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Review of Roy Espiritu's MySpace pageIn the "Who I'd Like To Meet section," Roy writes, "JESUS :)"
I don't know if RiG Roy Roy met Jesus or not, but Roy is dead. From my perspective, this adds an element of interestingness to his MySpace page. Apparently, RiG Roy Roy and his friends were drinking and driving — excuse me — driving and drinking, going more than 100 mph near my neighborhood. They lost control of the car, flew off an embankment and crashed into the water. He and one other person drowned, and the other four people were seriously injured. He died doing what he loved.
Final Review of Roy's Website: 1/2 *
-Bob Review of Bike Mechanic Poetry: Dug Retorts and Reviews (Part 2 in a Series of 5)Note from the Editor: Last Friday, the Random Reviewer published Bob's review of an email by Jeremy Smith, a bike mechanic who thought he'd try his hand at celebrating himself with poetry.
Dug was not overpleased with Bob's review.
Here, then, is Dug's retort and counterreview of Jeremy's poem.
Review of Bob's Review of Poem #2, Along With Sundry Observations About Poem #2 Itself
Once again Mr. Bringhurst locks himself into his little formalist box, peeping his frightened round head out only long enough to bubble out an effluvious, maudlin pile of bourgeoisie shit. Mr. Bringhurst so completely misreads Comrade Jeremy's poem so as to recall Ronald Reagan's ignominious and ignoble attempt to turn Bruce Springsteen's Paean to the worker class and deadly indictment of capitalism, Born In The USA, into some kind of flag-waving anthem to Donald Trump.
Bringhurst's error is just that egregious.
Mr. Smith is "changin da flats and lubin da chains, i'm so fast people say i'm insain, doin the 24 hours, keepin dem rollin without a hitch." He's working for the man, for the rich sack of s___ in the office over the factory, the overlord with his foot on the working man's neck. It is only after explaining his prowess and his love of a job well executed that Mr. Smith manages to excrete a guttural, almost visceral scream of horror and angst at his corpulent, puss-filled taskmaster: "yea thats right bitch, with out a hitch." Smith's got "got mad skils on a bike, but don't excersize that right." Why? Because of Capitalism, personified in the evil visage of the IRS, as it comes to take away Smith's birthright, Frank's Bike Shop.
Smith digresses into some frivolous talk about "bettys" and "partying," Western excesses that can be readily excused due to his long subservience to corruption and the love of corporate profit above the simple needs of a man to have his natural way with some soft, supple betty.
As Smith finishes the digression and returns to the conundrum of his existence, which is his bereft, unrenumerated and unending service to the white, sexless fatcats of big business, he punctuates his formless yet powerful accusation at an unheeding universe with the perfect coda:
Mr. Smith has successfully indicted the world at large, and several un-named individuals living in the Provo area in particular. Mr. Bringhurst would best serve himself, and the rest of us, by refraining from dabbling, dilettante-like, in the affairs of his betters, and concentrating on matters more dear to his heart and feeble mind:
Chris Farley movies.
--dug Review of the Gel-BotI’m a big fan of the little guy. If there’s a David-vs-Goliath contest, you can bet I’m rooting for David. If there’s a movie about a loveable loser faced with an insurmountable task and impossible odds, I’m right there, hoping he’ll find a way to somehow prevail. If there’s a small business going toe to toe against a big business, I want the small business to magically defy the odds and come out on top. Make no mistake: VerntureDesignWork’s Gel-Bot—a water bottle that also dispenses gel, depending on how many notches you pull out the valve—definitely fits this profile. So when the VentureDesignWorks guys sent me a Gel-Bot, I really wanted to give it a good review. Really, I did.
But I’m not going to. Sorry.
What’s Good About It The most startling thing about the Gel-Bot is that it does what they say it does. You pour water (or whatever sports drink you like) into the main bottle compartment, and then squeeze a couple gel packs into the gel reservoir. Be careful about fluid/gel flavor dissonance: lemon-lime Gatorade and Choco-mocha Gu are not a happy flavor combo. The gel reservoir will hold a maximum of 2.5 gel packs, which seems kind of dumb. Why not two? Or three? Why specifically design the gel reservoir to hold a fraction of a gel pack? Wait. Sorry. This is the “What’s Good About It” part. Let me start again. Prime the plunger, snap the gel cylinder gizmo back onto the bottle valve, wash your hands to clean off the gel you inevitably spilled on yourself, tighten the bottle top so you don’t get gel drizzling down your chin the first time you squeeze the bottle, and you’re ready to go. Except instead of taking you ten seconds to fill a bottle like it normally does, it took you three minutes and you realize the first time you do this that there’s no way you’re going to do this on a regular basis. Sorry. I’m still in the “What’s Good About It” part, aren’t I? OK. The first time I tried squirting some gel into my mouth, nothing came out. So I squeezed harder. Still no luck. Then I used my GI Joe Kung Fu Grip, and gel came out. So yay, the Gel-Bot works. You’ve just got to show the bottle who’s boss first. Then, just to put the bottle through its paces, I pulled the valve all the way out so I’d get just water. No trouble whatsoever, there. As a standalone bottle, the Gel-Bot is excellent. It’s big (24oz) and clear, just like a bottle should be.
What’s Wrong With It The thing is—and I’ve alluded to it before—the payoff’s way too slight for the setup involved. Any time you use this thing, you’ve got to:
I know for sure I’m going to lose at least one of those parts the first time I put it through the dishwasher. In fact, that plunger’s so small I don’t think I should put it through the dishwasher at all. It’s likely to get sucked up and disposed of, along with the cheerios and apricot pits. What, you don’t leave apricot pits in your bowls as you put them through the dishwasher? Well, then you’re babying your dishwasher. Cut it out.
What’s Really Wrong With It But lots of parts and time to assemble aren’t the real problems. The real problem is the commitment involved. When you use this setup, you’ve committed to using two servings of gel. That’s about $2.00. And I’m sorry, but I just don’t ever know if I’m going to need exactly two servings’ worth of gel. I may need one, I may need none. I may need three. But the Gel-Bot requires you to predict how you’re going to feel out there on the course before you ever throw a leg over the top tube. Which brings up a question: Does anybody ever need exactly two gels out on the road? My experience is that I use either none (I feel fine the whole ride), one (I need something to get me home), or more than five (I’m out on a big ol’ ride). What kind of mid-range sissy ride requires two (or worse, 2.5) gels?
What’s Really, Really Wrong With It Now’s the part where I make an admission. I no longer have the Gel-Bot. I used it on exactly one ride. After that ride, I hung my bike up, like I always do, and I walked away. Which meant the Gel-Bot just sat there for a while. Just a couple days. Not long. Long enough for the remaining gel in the reservoir to grow something, though. Something fuzzy. Something that smelled bad enough that I threw the whole shebang away. Really, this isn’t something that’s wrong with the Gel-Bot. It’s me. I forgot to clean the bottle immediately. But there are so many parts that the idea of de-grossifying the whole business put me off. And I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not the only one who’s thrown a fuzzy Gel-Bot away.
Ranking and Final Thoughts The following points were not considered as part of the score:
On a 1 – 7 scale, I rank the Gel-Bot 2.333333333333 (and so on). I want to root for the little guy. I do. Really. But man, you’ve got to give me something to work with. - Elden |
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