Blog Salad

Way back when my wife and I were just starting out together, living in a little dump of an apartment on Wilson near Labatt Park, we spent a lot of our evenings at a nearby downtown dive called the Brunswick Hotel.

We have all kinds of fond memories of that place and the people who worked there. The 'Wick was demolished late in 2008, after much protest from the people who misspent (or were actively misspending) their youth there, debate about heritage status for the building and a suspicious fire.

Being older and wiser and more cynical, we didn't join the protest, but it was sad to see the Brunswick go. Anyway, on one of those nights years ago at the 'Wick we were joined by a man who spoke, but made no sense. He didn't appear to be drunk. He was just stringing words together, often seeming to be saying something cohesive, but never quite getting there. When he left us my wife said, "Wow, now that was textbook Word Salad". I had never heard the term before, but it is a popular term for schizophasia and something my wife had learned about in Psychology. I have enjoyed using the expression ever since.

I've been jotting down ideas for blog posts lately, but when I look a them, none is quite interesting enough to base a whole post on. So, similar to installments of "the lost pictures", I'm going to write about these unconnected things here in one post, creating a "blog salad"!

Ingredient #1: Telephone Number Fast-Talkers.

If you work in an office of some kind (and even if you don't), you probably use voicemail quite a bit. I know I do, and I've got a pet peeve about people leaving their phone numbers by speaking really fast, kind of like the Big Fat Cheater I use in my cadence computations. These people typically leave a long message spoken at a reasonable pace, and finish by rattling off their phone number so fast that you couldn't possibly write it down. Depending on your voicemail system, you may have listen to the whole message over again to get the number. Wah, wah, wah, I know. When leaving messages, please either start and finish with your phone number or say it slowly enough to be written down.

Ingredient #2: A Second Long Ride.

As long as I continue to suck at following directions, my fitness level should increase. I hit the highway again last Saturday, armed with a map and directions for a 65km ride. Thanks to not starting where I was supposed to and then missing an important turn, it became an 88km (54.7 mile) ride. This ride was much prettier than the first, and I stopped for breakfast mid way through. It was great. For detail freaks, you can see my mapped route by clicking here. I'll try to get my act together and take video or pics next time.

Ingredient #3: What Kind of Freak Am I?

What kind of person is content to have pictures of their butt posted online, yet is not interested in showing their face or revealing their name? I don't know the answer to that one. If I did, I suppose I would have met the spiritual and philosophical challenges experienced by all people head on, and in coming to "know thyself" gained deep insight into the rest of humanity. As it stands, however, I am completely puzzled by many of the people around me, including myself. Ah well, if I can't be a self-realized philosophical giant at least I can post nonsense on the Internet using a funny little squinty-eyed guy as my face.

Ingredient #4: Cars are Amazing.

Both times that I have taken a long bike ride over the past two Saturdays, I have had reason to drive our car later on in the day. In each case I was immediately struck by the power and ease of travel that cars represent. It felt very much like the first time I drove, and the machine seemed so unbelievably strong, almost magical, as a simple small motion of my foot made it leap forward with no real effort on my part. It is no wonder that this incredible invention has consumed our society... putting power like that in the hands of individuals could have no other effect. My questions for other cyclists: 1) Have you experienced the same feeling? 2) If so, does it go away with more frequent or regular long distance cycling?

Lastly, A Solitary Visual Crouton: Morphos Shifters Dressed As Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots.

Please treat the above post as you would a real salad. Try to ignore the wilted bits and those ingredients you don't really like, or pick them out. With luck I'll be back with a thick cut of nicely seasoned, single-topic nonsense next time.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K