GLOBADOM

On any given club ride, especially during the Winter, I am bound to have the ugliest, oldest bike going. My early-80s Bianchi is a messy mutant, and it’s not made any prettier by the mis-matched fork (used to make my short-reach front brake work) or brake levers. It also really needs a wider handlebar to suit my body.

One well-meaning clubmate suggested I should take the entire pile of bike bits in my shed to Cheapskates (the other used sporting-goods shop in Vancouver), sell them for what I could get, and buy one decent bike.

It’s a nice thought. But I don’t have enough bike bits of value to trade for even one decent bike. I have an outmoded (but functional) hardtail mountain bike. I have a race bike that is on the outer edges of what others actually race, but has integrated brakes and shifters (“brifters”, or what Shimano calls STI and Campagnolo calls Ergo), which I consider an important advantage in racing. After those two machines, worth collectively maybe $1000 on a good day, it’s just so much oddball junk: a made-up fixed gear; my commuter Bianchi, long on utility and short on beauty; my old Nishiki MTB, now far too small for me, and various other frames and bits.

The awful truth is that if I had to buy a good, new road bike, one serious enough for racing, I couldn’t really afford it. The downside is that I am forever making do, most recently with the excellent donation of a right-side (front rings) brifter from Dave, which will go some way to making the racing Pinarello a more complete machine. It wouldn’t be so bad if I was a really skilled mechanic, but I’m more knowledgable than skilled, and more perceptive than polished.

The awful truth is that my choices are to ride and race on the bodged gear I have, or not race at all.

When I discuss politics with earnest people of significantly otherwise views, my guts get into a knot. No, that’s literally what happens. We’re talking full-on physiological response. I’m not good at conflict.

Flex day Wednesday. It’s fully booked.

I stupidly drank a nice cup of coffee again tonight, again at about 9:30. Now I’m all jittery.

To do: test SCSI drives, buy RAM for a project, get some sleep, fight a running battle with FedEx, prepare for Christmas.

Replacing the brakes on the commuter bike was a good plan. The nasty black pads were tearing up the rims, and had nearly worn out already. The new pads work nicely and are silent.

I think I’ll add a gin and tonic to my bizarre day. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Thanks to the ever-nerdy Gizmodo, I got to see this amusing ad depicting a Citroen as a dancing transformer. Bravo!

But we at Wired Cola strive to provide value added content in all our posts. And thus I looked a little harder at the ad than other, non-Cybermorphic™ cola bloggers would. Is that distinctive building in the background Vancouver’s own Harbour Centre? You be the judge [WARNING: those links have some multi-megabyte pictures behind them]. Note especially the distinctive peak-roofed building visible in both those pictures, and very visible in the ad.

I’m not a film or production nerd, so I can’t speculate on where the rooftop parking lot actually is downtown, or if it even exists. The background might have been added as a matte image behind a foreground from some other place entirely.

I was over at my in-laws’ place, enjoying a glass of wine and the company of my brother-in-law and father-in-law, and for the first time in a very long time, I watched a local news show all the way through. I should preface my remarks by saying that this has obviously been a slow news day, and I got the impression this Sunday evening newscast was mostly filler before they showed us the weather and the sports highlights.

That said, it was bizarre! I kept fairly good track of the stories, and here’s what I recall: A murder in Newton was the lead story. Next, a recap of the suddent death of local soccer star Dominic Mobilio, apparently due to a heart attack that led to a car crash. A follow-up on a car chase ended by an accident that killed a Vernon auxiliary RCMP. A recap of an odd MVA that killed two on the Upper Levels highway, when a rig lost its load of logs into oncoming traffic. The victims of the previous three incidents were all described glowingly by friends. Then, there was a follow-up on a Vancouver Island story which combined a child custody abduction (child taken by her own father) with an MVA that was fatal to the abductor, the abductee, and (the excuse for this story) a child in the minivan the abductor hit. The crash-scene porn was especially grisly in this one, as the van remains were barely recognizable as a vehicle. I think the next story was PM Paul Martin’s visit to Haiti.

So, if I didn’t lose count, the tally was five stories that had virtually no bearing on my life. The four MVA tales had almost no reason for existing beyond a brief mention except for passable accident-scene footage. Admittedly, this is the local news. But the stuff they were showing me was anti-news! I felt less informed about current affairs after seeing it. I get vastly better information about my world from the Tri-City News, one of the two fish-wrappers that hits my doorstep on a semi-weekly schedule.

Why would I ever tune in again? No local colour, no news I’m likely to want to see (say, a human interest story besides teary-eyed shots of bereaved friends of the MVA victim du jour); nothing, in my opinion, of real note until the PM was shown shakng hands with Hatians, and that barely out-did the weather as a news story. Actually, the weather in Nova Scotia was the next news story after the PM, since it was bad, and lots of customers had lost power.

The weirdest part was that the accident footage wasn’t even sensational. Crumpled metal, yes. But no to bodies. Understandable, but I’m a big fan of stupid injury television (everything from America’s Funniest Home Videos right through to Max X) and this stuff left me cold. Who needs this? It’s too dumb for the news.

No, really, who watches this stuff?

In other grumpiness, I have now flatted during three straight Saturday rides, and six flats total in that period. I don’t think I got six flat tires all last year. On the upside, I stopped at MEC after the ride and picked up a set of my much-coveted Kool Stop salmon-compound pads, Thinline version. Actually, I bought out the last four sets MEC had in stock. So if you’re looking for the rare and excellent salmon pads, they only have them in unthreaded canti-post versions now. I just finished mounting two sets on my commuter bike, which has enthusiastically chewed through a pair of generic black brake shoes in about a month.

Also, since I mentioned Chip Kerr VC in a previous post, I ought to link to his Victoria Cross bio. John Chipman Kerr single-handedly inflicted heavy losses and captured 62 prisoners in a single action under enemy fire, and got his fingers blown off in the action, but survived.

So I follow the story of that little movie I blogged in the previous entry, read through some of Amazon’s “look inside” system to see what the book was like, and found the name Col. John Boyd mentioned. And that made me google this: How Col. John Boyd Beat the Generals.

A fascinating read for tactics fans. If he really did invent E-M diagrams and OODA loops, then he’s pretty much the signal military genius of our time. The internet is fun.

I’m usually late to the party on cool new things, and so it is with Picasa. It’s one of Google’s latest toys, and it’s a good one.

Picasa, at its heart, is just a joyfully good Windows photo management program. How good? It’s nearly a twin to Apple’s iPhoto, with a few tricks of its own. Good deal.

I have other dormant projects rolling around, too: there’s the crab apple wine, still stewing away in a big glass vessel, waiting for its big day. Sometime in the next 3 weeks, it will be time for the next racking, and a little sampling to figure out where we’ll be in six months, wine-wise. I’ll keep you posted.

I saw an oddly satisfying movie on TV tonight: The Pentagon Wars. I’m not one to take many chances on off-brand comedies (this was apparently an HBO TV-movie effort), but decided to trust the judgment of Kelsey Grammer and Carey Elwes, the main actors.

Trust rewarded. A black comedy about military procurement, using the real example of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, an 11-man battle taxi that became a 6-man mini-tank.

The movie is apparently based on a book by the main character of this film, James Burton. Fun stuff with a chewy cautionary tale at the centre.

In contrast to last year, I was awake before 1100 today, and I rode my fixie down to Legion 113, the Chip Kerr VC hall.

I was heartened to see a substantial crowd around. The ceremonies included cadets in formation, wreath-laying, and two cannons. The crowd was big enough I didn’t see the cannons before they fired, and they fired loudly enough that each shot set off a fresh round of car alarms.

There was also an unseen pipe band. As soon as they started playing, I said to myself “these guys are good.” I even have some ability to judge such things, as I was a tenor and bass drummer for my high school’s pipe band.

A look at the logo on the bass drum explained why they sounded so good. Ah. The SFU Pipe Band. One of the best pipe bands in the world.

The fixie revealed new abilities in the pedestrian-crowded area around the legion hall. A fixed gear is a precision instrument at slow speeds, and it was easy to maneuver the bike around people at a walking pace.

I do like many aspects of the fixed-gear experience. On flats or lightly rolling terrain, it’s fun. Even up hills, it’s a cleansing experience. But descending isn’t so much fun. I think a lot of what I enjoy is gearlessness, so the next step is to add a freewheel, and see if that makes for a more pleasant commute.

Random bile, ludicrous recriminations, utter nonsense:

Hey squeegee kid: your attempt to clean my windshield was diligent and thorough, if entirely unwanted. Too bad it left my glass a mess because your squeegee was incredibly dirty. Argh!

Hey Democrats and fellow travelers: calm down. Thank you. I know, read, or talk to a lot of you, and although you are each filled with disgust and dismay in a different and special way, it’s always boring. Instead, please tell me about your latest diet, the dream you had last night, or that cute thing your new girlfriend does. I’d really rather hear about that.

Why am I doing nothing but eat and sleep this week?

Hey everybody: stop having such a better career than me. It’s embarrassing, and even TLO taunts me about it. Just because you’re smarter, more competent, and took up a better career than me doesn’t mean you ought to enjoy your more-rewarding, better-paying job…oh wait. Yeah, it does mean that.

Maybe this should be addressed to the cat, except it’s a cat, and thus doesn’t have a clue. But why does the cat like me more now that I’m poking it with insulin-filled needles twice a day? Might this technique work on some people?

Yeah!

Co-worker and club-mate Brian unwittingly put me up to the challenge when he said he was going to ride his fixie/singlespeed to work all winter.

Well, with that gauntlet laid down, how could I not ride my fixie to work too?

This morning I left a little earlier, and took the hard-core 40/16 (on 27″ wheels) fixie to work. 15 pounds of lunch, clothing, and gear in the backpack, my legs on the pedals, and Snake Hill on Clarke Road ahead of me.

I was seriously unsure about whether I would be able to take the hill without walking. I routinely shift to a 39/24 (low gear) on my regular bike as I crawl up the hill at 9 km/h. Proposing to do the same ride on a fixie would be a test of will.

But stubbornness triumphed over sense. I pulled the bike up the steepest part of the pitch, an exercise that felt like it was as much upper-body as lower-body exercise. It hurt, but I felt like I had really achieved something when I got to the top of the hill.

The gearing was ideal: I just made it up my steepest hill, and I just made it down my fastest descent.

To-do: replace awful seat on this bike.

I know, I’ll stop soon. I have made an editorial decision to cover local affairs here, ranging from somewhere inside the house so no further than the B.C. border, but I will make exceptions.

This one is for the U.S. election, so variously misinterpreted in so many ways. The strange misapprehension I’d like to address today is the idea that there’s an emerging long-term majority for either major party. Barring a tremendous leadership failure in either camp, it’s not going to happen.

The nature of the two-party system is that each party needs to capture just over half the voters in any election. More is great, but the further you over-reach, the more likely you are to alienate your most fringe supporters, who will then defect to Nader or Buchanan, or simply stay home on election night. So there are natural tensions that encourage a platform that appeals to just over 50% of the voters. In local elections, the candidates tend to adjust their platforms to local political conditions, thus causing southern Democrats and blue-state Republicans like Mike Bloomberg or Arnold Schwarzenegger (cool site, eh?).

This presidential election saw the usual tight split, about 51-48, give or take a point. That basically means that both candidates came very close to winning positions, but Bush came a little closer (this passes over the various tactical issues like why the turnout was so high, and the effects of get out the vote (GOTV) efforts by both parties, but that’s implicitly part of the game of getting 50% of the voters).

What are Democrats to do? Well, they could rend their garments, declare the middle of the country idiotic, decide they need to do all kinds of neat things. They probably needn’t bother. It would be like the Oakland A’s firing their GM because the team missed the playoffs by 1 game, after several years of consistent winning seasons on cut-rate budgets.

Maybe if Kerry hadn’t come off as a demented stiff, they would have won this time. Maybe Americans really did want to back the incumbent in wartime, and not even Zombie Reagan could have beaten him.

But when either party loses, it usually reflects either a poor candidate, a poor strategy, or a failure to find policies that will attract those marginal median voters that qualify as election-deciding moderate independents.

This middle point moves around as voter attitudes change: Nixon declared “we’re all Keynsians now” as he enacted policies favouring the spend-in-lean-times, save-in-fat-times doctrines of that economist. Nowadays, no politician would publically favour Keynesian policy, as the median point has moved to a place that favours avoiding deficits (this wasn’t a factor in this election, as Bush has been the one running Keynesian deficits, and Kerry was touting himself as a fiscal conservative; I think budgetary deficits were a minor issue for most voters). Similarly, Bill Clinton found and rode a winning issue with welfare reform, despite the general opposition in his own party to changing the welfare system. He followed the median votes, and was rewarded. Public health care? the median voter wasn’t ready for that one.

What this means in the long term is that unless the Democrats go stupid, they will respond to this election with what are likely to be minor tactical tweaks, and notable policy tweaks aimed at bringing the party closer to the interests of those median voters. Similarly, the Republicans will be chasing down those median voters just as hard, but neither side should have a long-term structural advantage unless internal party dynamics drive them away from the interests of median voters.

It could happen: the dedicated fringe of either party is unlikely to be satisfied with the kinds of compromises that attract median voters, and if sufficiently displeased, are liable to stay home or vote for another candidate.

But the median voter is the centre of gravity here, the point about which the Republicans and Democrats must necessarily orbit. Each party can try to either move the minds of the medians closer to their own platform (either by changing the minds of the middle voter, or by convincing more of their natural voters to vote, thus moving the median in a favorable direction), or move their own platform closer to the centre, but the other party can always respond in the same way.

There are gross simplifications in this model: political attitudes are multidimensional, and it is quite possible for a voter to hold naturally Democratic positions in one dimension, and naturally Republican positions in another dimension. Libertarians are one classic example, tending towards socially liberal attitudes and fiscally conservative ones. As a group, they tend to split interestingly between voting for Republicans, voting for Democrats, voting for libertarians, or making a principled decision to stay home because the return-rate on the task of voting is too low (since, after all, a single vote rarely makes a difference; alas, a sort of tragedy of the commons occurs when all libertarians think this way, in that libertarian votes are seen as unattainable, and they are thus ignored by party platforms). But one way or the other, each party is always striving for that median voter more than it is striving for any one policy, and unless one party or the other lapses into extraordinary incompetence (say, nominating Walter Mondale for president again), the margins should never sway much beyond 50/50.

Whether any particular Democrat or Republican will be happy with the machinations and policies necessary to get that median voter is quite another matter.