GLOBADOM

Not much to say. The Whip still cracks, Dog is still here, and everything is copacetic.

So I guess that means it’s time to try Fatburger.

The Place: Fatburger, 1101 Denman St., Vancouver. That’s downtown.

The Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2005, 6:30 pm. Dinner, followed by unspecified shenanigans. Probably dessert or a walking tour of downtown.

All invited, RSVPs to me appreciated but not necessary.

A few idle thoughts:

-The BC Liberals got the usual benefit of our electoral system, a comfy legislative majority from 46% of the vote. The NDP’s 41% of the vote tracked their seat take uncannily.

STV looks like it went down to defeat, which makes me sad. Oh well.

Of Belinda Stronach, I don’t have anything useful to say. I don’t think much of her decision, which I think was cravenly opportunistic, and I say as one who does not have a philosophical objection to floor-crossing per se.

The new bike got its maiden race tonight. I had fun hammering in some attacks, but I got left behind on the last lap. So much effort for so little gain. As a bonus irony, my teammate Austin, who was working with me for most of the race, sucked up a plastic bag on the last lap and had to stop.

Adam found this:

Sorry about the large size.

See his blog entry here:

Adam’s Livejournal

So I’m having trouble with some of my bike wheels: the tubes keep leaking and I can’t fix them, and for some reason I don’t have enough extra tubes around to keep things going. That disabled the commuter bike. The race bike’s wheels are now firmly transferred onto The Whip, and with the new 9-speed cassette installed, the rear will not work if I just try to move it to the other bikes. And The Whip is not ready yet, since it is still missing cables, housings, pedals, and bar tape.

The scary part is that left me with two other bikes I could still ride to work. I took the fixie.

On the other hand, if I didn’t have so many bikes to keep up, I could probably keep just one bicycle in top shape. That would be smart. But then I wouldn’t get to ride the fixie, I wouldn’t have a rain bike, and I wouldn’t have a mountain bike.

But if anybody wants to buy a folding bicycle, that one is being sold.

But you know why? Because right now, Canadian politics is so interesting. (This, by the way, is why my friend Andrew drives me nuts: Canadian federal politics is just one historic event after another right now, and his last post was eleven days ago, and it was about American politics. Cover the interesting stuff, Serenepia! Or at least take more photos!)

Okay, back to my point: the Tories, despite various procedural shenanigans by the Grits, finally got a resolution into the house yesterday which (as Paul Wells noted) recommended that the Public Accounts Committee report should call for the resignation of the government. The motion passed 153-150.

This is procedural silliness. But it was the only vote the Liberals would allow on to the floor, and it really was a motion, passed by the House, that expressed a call for the resignation of the government. That’s no-confidence!

Confidence motions are not automatically fatal. At least one time in the past, I seem to recall a Canadian government getting caught napping, without enough members in the house, and the opposition went and quickly snuck in a no-confidence vote. It passed, but didn’t kill the government, because the government could just call back the full complement of its members any time and pass a confidence vote.

the Prime Minister is not in that situation: the government (if it even dared to bring a bill forward) could not pass a motion on National Kittens Are Cute Day at this point, because that would get voted down. They have zero chance of passing a budget, a confidence motion, or anything else. They have not the confidence of the house. I don’t know how else to express it.

And yet, Martin continues to exercise the privileges of the executive branch! No no no! That’s not how it works!

To give credit where due, the Liberals do have some thin reasons for declaring their right to exist, but let’s be clear: the reason for the flim-flam Tory bill in the first place is that the Liberals started rearranging Opposition Days to prevent their government from falling. Indeed, the Conservatives challenged the Grits, right after the vote, to introduce a true confidence motion into the house. The government demurred, because there is no way it would have passed.

This is not pretty. But entertaining!

The fast food renaissance is upon us. Here’s some stuff to eat.

Fatburger is coming!

They’re a legendary California burger chain. I’m going.

I also have to get out and try some Taco Del Mar fish tacos. Supposed to be good stuff, and they just came into town from south of the border, too.

Finally, I hit Dolce Amore, a relatively new gelateria, on the weekend. About 180 fewer flavours than old favourite La Casa Gelato, but the stuff we had was surpassingly good. Their ginger ice cream was delicious, and I was impressed with what they can do with Toblerone.

The Whip is coming. I’ve been working on it late into the night, and The Whip, my latest device for inflicting suffering, is approaching completion.

What is The Whip? One hint only: Shimagnolo Velotegra on an FC SAC.

So The Lovely One and I stopped by Linens ‘n Things on the weekend with the goal of perpetuating global capitalism. While TLO worked on the perpetuation, I wandered into the clutches of a Comfy Chair.

Oh. Dear. I had no idea where the state of the art in massage chairs lay. The chair was good. The chair was very good. The chair was so good I didn’t leave it until TLO dragged me to the cash register. The chair was so good I immediately started trying to figure out how to justify purchasing an $800 massage chair. The chair was so good I named it Rachel.

Oh, Rachel!

Well, sort of. I did a 20.6 km TT Sunday morning, and I did better than I expected. I finished eleventh in my division, averaging about 42 km/h. Suck Factor 3.

This is the second TT I’ve done this season, and I’m really enjoying them. But there’s not much to say about them. If regular race reports are boring, TT race reports are even more boring. Here’s the one for today’s effort: “I started strong out of the gate, rode as hard as I could for 29 minutes, and then I was done.”

At least it’s short.

The moment of the day came before my ride, when Taku looked at my LeMond-vintage Scott aero bars, and guilelessly asked, “are those homemade?”

He was trying to be nice. Then he beat me in the TT by 3 seconds.

Have you seen this dog?
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