5/17/12

Ride In 5/17: Hobo Disco

What was the thing that I saw before I saw the guy in full clown makeup standing by the Capitol? Maybe it was the car with the GAGA FAN license plate? I think that was it. The clown guy had a sign that reference clown unemployment and it was either a joke or the Tea Party has gotten really weird (and somehow, even whiter, thanks to pancake makeup). The GAGA FAN is, presumably, just a GAGA fan. Gaga for Gaga, if you will. Or perhaps he's just gaga for fans, perhaps the oscillating kind. I'm fascinated by personalized license plates (really!) and I wonder what this guy was thinking while in line at the DMV. Like, I like really Lady Gaga and I'm about the register this Pontiac Soltice with the State of Virginia, so you know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to assert this one "fun fact" about me on my license plate so I can advertise my taste in music and perhaps be let off with only a warning by a state trooper who enjoys grooving out to "Just Dance." As for what the clown guy was thinking, I just presume that he sort of has a sad life and probably doesn't even drive a Pontiac.
Sartre wrote the "hell is other people." Sartre was also a bicyclist. This might not be a coincidence. I think that my personal hell would be an endless stretch of city blocks, punctuated by red lights that I would hit irrespective of my speed. And then before the light would change, I would get shoaled by some hapless dope, who I would ride around only to have the process repeat for an eternity. So when this happens in non-hell life, you can guess my feelings about it. I simply don't understand the psychology of people who do this. Oh yeah, and on Bike to Work Day tomorrow, be prepared for anything. And I'm really not trying to pick on people who are new to bike commuting- there's definitely a learning curve and it takes a little while to figure out the "system" so to speak. But regardless of whether you've commuted by bike for a long time or just started, there are some fundamentally important rules of etiquette that you could probably figure out if you thought about it for a little or if you're a conscientous person in general. So, once again, I plead: only pass while moving. Feel free to disagree with me about this, but I'm pretty insistent about my being right in a sort of morally objective kind of way. And I never feel that way about anything. I'm more relativistic than, I don't know, an object approaching the speed of light...? (Physics is not my forte)
I took 11th. Some of the time I was on that street I rode behind a bus. So, that happened.
Compared to the Bikeshare trip yesterday, my ride today seemed really swift and maybe even fleet. That was a nice feeling and it was complemented with gorgeous springtime weather that only appears a few weeks a year.
I think it's illegal for a driver to not block the crosswalk. How else to explain the frequency with which it happens? I mean, other than sorcery.

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