Lycraliens

I loathe them with the heat of a supernova. I’d like them to suffer horribly. Coating them in honey, severing a few key blood vessels and leaving them atop a carnivorous ants nest is too good for them. I’d say they should be forced to listen to a Kyle Sandilands marathon if I didn’t think they’d enjoy it.

Ly•cra•li•en (noun): A male cyclist adorned in skin-tight attire that bears a striking resemblance to European junk mail.

I love cycling. I love anything on two wheels. But these people – that intimidate other cyclists and pedestrians with their machismo posturing, that sit around coffee shops with their helmets and oakleys still affixed while sipping short blacks and sweating on the seats – more than justify the pathological hatred many people here have for cyclists.

I cross a cycle path adjacent to the train station in City West. I cross it every morning on my way to work, and every evening on my way home. On a cold morning or after a long day, if the aching bones are misbehaving, it can take a few seconds.

There are bright fluorescent signs denoting that it is a pedestrian crossing. There are the universally recognised white lines across the path. These are the sorts of signs that even the never-leave-the-city four-wheel-drive-fuckwits heed. those people stop. Not the lycraliens. Oh no. If they’re in a considerate mood, you might have one shout a terse “bike” as they speed through. But they never slow down. They never *shudder* stop.

One morning soon, one of these wankers is going to find my walking stick shoved into their spokes. Yeah, mine’s carbon fibre too, cockface.

I can empathise with the rampant upgrade-itis that besets these people. I just bought a new Ducati. I will not get anywhere close to meeting the potential of this bike. I got it coz I likes it. So I won’t pour scorn on you if you trade your Moots frame in for a DeRossa that will do less to reduce the weight of your ride than having a good shit that morning.

But it’d be remiss to not point out that while you may think that wearing lycra adorned with “Kazzinc” and “Astana” makes you look like Alberto Contador, it actually just makes you look like a dickhead.

Whatever pollution you’re offsetting by cycling is more than offset by the fact that you put five people off cycling for life every time you poonce about in public with the contours of your groin on display.

So for the benefit of the whole planet, here’s a few things you lycraliens should know:

1. You’re deeply unattractive in that attire, and this adversely affects people. The world does not need a that much information about you.
2. Many of you are probably the same people that complain about “hoons”. You don’t need an engine to be dangerous you know.
3. An aggressive attitude to other cyclists and pedestrians does not make you faster. But it does make you a wanker.

Old white guys, can’t you just go back to playing golf?

Facebook Compares

The Facebook “Compare People” application is not suitable for people with serious self esteem issues. Like me. It does strange things to the minds of the self-obsessed. You’re reading this on my blog, for ghod sake.

For those people unfamiliar with the concept, you’re presented with a random pair of your Facebook friends, and asked to choose who “Would you rather kiss?” or who “has a better laugh?”

If you complete enough questions, you’re then taken to your own results page – where you can see where you score relative to your friends, based on the percentage of wins and losses. It’s heaven for the paranoid, narcissistic children of web 2.0…

People without broadband – those in country areas – just listen to Kasey Chambers sing “Am I not pretty enough…?”

My own rankings are full of contradictions, fallacies, stating the fucking obvious (Nobody thinks I can drink more!), how-I-wish-that-were-true statements and meaningless trivialities. How the hell is someone that I haven’t seen in real life for 15 years going to know how punctual I am?

Apparently I am almost as cool as I am hot. No wonder my bones ache.

Nobody wants to be trapped on a desert island with me, but most people are willing to risk travelling with me anyway.

I’m a better listener than everyone else, but there are 45 people that are better friends than me. Odd, given that everyone asked thinks I’m more generous or more likely to do them a favour.

Everyone asked would rather date me, but not everyone would rather sleep with me. Just what the hell are we dating for? Oh, the listening thing. Or my pretty eyes.

You’d all rather marry me, but you have serious doubts about my ability as a father. And I’m neither loyal nor reliable.

Everyone would rather hang out with me for a day, but nobody thinks I’m outgoing. You just want to come to my house then? Does this have anything to do with you all wanting to be stuck in handcuffs with me?

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain so much about it. Maybe it’s rude and gutless to mock people for their Facebook survey choices. Well, I came stone-cold last in bravery and good manners, so fuck off.

Prolonged Absences

This is probably the longest I’ve gone without posting since I began blogging here a year ago.

There’s been a variety of reasons – new job, (not)relationship, tragedy, illness, travel, writing elsewhere, Twitter (though I’ve not been Tweeting much either in recent weeks) and general apathy.

But the biggest reason is that I have no idea what I want to say. I gave myself a year to figure out what I wanted this blog to be about. During that time I was going to write everything. While I didn’t go quite that far, I did write about a fair range of “me” with varying success.

One day I wrote something politically motivated, the next I was bitching about my illness or latest relationship debacle. All of this is intensely interesting to me, as is writing about it now. All of this is part of me, but that’s far less interesting for anyone else.

It turns out it’s a blog about nothing. And I fucking hated Seinfeld.

The solution is, for now, some self-censorship. I’ll probably write less, but write less crap. There is a seed of an idea for a new “single-subject” blog, but it’s still in gestation.

I’ll be here for a little while yet. Next: Twitter and the Hagakure. Fascinating. To me anyway.

ITax

We went to the Hoyts IMax Cinema in Cannington to watch the Watchmen last week. It was my second viewing and the rest of the crew were a mix of seasoned Watchmen veterans, and tentative – cynical even – Watchmen noobs.

The movie itself has been described better elsewhere. I think it was brilliant, but whomever collated the heavily clichéd soundtrack really missed a couple of golden opportunities. “Life on Mars” during the flyover of said planet, and “End Of The World As We Know It” during the end sequence or credits would round it off nicely.

But the IMax Cinema… Quite the misnomer, that. I’ve been to IMax cinemas in other cities, and they are an impressive, immersive experience.

The Perth one however, was not an IMax. This was – at best – an ILittleBitBigger. The experience it offered could be very easily reproduced just by sitting three rows closer to the screen than you normally do in a regular cinema.

For twice the price, I was expecting, yes, more. Alarm bells rang when the cashier quite desperately informed us that, “There’s no refunds”. Clearly I’m not the first to register my dissatisfaction.

An IMax cinema is supposed to give you that feeling of scale. You’re supposed to not feel safe in there because the screen is so massive, and you’re up so high, that instinct screams out for an abseiling harness or safety net. The feeling of insecurity is not supposed to be triggered by a financial fleecing.

You’re supposed to feel dwarfed, insignificant, miniscule in the face of such magnificence. Like standing at foot of Uluru at sunset, or comparing your own idiocy to that of a Manly rugby player. The wall of sound is supposed to be murder (© Phil Spector). You take someone who is dubious about their likely enjoyment of the film to an Imax so that there’s every chance they’ll either be overwhelmed by the experience, or their otherwise vociferous complaints will be inaudible.

Experiences like this make it so hard to understand why so many people would rather download, really.

As it was, the highlight of the evening ended up being a drag race with a fastidiously permed man in a red Corvette convertible. We won. In my divvy van. Tosser.

Oh how we laughed.

Gamers Anonymous

I’ve never had a really serious game addiction. I’ve certainly dabbled. There’s been some games that I have been completely ensorceled by, and have spent solid days of my life utterly transfixed.

The first was an LCD handheld game where you caught coins then played a poker machine. My parents kept taking it off me, I kept sneaking into their room to take it back.

My first NES had me shooting up Duck Hunt, and chasing the Double Dragon 2, which was also the method my brother and I used to resolve punch ups.

My Playstation brought with it Kula World. Best. Game. Ever.

I still dabble occasionally. I would play for days at a time.

Then came the PS2, Tekken and Gran Turismo. My brother and I would work shifts on GT, completing levels, acquiring new and faster cars. We’d swap spots at the end of a work day, there’d be junk food, a briefing for the incoming player, and the player that just completed his 20 hour stint would shuffle off to bed, dreaming of the perfect exit to that corner on the really long track that meant you’d be going 55km/h faster at the end of the straight.

If GT was an example of geek co-operation, Tekken was war. Bitter, savage, cruel war. My brother is a naturally gifted freak at games. I could do OK at racing and puzzle games, but everything else would be an exercise in demonstrating my inadequacy. He’d unleash a maniacal laugh as I threw my controller away in disgust – obviously he had the good one, and mine clearly wasn’t working properly.

It’s been a long time since I have been hooked, though I’ve had many dalliances.

Sabian and I were having a chat about this on Watchmen night – I hope he tells his gaming problem story on his blog soon [EDIT: he has - in an alarmingly rapid response... and it's brilliant] – I’ve never needed Gamers anonymous.

The very existence of it intrigues me.

For example;

• Are the twelve steps something like: ↑, ↑, →, ←, □, ○, x, L1, R2, ↑+□, R2+x, ↓ …?
• Do they introduce themselves using their handle/avatar, “I’m Draganslya44 and I’m a game addict”?
• If you get caught using a cheat, do you finish the program really quickly, but not get a button?
• Do they need to stay away from pretty much any electronic device because that would be an enabler?
• If they fall off the wagon three times is it game over?
• Does the program you can get from Bali actually work just as well, so long as you’ve been modded?

SO many more questions…

If you have a gaming problem, and have been supported through it, I’d really like to know these things. Comments. Go.