Carnivore Light - I Need a Vacation

We're going camping for a few days starting this coming weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it. I know I've been mentioning Canadian Tire an awful lot lately... and now it would seem I'm gonna do it some more. I was looking for power inverters and crank radios and stuff for our trip on the Canadian Tire web site, and stumbled across something unexpected; a carnivore light! Before I could read up on this intriguing item, I saw that it was a flashlight:

I didn't understand. Was the flashlight a carnivore? In that case I really didn't want one. Was the flashlight for carnivores? What kind of carnivores use flashlights?

Owls?

The grandaddy of them all, the mighty T-Rex?

Perhaps Venus Flytrap?

And what carnivore other than Venus Flytrap would have $80 for a flashlight anyway?

Well, I gave my head a shake and stopped thinking such crazy thoughts and read about the flashlight. Turns out it is a "blood tracking" flashlight that can help illuminate blood traces, helping hunters to find game that has been wounded. I went deer hunting once with a friend and his Dad as a teenager, and found that I couldn't pull the trigger. Still, I have no problem with responsible hunters. Some of you may find that kind of gross, but to my mind wounded game is better off found than left to suffer off in the bush somewhere. Still, "carnivore?" Gerber, the maker of the light, also sell an "omnivore" model that doesn't have the blood tracking lights. Going with that logic, I think they should introduce the "herbivore" or "vegan" or maybe the "Veggie Lite", a flashlight for wildlife photographers.

Some of you may be thinking, "what the hell is Rantwick writing about this stupid flashlight for? This has nothing to do with cycling!" There are two points I would like to make in this regard. Firstly, the beauty of writing a blog, whether it appears to have a theme or not, is that I can write about whatever I please. The blog isn't called "cycling stuff", it's called RANTWICK, which means I can be as selfish and random with my subject matter as I wish. I really like that, and my hope is that other people enjoy a change of pace now and then too. Second of all, hunting and cycling sometimes do go together.

image source: pasty.com

And I thought I was a utility cyclist! With carnivores like this around, deer will try anything to get away...

Like I said, I'm going camping and we're leaving Friday morning. That means that there's a ton to do over the next few days that doesn't include blogging. Going by this post, perhaps a little blog break will be a good thing! Anyway, I'm gonna vanish from this space for about a week.

I'll be back next Wednesday to announce the winner of the Captcha contest! Until then, ride your bikes all over the place. Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Note: in case you were considering the carnivore for your blood tracking needs, you should know that it is powered by 4 AA batteries, so it isn't nearly as big as it looks in some of my photoshopped pictures.

Hot Cyclist Pic

Sorry, as you can see the post title was a trick. I just want more people to vote for the CAPTCHA contest.

The CAPTCHA contest poll was overshadowed somewhat by the post on the Ottawa cyclists, and although my stats show plenty of visits, few seem to be voting on a favourite CAPTCHA.

Remember, $5 of cold hard Canadian Tire money hangs in the balance, so if you haven't already done so, go vote now!

Thanks for putting up with me and my deceitful nature,

R A N T W I C K

5 Ottawa Cyclists Mown Down - So Don't Ride A Bike Unless You Are Insane.

A group of 5 cyclists were run over in our nation's capitol over the weekend. Tragedies like this happen from time to time, all over the world. What I want to comment upon is the news coverage I saw last night on CTV.

News clip #1

Half of the coverage is about how dangerous it is to ride your bike. As bad as this single incident is, cycling is not a dangerous activity.

News Clip #2

This time there is at least some focus on car speed. But what burns is the "despite there being a bike lane" reference. Bike lanes rarely make cyclists more safe. Follow these links to see what I mean:

http://www.wright.edu/~jeffrey.hiles/essays/listening/home.html
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/bikelanes.html
http://www.labreform.org/miseducation.html


Many thanks to ChipSeal for providing me with these links. He also wrote some stuff in an email to me that I am confident he would be OK with me posting in public:

In the USA, we have about 800 people on bicycles killed every year, and naturally the majority of them happen in the warmer months when there are more cyclists out. Given that, we ought to expect at least two bicycle deaths a day, on average. And they all make the news because it is unusual. The 43,000 (117 a day) deaths of motorists is so common it rarely makes news unless there is a celebrity or scandal involved. Kids are no longer allowed outside to play because of hysteria over child abductions, which are extremely rare. Every year we are warned to avoid receiving fruit in Halloween excursions for fear of razor-blade sabotage..... an event that has never (That is; Not even once.) been officially recorded by any law enforcement agency in the whole of the United States. These are media generated hysteria! We are losing freedoms because of irresponsible media outlets breathless headlines to garner a bigger audience. Just turn them off and you will be a lot happier!

I thought that was pretty well said. Thanks again ChipSeal.

Stuff like this is awful. Please use it as a reason to keep riding safely. Do not let it make you ride fearfully or not at all. That would be a terrible shame.

R A N T W I C K

PS - I tried to find out how the cyclists were doing here.
PPS - Ocotber 2011 Driver Pleads Not Guilty here.