Mercilessly Killing Small Animals With My Bicycle

About a year and a half ago I gave up on Muni. It made me late, miserable, and, on way too many occasions, reek. In lieu of slowly creeping through the city, one block at a time, I picked up biking. My super awesome wife (then girlfriend), had bought me an excellent bike from Public Bikes a few months before and I was eager to put it to frequent use. It took some time to figure things out and to get into good enough shape so that I was arriving at work relatively sweat free. I learned things like: I should bring a spare tube with me if I'm going to be biking 10 miles round trip and maybe bike wheels are meant to handle 200 lbs of awesome rolling off a curb.Over time, I learned more about the city and how its people react to bicycles. I can tell which pedestrians are going to look right at me and then decided to go ahead and cross the street anyway. Even though I don't understand it, I am prepared for many drivers to look at me annoyed and anxiously wave me ahead when I stop at "STOP" signs. Most frustrating to me though, are the other bicyclist that insist on rolling right through stop lights and signs even though I am waiting for my turn to cross the intersection. I always catch up to them at the next busy intersection and wish broken spokes and flat tires upon them. The one thing that I am still taken aback by, is something that many motorist probably don't notice: how many animals I have either killed or almost killed. Here is a brief rundown: I ran over a mouse one night that I couldn't even see until my tire was on top of him (or her, I didn't stop to verify), a bird flew directly into my spokes in a magnificent explosion of feathers, every dog on the mixed use paths seem to want a tire stripe down their back, and I almost ran over a feline that was only saved by my cat like reflexes. This isn't even counting the insects I am unintentionally catching in my eyes and intentionally catching in my mouth (free protein!). I'm not even a stereotypically spandex-clad, aggressive cyclist. I just seem to be a magnet for every suicidal animal in San Francisco. Bicycling is a great way to get around. It's cheap, good exercise, quicker than the bus, and sometimes quicker than driving (if you factor in looking for parking). You just have to reconcile the fact that you will become a rolling death machine that destroys all animals in your path. That's all.

Top Ten and Bottom Five Movies of 2012

Dear the Internet,

Well, 2012 is over and, in retrospect, I saw a whole lot of movies. I'm not a critic that gets to go to free screenings of everything, so I can really only judge the year based on a handful of movies. Here, with a few stipulations, are my top ten favorite movies of 2012 and my five least favorite movies.

I'm getting married!!!

Dear the Internet,

I got engaged!!!

My super awesome girlfriend is now my super awesome fiance and will soon become my super awesome wife. I'll post something later with the how story and some photos, but for right now I wanted to show off this picture I made to ask my groomsmen if they would, well, be my groomsmen.

It's kind of a weird thing to figure out who makes the cut when it comes to the wedding party. I feel like it gets glossed over a bit what with all the flower and candle talk. The whole wedding planning process kind of forces you to put your friends in a sort of hierarchy, which I'm not sure I'm comfortable with how naturally that came. There wasn't an objective metric that we used to decide who I know well enough to see me dance in front of my parents but, with a few exceptions, it was pretty easy. In the past, if I didn't get invited to someone's wedding and I wanted to see if I should feel offended or not, I would try and imagine if I would invite them to mine. I'm not really sure this process works in reverse.

Fortunately, this guest list thing happens early on and then you get to do stuff like register and taste cakes. I have to admit that registering isn't nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. It turns out I've been going to stores and looking at things I want but can't afford for most of my adult life and having a laser scanner in your hand doesn't really dull the pain of knowing that the next avocado I slice will be with a completely average knife. Cake tasting though, that's the shit.

It's also been fun for me to think of terrible ideas to throw at my super awesome fiance to keep her on her toes. Example: write guests' seat assignments on hermit crab shells in a giant terrarium. This is doubly a terrible idea because hermit crabs smell like every dead thing in the ocean is rotting in their shell and no adult wants to be near a crab they can't eat.

With the exception of a tuberculosis scare, the wedding planning hasn't been so bad. I expect we'll encounter some issues along the way, but my super awesome fiance and I are both pretty level headed individuals and neither of us are teetotalers, so we should be fine.

Bloodless Battle

I had originally posted this story and picture a few months ago but took it down while I was applying for a job that I thought might not think this was funny. I didn't get the job, so I decided to put it back up. I put a censor bar over Hodor just to be safe, but note that the wolf's back made it so you couldn't see anything before. I just decided to make it that much less sketchy. Now, without further ado: a stupid fanfic story I wrote that was inspired by a gchat conversation.

A chill sweeps through an eerily quiet field as two armies prepare for battle. On one side: an army led by Rob Stark The King of the North as some have taken to calling him. On the other: a massive army led by the rich and powerful Tywin Lannister. As they ready for battle, a third army can be seen cresting the horizon. At the front of an enormous force is the steely face of the Lord of Light, Stannis Baratheon. A sword made from the finest Valyrian steel would be unable to cut through the tension. The three generals rally their troops as a section of forest burst into flames. As though birthed from the fire, Daenerys Targaryen comes soaring from the flaming trees riding a dragon. Also, she is naked. One dragon would cause all but the most courageous knights to wet their armor and she has brought three to this battle.

My Least Favorite Movies Of The Year

Dear the Internet,

As much fun as it is to talk about things you like, sometimes it's more fun to talk about things you don't like. With that said, here are the movies I wish I didn't see this year:

Like Crazy - This is one of those rare movies where I found myself actively rooting for an onscreen couple to break up. This becomes problematic when it's the central premise of the movie. If you're in a long distance relationship where all you do is mope when you're apart and fight when you're together, it's probably not worth it. It just became grating after awhile and quickly went from a story of two crazy kids in love to a story of two whiny kids that can't move on. I recommend this movie to anybody that is in a bad relationship and wants to see what it looks like to everybody else.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon - After seeing the third movie in this series, it has become impossible for me distinguish any given scene from one movie to the next. Is this the scene where Optimus dies in the second movie or where he dies in the third movie? Is this the part where the Decepticons summon a great evil from the past in the first, second, or is it the third movie? Is this the part where the camera is moving too fast to see the robots punching each other but finds time to check out a girl in slow-mo in the third, first, or was it the second movie? Wait, is that a different girl. I recommend this movie to anybody that has both Memento amnesia and ADHD, but only if you aren't epileptic.

The Art of Getting By - This is a movie about privileged teenagers in private school whose lives are just so hard. I mean homework, girls, and their parents just don't get it. Ugh, life couldn't possibly get any more difficult than that. No joking at all, a big plot point in the movie is that the main character just doesn't feel like doing his school work. His teachers just don't understand. If I wanted to get that story, I would just read my journals from middle school. I recommend this to anybody that has 90 minutes they want to feel like three hours.

My Favorite Movies of the Year*

It's getting to be that time of year when people talk about their favorite things. Me being a "people", I figured it would be appropriate to write a list of my favorite films.

10. Attack the Block

9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

8. Thor

7. Captain America

6. Step Up 3D

Game Night

Like the person who wrote the article that inspired me to write this post (http://www.rocket-shoes.com/board-games-revisited-as-an-adult/), I am not a competitive person. For me, I thrive when nobody is watching or pushing me. I am not a great strategist and I focus more on harmony than how to prevail. I like to build and create, but only for myself. I follow rules, but I don't focus on minutia and I tend to scrutinize them if I don't understand the logic. All this means that I am not a natural game player, but I end up playing some of the most obscure and complicated games on a regular basis.

See, I live with three guys who love games. They stay on top of which games have won the Spiel des Jahres and frequent websites like Boardgame Geek. They thrive when it comes to strategy and numbers. We have a whole cabinet full of games and new ones come every couple of weeks. I play because they play. That isn't to say I don't have fun. I enjoy the company and there are a few games that I genuinely like. There are also more than a few games that I loathe.

In general, I tend to like simpler games that focus more on creativity (Dixit, Loaded Questions). I'm also a sucker for games that have a theme I like or good art (Last Night On Earth, Small World). I'm not usually a fan of games that put players in direct conflict with one another or games that rely heavily on chance (Settlers of Catan, Family Business). I'm playing the game not to win, but as means to socialize and relax. When I have to think too much, it stops being relaxing and when I have to make opponents out of my friends, it stops the socializing. I like games, I just don't like it when they get in the way of fun.