Holy Hanna thank God it's over...

I mean, le Tour de France of course. It's been a week or so since the race has been over, and now my life can turn back into a more normal pace of things. I say this, because being a cyclist, people seem to think that you are going to know the ins and outs of Lance Armstrong's life probably better than the man himself does. Of course, I know lots of information about the man, including how he was doing in the race on a day by day basis, but that doesn't mean I want to discuss it at every single turn. No! It does not. I love bicycle racing probably more than any sport going out there (except maybe shuffleboard), but damn folks, leave me the Hell alone when you want to know something about Armstrong. But of course, since the folks asking me these questions are more likely to be NASCAR fans, or would more likely spend time driving down the road throwing bottles at guys who ride bikes, I guess I can oblige them, and answer their questions. Maybe it'll save me a bottle to the back of the head later on down the road. But then again, probably not. I actually do like to tell these folks about bike racing, it's just that, they only care about it, well most of them, because there is an American kicking French ass in France's hometown race. And since France didn't really support us in the war with Iraq, most of the stupid ass rednecks hate the French now, just for that reason, even though they have no idea why they didn't support the US in the first place, and they also have a misplaced sense of history, since if it weren't for the French, we'd still be an English colony. They forget about these things indeed. These same people are the ones who actually wanted to, and did change the French Fries they were selling in the cafeteria of the place that I work in, into "Freedom Fries". I'm also sorry to say that the whole first proponent of that little stupid ass re-naming of a fast food in the Capitol eatery in Washington DC came from a North Carolina representative, but I digress. I can fufill them with tales of Armstrong, and they seem happy about it, and like I said, since they most likely usually only pay attention to the Big 3 sports in the US (football, basketball, and to a lesser extent baseball), I'm glad to see them branching out, even though their branching out will no doubt end as of now, since Lance old boy retired immediately after le Tour de France this year. Au revoir Lance. Thanks for getting the rednecks to pay attention to something other than fishing on OLN, and then you take off. Damn boy, would should have stayed around just a little while longer, and it's possible these guys would really start following the sport.

The other reason I'm glad the Tour is over, is my guilty little pleasure known as www.roadbikereview.com. There is a forum section on there, and I post on there, a lot. Not as much as some, but a lot. There is a procycling forum on there, and when the Tour started, the newbies came flooding in like a plague. I like newbies for the most part, but when different newbies ask the same questions over and over and over again, it's time to give them the verbal smackdown via the internet. For instance, I can't remember how many posts there were on there about why Alexandre Vinokourev was wearing a blue colored jersey as opposed to his team's regular color jersey (his regular color was pink, oops, I mean magenta). The first time, I could see this question being asked. It was because he was and is the Kazakh national champion, and his national champs jersey was and is blue. Easy enough. But when this question kept coming up again, and again, and again, and again, and I mean someone new would post this question every other day on there, it was time to go off on someone and tell them to use the damn search function. The same thing went for the question they kept asking about the yellow tabs on the rear of the bikes (transponder for timing and results). That question was asked I don't know how many times over the course of the Tour. I mean, come on people, just get a little clue about something, pay attention to the broadcast, because they answered your questions on there about a kajillion times over the course of the 3 weeks. I don't know why I let these things bother me. I don't know at all. I shouldn't, but they do, and then I answer. As sarcastically and as biting as possible. I can't help myself, and of course people get pissed about this, and tell me things like, "If you don't like the subject of this post, don't respond to it." You see though, it's like crack to me. I can't help it. I HAVE to respond to people being dumb asses. It's just my nature. It's not that I'm not a dumb ass either, because believe me when I say it, I am, it's just that they're being a bigger dumb ass than I could ever possibly be. I think if I ever went to a meeting of people that post on there, I would most definitely get beat down. There are only a few people on there that seem to think like I do, so maybe we could all be outlaws together or something, and form our own posse. Just maybe. Then there is the General forum, where people just post random thoughts, like, "I was on a ride today, and fell down." I hate to say it, but who the hell cares if you fell on your ass or not? Hardly anyone. Of course people respond like, glad you're OK, glad you were wearing your helmet, and so on. Which of course always leads to another thread about helmet use and its actual effectiveness, and then that will lead to whether or not you should wear a walkman while riding, and then campy versus Shimano. Those 3 threads. Walkman wearing, helmet wearing, and campy versus shimano are the battles of yore. They come up about once per week, and then you get 1000+ views, and 100+ responses to the most stupid questions. I've gotten involved with those before, never again my friends, never again. But like I said, I can't help myself sometimes. I think it might be a disease or something like that. It's awful. I'm taking myself away from it this week, and see how my life improves. It's sad when the jerkoffs in the procycling forum can piss me off more than the jerkoffs in the political forum. Now I know it's time to stop for a short while before I totally piss everyone off in there.

Speaking of sports though. Go and see the movie Murderball about the wheelchair rugby team of the US. It's good, it's a great look at this team, and their stories of how they got to where they are now, and how they approach life, sport, and their injuries. It's great stuff really. I couldn't highly recommend it more. I saw it this afternoon, and I was entranced. As with all movies that I think are great, if I kind of just go into a daze, and I'm totally into it, and don't talk and barely move during the movie, that's a good sign. That's how it was with this movie. So go and see it. I even recommend it as highly as say, Wedding Crashers, or Samurai Champloo. A few of my favorites right now indeed.

It's now approaching 9:50 or so in the PM on Sunday night, and this dog is tired. Time to rack out, and approach Monday morning with a zeal not seen since the time of, well, I don't know since the time of what really... It just sounded good. I dread Monday mornings indeed, as I have to go back to work at the place I call work. I hope I can get some stuff done this week, and not be distracted by how much it kind of sucks there. I know, I know. I can get through the remainder of this year pretty easy I think, and then maybe start looking for something new and exciting maybe next year. It's hard to give up the flexibility of the place that I work now, and it's hard to give up a boss who doesn't give a damn about much of anything aside from her kids. Now, don't get me wrong. It's great that she's so into her kids, but there has to be a line. She was on vacation last week, and was claiming to us, as loudly as she could, that this was her first week of vacation this year. Bullshit my friends, bullshit. That woman has been out of work more than she's been in I think this year, but since the other days were just half days here and there, and not "official" vacation days they didn't count. I can't actually remember a week when she's been in the office every single day, which is why I don't feel bad coming in early, and leaving early, or taking a fake "dentist" day here and there, and things like that. If she doesn't care about things; why should the rest of us? As you go up the food chain at my place of employment, it gets worse. The Plant Manager is even worse than my boss, but we get along well, so I've got that one dialed in. I do care about the quality of my work though, and I think I do a pretty good job on a daily basis, but I just don't feel too bad at all about bending the rules for my own benefit. Same as the rest of the folks that I work with. I will say this though. I still get there, put in my 9 to 10 hours per day and then leave. If I get there at 8, well, I'm stuck there until 5 for sure. But if I get there at 7, you can sure as hell bet that I'm taking off at 4. If I get there by 6:30, well, can't get out at 3:30, but 4 is the latest I'll go. But the job is getting boring more and more so, and the automotive quality world is usually just a bunch of people yelling at you all of the time. When you do bad, you get yelled at. When you do good, there's quiet. I like quiet.

10:00PM. Time to sleep.