the essentially rat-like nature of humanity March 29, 2007  

A lot's been written about the recent Kathy Sierra death threat controversy.

The interesting thing here isn't whoever did this. They're clearly a bit disturbed and a lot sad, and possibly (though this is a bit of a judgement call) a bit dangerous. We can safely write them off under the general label of "fuckhead" and leave it at that. The interesting thing is the apologists. The people who say, hey, OK, the guy was a bit over the line, but c'mon - you stick your head over the parapet, you've got to expect a few potshots. You know you're going to get a bit of abuse if you're a relatively high-profile net.personality, so quit whining and toughen up. Grow up and get over it, basically.

This makes a sort of sense if you consider that there are contexts where you implicitly accept certain risks. You know, for instance, that rugby involves full-on tackling, so if you play rugby you're accepting the risk of a couple of burly blokes running into you at full tilt. You know if you apply to join a fraternity, you're going to have to undergo some pretty unpleasant activities as part of the initiation. And I think it is, in fact, pretty well accepted that flaming is a certain part of online discourse, so you are likely to get a bit of abuse.

And if you complain about these, you'd pretty rightly be told that it goes with the territory. You can't really complain about being tackled playing rugby - tackles are a recognised part of the game. You end up having to carry a radish around a pub crawl clamped in your buttocks in order to get into Phi Delta Kappa - you knew this sort of thing would be required. You get flamed - well, people can get passionate about online debates, and some people are less well socialised than they could be.

But here's the difference. Rugby has formalised rules that say tackling is OK, but putting the boot in isn't. So if you get a set of spikes in your cudgies, you know that's unacceptable. These rules are enforced (variably - "Are you blind, ref?" - but the intention is there). If, during a fraternity initiation, you have to break the law, you can expect that act to have repercussions. But purely social interactions - including anonymous online ones - have tacit rules, with no real enforcement other than the community norms. And the problem with social norms is that they're what people think they are. You might find a particular behaviour unacceptable, but someone else will say it's OK.

And one of the things that the internet is really good at is reinforcing atypical social norms. You only have to find another couple of people who think that anorexia is a good thing, or that HIV doesn't really cause AIDS, or that people of a different ethnicity are stupid, and you get into a nice little reinforcing loop of "You're right!" "And so are you!", and some very odd and often undesirable norms and behaviours get reinforced. "But everyone knows that this site is a flame fest so you shouldn't take anything anyone says here seriously."

The social norm in question here is, where do you draw the line? Flaming is a generally accepted risk of engaging in online discourse. But how far can it go? Calling someone an idiot? Saying that you want them dead? Posting sexualised pictures of them immediately after saying you want them dead?

The apologists draw that line a lot further than the rest of us.

So what I'm arguing here is that this isn't just a function of the online environment, with its anonymity. I'm saying that, as people, we tend to form groups with their own insular cultures, become desensitized to the abuses within that culture, and act all surprised when outsiders are shocked. People can normalise all sorts of deeply unpleasant behaviours. I'm reminded of the common apologia for sexual harassment in the workplace: "It was just a joke, she needs to get a sense of humour." This sort of thing happens in non-anonymous, face-to-face environments, too, and we'd do well to remember that. Humans can be very unpleasant creatures.

Of course, I could be wrong and the apologists could just be insensitive pigs. But I like to think it's deeper than that.

For the record, Kathy Sierra was scheduled to speak in Wellington as part of this year's GOVIS conference. I'm betting that won't happen now.

But that's enough maundering about the human condition.

Texas just expanded the legitimacy of deadly force to include vehicles and workplaces. Previously, Texans were perfectly justified in using deadly force to defend themselves in their homes; now, that right also applies to their workplaces and vehicles. So if someone comes in waving a gun and saying "Give me all the money in the till", you can perfectly legally shoot them dead. Ditto if someone tries to carjack you. And that's what's interesting me. You're allowed to use deadly force to protect yourself in your vehicle. Regular readers should be able to spot where I'm heading with this.

Picture it: you're cycling down the road at a good clip, and some oncoming idiot swerves to force you into the ditch, laughing as you're forced off the road and they drive off secure in their metal cocoon. Previously, you'd have had to content yourself with getting their license plate number. Now you can just pull a .45 loaded with hollowpoints out of your jersey pocket and blow the little fucker's head off (while taking care to ensure that their uncontrolled car does not cause an accident) as soon as they start swerving towards you.

Oh, I'm sure there will be weasel words in the bill about being in fear of your life, but that's the beauty of it: on a bike, most of the inconsiderate or malicious stuff that drivers can do does put you in fear of your life. So they've just given us carte blanche to strap a Glock to the top tube.

This is probably the best cartoon about gay porn ever. SFW, too.

uncharitable thoughts March 28, 2007  

I saw the march against the repeal of section 59 at lunch today. Fairly standard protest/counterprotest stuff, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I found it particularly creepy to see children carrying placards reading "My parents love me enough to correct me". Haven't they thought this through? My parents corrected me when I was a kid - by, y'know, telling me that I shouldn't do some stuff, sending me to my room, and other general non-bruising means of correction. Of course they haven't thought it through, though: they're kids. And besides, if they'd refused then their parents could have belted them for disobedience. I guess it just looked a little too much to me like one of the kids should have been carrying a placard reading "I should be beaten occasionally".

Mind you - and this is terribly uncharitable - I did find myself somewhat hoping that some of the demonstrators would get hacked off with the counter-demonstrators (sample banners: "Against a culture of violence" and my favorite, "Who would Jesus smack?") and belt them one. Annoyingly, the police were too vigilant to let this cuttingly ironic assault occur.

In a hilarious incident involving a minor domestic fire, I grabbed a hot oven tray barehanded earlier this evening. No damage from the fire, but three fingers and my thumb on my left hand are now badly burnt. I am currently in a shedload of pain. I'll be interested to see if I can ride to work tomorrow. Ow.

gravity always wins March 27, 2007  

I'm a keen gardener. As well as the standard garden tools - forks, trowels, spades, etc. - I make extensive use of two slightly nonstandard bits of kit.

Firstly - a head torch. I favour an LED model that casts a particularly bright white light, and is easy on the batteries, althogh my old Petzl is handy when I need more adjustability. This is because of scheduling. During the week, I get home from work, we do the dinner/bath/bed routine with Rebecca, and it's often around 8pm before I can get out into the garden to do any watering, pruning etc required for day-to-day maintenance. Hence, the head torch so I can see what I'm doing. Night-time gardening is quite fun, and there's the seriously reduced risk of sunburn to think of. As long as the weather's OK and you've got adequate light (i.e. headtorch) it's very restful to be working outside at night. Of course, you've got to watch out you don't step into anything nasty.

Which leads to the second unusual item: punji spikes. Well, not quite, but half-buried pointy sticks to try to stop the bloody neightbourhood cats from crapping in the raised beds. It's not so much the actual crapping that I object to (though I'm hardly over the moon about it), it's the way that they then scratch loose dirt over the crap. Loose dirt and my lovingly-planted seedlings. I am not fond of the local cats. But the punji spikes deter them from squatting to void themselves, and should similarly deter them from scraping the dirt from around the spikes. And the furry buggers eat the birds.

Have been looking around, and very impressed by, Bikely.com. It's a database of good bike rides, ranging from commutes to full-on 300k rides. Basically, it's a front end for some nice Google Maps functionality, allowing users to build up route maps and share them. It's good fun, and has a reassuring number of rides in Wellington already defined (including the legendary Whitby/Moonshine/Akatarawa/Paekakariki loop). I've spent a happy hour this evening contributing a couple of routes. It's fun and useful; what more could you want?

aggressive commuting strategy March 26, 2007  

Looking back at my previous entry, it could look like I was saying "they wanted me to do heavy work so I killed them all with a hatchet". In fact, the hatchet was a vital part of the work cutting the tree down/out - taking out some of the larger branches that I couldn't get a saw in to, and helping cut off some of the roots to facilitate removal of the treestump. Hatchets are a tool with comparatively limited utility in the garden, but when you need them, you really need them.

Saturday afternoon, I took Rebecca into town and to the Library. We ended up going through Civic Square and taking in the Capital E Kids' Arts Festival stuff. Lots of dance groups performing on a big stage at one end of Civic Square. Rebecca really got into it. She started off sitting in my lap and tapping one leg in time, and kept jumping up and dancing herself for a bit. She showed a marked preference for the music with a heavy beat - nosebleed heavy trance went down well. Her particular favorite was the trio of Brazilian dancers who were demonstrating various samba moves. Since they were wearing carnivale-style costumes (i.e. beaded bikinis) they were also my favorite. As the various dancers on stage would do particular moves, Rebecca would get up and attempt to emulate them. This was, quite frankly, brilliant. Nothing's as fearless as a three-year-old dancing in public.

Sunday, we went out to Staglands. Looking back, it's over a year since we were there last, and it's still a great place for a day out with littlies. Rebecca had a fantastic time - she met (and fed) a number of assorted waterfowl, she got to hold a guinea pig and a rabbit, and she got to ride a horse (a very good-natured Shetland Pony - she sat on the saddle and bounced gently up and down around a 100m course). These all paled into insignificance beside several other experiences.

First, she got pecked by a peacock. She was feeding it a bit of marmite sandwich and it pecked a bit enthusiastically, leading her to collapse into floods of tears. A bit of shooing and cuddles later, the peacock had gone off and Rebecca was calm. Then she insisted that we "use our words" on the naughty peacock, and give it a telling off. The problem is that all peacocks look the same... and Staglands has several dozen. The rest of the afternoon was punctuated with Rebecca seeing a peacock, saying "Daddy! That's the peacock that bit me!", and demanding that we give it a lecture on the error of its sinful ways. This happened every five or so minutes.

Secondly, in the goat enclosure, she was mugged by a goat. Billygoats - long the heroes in Rebecca's personal mythology for their firm no-trolls stand - have been revealed to have hooves of clay after one mugged her for her bag of feed. She was standing there, feeding guinea fowl, and the goat walked right up, grasped the bag of feed in its teeth, and pulled hard. Cue small girl being spun around by the force of the pull, tears, etc. We then also had to remonstrate with the billygoat ("While I appreciate that you're hungry, Mr Goat, you need to wait your turn, because taking turns is good. You can't just snatch, because snatching is bad, and you make people upset", etc).

The afternoon was saved shortly after by an encounter with a deer. I'd salvaged the bag of feed, but Rebecca was too upset to actually feed anything. So I bowled over to the deer paddock and a young buck came over. He was pretty keen, so I held Rebecca up with my left arm while hand-feeding him with my right hand, so she could get a good look at him. As we were at the bottom of the bag, I held it out so he could snuffle the last bits of feed out. He carefully stuck his whole muzzle in the bag, grasped the end in his teeth, and pulled it out of my hand. He then walked off with the bag still over his nose. After a few seconds work, he got the bag entirely into his mouth, and then ate it (it was a paper bag). Rebecca watched all of this entranced, and thought this was the best thing that had ever happened, anywhere. She spent the rest of the day enthusiastically recounting the story of how the deer ate the bag to anyone who'd listen. It clearly made an indelible impression on her.

One other thing I did a bit of at Rebecca's party was playing with the kids. There's an inherent problem here. Say, for instance, that I picked Rebecca up, threw her over my shoulder, and lowered her down my back while holding on to her ankles. Seeing this, Rosie (4) would want me to do the same thing to her. After that, Livia (5 and tall with it) would want a go. Children's parties are remarkably hard work, is all I can say. Still, thanks to the limitless energy stored within chipolatas, I kept going.

The thing about Wikipedia is that it keeps turning out to organise stuff that you wouldn't think they'd bother with. I give you the Sausages by country page.

Our swan plant is now covered with late-season monarch butterfly caterpillars. Between these and the worms, Rebecca thinks the garden is a cornucopia of fascinating insects. The monarch caterpillars are cool: big, obvious, colourful. The other big fascination is the worms in the worm farm. She likes raking over the surface within the top level of the worm farm, to expose some of the worms, and staring intently at them. The worms squirm down to get away from the light, at which point the process is repeated. She's big on invertebrates at the mo, which is at least taking off the pressure to get a pet.

As a commuter cyclist, you pick up a few useful skills that other kinds of cycling don't require. One of them is a deep appreciation of the ability to time lights correctly. Knowing the cycles of the lights on your commute can provide a real boost. Having to start riding from a dead stop is a pain - being able to carry some speed through, so that you're moving when the light changes and you can just accelerate back up, is better. Even a little speed helps, but if you get the lights timed right you get a sense of how much time you've got until the lights change and thus how fast you can safely go. If you get it right, you can avoid the annoying brake-accelerate cycles and just keep rolling on smoothly.

So, for example, on my morning commute, I know that there's not much point in running the light at the foot of Mulgrave St (even though it's safe to do so). Even if you run the lights, you just hit the lights at the foot of Bunny St, which will be red. But when the lights at Mulgrave St go green, you've got about 30 seconds to get the 200m to the Mulgrave St lights before they go green - so a nice leisurely roll along gets you there in time for those lights to go green, when you've got another 30 seconds to make the 300m to the Whitmore St lights. So if you time it right, you can just keep rolling and take a nice bundle of speed through Whitmore St, pushing you nicely down Featherston at a good lick. It's little refinements like this that make the commute easier and more enjoyable.

It's like this. Imagine that you can do one of your favorite activities, twice a day, before and after work. You get up. You leave the house. You play football, read a book, watch a movie, play squash, whatever you really enjoy. And then you're at work. And vice-versa on the way home. That's how I feel about cycling, and why I really enjoy commuting by bike. I have to get to and from work anyway - it's a huge plus to be able to combine it with an activity I really love. And it means I can justify buying bike shorts as a necessary commuting expense.

I need more bike shorts. Can't get enough of that lycra.

Actually, I need more bike shorts because I've worn through my favorite pair. Although they've steadfastly resisted acquiring holes, they have worn translucent in one or two inopportune places - and you only have to consider the structure of bike shorts to realise how inopportune those places could be. So in order to avoid being done for public indecency, I need to either get more bike shorts or figure out how to sew patches onto lycra. I may be blatting an order past Torpedo 7 soon, then.

stuffed March 24, 2007  

I went to a working bee at Rebecca's nursery today. I volunteered for light gardening. I was handed a saw and a shovel, and told to cut down a tree and dig the stump out. Fortunately, I'd bought my hatchet with me in case something like this happened. Bit tired now though.

i know where the beat is at March 20, 2007  

We were woken at 6:45am on Friday by a small person running into our bedroom and shouting "Mum! Dad! It's my birthday! Am I THREE?!?!?!?!". Yup, it doesn't seem like it, but it's now three years since Rebecca was born. Blimey. It's now impossible to imagine what life would be like without the wee tyke, though that could just be the sleep deprivation talking. Happy birthday, duck.

Having started the day in this enthusiastic mode, Rebecca then nearly exploded with excitement when we gave her her birthday present: a Buzzy Bee backpack. She needs a big girl bag for taking stuff to nursery, and we're about to need the nappy bag back for the next round. Rebecca was so happy with the backpack that she asked for it to be put on her immediately, which we'd expected. We hadn't expected that she'd then take all her clothes off and put them into the backpack so she'd have something to carry around. Cue small child wearing only underpants and a large backpack running around the living room screaming with happiness at 7am.

Joy continued to be unbounded for the next two days. Her party was on Saturday afternoon, and involved a number of small people running around, jumping up and down, leaping off things, wrestling, etc. It was all pretty good fun. Heather had made Rebecca a cake shaped like a pig, which she loved (she's really into pigs). The cake was a big hit with all the kids, although a few of the parents wondered why a pig. I got all retro and dispensed chipolatas, chippies, hot cross buns etc - Heather had to forcibly dissuade me from making Fairy Bread. Kids parties are really fun.

The other day, Rebecca figured out how to climb onto my shoulders. She's been able to climb up onto my back for a couple of months: wait until I'm squatting down (which I do fairly often, to run a bath, pick stuff up off the floor, etc), get one foot on my thigh and a hand around my neck or grabbing my collar, then pull up, swing the other leg around and climb onto my back. Now she's figured out how to take it that important step further, and actually climb from the piggyback position to the shoulder-ride position. Which is good, because when she's piggybacking me she tends to cross her arms in front of my neck and hold on that way, basically throttling me. She doesn't weigh too much, so it doesn't hurt, but by gum it's uncomfortable. But it's great having her just run up and climb up me.

Me:You're my little girl, aren't you?
Rebecca: No, Daddy, I'm Nana's little girl. But you can borrow me.

I must have a word to her Nana about that one.

Listening to: The KLF, actually. Inspired by the extensive Wikipedia article, I've been relistening to some of the best music of the early 90s. Including the particularly excellent "It's Grim Up North", one of the finest pieces of arthouse acid-house outhouse stomp. Beautiful stuff.

I have managed to bugger my forearms clearing scrub. It's bloody annoying.

Our seeds are growing well. I'm not sure what sort of yields we'll get before winter really sets in, but we're getting some good movement on the cabbages, carrots and beans. I'm also planning to grow some beans up one of the fences, using a cunning technique we tried in the UK - putting eyelet screws in the structural posts in the fence (including the crossbraces), and running garden wire between them to provide a structure for the vines to grow up. Should do the trick nicely, I reckon. The worms are working merrily away on our kitchen waste, with the end result that we should get a good load of vermicast about the right time to dig over our second raised bed. I feel so The Good Life, y'know?

it's not pink, it's RGB 228, 35, 142 March 12, 2007  

When stamp collectors buy stamps online, why do they have to pay for postage?

Earlier tonight, I was baking a cake to take along to Rebecca's nursery's AGM tomorrow night ("Bring a plate", curse them). I was taking the sugar out of the cupboard while holding a cup to measure it in. With the cup in my left hand, I pulled the sugar out with my right - and knocked a tin of golden syrup off the shelf. As it fell towards the floor, I reflexively lashed out with my left hand and punched it onto a lower shelf. Let's just recap there: I punched a 500g tin, hard. On the plus side, I didn't have to clean golden syrup off the floor. On the negative side, my left hand bloody hurts.

So we toddled along to the premiere of Hot Fuzz on Friday night. After a slightly protracted wait in line (we got there at 5:15 and ended up about halfway down the line, and ended up going in around 7pm) we got in and had fun. Myspace provided nosh, with a doughnut on each chair - result. The intro from Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost was good value. Nick Frost was particularly cheered when he revealed that he'd just seen his sister (who lives in Auckland) for the first time in 20 years, and met her kids for the first time ever. Nice one.

The movie itself was great fun. While Shaun of the Dead had fun with the zombie movie trope, Hot Fuzz split its targets a bit more. The primary influence was television: specifically, the Mrs Marple/Heartbeat style 'heartwarming rural police/mystery dramas' that the UK TV industry churns out in bulk. You know = set in a highly picturesque rural village, where the policeman/amateur sleuth has to deal with picturesque crimes while becoming accepted by the locals. Sort of thing that sells well to America - and which you'd see on TV1 on a Sunday night. Lots of shots of thatched cottages. Hot Fuzz takes these a major influence, with a slight dash of the "outsider comes into rural location and realises something's going on" horror films the Brits also do (The Wicker Man, Straw Dogs, sort of thing). Then it cuts it 50-50 with American buddy movies - specifically with Point Break and Bad Boys II - complete with mismatched pair of cops being assigned together, not getting on at first, then bonding (latent homoeroticism) and finally going after the bad guys with shotguns while wearing aviator sunglasses. The film as a whole is excellent. I was crying with laughter at points. The audience burst into spontaneous applause several times. If you've ever wanted to see Miss Marple pulling out a couple of Glock 9s and going after the baddies, this is a film for you.

Interestingly, I note Morgue's comment that only 300 of the 400 seats were filled. That'd be why there were so many spare doughnuts around, then. Mmm. Spare doughnuts.

Saturday afternoon we came into town. After a brief sojourn at the library, we wandered down to the waterfront for a look at the dragonboat racing. Rebecca thought this was the best thing she'd seen for ages. She knew exactly what they were doing - "Daddy, they rowing VERY FAST!". She particularly enjoyed making rowing motions with her arms, to demonstrate what the rowers would do. She also enjoyed the crowds (lively but not claustrophobic), the music, and the presence of old ladies who encouraged her to jump off things. I was quite taken with the presence of a large (looked to be about a metre across) stingray in the boat club lagoon - from the ground it was very hard to see, but from the city-to-sea bridge it was very visible and obvious that it was having a nose around underneath the boats and pedalos. I'm not sure how many of the rowers noticed it, but it would have been a good incentive not to fall in.

And on Sunday, we took in the final stage of the Women's Tour of NZ. Judith Arndt won the race overall, but that was never particularly in doubt after stage 4 up Admiral Hill in Masterton. On the day, one of T-Mobile's other colossi, Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, won the crit. She broke away from the peleton with 20 minutes to go, pushed it hard, and stayed away - winning by 30 seconds on a course that the riders were lapping in around 1'14". I was certainly cheering her on: I like to see suicidally long breaks succeed. The peloton left it too late to chase, and then Sarah Ulmer organised a pursuit that just didn't quite get there (it looked like the other two members of the pursuit weren't pulling through). Rebecca seemed to enjoy the race, and spent much of it yelling "Go Sarah!" whenever a cyclist went past. She got a bit fractious towards the end, which is understandable when you try to get a 2-year old to stay in one place and watch something for an hour. It was a pretty aggressive race all up - lots of sprinting for the primes. Sarah Ulmer got 2nd on the day, the points jersey, and 90% of the media attention. A good afternoon out.

a load of guff March 07, 2007  

The way to calm a recalcitrant toddler down on arrival home: unleash a copy of Practical Fishkeeping on her. She spent five happy minutes flipping through it, exclaiming "Oh! What a pretty fish!" repeatedly, before going ballistic about a feature on marine aquaria that included a picture of an amemone. "Nemo's house!" she kept yelling. Bless.

Oooh. Swobo are now doing a line of bikes. Given that Swobo are consciously hipper-than-thou, I was expecting them to have a very high pose to utility factor. In point of fact, they look excellent city bikes. OK, they've got a brakeless fixie (not the most user-friendly city bikes), but the other two bikes look excellent. If I was in the US, I'd be saving up for one of 'em; tough, solid, all the bike you need to get around town. Swift. And heck, it's pretty reasonable: their fixie, the Sanchez, comes in at around NZ$850 plus shipping - which compares very favourably to around NZ$1250 for an Il Pompino.

Finally got up to Makara Peak at the weekend and had a crack at the singletrack. Nice. Very, very nice. I found that my technical skills need a bit more work - I'm just not used to that sort of tight and twisty stuff (though it shouldn't be a problem to pick it up). In terms of fitness, it was no problem at all (except for the bit when I was in front of a large party of 18-year old racers who were in town for the Karapoti Classic). The main problem I had was punctures. I swapped over from my commuting slicks to fat tyres on the Saturday night. Sunday morning I got up and found the front tyre flat due to an unnoticed minor thorn. Fixed flat, loaded bike, drove to Karori. Within five minutes of arriving at the park (about the end of the first hairpin on Koru) I flatted on the front again, with a 2cm gorse thorn straight through the tyre. Cue trip back to the car and track pump. No further punctures on the day, but something was obviously a bit sus as it was flat again next morning. But yeah, Makara Peak was excellent, and I must get back and practice on some of swoopy stuff (Magic Carpet was a particular favorite for swoop-related grins).

Meanwhile, Bike Week ended badly, with two deaths and multiple casualties. The question being asked was, how come NZ roads are such a dodgy place to be riding?

While riding my bike I've been shouted at, honked at, squirted with water, had bottles thrown at me, been "buzzed", and had people deliberately try to knock me off. These aren't so much the problem. Yeah, it's happened, but it's pretty rare (I've only been deliberately swerved at once in eight years of commuting), and I'd be surprised if this sort of attention-grabbing behaviour actually causes that many accidents. Obviously, it does sometimes cause accidents (is it still an accident if it's caused by a deliberate act?), but it's comparatively rare. Plus, this broadly falls under the category of "people being dicks", which is hard to change.

Accidents are caused by drivers just not noticing cyclists. They're caused by drivers thinking "I've got enough space" and passing too close. They're caused by people (cyclists and drivers) running red lights. They're caused by drivers underestimating cyclists' speed and pulling out in front of them. They're caused by drivers who don't know the road code and who think cyclists should always give way to cars. They're caused by drivers getting impatient at having to sit behind a cyclist on a narrow road. They're caused by inattention, sloppiness, and bad judgement calls. The problem is that if you have a minor prang in a car, you've got a big dent and a bill. The same impact between a car and a bike usually ends with an ambulance ride. But most of these accident-causing behaviours can and should be changed.

To reduce cycling accidents, we need to make people take driving less casually. People need to look out for cyclists and have a better idea of how fast they go, what their rights are, and how to react to them. Basically, drivers need to respect cyclists more. The catch-22 is that the best way to get drivers to respect cyclists is to get more cyclists on the roads.

I thought that the comments on the related Stuff poll were revealing. The drivers who responded uniformly had an attitude of pretty much "cyclists are fine as long as they don't get in my way or cause me to slow down at all." Of course, this is actually the attitude that 90% of the population has towards all other road users. The problem is that cylists are more visible and more vulnerable.

The skin on the left side of my right index finger (i.e. the side facing the thumb) is roughened from wear. Mostly this is indiscernable, but if I've been fettling my bike and have grease/rubber dust on my hands (changing tyres is a surprisingly dirty job) then for the next week I'll know it. The slight cracks in the skin get filled with black gunk, producing a distinctive "lightning" pattern that ony wears off when that layer of skin goes. So I look a bit scruffy, or like some terminally odd nicotine addict, for a week.

I reinvented the wheel once. It was blue.

On the headphones: Sexxor by Tiga. Sparkling, ironic dance music. Excellent pop tunes, danceable as hell, and lovely ironic takes on some classics. I only live for the day that Tiga covers a Pet Shop Boys tune.

Whoops! From the "did they just change that?" department: the final criterium stage of the Trust House Women's Tour is on this Sunday, but is now on a circuit on Lambton Quay. Best place to watch will be somewhere around Midland Park, where the hairpin turn should help ensure some elbows-out action. I'll be there.

disappointed but bearing up March 02, 2007  

For various reasons, it looks like we're going to be decanting Vol II manually. I say we; I mean a team of highly qualified professionals will. Due to a number of medical complications from Rebecca's birth, it's too risky for Heather to attempt to have a natural birth. There's a reasonable chance that her uterine artery might tear again, causing a massive haemhorrage. Last time, it tore during the caesarian, and was brought under control relatively quickly - she still lost 1.4 litres of blood. If she tries to give birth naturally, it could tear from the straining - and a rupture of a major internal artery is a very bad thing and would have very serious negative consequences for Heather's health. Heather has a much more complete explanation of exactly what happened, and why she's quite hacked off about it. Usually medical interventions are justified as "the best thing for the baby"; in this case, it's "we'd rather Heather didn't bleed to death". People sometimes forget that the mothers are important, too.

How to tell you've been married for seven years: we had a conversation this morning that went as follows.

Me: By the way, dear, I'd had a thought...
Heather: You want to go for a bike ride on Sunday morning.

It's spooky how well we know each other. Or it would be if I had an analogous story showing how well I know Heather.

I go to the gym at lunchtime, at the Wellesley Club. You can tell that the Wellesley is Not Like Other Gyms. For instance, there's a few TVs facing the stationary bikes, so you can concentrate on something other than watching your own perspiration ooze slowly down the read-out panel on the machine. In most gyms, these would be tuned to a combination of sports channels and high-octane, low-boredom-threshold music video channels. At the Wellesley, one TV shows Sky Sports. The other two show TV1. Which, at lunchtimes, is playing Emmerdale. They even put the subtitles on so you can tell what they're saying. I'm getting quite involved in it. Yesterday I watched a tearful reunion between a wizened businessman and the abandoned son he never knew he'd had - who also turned out to be gay. While leg pressing three times my body weight.

Good on Nicole Cooke for opening out the defense of her world title with a win in the Tour of Geelong. I'm just sorry that she's not coming over here for the Trust House Women's Classic next week; we missed seeing her at last year's World Cup race in Wellington. Still, the Trust House should be a complete blinder. Remember, final stage at Petone on the 11th will be excellent for spectating; if you fancy watching the TT, it starts/finishes at Scorching Bay starting at 10am Sunday morning.

What I'm listening to:

• Thunk, by Vorn. King Missile and Wendy House get together and have a pop-friendly child. Local Kiwi lo-fi electro pop with a good sense of humour and some rather memorable beats. Definitely worth a listen (thanks Cat!).
• Pandora.com - yes, internet radio. Pandora's schtick is that it's plugged into the Music Genome Project, so it has a massive backend database of metadata on songs. You tell it an artist or song you like, and it plays you stuff that it knows is pretty similar. Over time, by saying yay or nay to individual songs, it builds up a picture of what you like and plays you stuff that's similar, but that you might not have heard. It's an interesting theory, and it seems to more or less work. Though I did get a bit annoyed when it described Carter USM as having "unintelligible vocals", and proceeded to play incomprehensible American shouty-punk. They're not unintelligible, guys, they've just got English accents.

bloody headwinds March 01, 2007  

Of course, no-one mentions the real reason for Bike to Work day. It's the chance for us regular cyclists to totally rule the roads. I overtook so many other cyclists yesterday it wasn't funny. Man, it was great. I'm sure reality will hit again come June, when it's swingeing sleet, pitch black, and I only see three other cyclists on my commute, all of whom are significantly faster than me. But in the meantime, the weather's good, there's sunshine, and I can overtake on the inside while filtering through traffic on Thorndon Quay.

This may be considered an advantage of cycling: you can't be arrested for kerb-crawling. Of course, once you've picked up the service provider in question, it becomes a bit harder to find somewhere to provide the service, so to speak, as a bike rack is a bit less private than the back seat of a Mondeo.

Mind you, it's impressive to see what £20 gets you these days. I wonder if he haggled? "Full service, twenty quid." "I'll give you £18.73."

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