nickrichter.com [THOUGHTS BY THE DROP]

My fucking bike
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Finally! This past Sunday I bought my new bike. A 2008 Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra. I've wanted one of these for a number of years now, and after so much waiting, it is mine.

It is an urban assault vehicle, and a gorgeous piece of work. I chose this bike because I was attracted to how they implemented the "hybrid" aspect of it. The geometry of the frame is similar to a mountain bike, but slightly tilted up so the riding stance is not as aggressive as a full on street bike, but it is lighter in stature and weight than a mountain bike. It also comes with road tires, not the fat road tires, but the low profile, fast street tires. Overall an attractive balance of comfort, speed, and durability. Strong, yet graceful. Like a ninja.

It's also flat black all around. Like a fucking ninja.

Behold:
2008 Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra

Now, she is not likely to win many speed competitions. You can get moving sure, but acceleration is not the strong suit of this ride. And that is fine by me, I don't need to win any races, I just need to cruise around town and dart in and out of traffic. Something that I think this bike is well suited for.

It is a responsive ride, and the head shok fork helps smooth out some of the bumps. However, it has a lock-out if you are so inclined.

I have a couple ideas for it to make her a bit leaner and add to the "assault" factor and whatnot. For starters I'm going to look into getting slightly narrower handlebars. The stance right now is fine but I would like it just a bit tighter, this not only suits my riding style but will also make it that much better for squeezing between cars stuck in rush hour traffic.

It really sucks that the forecast all week says rain. Oh well. Plenty of time left.

So, who wants to go for a ride?

Submitted by: richter

So who the hell am I supposed to vote for?
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I'm in a tough position here. I just don't know what I should do about the upcoming presidential election. One thing I do know is that John McCain is a fucking mistake. As Bill Maher put it John McCain is "... more wrong track ..." and I am inclined to agree with that.

However, I'm not particularly impressed with Hillary Clinton, she is about as corporate a democrat as you can get, but I suppose that doesn't really matter since, barring some kind of miracle, she is mathematically out of the running for the nomination.

I'm also not really impressed with Barrack Obama. Sure he's very "inspirational" and he has an enthusiastic following, but I've not heard anything from ANY of the candidates that sounds like a real plan. Just sound bites along the lines of "I have a comprehensive plan." Okay, so what is it?

I will tell you someone that I was very impressed with. Dennis Kucinich. Saying that I am impressed by a politician? That's a big deal to me. He is the one I want to vote for. Several times over, I saw him on television programs and during the course of the discussion his approach was, here's the problem and this is how we go about fixing it. He didn't speak in vagaries or simply spout platitudes. These kinds of things are why he was denied an opportunity to participate in the televised debates. Not because he would have "muddied the water" or any bullshit like that. He was denied because he would have made fools of both Clinton and Obama on national television. Unfortunately, since they are the ones with hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around, they got a free pass on those.

So what do I do?

Do I just write in Kucinich? Do I sit this one out? Or do I have to choose, again, between the lesser of two evils? Do I move to another country?

Fuck.

Submitted by: richter

New Gear for the office
Saturday, March 1st, 2008

I am happy to say that I have picked up a couple essentials during the last couple weeks. Granted, these are just "things" so it is not really a big deal, but still, they are kind of fun.

New Mouse!

First of all, remember this guy?

Well I finally retired it and the replacement was a shiny new MX600 wireless. I like it.

New Headphones!

Yes, I picked up a pair of Bose Triport headphones and they are fucking sweet.

They are not noise canceling but they still do a damn fine job of blocking out the noise around you. They are also exceedingly comfortable to wear, and of course they sound badass, especially when connected to the Companion 2 speakers.

Finally, I picked up an Apple Time Capsule.

It is a great piece of hardware, an AirPort Extreme base station with integrated storage. Easy as hell to set up and use. Probably one of the most streamlined solutions you are likely to find for adding networked storage to your home network, and you can connect via ethernet or wirelessly. It's a sweet piece of equipment.

If you are reading this... thanks for bearing with me. I realize this is not the most compelling post in the world but hey, it's something to do.

Submitted by: richter

Email response: WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS
Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Please note:
This was copied as-is. Any spelling or grammatical errors are by the original author

THE ORIGINAL EMAIL:

WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS

WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON--
Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it.
It might even be good for us!

The Saudis are boycotting American goods.

We should return the favor.

An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS.
Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.

I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell.......................... 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco.........144,332,000 barrels
Exxon /Mobil..............130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway..117,740,000 barrels
Amoco..........................62,231,000 barrels

Citgo Gas comes from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans.

Do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (Oil is now $90-$95 a barrel)

Here are some large companies that
DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco................ 0 barrels
Conoco................ 0 barrels
Sinclair................ 0 barrels
BP/Phillips.......... 0 barrels
Hess.................... 0 barrels
ARC0................... 0 barrels

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy
and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much
they are importing.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll
explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I'm sending this note to about thirty people.

If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and

those 300 send it to a t least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) .. and

so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people,

we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!!

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten
friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it . THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to

10 people. How long would all that take?

If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted

MY RESPONSE:
Please do not help the propagation of this kind of stuff. I can not tell you where it originates but nearly all of it makes very little, or no sense.

For starters, how is it now the Saudis that are trying to "...kill me, my family, and my friends..."? I thought it was Bin Laden/Al Queda that were trying to... err... I mean Saddam Hussein... or is it Iran? I can not keep track anymore. One thing is certain though, they have brown skin and a fucking diaper on their head right? Well, now it is the Saudis, and they are boycotting American goods eh? Like what? What American goods are they boycotting? Fast food and shitty television? Lame automobiles? Well one thing they are NOT boycotting is our fucking advanced weaponry, they love that shit, to the tune of some $20 Billion going to Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc.

EAT
SHIT
ASSHOLE

But hey, we have to maintain our top spot right?
Bombs for everyone!

So the solution posed by the author is to only buy gas that comes from companies not using Saudi oil. Well, I have a better idea. Why not support companies, political leaders, organizations, etc. that support development of alternative fuel sources? Why not just begin to shuck the yoke we have around our necks? The yoke being controlled by these oil companies. From the U.S. Department of Energy website "Oil is the lifeblood of America's economy."

Until that line is gone from that website, and gone in earnest, any proposition of boycott being passed around via email simply will not work, not that passing around emails will work anyway, but you get the idea.

Besides there are other things to consider, not just where the crude comes from. What about environmental impact and human rights conditions? Conoco and Phillips (now jointly ConocoPhillips as they merged in 2002) was picked as one of the worst oil companies operating in the U.S. by the Sierra Club. BP was not completely innocent either. Plus I find it funny since BP bought Amoco (on the do not buy list) back in 1998, not to mention it's acquisition of ARCO in the first half of 2000, which leads me wonder where and WHEN the hell this information is even coming from. Oh yeah, and guess where BP got their start. Iran. Funny that eh? BP controlling and operating the oil of Iran. They eventually got ousted when Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized Iran's oil, cutting out the multi-nationals. This, of course, was followed by the British Government setting up blockades to prevent them exporting ANY oil (if they couldn't get a cut then no one will), and then teaming up with the U.S. to perform a little Coup d'état action. Just to further piss on BP's parade of patriotism, the attachment contains some import information that I found via the U.S. Department of Energy website. (scroll to the bottom to see attachment)

An interesting thing too is that Citgo was mentioned in the list of companies you should NOT buy from. Not because they import oil from Saudi Arabia but because "Citgo Gas comes from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans."

Jesus fucking Christ.

When is this whole Hugo Chavez evil dictator bullshit going to stop? This is an entirely different rant so I will try to be brief.

First of all, he was freely elected, several times in fact. I cannot think of any dictator that can claim such a thing. One big thing that he did as president was to nationalize Venezuela's oil revenues. That is, money made from Venezuela's oil belongs to Venezuela, not multi-national oil companies. Needless to say, U.S. interests took a big hit on that one. That is why "we" hate Chavez. "We" want our cut. And do you know what Chavez did with that money? He used it to provide free reading, writing, and arithmetic lessons to hundreds of thousands of the nation's poor. He also provided them with healthcare in addition to protections for indigenous peoples and their land. Boy, what a jerk huh? I am not saying he is perfect by any means, no politician is, but for fuck's sake... give it a rest, or come up with some REAL reasoning.

Okay, I will wrap this up now so I hope we all learned something here. Mostly I hope we learned what to do when this kind of stuff finds it's way to our inbox. Tell whoever sent it to you, to send any further nonsense straight up their ass, back to the perilous dark from whence it came.

Please note, that this is NOT directed at any of you, you are my brothers and sisters. It is directed at the originators and manufacturers of bullcrap.

Hope all is well with you.

Peace.

The attachment. Click to see full-size

If you want to download the document I grabbed this from just to make sure I did not make it up you can download it in Excel format. Click the Company Level Imports link.

Submitted by: richter

0 comments.

Email Response: Evil Starbucks
Thursday, February 14th, 2008

My brother Nathan gets all kinds of odd emails from people. Some of these he forwards along to me because they might be funny, some because they are just asinine. Typically I would just write a reply and send it back to him.

I thought it might be fun to let you see the results of this. Or maybe it's just my ego wanting more than one recipient of my reaction. Plus, it will also allow you to voice your opinion on this stuff. You might totally disagree with me, that is alright, it would still be sweet to get your comments.

There will be more of these and I think it will be a pretty fun way to contribute to this thing, as it helps get the juices flowing, and hopefully will just get me in the habit of getting back here more frequently. Also, these will not necessarily be in any particular order. So without further ado here it is.

Please note:
This was copied as-is. Any spelling or grammatical errors are by the original author

THE ORIGINAL EMAIL:
Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there. Starbucks replied, telling the > Marines thank you for their Support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should not support them by buying any of their products! I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street to-street and house-to-house.

If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will never know.

Thanks very much for your support. I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.

Semper Fidelis.
Sgt. Howard C. Wright
1st Force Recon Co
1st Plt PLT

PLEASE DON'T DELETE THIS . . ALLOW IT TO BE
PASSED TO ALL IN MEMORY OF ALL THE TROOPS WHO HAVE DIED SO THAT WE MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE TO SUPPORT THEM OR NOT! ! !

Also, don't forget that when the Twin Trade Towers were hit the fire fighters and rescue workers went to Starbucks because it was close by for water for the survivors and workers and Starbucks charged them! ! !

JUST A NOTE TO THIS; STARBUCKS HAD STORES ON SEVERAL MILITARY BASES IN THE UNITED STATES. THEY ARE NOW BEING REMOVED BECAUSE OF THIS. GO GET 'EM AMERICA. STAND-UP FOR OURSELVES!

MY RESPONSE:
For some reason I doubt the validity of any part of this tale. Think about it, when the WTC buildings collapsed who the fuck in that neighborhood was still working?

"Oh christ these two giant fucking buildings just fell down covering the city in dust and debris and chaos, but goddamnit these people want coffee and I'm going to give it to them!" Talk about some dedicated baristas.

If the Starbucks was so close, such that the rescue workers went there for supplies for found survivors... why the fuck would the place still be open? Common sense tells me that the majority of the businesses in that neighborhood probably closed down and took at least a couple days off. Fucking retards.

Also, I don't care what company it is, if they are the size of a Starbucks they are very mindful of their PR. They have teams of people that handle that stuff for crying out loud. Regardless of the company's politics, no company in their right mind would send a letter to some troops fighting in a war and tell them to fuck off like that. It just would NOT happen. Any company that would do such a thing is going to be some piss-ant operation. The reason they will be a piss-ant operation is because it is obviously run by gigantic idiots. What a company like Starbucks would do is send them a couple cases of Frappuccinos and a thank you and come home safe message.

My guess is that this person got shortchanged on their last visit to Starbucks, or they worked at or operated an independent shop that was driven out of business by a Starbucks, or they just hate the giant corporate machine that is Starbucks because it is a giant corporate machine.

However you slice it, they are a fucking dipshit and deserve a good kick in the crotch.

Submitted by: richter

0 comments.