The Plentiful Vintage

So here's the thing. I rarely post on Facebook anyway (and never on Twitter), and I'm certainly not going to crosspost either my entries or, especially, my comments in anyone else's posts from here to there. Please do me the same courtesy. Thanks, ever so.

I can see the utility in being able to crosspost entries if one is comfortable matching up their LJ personna with their FB one, much the same as many Dreamwidth inhabitants do with LJ. Although I've never gone out of my way to hide my real name here or over at b.org, I am not at all comfortable with that direct a connection, especially given FB's cavalier attitude towards privacy. And what I really don't get is why one would feel the need to to crosspost comments, which without the original entry or comment they are addressing are just nonsequiturs.

Lily White commented on DXMachina's LiveJournal post: "LOL!"

I also specifically disabled pingbacks (they are on by default), not that I ever do much backchannel, but who needs the potential agita? The point of a locked post is that only certain people can see it, and pingbacks breaks that rule. (Thanks to cofax7and serenada for the heads up on that part of this mess.)

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The accumulation of rainy days and mechanical failures kept me from setting a fourth straight monthly best, but I still broke 250 miles for August, which is very good. I'm now also 10 miles ahead of my 2008 pace, which was my best riding year so far. Alas, no ride to start September off because I was at work until after dark rearranging the server nook in anticipation of it being enclosed into a server room whilst I'm on vacation next week.

Sci Fi Channel Has a New Name: Now, It’s Syfy

Plans call for Sci Fi and its companion Web site (scifi.com) to morph into the oddly spelled Syfy — pronounced the same as “Sci Fi” — on July 7. The new name will be accompanied by the slogan “Imagine Greater,” which replaces a logo featuring a stylized version of Saturn.

I remember being dumbstruck when Esso became Exxon. The scary thing here is that someone at NBC paid some consultant a metric shitload of money to come up with this. When HP split off its scientific division they paid a million bucks or so to whomever it was that came up with "Agilent." It was supposed to hint that the new company would be an agile version of Lucent. Of course, Lucent went into the toilet not long after, obscuring the reference. Now the only thing Agilent reminds one of is that it sort of rhymes with flatulent.

Man, could there possibly have been better weather for a three-day weekend? I think not.

East Bay is the longest and oldest path in the state, 14.5 miles end to end. The last time I rode it was in 2003. I'd been riding a lot that summer, and that ride marked the first (and only) time I ever broke a hundred miles in a week before last Saturday. I was really starting to put together a good season of riding. Then about a week later I started having problems with my BP and heart rate that put me off the bike (and onto medication) for a good chunk of the rest of that summer. Stupid Advair.

Anyway, today I threw the Univega in the back of the truck, and headed over to the other side. Parked in East Providence, and rode to Bristol and back, 27+ miles, 73 miles for the long weekend, bringing the all-important seven-day total to 124 miles. Shazam! I also brought my camera, so there are more pictures.

Side note: Just for some perspective, later on in the day I was browsing the web for advice on bicycle cleaning and maintenance. I came across an article that suggested a weekly cleaning regimen, but that if one isn't routinely doing about 150 miles a week, as he does, then it can cut it back to biweekly or monthly depending upon the circumstances. And he's just some guy out there who rides a bike.

And just so I don't forget, there was this one woman riding along in front of me for awhile today who displayed absolutely no sense of self-preservation, or at least had no clue that it's the automobiles that have the right of way at crossings, not the bikes. Twice I watched her dash directly in front of an oncoming car as she crossed streets apparently without looking. Both times the drivers had to stomp on the brakes to miss her. My philosophy is that even if you do have the right of way, there's no way that I'm going to trust that the oncoming driver knows it. I finally caught up to her stopped at a crossing where there was stream of cars that even she couldn't help but notice, and she looked over at me and said "Isn't this a pain?" I muttered "human death bunny" under my breath.