yes, i am a closet bag nut October 15, 2006  

I had a terrible disaster hit the worm farm the other day. In retrospect, I should have noticed it sooner. A bit of debris had become jammed in the drainage spigot, preventing it from working. I'd just switched over the two layers of the worm farm, so I assumed that the worms were taking a while to munch the new layer down and start producing liquid. Meanwhile, the liquid slowly built up inside the worm farm and started to drown the young worms. The older worms migrated up to the top layer, but the new worms drowned as soon as they hatched out in the sodden layer. It was all extremely unpleasant. Especially unpleasant was the process of cleaning the damn thing up; I basically had to dump a huge chunk of anoxic, rotting vegetable matter. It's not a total loss - I put it in the compost heap, where it mixed OK with the various bits of garden waste in there - but the population of worms has taken a serious knock-back. We'll just treat them gently for the next month or two until they breed themselves back up to form again.

Rebecca has a dose of conjunctivitis. She announced this by coming through at 5am yesterday and saying "Daddy, I got snot in my eyes". She was producing a fair bit of mucus - a quick trip to the After Hours Medical Centre (annoyingly, our regular practice doesn't open Saturdays) and we had a diagnosis and some eyedrops. Have you ever tried to get eyedrops into an unwilling toddler? Wrestling isn't the half of it. This also seriously knocked back the attendance at my birthday party yesterday - instead of a house full of boisterous children, we had drastically reduced numbers. A mellow time was had by all who attended, but we now have far more party food than we can realistically use. Looks like we're on a solid diet of chips and sausages for the next week, then.

Ah, messenger bags (or courier bags). Who doesn't love them? Simple, effective, great. I'm a big fan. I don't actually own one at the mo (my last one fell apart somewhat a few years ago), but I have a big space in my heart for them. Backpacks are great for long-haul commutes, but messenger bags have the edge for day-to-day around town use. They're also a bit easier for both on/off the bike use - although my backpack is great for lugging kit to/from work, the waist straps really get in the way unless you're using them, and it's a pain swinging the bag off your back each time you want to put something in. So I'm vaguely looking around for another messenger bag.

After reading something about Freitag's new multi-storey shipping container shop, I had a look at their web site and was interested to note that they are stocked locally by Area 51 (corner of Dixon and Cuba). So I popped down and had a shufti at lunch. Now, I've got to say, Freitag do some lovely stuff. I like:

• Their ethos: entirely recycled materials, hand-made and reformed into something useful, practical and stylish.
• Their materials: the bags are made from recycled truck tarpaulin, straps are old seatbelts, and bike inner tubes are used to waterproof the seams.
• Their manufacturing: keeping it real, hand-making the bags in Zurich.
• The look: the end result does look pretty sharp. And the manufacturing process means that each bag looks unique. Styley.

But have you seen their prices? Average cost was around $350 (call it £120), which is stupidly steep for a bag. I've paid a lot less than that for tattoos. Five minutes walk away on Willis St, you can walk into Mainly Tramping and get the Cactus Climbing equivalent messenger bag, the Subductor. It's handmade in Christchurch, it uses locally sourced materials, the stabliser straps can switch for left-handed use, and it looks bloody good. It costs $99 retail ($115 online incl postage). It's hard to see what the extra $250 is justifying here. Except the fashionista factor - and who can put a price on that?

i rode home in hail October 10, 2006  

Probably also worth pointing out that Sunday was my birthday. It's odd - it doesn't feel like a year since the huge, drunken debauch that was our farewell to Cambridge, but it is. We miss the old place. Still, had an excellent birthday up at the family bach up at Waikawa Beach. Rebecca spent half the time playing sandcastles on the beach, we did some paddling (too cold to go swimming just yet), we generally chilled out. A nice, relaxed time was had by all.

Heard some of that My Chemical Romance the other day. I don't see what all the fuss is about. It sounds like someone cut together some of Queen's more OTT moments and some shouty US punk.

And a big shout-out to all my MySpace/LiveJournal homies who do all those online personality tests. Here's what I got on one:

You are: Deore
You are solid, reliable, and inexpensive. While you don't have the pimp factor of XT or XTR, you are what most people end up settling for. You are tough enough to take the punishment, and cheap enough to replace when you break. You are unlikely to become clogged with mud. Your hydraulics are good, but can be a pain to bleed and have been known to squeal alarmingly under heavy braking. In an emergency, you can usually be repaired by banging with a rock.

From the Which Shimano groupset are you? test.

someone wanted an announcement October 08, 2006  

I would appear to have managed to impregnate my wife again. I'm pretty sure it was me: our postman is female and we don't get milk delivered.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you don't own a working television.

revised edit October 02, 2006  

In April 2002 - that's four and a half years ago now - I bought a set of slick tyres for my mountain bike. These have basically been on the bike non-stop since. This is the bike that I use by default for my daily commute, so the bike gets ridden on some rough ground, over kerbs, on broken glass, and up moderate offroad tracks. And on Saturday morning - after, as I say, the better part of five years and god knows how many kilometres - I got a puncture. Looking at it, it looks like it was a large piece of sharp gravel that was pointy-end up, which embedded in the dead centre of the rear tyre and then slowly got driven in as I rode on, until it finally got through the underlying kevlar tread. But I'd have to say that 54 months of puncture-free commuting isn't bad going at all. Specialized Nimbus Ex tyres, kids: I rate 'em.

Saw the very nice But I'm a Cheerleader! last night. Worth seeking out: I'd heard of it because it was mentioned in the blurb for This Movie is Not Yet Rated, which is on our must-see list when it comes out (so to speak). But I'm a Cheerleader! is a simple film about a teenager whose parents and friends suspect she is a lesbian, so her parents and friends stage an intervention and pack her off to an 'ex-gay' reformation camp. It's relatively light, good fun, and has a good message about tolerance and being who you are. And it got rated R in the US, for some bad language and depictions of teenage sexuality. Now, the depictions of sexual behaviour were actually pretty mild (no actual nudity) - certainly much less full-on than that in, say, American Pie (which came out at about the same time and has some of the same actors). The primary difference being of course that But I'm a Cheerleader! shows a positive view of teenage homosexuality, and is thus Deeply Evil.

various notes October 01, 2006  

You know those speed cameras that just give you a read-out of how fast you're currently going? Turns out they're able to pick up cyclists. The one on the gentle rise between Ngaio and Khandallah is great: a real psychological boost (get the speed up, keep it up). Brilliant.

Finally fulfilled a long-held goal this morning, and rode up Aurora Terrace. Because nothing says "warm up" like 300m of 1 in 3. It's what your granny gear was made for. I had to ride most of it standing up - not just because of the difficulty, but because seated, I was tilted back so far my centre of gravity was making me uneasy. Good fun though.

...there’s a strange, cultural shift that I’ve been watching over the last 45 years since I came to England: the airport culture, the motorway culture, CCTV cameras, all the rest of it. People like alienation, curiously enough. They like disposability. Friendships that last half an hour. Things have changed, and one can’t help but notice.
J G Ballard

Very good interview with J G Ballard.

Today's great Rebecca quote: when hopping out of the car while wearing a Burger King crown that she'd found in J'ville Mall, I said "There you go, Queen Rebecca". "Thank you, Queen Daddy" she replied. And before you ask - she referred to herself as queen first, not princess. So she's got ambition.

And Rebecca loved the Klezmer Rebs gig yesterday - bouncing up and down and clapping. A number of other patrons commented on this afterwards.

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