Well here’s to seeing new articles in a week(?)!

I’m on a messenger bag kick, but that’s what the readers like.  Not sure why, but if you want to see more leave a comment otherwise I’m doing my own thing again.

Yeti bags are individual works of art in the messenger bag business.  They range from using old, recycled, materials to the new.  The bag in the picture, for instance, was hand sewn with dental floss.  I question the strength of that bag though I’d imagine it’s more for show than actual use.  Other than that, if you want something that is hand made to your specifications then Yeti may be a place to check out.

Bekah Worley is offering three different styles of recycled messenger bags on her Etsy store. The bags look great, though without checking one out in person I’d hate to vouch for their durability.  If you think about it, a plastic bag is fairly strong for how much it carries so by layering them it should make a pretty strong bag.  Well if your into that whole environment thing, maybe this bag is up your alley.

This video is a classic among fixed gear nuts, bike messengers, and anyone interested in crazy videos. In reality what they are doing is not really that crazy; it just looks like it. Enjoy!

Image credited to Smart Planet.

Continuing on with the messenger bag trend I’m somehow following, I found an article on Smart Planet that explains how to convert your old bag into a solar charging bag.  It’s a great idea since you would be recycling your old bag instead of buying a new bag that has solar cells.  Since it would be a worn-in bag that you already know well, there is no weird learning curve of dealing with a new bag.  The solar cells that they use are a bit intrusive, so if you are a natural hacker you’ll find a better way of incorporating it into your bag (like removing the case and sewing the cells into an unused portion of you bag) rather than just slapping it on.

Moral of the story: There is a reason why people put grocery sacks around their seats

It’s a busy week, but I need to step up the search for a large road bicycle frame ( 61cm+).  My current frame needs a lot of love which I’m willing to give.  Hell, I’ll never give it up or let it down.  I definitely run around with it but shall never desert it.  Damned good bike frame.  Getting to the actual work, I’ll have to strip the paint, sand it where there is some deep rust, take a dremel and remove cable clips which are beyond saving, and give it a new paint job.  I look forward to doing it though without a new frame to transfer my parts to, I’ll have to wait.

I don’t think I can put it off another summer, but if the need calls hopefully “my other car” can take the hit for another year.  It’s actually kind of sad since I’d rather take the time to treat the rust on my bike which I use for probably 1.5-2 seasons out of the year than treat the rust on the actual car which I use all year.  I guess it’s due to the fact that there are junk yards out there full of Cavalier doors whereas I can’t find a junkyard full of large-sized bike frames.  Well it’s that or I don’t really care if the damn door rusts.  I’m keeping *that car until it falls apart.

*Unless a white turbo-diesel mid to late 70’s Mercedes drops into my lap at a reasonable price

With the popularity that was the Asaekkiga / Chu-ri-ning comics I had posted a while ago, I started thinking about Suehiro Maruo’s work.  My old downstairs neighbor George had originally shown me some of Maruo’s work over a couple of years ago.  He dug out a few books to show me some of the panels as examples and entertained me for hours with descriptions of different stories he had stumbled upon.  Typically mundane details from anyone else would bore me, but George had a way of telling tales.  It’s hard to describe, but listening to him explain how hard it was to order a particular English translation of a Suehiro Maruo book had a way of making you feel like it was your struggle too . After days of mixed interrogation into George for more information and forfeited details, I was drawn into his world.  His world being of Suehiro Maruo.  I embraced the gore and filth that littered the pages in his comics (if you could really call them that) while appreciating his artistic abilities.  Maruo would begin his stories with a tale of youth, innocence, or survival.  From there, straying from our typical worldview template that from bad situations comes good, Maruo would then take the story and make it more screwed up than most people wish to imagine. An example of Suehiro Maruo’s storytelling style can be found in Midori.  Midori is a tale of a young girl who’s mother dies and leaves her orphaned.  A circus owner takes advantage of the situation and makes her a slave to the circus.  Midori is forced to do the daily chores of the performers and is led into many unfortunate circumstances that are out of her control.  The story improves when a small magician enters the circus one day, bringing hope to the young girl and eventually marrying her.  What he does to those who punished Midori, and even Midori herself, is just plain crazy…though for Maruo it’s actually fairly tame. Maybe that’s why I like Suehiro Maruo so much over most artists.  His stories end where he believes they should be and not where society dictates they need to be.  By being outside the template and showing the readers horror and filth, he causes them to take an introspective look into how they see themselves and where they really fit into the world. Well it’s those reasons plus I really like messed up stories in general.

My cell phone has been broken for the past few months.  In a fit of early morning rage due to the alarm not turning off, I hit the phone repeatedly against the wall.  I honestly didn’t think I was doing it hard enough to do any damage, but I was wrong.  The screen spider-webbed, with only some of the text obscured.  It was managable, since I could still find contacts and see what the time was.  Using Bluetooth, I can pull all of the names and calendar events off the phone without fearing that they are lost forever.

My “minor” damage after a while has increased to the point where the screen is barely visible.  Most of it is a giant black mark that occasionally vibrates.  I am lucky to tell if the phone is on loud or ringer off now.  Yesterday I dropped the phone and managed to step on it during the process of finding it.  Well I found it with a missing volume button and messed up the already bad screen even more.  I’m guessing that this cell phone was doomed to die.  I’m also guessing that I’ll have to go buy a new screen before the two-year phone replacement comes up with Verizon, ensuring that I get a new phone for fairly cheap.

This is not the first time I’ve had issues with a cell phone.  I used to own a Treo 300 that resembled a grey pocket brick that could flip out and zap Klingon’s.  It was a freaking beast.  The beast, to its credit, had some of the best reception and had an awesome conference mode.  It was not to my fortune that the beast also had some of the thinnest gauge wiring between where the ear piece/cover would flip out.  After, lets say six months, of ownership it started to flake out.  I had to open the phone and rewire the damn thing.

By the time I had to order a new phone just for replacement parts, I had replaced the wiring completely and ran out of points on the board that I could re-route the ear piece to.  The phone had other considerable wear at this point too.  Paint had worn in on the phone, removing the metallic grey paint and just leaving a dull grey finish on the old phone.  Buttons stopped functioning and the screen had dirt between the glass.  The replacement parts only limped my phone along just a bit longer, until it got to the point where my mother sent me her old phone so I’d have something reliable.

What I am trying to get at is, well, you would be surprised by how refreshing it is to have a phone that isn’t broken.  I guess you just don’t appreciate that fact until your phone starts to flake out.

The weather in the past couple weeks has been warm enough to keep all of the melting snow and rain from freezing overnight on the pavement. The wind doesn’t bite into the face as much when walking down the street. The joggers are out in their skin-tight clothing wearing their custom iPod ear buds. These are the signs that biking time is near.

The only way I could have biked earlier would have been if I had Warren Buffet’s insurance. Since I have a fixed gear bike, I can only bike during certain times of year. The wheels are narrow, there is only one brake (for legal purposes), and the tires themselves don’t have enough depth in the tread to take any snow. Trying to use my bike in the winter would be playing Russian roulette and instead of a bullet to the brain it would be whichever bone I break slamming into the ground. Just because I had the common sense not to bike does not mean others didn’t have a clue.

Well, I’m going to take this pre-biking season to do maintenance. If it’s still pre-biking season for you, I’d suggest doing the same. Fill up the tires with air, check the chain and lube it up, tighten down the bolts, make sure the brakes work, and check for rust. Doing the work now will mean you won’t need to spend a couple hours on the first nice day of spring doing bike work as opposed to riding. You’ll thank yourself.