Groupon: Hook Me Up

If you haven't opened a Groupon account, you can hook me up by using this link to sign up: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu21516371. You should create an account within 72 hours of clicking the link.

Pick #231

Eddie Rabbit - "I Love a Rainy Night"

Vero Bike Tragedy

My mom sent me this article about a 21 year old on a bike who was struck by an 83 year old driving a tour bus. I'm always struck by the heinous comments of the anti-cyclist camp on news stories like this. There are also assinine comments on this article about a driver who plowed full speed through a group of critical mass riders in Porto Alegre, Brasil.

It turns out that motorists are assholes...at least everyone is more of an asshole when they are behind the wheel. You can be a nice person, but get behind the wheel of a car and you feel somehow empowered. You are more susceptible to road rage and you're in a killing machine. Driving is a dangerous, expensive habit. Drivers don't care about paying full attention to the road. They send text messages and eat hamburgers while they reach for something they dropped and change the radio station. Drivers view their license as a birth right, not a privilege.

Let me also take this time to say that some cyclists are assholes. They run red lights and flick off cars who go on green. They ride on the left side of the street. They don't have reflectors or lights and ride in the dark. They slowly cross the road in front of oncoming traffic. Some of the ill will of drivers toward cyclists is engendered by this behavior.

If we had more bicycle infrastructure and made it feasible for people who aren't quite as extreme as me to get around using two wheeled transportation, then we could drastically lower the prevalence of accidents like this while reducing obesity and pollution. We would lower health care costs and road maintenance costs. Bikes are much lighter than cars and you can fit way more of them into the same area. A parking spot for one car can hold 6+ bikes. Likewise a lane for moving traffic can hold way more bikes than cars. Also, people I know who drive despise their commute (except for some motorcycle drivers I know). Cyclists generally enjoy their commute. If more of your colleagues biked to work, there would be a friendlier work environment and probably higher productivity too.

In many cases it's just as fast to cycle or cycling can add 3-5 mintues to a trip. Not much time is lost by cycling. Everyone can win. Get more people on bikes and cars can have less traffic to contend with. The question is "how do we shift the paradigm?"

Changing my Birthday

My dad was born really close to Christmas and always talks about how he'd like to change his birthday. He doesn't have a facebook account, but if he did then he could put a different birthday on there. I think it would be funny to change my birthday on facebook and see how many of my "friends" wished me a happy one. I hear that this stunt has been done before. I imagine it's pretty effective at drawing birthday wishes on a day that's not actually your birthday.

Take Back the Tap

Food and Water Watch (.org) has a campaign to "Take Back the Tap" where they want you to stop buying bottled water and instead use tap water to fill your reusable bottle. I saw some of their reps at the Rez Goes Green event this past weekend. One of them asked me if I would agree to stop buying bottled water. I had to tell her that I've been one step ahead for a few years.

There's a section on the website on how to "free your event" from bottled water. It was super easy for Tri the Rez. We just put water in those big 5 gallon coolers and let people fill their own cups. Now, I know you're thinking that there's still cup waste going on and you're right. It would be best if people would fill a reusable water bottle with the cooler water. However, it's way more eco-friendly to transport 500 empty cups than it is 500 half-liter water bottles.

Check out their website then stop buying bottled water!

Judgement Day Date:

I ran into a dude on campus today who was down here from New Jersey on a tour with Family Radio letting people know that the world would end on May 21, 2011!! That's soon!! I tried to engage this guy in conversation, but he wouldn't really have it. He told me that he's convinced himself that this is the correct date and that I need to convince myself. He recommends using the King James version of the Bible because it's the least watered down. I told him that it's not in the vernacular and he said that I could work through the olde English. I asked about the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible, which is translated from the original source and he just repeated to use the King James.

I said that this group was taking a big gamble on this. If May 21, 2011 passes without incident, then they've lost ALL credibility. He said that he would be ready for Judgement Day when it comes and that it's best to be prepared. He had definitely made up his mind that this is happening. He would not entertain a counterfactual (or in this case, maybe just a factual).

I took his literature even though, or perhaps because, I thought this doomsday prediction was a little out of the ordinary. It has interesting math in it and some questionable stretches of the imagination (e.g. "In 2 Peter 3:8,...one day is as 1,000 years. Therefore, with the correct understanding that the seven days referred to in Genesis 7:4 can be understood as 7,000 years, we learn that when God told Noah there were seven days to escape worldwide destruction, He was also telling the world there would be exactly 7,000 years (one day is as 1,000 years) to escape the wrath of God...")

If you're curious about this, I would totally recommend checking out their site. I especially like the 2012 with a circled red slash through it, but there's such other gems as: Another Infallible Proof and Gay Pride: Sign of the End. I wonder if they'll have a radio show on May 22nd.

Pick #230

Arctic Monkeys - "Mardy Bum" from Beneath the Boardwalk