Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me #10

Well, I've been watching TV commercials and getting annoyed again. This time it is a brand that many cyclists (especially the tech gear lovers) know well, Garmin. Here's the commercial:

OK, so where to start. First, the small, personal annoyance: Why does it appear to be effective marketing to paint spouses (wives in particular) as annoying shrews with these "honey-do" lists?

Hey, don't blame me. It's Garmin's commercial.

Even the phrase "honey-do" pisses me off. People seem to like a homonym for something like honeydew, I guess, but that's no excuse. We all have shit to do, for our families, our friends, ourselves and sometimes even, god forbid, for our spouses! WTF is wrong with that? I'll bet you a gazillion dollars that men who feel hard done by because they have chores or errands to do are also pampered little assholes who married clones of their fawning mothers rather than somebody they could respect for doing a hell of a lot more than pulling their own weight, as most wives and Moms I know do. Grrrr. Honey-do. Bah. Urg.

Now, let's turn to the more obvious problem with this commercial. To quote the commercial:

It's an insane amount of stuff, so you can do the one thing you're supposed to do: Drive.

Are You #%^1n' Kiddin' Me? How does an "insane amount of stuff" help you concentrate on driving? Is putting all the distractions of your phone on your dash so you can see them occurring much less distracting? I don't think so, and neither does the cartoon man in the commercial. Where is he looking as he travels along being annoyed by his wife? At his Garmin! Look!

And then he's

Then, at the end when he's supposed to be "doing the one thing you're supposed to do: Drive", he's still not right...

Sorry, cartoon man, but I need to re-arrange your face!

I lacked the skills to turn his head, but you get my drift.

Now as an added and completely unrelated bonus, I took this picture of my TV a good while ago:

All I inferred from this commercial is that people who rush in to Honda sales events are so stupid they don't know how to carry a pizza. So sad.


Thanks for reading! Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

The King of Autumn - 2016

Well, I didn't get around to taking a picture of the King this year until he was starting to go bald, but for what's it's worth, here he is:

For those of you who aren't familiar, I dubbed this tree the King of Autumn years ago. He was the starting point of an annual foliage contest, the Rantwick Autumn Tree Smackdown! That contest is currently on hiatus lazicus (look it up in the rantwick-to-latin dictionary) and may well see a revival in 2017, but obviously I'm to late too do it this year.

Anyway, it was a weird year because many leaves were falling away while the lower boughs were still green. At least the King didn't look like these jokers in the same park...

I mean, what was going on with these weirdos I wonder? When I retrieved this photo from my phone, it reminded me that I had a something else I wanted to write up about that little photo stop. Since it is really just some trivial ramblings, I have just now decided that they MUST be included in this post! 

Just past the right edge of this picture sat the Rantwick family car containing Mrs. and Daughter Rantwick, who were patiently waiting for me. Just past the left edge of this picture were a couple of young girls doing cartwheels and saumersalts and stuff. Like this:

When I got back to the car my wife and daughter said they were glad I hadn't lingered around or taken too many pictures. You know why? They said a middle aged guy on his own taking pictures in a park anywhere near children was creepy. I don't know what made me more sad, the fact that anyone would think that about a simple tree nut like me or the fact that I saw their point. We live in a fearful and cynical time; I can't claim to know where reasonable caution ends and paranoia begins, but it seems to me that most of us are more afraid than we need to be. Then again, tell that to a victim of somebody awful. Urg. Have I got you completely bummed out yet? I've brought myself down pretty good, gotta say.

On the brighter side, I got to draw thisand this for this blog post, which was fun. As easy as it is to search up an image of whatever you want these days, I still take great pleasure in making things like this from scratch. Anyway, that's it for now and I hope to be posting again soon. Thanks so much for stopping and reading this!

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Catching Up

July 18? That can't be the last time I posted here! Holy crap, man! I mean, like, I stopped posting for a while and Donald Fucking Trump got elected President of the United States of America. W T F. PREVIOUSLY POSTED POLITICAL RANT REDACTED.

When I originally posted this I was a little more judgy and ranty than usual. There's plenty of bad vibe political stuff out there and I really don't need to be piling on like that, so sorry. More than ever, I think I need to revert to my usual cycle joy joy ways. Also, I will try to remember that a few beers go a lot further than they used to with me these days, if you catch my drift.

Speaking of things we don't speak of, however, I had a stroke about eight months ago that I swore I wouldn't mention again. I remain committed to not making this blog about stroke, but as many of my readers may have figured at the time, I won't be able to talk about myself (the single most important human ever) without talking about stroke. Mine was a hemorrhagic, not ischemic, which makes me a stroke weirdo, really. Anything I have to say doesn't apply to most stroke victims.

When I went into rehab, my singlemost important goal was riding again. I'm doing it on a regular basis now and have been since mid summer, but it drains me in a way it never did before. That said, I still love it and continue to ride as much as I can, usually to work and back on my new super duper bike of sick obsessive buildy love.

I've got some overdue pics of The King and some video I hope to post soon, but for now I hope it is enough that I've touched base. If you're reading this, I Love  You. If you're reading this and have read this blog before, I Love You Even More. 

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K