round and about

we're back in l.a. and i feel extremely reinvigorated.


hamburger lychees.


and a map:
we went on many bike rides, but this one probably covered the most area. awesome awesome awesome.

goings ons

been listening to the deadly syndrome a bit lately [http://myspace.com/thedeadlysyndrome]. they're an l.a. band [as much as most bands in l.a. are "l.a." bands [meaning half the band is from elsewhere]] that a devoted intelligentsia customer and [now] friend manages. thanks, joshua.

intelligentsia got rid of their urn for brewed coffee and now relies solely on two clovers for all of our brewed coffee needs [http://cloverequipment.com/home/Default.aspx]. every cup brewed freshly.



[photo www.flickr.com/photos/benchristen]

the vacant counter space is now occupied by a two-group synesso [http://www.synesso.com/], which marvellously complements our three-head at the front of the bar. this is ballin in coffee land. oh, and it's a little late to mention now [though maybe we'll get more?], but intelligentsia silver lake engorged it's succulent tastebuds with the worldwide-competition-winning hacienda la esmeralda de panama [read geoff watts's accout here: http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/origin/offerings/10-25-2006]. it was delicious. retail: $55/ 4 oz. or $220 / pound. oh, we also just got the little 1-3 cup chemex [http://www.chemexcoffeemaker.com/] in... not sure what it'll retail at yet, but it's pretty cute:



and makes a damn clean cup of coffee. we also carry the 8 cup version.

tattiya's goga ride is still kicking ass [http://gogabikeride.blogspot.com/].




the air here is fucking horrible.



[courtesy of airnow.gov]

^that small purple spot is where i live. purple means "very unhealthy" and helps to explain why i've been using my inhaler more than usual the past few days.

the mash dvd is now available for to order. it's $40, but looks to be well worth it and will ship nov. 15. i forgot to mention.. the weekend of the l.a. premier tattiya and george and monica [george's gf] and i had just finished eating thai food on melrose and pulled into the street when suddenly we were swarmed on by all the mash dudes [massan, emi, etc...] just fucking flying down melrose. i wasn't planning on partaking in any of the events, but that made my [i'm going to say it] heart speed up quite a bit. we drove behind them down melrose and watched as they were refused entrance to paramount studios..

this past sunday polopolopoloXXbikebikebike was pretty awesome. this dude boo showed up from sf [happened to be in town] and played a few games with us, forcing us not only to step it up but also reminding us that bike polo is bigger than what we do here and that we need to motivate and make it to some tournaments, etc.

sorry for all the pasted links without pop-up-in-another-windowness.

an armadillo experiment

[a more literal post than i usually present]

i recently had to buy some new tires and, with a strong recommendation from the men at orange20, i went with the specialized armadillo city tire [my rear is the folding version and my front is the non-folding [not purposefully]]. i've had best success with the bontrager race lite hard case, but heard good things about the armadillo and wanted to support a smaller, track-oriented shop. four days into riding the front tire [non-folding], i'm riding down w. sunset blvd. and my tire completely splits. tire is flat within twenty seconds and i find a gash through the tire in the tube about two centimeters across [bigger than i've encountered with the exception of a tube blowing up]. now i'm left with a $40 barely-used tire that's shit to me. luckily tattiya and i had gone on a ride [oh yeah, check out http://ridearc.org/] and she'd driven to meet me in silver lake, so we were near her car and drove home. fast forward three days. being a tight-ass and refusing to succumb to a small gash, i decide to try to fix this thing.

step a: buy adhesive.


step b: apply adhesive to inside of gash, both on the inner and outer parts of the tire.

step c: place a folded dollar bill across the inside tire over the gash, also using adhesive to secure the bill.


step d: wait.



i have a feeling this isn't going to work. so for now my opinion is that specialized's claim that the armadillo is "puncture-proof" is very false.

in other news,
remember the summer?

[location@@myspace.com/berdhousegallery]