MyPinion

For something a bit different, a few reviews, for your elucidatory pleasure:

Earbudphones: The ones that Max recommended below, and yes they come in that funky green color, are splendid. No more earbud kerplupping out of one ear, driving one mad. Thank you jesus.

Socks for my delicate feet: Ultimax Ultra-Lite socks by Wigwam. So far, so good.

White tea, supposedly has little caffeine, hence will NOT keep Tasha up all night: Liars.

Road bike mirror: I got this little doohickey, the Italian road bike mirror that attaches to your handlebar end and is made by some little old Italian man named Mario in his tiny workshop in Italy. Or so they claim. What’s most important is that it’s of course ubercool, unlike the gizmos that strap to your sunglasses or helmet and look like you’ve got a mini-reflecting dish attached to help you try to contact your own species on a far-off galaxy.

As to how it actually works, I’d say for the $10-$20, it’s worth it. It’s very easy to attach, even for a mechanically-challenged person such as myself, and it’s easily adjustable. I road-tested it out myself for you, gentle reader, and these were my findings:

1) Once you get used to it and get the positioning right, it does a good job of letting you know exactly what’s coming up behind you, thus letting you scootch over just a few inches more so that you can put 5 inches instead of 3 between you and the cement truck about to blow past you.

2) While some might look at it constantly, I found it more useful to look when I heard a car or truck coming, so that I could see if they were paying attention or harbored thoughts of running me down.

3) It’s also useful when you’re about to execute some particularly tricky maneuver that might induce a little wobbly riding. You know, like taking a drink from your water bottle.

4) Maybe it’s just me, but I almost crashed while attempt to look at it while in the aerobars. Umm, that’s probably just me.

5) Finally, for those of us who wear iPods while cycling, I like to know if anyone’s anywhere near me before I start singing along to some especially catchy tune. God forbid I should cause some cute unsuspecting cyclist to crash after succumbing to helpless laughter from hearing me sing “I got friends in low places…..”

Stupid people who insist on 7,000 sq. foot McMansions out in NowhereLand, aka Where Tasha Likes to Ride her Bike: a) Those houses are butt-ugly, and b) Please don’t humiliate yourselves by moaning about the fact that a coyote came along and snatched Fifi the poodle. In case you haven’t noticed, you live in the boonies. No, it’s not a suburb of Chicago; don’t kid yourselves. You’re practically in Iowa, for god’s sake.

The developers of McMansions, above: Calling your butt-ugly subdivisions the SwallowCreek Farms Estates only calls attention to the fact that you’ve cut down all the birds’ trees, you’ve bulldozed and filled in any creeks or bodies of water that were once there, ditto for the farms. I hate you all.

Morons who mention the fact that February and March were cold and that it’s snowing in April, and then proclaim in all seriousness “ha, where’s all their global warming NOW?!”: You are all idiots. Please do not bother me. If you insist on parroting such inanities in spite of all scientific evidence to the contrary, I personally will hunt you down and beat you with a frozen ham.

That is all.