for the month of August (if you didn’t, read it now! click here) you may remember me writing about a little bike shop called Trackstar. Good shop selling good product (american made). I stopped in yesterday to pick up one of their newest offerings, a plain black hoodie. Perfect to ward off the chill of the descending fall weather, I am wearing it as I type out this post.

As stated on their blog, the sizing on these sweatshirts runs small, so please make sure you order up a size. For reference, I am five foot one and on the petite side. The “small” fits me just about perfectly which is great, because I’m one of those people who can rarely get away with anything but xtra small which are usually particularly difficult to come by. The fit is also aided by the cut, which is slimmer than the average hoodie. Another plus one, as this sweatshirt doesn’t make me feel like I’m swimming in it.

Nicely designed, this hoodie is cycling specific (not that you can’t wear it if you aren’t on a bicycle, but some of it’s attributes really shine if you spend any time in the saddle). For starters, the sleeves are a touch longer than usual, nice for staying around your wrists and will be a nice buffer between jacket and gloves when it really gets cold out. Second, the waistband is a bit lower, and a good deal more grippy than I’m accustomed to. What does that mean? That means that the drivers behind me don’t get exposed to my plumber crack. Nice for them, and for me! Last but not least, the jersey style pockets (three of them) keep things outta the way if you’re hunched over your bike. I like them in particular for the simple reason that I’ve had my cell phone fall out of front kangaroo pockets on more than one occasion. I will rest assured that my fancy new iPod Touch will not fall out (like my current iPod did out of a track jacket slash pocket, whoops!). The hood is small and fits well to the head- not too large as to impair vision, but definitely large enough to give your ears good coverage.

I generally like Trackstar’s logo designs, so I wouldn’t have minded if they had included one on these hoodies, but I suppose the fact that they are unmarked will definitely be a big thumbs up from lots of people sick of logo branded everything. All in all, this sweatshirt is super awesome, and I highly recommend it. If you stop in Trackstar, tell em Pricklepear sent you!!!

Hey BFSSFG people. Welcome to the site. Try not to destroy my server!

While we haven’t covered a lot of bike stuff on this site yet, you should know that behind the scenes, we are total bike kids. Yoda and I both have two bikes, and up until a little while ago, I personally had 4. Since moving to New York, we simplified and liquidated some assets. Yoda has a nice bike (her Bareknuckle) up here, with her IRO Mark V beater waiting in Philly. I on the other hand, have my nice bike (Bob Jackson Vigorelli) being built up in Philly, and only have my beater to get me around town.

At the point in the post, you may be asking yourself what exactly constitutes a “beater bike.” Well, I’ll tell you. A beater is a bicycle that you honestly don’t care about when it comes to aesthetics. You are willing to lock it up against anything, cover it in stickers, jump it off a cliff, whatever. Typically, a rider only gets to fully appreciate a beater bike after they’ve had a couple different frames that they’ve been attached to.

While not the case for everyone, if you are a 20-something that rides bikes seriously, yours probably went like this : rode a bike as a kid, most likely a huffy or schwinn. With no concept of build quality, parents picked up some garishly colored mountain-bike-ish POS from Walmart or your closest LBS. Maybe you got a hybrid as a teen, but by highschool you were too cool to be seen on a bike, especially if you had access to a car. By college, the car is gone again, and if you go to school in a major metropolitan area, you are stuck taking the smelly, unreliable public transportation. ENTER BIKE AGAIN! Only now, you are totally broke. You lurk on craigslist, not really knowing what you need, but you end up with some 70’s/80’s roadbike with a rusted out interior and squeaky brakes. This is the make it/break it period. You either ride in warm weather, and chicken out during the cold weather, or you fall in love with the increased freedom and low cost of maintenance and decide to further invest in your newly rediscovered passion. You begin researching the different types of bikes, and become aware of what other people are riding. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you became aware of the fact that big knobby tires and mountain bikes as a whole are slow (see: no fun), and that while nice road bikes are super expensive, you’ve been noticing these road bike looking things on the streets with the cool kids.

They seem very simple, clean, kind of beautiful. Sometimes they have 1 brake, other times none at all. You realize that they are actually called “fixed gears” or “single speeds” and that they are popular with this weird urban athlete known as the “messenger.” You decide to take the plunge and buy a bike you can be proud of.

Most people start at the “off the rack” tier, buying a $400-600 complete bike like the Mercier Kilo TT, KHS Flite 100, or a Bianchi Pista. The problem with this bike is that the components are absolute SHIT. While it got you into the game, its various pieces are slowly starting to fail you, and the cost of replacing them is adding up. Now you either (a) keep the frame, replacing the parts, or (b) sell the thing for as much as you can get and move up to Tier 2.

Tier 2, where I currently am, is where you buy a nice frame. Just the frame. At this point, you know enough about bikes to choose threaded or threadless forks, steel versus aluminum, and what spoke count will keep your fat ass from hitting the ground after you bombed that monstrous pothole. You are now friends with a bike mechanic, and arrange to have it built up. You are now totally comfortable with the idea of riding a $1,200 bike, and don’t bat when someone points out that your stem cost as much as their complete bike. You know why its better.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much room to improve from here. You either get a more expensive vintage frame, or you jump to the head of the line, the holy grail; you go custom.

While this evolution is taking place, you have a honey-moon period with your newest bike. You clean it frequently, wrap protective layers around the tubes, and promise yourself you will never lock up outside for fear of what the vicious world might do to your innocent pride and joy. Then the first big scratch arrives. And the honey moon is over. This bike slowly gets more and more beat up as you get more comfortable with it, slipping slowly down the path towards “beater” until the day that you have saved up enough money and make the jump to the next tier.

The reason that I’m writing about this today is because my current beater bike, the Bianchi Pista, didn’t actually follow that path. Because my Bob Jackson was fraught with some many issues in the shipment process (subject for another post entirely), I arrived in New York bikeless. Within the first week, I wandered around Manhattan trying to find a used bike shop that just might have a fixie or single speed that I could buy and lock up all day without caring whether or not the “smog was bothering it.” By the 4th day, I came across a shop that was willing to sell me a brand new Pista for $350. And I thought to myself, “thats a steal!” This is a bike that I would have cherished two years ago.

Today during work, I road it through a rain storm, and then got a flat. And then I rode the flat home. Well, home from the fucking subway stop. Because I really don’t care about it, and yet, I love it. And thats a beautiful thing. A beater bike from day one. Just wait till I get some spray paint….

Recently, the company I work for relocated their office to this gigantic building that used to be some sort of warehouse right off the west side highway in Chelsea. There are plenty of neat things about it, including the view and the fact that there is a cafeteria on the 8th floor.

The cafeteria is pretty good, considering they are a cafeteria - carry a ton of flavors of vitamin water, assorted naked juice, spicy thai chips, organic this and that. Today, in search of a snack, I picked up something called a “Think Green Superfood Bar.” I thought it was a good idea, it wasn’ t too big, the packaging was pretty, and the print on the side reeled me in hook line and sinker:

I was all gung ho till I ripped open the packaging- the bar looked like animal turd of some sort. I couldn’t find a photo of it online (obviously, the company itself is not going to post that up, nobody would buy it!) Like something my sixty five pound black lab dropped on the front lawn, someone ran by and scooped up and reshaped into a bar, and packaged in a pretty wrapper. A bit daunted, I cautiously took a small bite. It wasn’t god awful, but it was pretty terrible. If it hadn’t cost me two dollars, I would have thrown it out. But seeing as it DID cost two dollars, I ate the whole damn thing on principle alone. It wasn’t the tastiest snack, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore. Too bad I forgot to take a photo.

I think next time I’ll just try a Luna bar.

Atmosphere, I feel, is a large part of an excellent show experience. I have an underage entrance stamp from my favorite club on earth, the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, tattooed on my wrist. No, really, I do. That club is THAT fantastic.

The Knitting Factory in NYC is not that fantastic. Here are the things that bothered me the most- 1)The bar sucked pretty bad. If I’m going to have to pay seven dollars per beer, I feel I should have a nice solid bar to lean against, maybe a few stools to delicately balance on, a few choices on tap. Nope. NONE of these. Well okay, so there were stools, but the bar itself felt like two pieces of plywood thrown over some sawhorse legs in mom’s living room. And nothing on tap. Bummer. 2) Has the management heard of lighting? I think the only place adequately lit was the stage. How you managed to make your way around any other place was a mystery to me. The balcony level was nearly pitch black, and I tripped about three times on steps halfheartedly marked by glow tape (that didn’t glow very well) on my way to the dressing room. 3) Dressing room sucked. 4) Parking my bike sucked bad, that block of Leonard has exactly three poles. Hope you get to lock to one of them.

One good thing was that the bathroom was a lot cleaner than expected. That’s always nice in music venues. The other thing that was good was the band You, Me, and Everyone we know.

Check out their myspace and purevolume. Buy their cd here. They’re gonna blow up huge in the most gigantic way possible really really soon, so jump on it and say you were one of the first who loved them BEFORE they got on tv and magazine covers.

Sad as it may be, I am not afraid to admit that a large part of my life takes place on the internet. It’s just so convenient. Sometimes my real life takes a hit for it- more time is spent on Myspace than I would like (although admittedly, I have cut back so that I spend only half the time on there that I have at the same time last year) because it’s often easier to leave someone a comment than to call them up and chit chat. However, for the most part the internet’s part in my life is quite helpful- I order movie tickets ahead of time on fandango, google directions using google maps (which, PS, since my relocation to NYC has become a life saver– at least I know usually have SOME broad idea about how to get where I’m going, and a general sense of direction), do all my word processing/spreadsheets in google documents, and purchase any music I download from the iTunes store. Last, but not least, a few times a year, I purchase shoes online, from Zappos. I haven’t purchased a pair of shoes in a shoe store in I don’t even know how many years. Ain’t it amazing?

I say amazing because like clothing, shoes are something that many people are very fickle about. People are not likely to plop down upwards of eighty dollars on something they haven’t been able to try on and walk around the store in. Zappos free shipping for returns no questions asked policy lulls potential customers into ordering because, hey, if it doesn’t fit, just send it back and get the size that does! Tactile investigation aside, this site has fantastic photos of their products from every angle- including details like the stitching or riveting, in every color offered. What you see is what you get.

The most annoying thing I find about this site is its layout and navigation. I can’t offer any ideas on how to improve it, but I do find after browsing for a few minutes I find the site cluttered and difficult to navigate to get to where I want to be. Also, they are able to keep their prices lower than you’d pay in store by offering old stock and last season’s styles. However, for cheap shoes (with free shipping!!!) I guess its a small price to pay…

They carry most popular brands in a variety of styles, color, price range, all with some sort of free shipping offer. If you haven’t made the leap to online clothing/shoe shopping, Zappos is a very friendly place to start. Go check it out!

Shortly before moving to New York, I swapped out my rev. A macbook for the recently-released Santa Rosa equipped Macbook Pro. As it stands, this is my third Apple laptop, spanning back all the way to my switch computer, a 1.5ghz Powerbook, and if I’ve learned anything it is that while Apple’s products may be beautiful, they are easily made not-beautiful. I vowed that this time, I’d protect my precious, even if it meant protecting it from myself.

The Powerbook, nickname Scully (X-Files thing, don’t ask), lost its factory perfect finish after I sent it flying off the bed in the middle of the night and dinged the palm wrest directly above the drive bay. As a result, it became damn near impossible to insert or remove discs without a gut-wrenching sound and possible data-loss.

My Macbook was thankfully a black model and was not plagued by the yellowing of the white models. That said, the matte finish definitely scratched, scrapped, and smooshed itself whenever possible. And this happened despite my constant use of an InCase neoprene laptop sleeve whenever it wasn’t open and on a secure surface.

Needless to say, when I picked up the Macbook Pro (what I’m typing this post on), I wanted something that would protect my computer no-matter-what. After loving the case that Agent 007 made for my iPod Nano, I realized that the only surefire way to protect my computer

was to get a “sleeve” that was in force 100% of the time. And that sleeve would need to be molded plastic. Enter Speck and its SeeThru Hard Shell Case. Please ignore the fact that Speck’s logo looks a bit like a tightly pursed butt. I promise their stuff is quality.

Made out of polycarbonate plastic, the case snaps onto the screen enclosure as well as the base of the Macbook Pro, providing sturdy protection to almost every part of the computer. Be warned that this is a very model specific case. Not only does it include custom cut-outs for all your ports and placements, but this will NOT fit your 15″ Powerbook, no matter how hard you try.

A little known fact is that when the Macbook Pro re-appeared on the scene with its Intel processor, it also gained .4 inches in size. The case WILL work for Core Duos and Core 2 Duos, and the company provides other cases for the 13″ Macbook and the 17″ Macbook Pro. 7 color choices include blue, black, red, green, pink, orange, aqua, and clear for those who prefer the look of brushed aluminum.

To be perfectly honest, when I first saw a Speck case being used, I thought that the owner had chosen to have their precious mac painted by a service like ColorWare. The fit is so snug and perfect that I assumed it was the machine’s skin bathed in a rich red tone, with the apple logo shining through. It even has ventilation spots cut to allow for the hot running laptops to get some much needed fresh air.

Although I doubt everybody will agree with me, using the Speck case has one added benefit: By covering it in stickers, I have been able to disguise my expensive and beautiful laptop from would-be NYC thieves, something I would never do to the actual machine. From a distance, it looks like just another shit-box Dell, until I crack it open to reveal its true nature. And at $40 dollars, when I get sick of the sticker design, I can just pop the case off and start over.

My one grip with this otherwise perfect addition to my work companion is that the back of the case wasn’t a perfect fit. Sometimes while opening the case, the screen enclosure would catch with the bottom and make a load snapping sound. While I haven’t seen any real damage, I could see this messing with the already delicate alignment of the screen. I have since filed down the back edges and the sound is long gone.

Also: It’s hard as BALLS to get off. To remove the bottom enclosure, with the case closed, flip it upside down, and wedge your finger nails under the sides. Pull up until it makes a snapping sound. To remove the top, you need a credit card or other tough thin plastic card. Wedge it between the side and the screen, and slide up and down. With a little practice you can get everything off pretty quickly. Prior to visiting the site and reading the FAQ, I was completely dumbfounded as to how to free the machine of the case short of sawing through it.