Setting up for a long day, and the Feed

Well I have 4 days worth of links to read and filter, and Mrs. the Poet giving me a bad time about my headspace preparations for writing the blog post. I read web comics before opening the Feed folder so that I’m not already angsting about something before I read the first link. It gets my mind in a writing configuration, not in a normal conversation configuration. Before my wreck I could do both at the same time, converse and write, but now I have to stop talking to write. And certain people don’t seem to realize that, or to recognise that writing is my work, what I do every day. It’s not just my wife, there are many people in my life that don’t seem to realize that this is what I do with my life now. I can’t go out and get a job, so I do this. And now “this” is going to be opening many links of terrible and horrifying things and saying “nope, not for my blog” and closing the tab and opening another link. I get about a 3:1 ratio of deleted links to usable links. And every so often I just look at the headline and snippet in the Feed folder and say “I’m not even going to click on that.”

Up first because it gives me two more slots for other links and because I frequently open with this because, reasons, here are yesterday’s and today’s Daily Ted. Free bike registration and stolen bike alerts now available on BikinginLA and now today’s Morning Links: Survey asks what residents really think about Westwood bike lanes; cars vs. cyclists in Flanders

And this one is just because I liked it. Try explaining this one to your insurance company Yes I know, I’m a bit… twisted at times. Wait until you get to the end of the post

While I am in a good mood. Truck driver fined after close call with bike police in Glen Burnie “I’m so sorry the cyclists I harassed were on-duty bike cops, and I will never harass and threaten on-duty bike cops ever again” But just us plain ordinary cyclists are still fair game…

Another reason why I’m in a good mood. Safe Cycling Australia This sign needs to be added to the MUTCD. Make it as large as a roadside sign is allowed to be so that everyone can see and read it.

Are you better off riding with cars, or not riding at all? Not Riding a Bicycle is Hazardous to Your Health Surprise, statistically we are better off as a population with longer and healthier lives that end up costing less to take care of than if we just stick to our cars for every trip instead of riding a bike.

This one came up several times in the Feed today. Harvard Study: Better Police Reports On Bike Crashes Could Save Lives Because so many LEO do not know how to investigate a bike wreck, data that could be used to design new infrastructure is lost Also check this link. Better Police Reports on Bike Accidents Might Save Lives

An example of why this is needed is this article. After a Fatal Crash, NYPD’s Initial Version of Events Often Turns Out Wrong Anyone remember the Lefevre hit-and-run? NYPD insisted the cyclist ran a red light with total obliviousness that the truck that ran him over would have had to run the same red light.

SFPD shows that when there are living cyclists and damaged cars involved they can do a much better job of investigating and pursuing a culprit. SFPD Finds Owner of Car in Wiggle Hit-and-Run That Injured 3 Cyclists But who is the asshole elected official making excuses for the deliberate assault with a deadly weapon on three people and 3 cars?

This UK incident shows the need for competent legal help when dealing with a recalcitrant legal system. Help for cyclist injured in door opening accident

Some people just really don’t care about anyone but themselves. ‘Ghost bike’ for killed cyclist stolen from Lake Overholser And I loved (not really) the anonymous threat posted in the comments section.

A cyclist killed Sunday will be remembered by his peers this upcoming Sunday. President of Durham Cycling Club killed in Easter collision to be honored in Newcastle The wreck does not make any sense. The cyclist was making a left turn and was hit by a driver passing to the left in the oncoming lane. It sounds like an impatient driver not wanting to wait for the cyclist to complete his turn just driving right through him. Things like this are why I stopped doing the wreck analysis.

A college newspaper writer from NC has a pretty firm grasp of the situation. Cyclists face a genuine threat; drivers don’t care

A cyclist killed by a driver on the wrong side of the road will have a regionally big race named after him in TN. Marshall Co. bike race named in memory of dentist killed in crash The thing I can’t understand is why there have been no criminal charges placed yet.

Some mis-information about the laws from our side. 9 Tips for Sharing the Road With Cyclists Just FYI 6 is sometimes true but not often (Only Idaho and a few towns in Colorado allow Idaho stops), and 8 is never true even when drivers are really at fault. Nine on the other hand is mostly true.

While this article says many good and true things there was one sentence that set me off royally. Bicycles are not toys, keep safety in mind I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the sizing advice or the tire inflation or seat height advice…

What kind of race is it when you get hit-and-run by a support vehicle? VINE: TWO CYCLISTS INJURED BY SERVICE CARS AT TODAY’S TOUR OF FLANDERS EVENT Wanna bet on if this guy loses his job?

I’m not really sure what this UK letter writer is trying to say, are you? Cycling debate I think the only coherent statement was the paragraph where he stated that cyclists’ bad behavior only kills cyclists, where drivers’ bad behaviour kills other people but has very little chance of causing even minor harm to the driver.

I was unaware of this actually being a problem these days. Cyclist’s 1,000-mile ride through France to raise money to fight condition which almost killed his dad AFAIK sepsis was nearly eradicated in the US with the widespread introduction of antibiotics more than 50 years ago.

Victim-blaming nonsense from Enn Zed. Cyclists warned ‘be seen’ and ‘see’ Once again drivers are allowed to drive as fast as they want regardless of how dangerous they are to everything else on the roads, while cyclists are expected to accommodate them.

But given that they are allowing this man back out being careful is not such a bad idea. Full parole for Kensington man who killed cyclist while driving drunk

Want those expensive tubes to be usable when you get a flat? 4 Ways You’re Destroying Your Bike’s Tubes Things to NOT do to your tubes.

Do drivers where you live need a refresher on how far away to pass a bicycle? Here’s one way of showing vehicle drivers how much space they should give cyclists, to ensure their safety.

So you’re thinking about buying an e-assist bike? The next big thing in cycling and Should I buy an electric bicycle? Here’s everything you need to know to get started! Point of reference: I have experimented with both “through the gears” and hub drive motors and the ability to run the motor at higher RPM at low speed (gears), really reduces energy consumption and extends range while maintaining speed or even increasing speed for heavy loads and small motors.

Remember what I said about being in a wacky mood at the beginning of the post? Lawn Chair It’s not a chair to put on your lawn, it’s a lawn that fits on a chair.

And now I really want some tortilla chips, but we are out and they aren’t on my diet anyway. No salty snacks until all of the Easter candy is eaten, in a responsible way of course. no binges.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet (I need to remind you every so often)

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RPG Group now with 33% more estrogen!

I had my first game with the new RPG group (the “kinky” game), and I can foresee problems already. Not with the game, but with working the game in with my weekly schedule. I was in the middle of cooking beans when the text came in that RPG was “on” for tonight if I was interested, which meant I had to get most of the actual “cooking” part done before I could leave and then grab some beans when I got home after game finished. And I never got to the Feed Folder in my inbox, so I will be dealing with 4 days worth of links when I do the post later today (I’m composing this at 0045), yay!

Now, about the game. Everybody died in the first encounter. No kidding, we encountered some kind of plant-based tentacle monster that was a cross between a Venus Flytrap and a bad hentai manga, that started out cleaning the stable by eating 3 horses, and ended up with 4 adventurers and a town guard NPC as a final course. This caused a reset because, well it’s a really bad game session when you get the entire party eaten before they even get a chance to introduce themselves as characters.

Reset went better with better rolls for everybody and slightly better tactics because we learned the sleeping rooms at the inn were on the side overlooking the stables and the monster could be seen from the visiting men’s room window, so I used Eldritch Blast from the window until it reached up to grab me then used a paralyzing invocation on the creature until it actually got paralyzed and then just kept throwing EB at it until it died. The creature would only take full damage from magical attacks or bludgeoning weapons, poking holes in it with swords or arrows would only cause partial damage and if you didn’t get enough damage in it would heal up and you were back to where you started, which was what got everybody killed the first time because I was the only one that wasn’t using a sword or bow on the creature (including the NPC town guard that got eaten because we took too long to kill the creature before the reset). The mayor of the town was impressed that we managed to kill the creature which was just the latest of a worsening monster infestation, which was causing the town major problems because they were not a big enough or established long enough to have a stockade or stone wall around the town to keep the monsters out.

While we were tracking down the source of the monsters, we had an encounter with a creature made entirely from discarded or lost magical items. When we defeated the creature all the magical items were left lying on the ground and I used my Warlock abilities to try to find out what they were. I found one that seemed like it would still work, and seemed to be a belt of Giant Strength. It was actually a cursed belt of gender swapping which I discovered when I put it on. Now I need to find someone who can break a curse from a cursed item. And apparently my character is a pretty good-looking woman now, because the female-liking female members of the party thought it would be a great idea to seduce me… My character was the only male member of the party that fought the plant-creature and survived the reset, all the other surviving party members were female and we were “introduced” during battle at the inn where we were staying.

And that’s where the line “now with 33% more estrogen” came from in the headline.

PSA, Opus