Papers are the dog's

anus. I am sittin' at my desk/ kitchen table, trying to write some butt-fudge about how history is portrayed by Hollywood with specific reference to three particular films, but what it bubbles down to is that I just don't care none. But one more week of this "school" noise and I will be much done forever mo'. In the meantime, I gotta tough it. In the words of the Indelible and Inedible Hebrew Hammer, Mr. M. Q. Kleiman, "You've got to learn how to suffer."
scooter

I present the Ambassador,

Mr. Ita Fatwun. I have ruminated, and I have arrived, after great delay and thought, at a conclusion which has profound ramifications for both myself and my immediate circle:
School sucks-- a dick.
That's right: I am way tired of this bole-shit. I have, in my tenure at the College, learned absolutely nothing, and at the same time, wasted all of the time I could have devoted to my lifelong dream of dropping a 32-ounce turd, without pinching, such that it curled up in the bottom of the bowl. This plan, codenamed "Snakecharmer," consumed my senior year of high school in a flurry of whispered conspiracies, hastily-drawn sketches on cocktail napkins, and periods of profound and rigorous thought undertaken in the swaying, creaking bathrooms of Greyhound buses bound for mid-sized Northeastern cities. I lost my childhood to the glorious and ghostly dream of a two-pound shit-- and now I'm ready to take it back. In preparation for this undertaking, I have focused even more intensely-- such that smoke emanates from beneath the curvature of my eyeballs, between the wet and yellow cornea and the sagging grey flesh of the lid-- on my colon-punishing training diet. The number one rule of this program is: If it ain't sizzled pig fat or dried grapes, it ain't for shit.
In writing this note, it has dawned on me that nobody reads this blog, and if anyone does, they get here via a link from a cycling site. Therefore, I will provide this dubious link between cycling and pooping:
If you could take a two-pound shit, thereby dropping that weight from your overall bike-rider package, you'd be looking at the sort of difference you'd have to spend about a grand in a bike shop to get. That is to say, a shit of gargantuan proportions could save you about a thousand bucks.
Speaking of cycling and stomach-turningly-foul fecal treacle, recent events in France make it imperative that you throw some ducats at these guys. That's all, folks, sorry I rambled on. More to come on Friday.

Sandy Casar

Rocks. Today he wins the gant violet- the purple glove with the missing middle finger-- in recognition of his daring and repeated use of the word "fuck" in an interview with cyclingnews. Rock on, Sandy-- your name is viable for men, women, and dogs.
On another note, the promised As the Toto Turns. Very rad.
For those interested, right now as far as training I'm moving into the "brownie" phase. This occurs late in the season and typically is set off by finding a shitpot of brownies in the kitchen. I'm running about three brownies a day, which is awesome, but it's left my bowels in a ruin. I'm going to have to struggle today to muster up anything more than a thin gruel of methane and pre-owned chocolate.
Scooter

Tour de Peake

Did the crit down in Chesapeake yesterday, had a good time. Didn't finish terribly well but I felt consistent through the whole race... just a little lacking when it started to pick up through the end. In the last lap, there were two big crashes, including one where a guy broke a leg. At that point, I was in the back, where we were scattered enough that we could ride around the mess, so I moved up about 10 places on the final lap. Now I'm tired-- been skipping sleep to write papers. I think, now, that I'm done road racing for the year... the Blue Ridge Extreme century might be in the works though.
scooter

oh dong, but

stage racin' hurts. Oh me oh my it does. Saturday's course was "rolling" by Pennsylvania standards but very hill compared to flat SE VA. About halfway through I got shelled, and managed with another rider to get back on. At about 38 miles of 45 I started to feel the pain for reals, though, and that same rider, one other, and myself all shelled simultaneously. Boo for that shit. We tried to keep steady, hoping that people would fall off the pack on the last lap and that we would be able to pass a few, but to no avail. I got a few glimpses of the peloton as they went up some of the hills, looked (from where I was) like about 20-30 guys... not so bad for a starting field of 88, right? Wrong. I got 59/88, forget that noise. Sunday was an 8-mile TT. The dirty Pennsylvanians claimed it was one short climb, and one long, out-of-the-saddle climb. When I had to stand up on the first one I realized just how flat it is around here. My time would have gotten me in the top 10 in the Cat 5s... but in the 4s I got around 50-60th again. Then, Sunday afternoon, following a restless few hours of reading Willa Cather for class, we got our crit on. A dozen or so Cat 4s were waiting on the side of the course for the 5s to finish, and as soon as the cooldown lap passed we were on the way to the line. When we got there, however, there was a fucking army of riders already lined up. I kind of knew then that it was over-- not much chance of passing 50 riders on an itty bitty crit course, and especially not with tired legs (and weak legs even when they're not tired). So when I got dropped, I didn't argue the point... I just rolled around to the finish, dismounted, and quit. Pretty disgraceful but the flesh was weak. The worst part was that some guy (rider A) was behind me a couple laps in when another guy (rider B) started to die off. So I look at A and say "This guy's done, we gotta get around him," and A just kind of wags his head like he's too tired to respond. So I pull around B myself and they both drop off. Then, when I was watching the finish, I saw A still in it, when I had dropped myself just a few minutes after that episode. So rider A, if you're out there: Damn your eyes.
Scooter