This post in particular struck a chord with me. It’s a great read, and I wish more cyclists would adopt a similar state of peace and nonaggression to drivers. I’ve always thought that the best reaction to a pissed off, aggressive driver is a huge smile and a wave.

That is unless they are in the process of cutting you off or trying to kill you, in which case I simply scream “WHOOOOAAAAAAAA FUCKO! WATCH IT!”.

He mentions a anecdote of riding home with flowers, which made him (in the eyes of a potentially annoyed motorist) a human being that should not be crushed with an automobile. The daughter, in the back of that car, waved at him, and all was good.

In the same vein, Josh Austin and I were on a long ride through middleish-of-nowhere New Hampshire a few weeks ago. It was cold and windy out, we were on cross bikes – we were pretty miserable. We were riding on a straight, open stretch of road. The kind of road where giving three feet to two cyclists in no issue.

As we were riding, we heard the Doppler-affected horn of a car coming up behind us, a black, late-model SUV with a woman in her 40s driving. She looked straight ahead – her horn said everything she needed to say.

But, in the passenger seat, was a girl – maybe in her early teens. She looked out at us with an apologetic look, her eyes saying “Sorry, I don’t know what her deal is. But I hope you have a nice ride. And I don’t want to run you off the road.”

This girl was lucky, though. Her mother’s aggression (or bad mood, or general crappy attitude) did not appear to have been passed on. Perhaps she offsets her parental influence with Eastern philosophy? But other kids aren’t so lucky. If all they see are their parents (or peers, or role models) screaming that cyclists are faggots or should get off the fucking road, then that’s all that is going to happen in future generations.

What the hell does this error message mean? I never attached anything to this file. There are no Streams. And the data I’m going to lose isn’t going to affect it.

Argh.

Really, Velonews? You’re at a bike show HIGHLIGHTING companies like IF, and you do the one thing that will send Jon Bruno into his trademark “unnecessary pluralization rage”.

Seriously. It’s INDEPENDENT FABRICATION.

I hope you have life insurance, because right about now, there should be a early 90’s Suburban pulling up outside of your house. Jon Bruno will take a pound of flesh for every pluralization infraction.

EDIT: There are so many in that gallery, but this one is great:

Also, on this same ride, I saw a veteran’s vanity plate of LINUX. Must have been a veteran of the Internet Wars.

Whoops.

(In her defence, she’s on IE6 (and Firefox, and Chrome) for testing)

What is the Internet Zone? Can I go to the Internet Zone? Is it like the Phantom Zone, only full of pornography and mashups? If I view this email in the Interet Zone, does it change it into lolcat speak?

DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING OUTLOOK.

(NOTE: The Internet Zone is a place where I save .jpgs from Paint, resulting in shitty compression. Sorry, Cosmo.)

Anywho, my lovely girlfriend stole this poster for me from Starbucks:

NO, STARBUCKS. YOUR CUP IS NOT HELPING TO SAVE TREES. Know what would help to save the world? Not even offering disposable cups – because probably every American has at least one travel mug collecting dust in their cupboard, which they could easily use to get coffee without wasting cups, cardboard cup sleeves and plastic tops.

Or Starbucks could actually ask if you would like your coffee “for here”, and then put it in a reusable cup.

Some day I am going to open a coffee shop, and I am going to charge people without travel mugs a $5 surcharge.

And I will stay in business, because I will use that $5 surcharge to purchase cocaine and add it to the coffee.

Listen to it. Love it.