Want a laugh?

It Takes a Village Idiot: The Jerks of Online Forums
The 13 Most Embarrassing Web Moments
Top 10 Tech Embarrassments You'll Want to Avoid
Jerks of the Web
pretty amusing stuff, if you ask me.

Three bright spots in the year! Yeah! We should be so proud! Whoo!

(but other than three things, 2010 was a train wreck.)
Dave Barry's Year in Review: Why 2010 Made Us Sick | Washington Post

Speaking of alien planets, in ...

FEBRUARY

... Iran triumphantly announces (we are not making this item up) that it has launched into sub-orbital space a rocket carrying a rodent, two turtles and several worms. Iranian state television reports that the nation's space program is "peaceful," and that the rodent (we are still not making this up) is named "Helmz 1."

If your furniture needs instructions, you need new furniture

We've all seen these things around the Portland transit mall, right? At first glance they look something like a redesigned bike locking places, correct? I though they were, and many other people still do.

Well, TriMet is out to trick and confuse us. These are not places to lock your bike. I've heard that if you lock your bike to one of these things, it can and will be confiscated.
That's right.

These things that look a heck of a lot like bike racks and would be a very nice design for bike racks are not at all what they seem. No. TriMet calls these 'leaning rails'. They are part of the design flow for the Portland Transit Mall. Crews took out the handy blue bike racks and have replaced them with these leaning rails and a few bike racks that look like this ---->

Now these, these are a much worse design compared to the Transit Mall's 'leaning rails'. The rough edges scratch the bikes and make it much trickier to lock your bike to it. At least those old blue bike racks were rounded so the bikes didn't get scratched.

As confusion arose about where you could lock your bike in the transit mall, TriMet began placing stickers on the so called 'leaning rails' as shown in the picture to the right.

This just makes me laugh. Really, TriMet? You are going to waste time placing stickers on your new 'leaning rails' when you simply could just let them be used as great bike locking places? And I had to walk around a bit on the transit mall to find this 'leaning rail' with a sticker on it. Not many of them have the stickers. I found this one halfway up the block between Jefferson st. and Columbia st. on 5th.

These 'leaning rails' can hold up to four bikes if everyone is considerate. Much handier than the old design. And what's more is that there are plenty more of these 'leaning rails' in the transit mall than the original staple bike rack designed ones. Many, many more.

So, TriMet, why not just let us bikers use these pointless 'leaning rails' as bike racks? Heck. No one really knows what they are supposed to be at first glance anyways.
The 'leaning rails' are a joke.

After all, TriMet, if your furniture needs instructions, you need new furniture.




Anyways, what ever happened to benches and who ever came up with that silly idea of leaning rails?

A Progressive Strategy for 2011-2012 that Does Not Require Capitulation or Self-Destruction?

Words of Power