Pizz
Urine God’s Hands
The Flushing Meadows

The problem with having a carbonated water machine is that now I just want to carbonate everything. I want to make my entire salmon and asparagus dinner bubbly. Sam was just telling me about a drink he invented that consists of a 4loko, a Five Hour Energy, and an alka seltzer. We named it the 4lokomotive (or “Crazy Train” if you’re hustling it on the street.) That last time Sam and I worked on an elixer together, we invested the Mimosa 20/20, which was Orange Jubilee flavored MD 20/20 mixed with Miller High Life, the Champaign of Beers.

I really want to add carbonation to all of these things.

But back to the Sodastream. How does it work? Like this: You screw a giant tire inflator into a plastic tower. Then you stick a bottle of water under it and press a big button until the machine farts. Then you have water with bubbles.

Urine sold separately.

Yea. It’s a race video. In slow motion. With a crazy kid spinning around like Stevie Nicks in the foreground.

The Mt. Tabor Race Series is exactly the same as it was last year. And the year before that. In fact, I think they just change the dates on the website because nothing else is different. SO rather than talk about the race, it’s easier to treat the time on the hill like one of those Spot the Difference video games that eats all of my quarters when I’m drunk and bored at the bar.

Here are the differences I’ve noticed between 2009 and 2010.

1. Lil’ Walton is still winning the fixed great category, but he has a mangy (not manly) beard. When I brought this up to him, my reference to “Grizzly Adams” was totally lost. That is how young kids today are. Here he is mugging for the camera… in slow motion.

2. Every team has adopted a whiter kit. White spandex makes you ride fast, because if you ride slow wearing a white kit everyone will see your hoohoodilly.

3. Where there was once a circle of people roasting marshmallows for s’mores, now there is just mud. These June rains have ruined the community aspect of racing at Tabor.

I’ll be there on Wednesday. Racing. In slow motion. But totally unrelated to my new fancy camera. So if you have something you’d like filmed in slow motion, please let me know.

The ride started awkwardly when DWP and I chose to wear the same cycling formalwear. Playmanator attempted to document the event. I tried to hide my face Prince Blanket Jackson style while DWP used his powers of Gaussian blur to alter focus. Apparently Playmanator has a tilt-shift camera phone. Amazing.

Along the way, we discovered an enchanted garage sale designed to tempt each of us with the single item of our dreams, and then place that item slightly out of financial reach. Like a cruel reality show hosted by an inflexible (physically and fiscally) woman in a lawn chair, we would be forced to rely on our wits and powers of negotiation to make our dreams come true, and we would learn a lot about ourselves in the process. This is what we learned:

We can’t negotiate for shit, and our dreams did not come true.

For reference, our dream items were:

Playmator: a nearly authentic framed Spuds McKenzie poster
DWP: MTV’s Cribs – The Book
Rachel: *abstained due to religious objections
Editor: ceramic fox with doll eyes in a suit

The ride went off without a hitch. No flats. No mechanicals. No wrong turns. No whiners. Just miles of beautiful roads and a dog sitting on the roof of a truck.

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A slow motion video camera + endless supply of baby kittens = internet stardom.

Dawn decided that sosovelo would become “America’s Premier Online Cycling Web Magazine About Cats” and the rest was history. Sure, we’ll still talk about bikes. And bike rides. And bike parts. But mostly we’re going to talk about cats. If we happen to find some crossover between these two topics, well, that’s even better. Because I make amazing venn diagrams.

What else is new? How about this:

- We’ve added a new video section, so the next time we have writers block we can just post videos of funny things until we become un-boring. Those funny things will probably be in slow motion.

- We’ve added a ‘Kittens!’ category. If you ever get tired of bike shit, you should just read the kitten section. It will most likely include dogs and chickens, too.

- Dawn is moving to Philly, where she’ll hear the word “cheese steak” about a thousand times from the people who do not live in Philly. That’s all we know. Cheese steaks and that broken bell. Dawn will cover all cat and cycling news from the city of brotherly love and street violence, and will be responsible for Eastern seaboard cyclocross coverage in the fall.

- Caitlin is going to head back to Missouri as the journalistic voice of of edgy Midwestern youth, where they’ll heavily edit all of the amazingly clever things she writes. We hope that she’ll save all of her witty exorcised gems for guest editorials from the flyover states. We’ll post her podcasts on our sidebar.

- Editor is going nowhere. Fast. If anyone has a job for him, his skills include swearing, puns, and… shit. Just swearing and puns. But he’s really good at both.

- We want to be socially networked. Is Friendster still cool? No. Damn. What about Myspace? That’s gone too? Fuck. Wait, everyone hates Facebook now also? Jesus. Fine. We’ll get a stupid Twitter account, even though we swore we wouldn’t. And we’ll “tweet” things, until the magic of that one wears off, and like hermit crabs we’ll wanted the sandy beaches of the internet looking for our new electronic shell.

Whatever. We’ve got a Twitter feed now. Follow us or whatever it is that Twitter people do.

We’ve still some technical hiccups. But whatever. You’ve never expected more of us. Why start now.

I welcomed myself back by going for a truly stellar bike ride before attending a BBQ on the route of the Mississippi Crit. I’ve been listening to people recount the amazing end of this race for 24 hours. Even my coworkers are talking about it. It’s practically an internet meme these days, like the sneezing panda or Star Wars kid. Though he swears “this has never happened to him before”, the tiniest sprinter is a premature celebrator. And he prematurely celebrated all over the Portland cycling community’s face. But you know what? He had a great race, and was about 2mm closer to victory than any other cyclist out there.

I missed the end because I was drunk at a BBQ. And from my vantage point, I saw the days most noble act of racing, when a leader sacrificed his podium position for the entertainment of his fellow man. Lost in the hoopla, I feel like the true hero of this race has gone unrecognized: Mr. Reeb. You are a patriot.

On the backstretch of the final lap, while being mooned by fifteen drunken buffoons (read: us), Mr. Reeb drifted curbside and slapped asses. I would expect this from a midpack finisher halfway though a race, but not a four man break on a final lap of a very warm day. Slow motion video here:

Above and beyond, sir. Above. And. Beyond.

Other highlights of race day?

- I drank most of a 4Loko (roughly 3.25Loko) though a red vine, until Jenny dropped it in the oversized can.
- We all discovered the value of slow motion spit takes during bike races.
- We learned how to make lips to unnatural things. Video proof:

I went through this recently when purchasing a Catlike Helmet from the internet. I was obviously excited when the package arrived, but opened it only to discover that these helmets are nothing like cats at all! They’re just helmets! Giro-Like or Bell-Like would be a far better name for this company, because that’s what they are like. Like other helmets.

I did a little research to find out what the deal was.

As it turns out, Catlike is a Spanish company. Being that I study Espanol (Spanish) in college, I had easy access to a diconario (dictionary) and the 500 Spanish Verbs book. I soon discovered that Catlike is actually Spanish for “plastic safety”. So I guess it’s not really a misnomer. It’s plastic and it makes me safer. But it also doesn’t, as I’d previously imagined, softly purr while resting on my head while I ride my bike.

Also, you can’t buy these helmets in the US. I assumed this had to do with those PC losers who don’t want to use a cat as protective headgear, but I guess it’s actually because they weren’t pure “plastic safety”…they actually failed to meet some helmet rule standards. However, word on the street (internet) is that they stepped it up this year and passed the 2010 CPSC impact tests (which I guess doesn’t stand for Cat Protection is Super Cool) and will be coming to the bike shops of the USA this summer.
After wearing my “Catlike” for a few weeks, I am happy to report that as far as non-feline helmets go, this one is very comfortable. It is very lightweight and also seems to have some inexplicable street cred, as several strangers have wanted to talk to me about it.

All I have to say to them is, “sure…you could buy this helmet. But I think you should just buy a cat, because nothing’s as good as the real thing.”

Anyway, Astoria was full of people yelling “I’m drinking a fucking beer, bro!”

Saturday was wet and muddy. I don’t know what happened on Saturday night. I think people had a bonfire and yelled to each other about drinking beer. I went to Ross Dress For Less and bought potpurri, some floral print capris, and lovely decanter.

Sunday was magical. We took turns jumping on our hotel bed. We dressed up our dog like a canine prostitute. We drank coffee. Quietly. Without yelling “I’m drinking some fucking coffee, bro!” We watched a giant robot chase bike racers. We asked the giant robot to pretend to walk into a portapotty so we could take funny pictures of a giant robot trying to use a portapotty. We raced our bikes poorly. We played around in the middle of the highway after it was shut down for an accident. We drove home listening to the Pixies.

I cherish those times.

Here are some photos from another awkward interaction I saw.

This is Tommy and Ira. Tommy thinks he’s about to pass. You can tell because he’s put his head down really low, in the hopes that Ira won’t notice. Sneaky. Like a rat. Or crazy like a fox. Or something like some other animal.

Then Tommy crashed. I didn’t take a picture.

But I did take a picture of Ira laughing immediately after it happened. Probably not at Tommy. Probably at a knock knock joke he heard earlier in the day. But the timing is suspicious, anyway.

Then I took a picture of Tommy looking like he’s going to try to eat Ira.

Funny stuff. Here are some more pictures from the race. Some of the people who race make very funny faces.

“My god,” they thought. “This is fucking beautiful.”

You know what? It’s not. I know, because I just rode my bike around there yesterday and it was bullshit. In fact, the best thing I can say about it is that it was like riding in Beaverton. That was the best thing.

Sure, there are a couple of nice spots. But none of them are within a 400 kiloton blast radius of a place called Hearthwood. I know this. Because I looked it up with a tool called Ground Zero.

What I’m trying to say here is that Vancouver is just as uncool as you think it is. You might be fooled by the downtown area. They have some amazing, untapped second hand stores and the best Dairy Queen I’ve ever been to. But once you leave the synthetic charm of the downtown area, you’ll be lost in maze of strip malls and home construction projects that would make Robert Moses weep. If you’re looking for a Michaels craft store, Vancouver is the place to be. Those places are like Starbucks out here. And if you have a hot date, and your hot date really wants some jalepeno poppers from TGI Fridays even though it’s only Tuesday, well Vancouver has got you covered there, too.

But if you want to go on a super fun bike ride through rural countryside with no traffic, smooth roads, and beautiful scenery, no. This is not right for you. Yes, I saw a couple of cool things. There was a car dealership that had a giant paper mache tyranasaurus rex out front. And I saw some goats. And a bunch of abandoned, half finished McMansions. And a ton a late 80’s model Camaros.

And I learned the Camas High School is home to the “Papermakers” and their mascot appears to be a rabid, furry industrial paper making machine. GO PAPERMAKERS!

But it was mostly awful. Miles and miles of chipseal roads, lined with giant cloned homes, each with a trampoline and ATV in front. If you want to ride out there, here’s the map.

Infinity&Beyond