A Most Dubious Honour

Like several of my blogging pals, I recently got an email from somebody who claimed to Love RANTWICK so much that it had been selected for a Top 50 bike blogs list.

I did not link to their website as their snazzy image links urged me to, because frankly the whole thing seemed a little fishy to me. I got an email from somebody else warning me of their unethical practices and how linking to them would damage my google page ranking a couple days later. I had no idea if that was true, but I had one other reason not to link or promote that list, because here's what it said about my blog:

"A bit of humorous ranting does take center stage in this blog. Most of it is bike-oriented: How sad to see the bikes covered in snow! How annoying to share the road with vehicles!"

Holy crap! When I pasted that text snippet from their site a "source:" link got added to my editing window automatically! That site must have some pretty funky scripts running on it to do that! If I had let it stay, I could have suffered honest to goodness Google-anger! Oh, that site is scummy for sure.

Anyway, back to my other reason for not linking to them: If you want a one night stand, you at least have to buy me a few drinks, miss Cate Newton (if that is even your real name)! Put another, less cryptic way, if you are gonna use me and my blog to forward your own webby interests, at least read the blog enough to get somewhat close to what it is about.

"How sad to see the bikes covered in snow!"? What the hell? Any bike with snow pic found on my blog is likely accompanied by much celebration.

"How annoying to share the road with vehicles!"? Are you insane? I very rarely, if ever, complain about other vehicles. I understand very well that the roadways are for everybody, not just bicycles. I don't rant about motorists, in fact I actively invite discussion with them on my blog, discussions in which I have displayed a great deal of diplomacy, I think.

In summary, these idiots are being sneaky with their website and using unethical linking practices, but on top of that, they are making my blog look like it is written by some whiny moron. About that, I will rant, because I am not whiny.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Kia Sportage Commercial - Share The Road

There is a car commercial that is airing (or aired) recently here in Canada that has me kind of intrigued. I have no idea if it has aired in any US  or European markets, so I figured I would post it and see what my very intelligent readers thought:

I find it encouraging and positive and manipulative and sort of ironic all at once, but I'll save the rest of my ramblings for the comments. Am I just being stupidly cynical about a perfectly good sign? What's your take? 

Yer Pal, R A N T W I C K