My new non-computer-related toy

Specialized Allez Sport

My new toy — I finally admitted that I needed a road bike when Erica kicked my ass on every hill during our last ride together.

I rode a closeout 2004 Cannondale T800, the Trek 1000, the Allez Sport, and the Allez Elite. I was also interested in the Felt F80 but didn’t get a chance to ride it. I really liked the Ultegra components on the T800 and the Allez Elite, but couldn’t bring myself to pay that much for my first road bike. Now I have to quick get some rides in before the Triathlon. We drove the course this past weekend and the hills like they’re going to be hell.

Welcome back

Welcome to my all-new, all-not-broken website! I’m currently using Dreamhost until it’s decided what will become of the venerable zeppox.ath.cx. Needless to say, some site bits might not be working quite right for a little while.

Update: Now’s as good as time as any to say goodbye to my old http://zeppox.ath.cx/~jackson/ URL — So if you have that page bookmarked, make sure to update to http://zeppox.net. The old URL should work again some day, but I can’t guarantee when that will be.

Quotable

Reading over the AFI 100 greatest movie quotes of all time I realized why I loved Casablanca so much — there are seven quotes from the movie in the list. I’m glad to see that they didn’t stick to dramatic lines, the comedies find their way into the list as well (see #79):

Striker: Surely you can’t be serious.

Rumack: I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.

The triathlon is getting closer

I was looking over the results from the 2004 Triangle Triathlon in order to assuage my fears that I won’t be able to finish in under two hours. I’m pretty sure I can do it if a few things happen:

  1. I don’t take another three weeks off from training
  2. I don’t waste all my energy on the swim
  3. I don’t let myself crap out on the run (I hate running)

Oh, I noticed that fellow SILS person Jesse Wilbur did the triathlon last year and finished #152 (swim – 11:52, bike – 40:26, run – 21:07). The only one of those legs I think I have a chance at matching is the bike — overall I expect to be quite a bit farther down the finish list.

303

I think it’s a testament to how much I miss living in the west and in Colorado in particular that everytime someone I know travels there, I get all excited and grill them on where they spent their time, where they ate, even where they drove. I like living in North Carolina and Durham, I like going to school in Chapel Hill, so we’ll see if I’m writing a post titled “919″ a few years from now.

Revenge of the Sith tickets

image from star wars 3

Right now my local theaters (the ones worth going to at least) are showing a whopping six showings of Revenge of the Sith on each of May 19 and May 20. There are a few ways to view this.

  1. Most shows are already sold out
  2. They’ll be adding more shows as we get closer and those sell out
  3. Star Wars is not the box office power it once was
  4. The theater managers in my area are complete idiots

The world’s 40 best directors

The Guardian just pulled on its flame-proof battle suit and released The world’s 40 best directors. Not to put it lightly, I think this will be a little controversial. There’s not a “mainstream” director in the list (well, maybe Martin Scorsese), and the list tends to favor directors who hit the stage in the 70s (Terrence Malick, Scorsese), 80s (David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh), and early 90s (Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino). I have my own opinions (biases) on the list.

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