St. Pattys Day Wrap up, and Punch and Pie.

Well for my three readers, St. Pats has come and gone and for most people in Cleve-burg they spend their one day downtown, so they can go back to leaving us the fuck alone and letting us work. It started normal, as all days do, at Roccos with coffee and my fifteen minutes of prep time for the day. Write paperwork, chat with Brendan, watch Sports Center. I had noticed a few bars displaying "open" signs as I drove by and saw the House of Blues had quite the crowd going. But, alas morning routes and coffee beckoned so I rode on by. The morning seemed rather tame, I finished up my routes, called in clear and got to stand by for a second. I knock a few short runs out and about 1045 hits and my phone starts blowing up. The worst part about this was that I specifically told everyone to not call things in around 11 am, its when the bulk of the crowds start to fill in at that point making it a nightmare. But who would listen to me, I'm only the guy out on the roads every day, thats crazy talk! I continue to dodge the crowds for another hour and WHAM, not like a sex machine I get a pick and drop out of 200 Public.
Both Sidewalks, and the streets surrounding this building are full of parade viewers, they're all shambling aimlessly west and I'm trying desperately to get around the building to find a pole to lock to. After the first sixty or so people won't make any space for me I do the only thing I think Might work, I pick up my bike, throw it over my shoulder and carry it Cyclo-cross style. This luckily works, as the drunks notice my wheel above the crowds and get the hell out of my way. On the Euclid side I lock to the pole near the entrance and try to get in. Only one door is open, and there's at least fifty people aimlessly standing there, drinking and smoking. Fucking great, well, this is why I make the big bucks so I push my way through. Inside 200 is an oasis of calm. No one but building tenants and deliveries is being let in, it's quiet, calm and a wonderful break. I pick and drop, call in and get my next order, two out of CMBA. I edge through the crowds and loop around Ontario to St Clair.
I get to CMBA and I see my envelopes, one is for Fort Knox, aka 127 public square, the other is for the House Of Blues box office. What.... the.... fuck.... Do these people know the crowd out front of that building? That place opened at 5, and when I passed it at 7 it was packed. It's now about noon and I already know this isn't going to go well. I loop back around ontario past 127 and head for the House of Blues. The street reminds me of what the zombie uprising must look like. People shuffling aimlessly, vomiting, and laying in the middle of the street. I lock to a dumpster and sort my way through the crowd. About halfway through the crowd I hit a wall, I try to move some kid, I say kid, because if he's 19, I'll be amazed. I move him to the side and hear "get your hands off my friend asshole". Fuck, this is all I need, underage drunky magee. I try to explain I'm just walking by, apologize and I'm talking to a drunk wall. A wall I might add that is about 6'2" and I'm on a good day 5'8". I see him wheel back a drunken haymaker at me and turn my head to protect myself, the punch catches me behind the ear, and its not too hard, I've been hit worse in my time. Knowing they're underage, possibly under 18 fighting back is not an option. So I plant both palms in his chest, knock him ass over tea kettle and walk over him to make my delivery.
The inside of the House of Blues looks like a Civil War hospital. Everyone is groaning and unable to speak. I make my way through the crowd to the box office and make my delivery. The girl at the box office tells me she's happy behind the glass and feels sorry for the security staff. I'm livid at the bartenders who are clearly over serving. But that's something I'll take up later in this none too burning missive.
Through the course of the day I learned what roads are safe to travel and which to avoid, making it quite tolerable. Awful, but much like watching Xanadu tolerable. A few minor run ins, a beer bottle is tossed at me at one point harmlessly bouncing off my shoulder.
On the ride home someone hit me in the face. Either this was a total accident random or a robbery attempt. Either way, I wasn't sticking around to find out, three days later I'm changing steri strips twice a day and my jawline still fucking hurts. But, all this and more for next to no money a year I guess. I get home, patch my face and get some fucking sleep finally.
My biggest beef is this with St. Pats, is that we have it during the work week. Every other major city has theirs on a weekend. So you can choose or choose not to go and partake or if you have to work you can still do your job. The over serving downtown was quite evident, I would have cut off half the crowd, at least. I think that's a situation that needs to be addressed next year. I know it won't but still it makes me feel better to bitch about it.

This link is for the new guy, He's very nearly done with his Bolton Tattoo, and soon will get his Kenny G face tattoo. Honest Abe, this is for you. Sunday morning, yo.

Well, it's off to work on my face, Gotta keep my sexy up, as Diddy used to say.

Mahallo

This might be worse than Troll 2.

And for those of you playing along at home, that is Birdemic:Shock and Terror. This movie is amazingly shitty. As evidenced here, coat hangers to ward off malicious digital birds? Yep, that's the way to do it, not maybe stay in the fucking hotel room. But then again, they are white people in a horror film, they're gonna die. For my two readers I think you should certainly rent this movie, netflix will ship it to you judgement free for a nominal fee a month.
Onto bikes, Oh, do I have to? I've been considering updating my road drivetrain for a bit of time, and the expense was making me insane. As it stands I have a 9 speed group, and constantly seem to top it out, much to my annoyance. So I found Microshifter ten speed shifters, with both deraileurs on ebay for 240 bucks. I think I'm gonna pull the trigger on them. I mean at that point I'm a cassette and a lab changeover from having twenty speeds. Oh and chainrings, but thats moot anyhow, you've gotta change those anyway.
We made a roster addition, my adoring public, he's currently getting made over in the basement, meaning a full back tatoo of Michael Bolton so you can't meet him yet. But I assure you he's pretty cool and we're really glad to have him on board. Honest Abe in the house!

Well, hope this was the last snow of the year. I'm pretty tired of it and want it to go away. Have a good weekend all and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Side Effects of being the early guy include....

So, its 715 in the morning and all the world is still sleeping on this snowy sunday. Oh, not me my two readers. I've been up for twenty minutes trying desperately to get back to sleep. Alas, that is not gonna happen. So out of courtesy to the rest of the world I decided to silently internet a bit as opposed to what I really wanted to do, which is vogue to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way". Oh shit, did I say that out loud, I meant blast early Metalica and wear black shirts... Oh shits...
Well, we had a team meeting Friday and all went well, except for Captain Whore-Hay's terrible haircut. He looks like a guy in a Japanese Beatles tribute band. Jerseys were approved and hopefully will be up and available to smash your faces with soon, prospective team members discussed, and of course, pizza eaten. It had been a bit since we had all gotten together and we hope to have team pics and bios up soon. Standard issue info, height, weight, turn ons, turn offs, favorite movies and of course the most important stat of all, dumbest drunk ebay purchase of all time.
It snowed again yesterday, much to my annoyance. I'm hoping it cuts this shit out soon I want to get out there and ride my real bike and not worry about kicking up shit from the road. Winter just won't get the hint that its not working out for us and move the hell on so if you guys and gals see winter about tell her to move on to somewhere else, I need my space. Not Myspace, nobody goes there anymore. Or Friendster.
We here at scum city also are equal opportunity life destroyers. So, if you're a lady and you read this blog, that's a huge if. I don't think I have much in the way of female readership, let alone, readership at all. But if you're a lady and want to take up bike racing hit us up, as it stands we have no ladies on the team so if you're currently a free agent and want to race on the only team where Four Loko is a recovery drink, leave a comment, or talk to one of us. I assure you we don't bite. Unless you're comprised strangely of Seitan, then you're on you're own. Will gets hungry sometimes. So, if you're a lady and not the product of some mad scientist splicing of human and wheat protein we'd love to have you on board. I mean this love boat needs a Julie the Cruise director, right?
In lighter news, This blog would have taken about 4 minutes to write had a cat, meow, not flushing the toilet been begging for attention. Which is roughly 10 percent annoying and 7000 percent adorable. But that goes without saying.
Now onto important shizzle. Apparently cross is going to be all the rage next year, as I just bopped over to velonews, despite the worst web design ever I read shimano is doing some cross specific groupse next year to compete with Sram. Eh, my race rig won't change much, might toss a Crabon Fibre fork on and change the one gear I have to a much much lower one. Outside of that, I still intend to race and fail singlespeed next season. I think Sram is gonna be the go to for cross due to the fact the replacement parts are relatively cheap, although all bike component pricing is a complete shit show. You have to buy a 1500 dollar bike anymore to get anything even half decent. Dear bike companies, make this bike, 105 group, average frame, average wheels for 1000 dollars. I don't think that's impossible. Hell, you might get even more people to ride road bikes instead of buying hybrids. But, thats just me in my sunday morning soap box space, sorry guys.
Well, its time to make this sunday full of winning. And Tiger Blood.

Take care all, and don't do anything charlie sheen wouldnt do.

I mean at this point...

This team should be sponsored by Bonktown. If you like bikes, have a smart phone and don't have the updater, you're a damned fool. I've gotten so much awesome stuff super cheap.

I'm pretty tired today, it turned into a pile really quick, so I think I'm gonna just lay down soon and get some sleep.

Today

Today was a good day.