Nina steals Dylan’s blog

Ok, so as of right now, if you type in “starter bikes” on MSN, we’re number one. This is a sad state of affairs for all the people out there who need real advice on starter bikes and who certainly won’t find it here. I suggest for real motorcycle advice you look elsewhere, like your local repair shops or bike enthusiast community websites, because if you start talking about carbs or cc’s I’ll get a glazed look in my eye and think you’re talking about diets or emails. (Pretty good line huh? I used that in an email to someone last week). I’m much more interested in how I look in the jacket I’m getting than in tricking out some bike with carbon exhuast pipes or something. I love web stats packages, even the crummy broken ones that come with this basic blog, that told me this.

Later that month… Here is Scott’s email to me about best starter bikes that Sari references in the comments below.

Like most people, we sometimes get fancy home catalogs in the mail. Usually they go straight in the trash, but sometimes we’ll dogear a few corners, then end up throwing it out later. In general we’re just terrible about doing any house fix-up projects. It always comes down to “gee in my precious 45 minutes of free time this week would I rather struggle to fix something, or read this new book I have?” This reminds me of Dylan’s brilliant idea for an exercise equipment ad campaign. “We’ll deliver straight to your neighbor’s garage sale!”

Well, the shoveling fairies arrived in the form of an energized (all jacked up on cold medicine) Dylan going out yesterday afternoon when I was still at work. Dylan is back at work today writing a review of the band Loose Fur for the Village Voice.

Well, we got another 6 inches or so. Dylan is passed out with a cold / flu and I’m under the excellent care of Dr. Bob, chiropractor extraordinaire. Which means that today we are the only house on the block who hasn’t shoveled. I guess I’ll try some tonight, at least enough for a single file path.

So that was fun wasn’t it? Pretty fluffy snowman snow. Now it can all melt so I can start wearing all my ridiculously expensive new sandals with the 4 inch rise and take bike rides when I hit the wall at about 2 every day. We just went down to the new Dunn Bros across from the BLB so I could buy some chocolate, but somehow I think biking is healthier than candy.

 6 inches of snow is predicted for tonight. Since we never got around to taking down the trampoline, it’ll probably stretch the springs in irreversible ways.

Doesn’t that landscaping look cool? Well you can’t really see it, but Matt Olson and Mike Brady did lots of awesome work in our yard last year. Check out Mike’s band at the 331 Club tonight. With the aforementioned Karl’s band - Latchhook, and videos from Chuck Olson (who btw made Dylan’s very first website way back in 1996 or something). Since this is sounding already too much like “inside baseball,” I’ll hold off talking about Matt and Dylan’s obsessive twice-weekly tennis matches until a later day.

Dylan generally sleeps through kid’s movies. He just slumps down in the seat and takes a good snooze. Me, as long as I have enough popcorn, I’m happy through just about anything. Probably one of the more memorable movie moments we had was when, in Erin Brokovich, there was a comely shot of Julia Roberts emerging from a well and Dylan involuntarily said “Oh my God” quite loudly. Ok, well to be fair, I gasped loudly in To Kill a Mockingbird when Gregory Peck first arrives on screen, so we were equal after the Erin Brokovich moment.

Dylan is doing snow day activities today (including going to see The Shaggy Dog), while I get some work done, nice guy.

Geoff came over for dinner the other night and the three of us sat down for a game of Scattergories afterwards. This is a game where you have to come up with an answer for various questions using a randomly chosen first letter. Geoff and Dylan kept cancelling each other out with similar answers, and I started inching ahead.

Here’s the deal though - is it blatant cheating if you “assume” answers? Or just brilliant reasoning? For example: a street name starting with “K.” I wrote “Kyle” and then my stony facade broke and Dylan challenged me on it. Since I was committed, I forged ahead with “it’s in Los Angeles.” Then Google maps rewarded me with 5! Kyle Streets in Los Angeles.

Thanks to the guy at Pizza Luce who also took my phone call on the challenge of cucumbers as a pizza topping (sure). And also Geoff and Dylan should know that I totally made up “Invivio” as a company name (which it is!).  

BTW - Dylan won by one point.

I’ve been threatening for years to get a bike and never quite did, to the point where Dylan almost went out and bought me one just to end the monotonous whining each spring when I realize the classes are full until August. This year I’m actually signed up for an April class, and I have already paid more for a jacket than I did for a bike.

I’ve been having a lot of back and forth thoughts on whether to get a “starter bike” after taking the basic rider course. I just dread the idea of dumping a brand new ducati before ever getting out of the alley. However newer bikes actually start and have important things like working brakes. But I found a cool-looking and cheap bike that the (former) owner says runs ok, so I got it. Having dealt with cheap old bikes in the past, I guess I’ll hold my excitement in check until I see if it actually fires up and runs for long enough to raise my confidence. Hopefully it will, and I’ll be reselling it in June.

More info on best starter bikes in a later post.

Dylan’s listening to Thin Lizzy and I’m listening to Johnny Cash right now. Do you think Johnny could have taken on all 4? I don’t think so - who can really, except in movies? If you want to look at a Google fight of which one is referenced more, here it is. (If you don’t care to click through, Johnny kicks ass.)

I realized that here I am talking about artist friends of ours but not actually linking to their main art, just some projects. So check out Sam Gillison’s books and Karl Raschke’s photography.