Monday, February 04, 2008

What a lost weekend

I got out and rode for 2.5 hrs on Friday evening. I thought it was a great start to a mileage filled weekend. Well Saturday was a bust since I woke up late, started cleaning a little, then all of a sudden, it was almost noon. I had the Officials clinic to attend which took the middle part of the day away. Got home at almost 5pm and figured I'd look toward Sunday for some miles. Well, we all know how that went. I had hopes at first that the "light dusting" of snow would end by 11am or so then the sun would come out and melt everything. So I cleaned some more, and waited. Plans changed. I was going to join Ryan and Roxy on a snow ride on the Wabash trace. Perfect!! That would be fun. Well right as Ryan stopped by to pick me up, Roxy, who had went ahead to get some more time on the trail, called and said it was a no go. Pretty much impossible to stay upright for more than 10 feet or so. So Ryan and I visited for a while(thanks for the coffee!), but decided it was in everyone's best interest to call it an inside day.

When Ryan left, it was 1:15-ish so I figured it was too late to join Bryan. Plus I really didn't want to ride a trainer. So I continued cleaning and getting other things in order before the Stupor Bowl. Every year I head to the parent's house to watch the Super Bowl(mostly for the commercials) and to eat orderves (yes I spelled it wrong, I'm not French) as a meal. It's not horrible food like fried wings and mini-weiners, but rather shrimps, veggies, compe'so(fancy bean dip) and other goodies. The game was fun at the beginning and end, but the middle was a snore-fest with the height of boredom being the half-time show. I remember thinking when Free Fallin came out in 1989, "Hey this song is ok because the video has a hot skateboarding chic, but that dude is old." That was almost 20 yeas ago. 20!!! I made the observation to my family that I think recently venues have started to pay "professional audience members" to act really interested, but still behave. Remember in the 90's, there were a couple incidents at major televised shows where the audience was either too rowdy or way too subdued? I believe, being that most of the 20-something audience members who were in diapers when Petty was kinda popular were more interested in actually being on camera looking excited and singing along with the telepromptered lyrics than looking up at the actual show on stage, that they were indeed paid to be there. It makes sense especially at the Super Bowl where they don't want any tomfoolery to happen on national TV so the poor little fragile children can grow up unscathed by images of boobies.

So anyway, some of the commercials were interesting, and the last quarter was fun. I'm glad I'm not a betting man that depends on stats. All I've heard from people is how there's probably guys out there who've lost their houses on that game. Kinda sad if it's true.

Hopefully next weekend will bring warmer temps and NO SNOW. I'm tired of it. Seriously. Bad Nature, bad.

5 comments:

bryan said...

I'd take 50 bucks to see Tom Petty up close. At least he sounded good. The reason the halftime show is usually a waste of time is the sound. Had he played any of his newer songs, none of the kids could have been able to fake the energy level required to get into them.

You should have joined me. I watched Liege-Bastogne-Liege in its entirety. It was delightful.

munsoned said...

The watching of the race would have been fun. But I had a frame to ship off for Poolboy and other running around stuff that wouldn't have gotten done had I rode with ya. So the weekend wasn't completely lost.

The other thing taking up some of my time recently is a new toy I had to purchase. We have a collection of Anime VHS tapes that take up too much room. I've been trying to figure out how I could cheaply and somewhat conveniently dub them to DVD. I have the equipment at work, but 1, it takes time to keep up with the dubbing and 2, I should be working at work, not dubbing (or posting on blogs, hee hee).

I have a DVD rewriteable Rom on my PC, but no way to input a video signal or software to do the dubbing. A fancy video card to handle that is over $100.

I then looked into DVD recording units as part of a shelf system stereo. Those things are hella expensive. So I was baffled when I was perusing the Craigslist stuff and saw a "barely used DVD recorder/VHS combo unit" available for $50!!! I called the guy right away and made the deal. Sure enough, he had the thing in the box, with the manual, remote,and extra DVD-RWs! An amazing find! So I've been doing some dubbing in the hopes of selling or donating our old VHS tapes to clean up the house a little.

If anyone has some old VHS's they'd like to have converted over to DVD, I'd be willing to accept money, burritos, or coffee as payment for services. All that is required is blank DVD-R(RW)s and I'll make it happen.

Petty has new stuff since the 90s?? Does any of the lyrical content involve anything aside from pot smoking? ;) I dunno. His new stuff would have to be 4 times faster and louder than "Runnin down a Dream" to pique the interest of todays youngins. My mom (who's over 50) was ready for his show to be done after the first song.
Ok, ok, I know I need to lay of Tom Petty. He's a great musician who's been playing huge venues for a third of a century. People love his music. I'm just not one of them.

brady said...

I'm with Bryan. Petty perfected the haggard look 20 years ago but still's got it musically. I'd also fork out a Grant to see him.

When I looked outside at noon Sunday, I imagined that you'd have to go crazy waaaay south, as in KC for your ride.

Keep in mind that the days are slowly getting longer and supposedly warmer.

johnny said...

I am going South a mere 4 hrs where it will be a balmy 60 fri-sat under the guise of checking out our house for sale and doing some touch up. I will ride Sunday up here in the far colder north territory.

johnny said...

oops just checked weather 45 light west wind both days. I will take it.