So What Year Are We On? And Is There A Prime?

Well, the holidays are over.  The Christmas trees have been hurled from the window for mulching.  The Hanukkah Menorahs have been sprayed with fire extinguishers.  (You gotta make sure that shit is out!)  The Kwanzaa whatevers have been whatevered.  And the aluminum Festivus poles have been welded into Jamises, or Jamii.  ("Buy It If: You want a race-ready bike but don't want to pay carbon prices," says Bicycling magazine, if you've actually managed to read the whole review without falling asleep.)  Also, hopefully by now you're finished puking your guts out after New Year's Eve.

With that, we can finally turn our attention to 2013, which I'm sorry to say is already shaping up to be the Worst Year Ever.

First of all, there's this fiscal cliff deal.  Here's a fiscal cliff:

("Dude, that fiscal cliff would be totally rideable on a 650b!"--Some mountain bike dork)

This deal really F-U-C-K-double-hockey-sticks me, since the payroll tax is still going up:

As you can see, the article includes a calculator that tells you how much more you're going to pay this year, and I was aghast to learn that I'll be paying an additional $2,274:

You may be surprised to learn I have an annual pretax income of $1 million, but keep in mind the rest of my money goes directly to my shell corporation in the Cayman Islands (it's called Wildcat Rock Machine's In-Your-Face-IRS Enterprises, Inc.), and therefore it doesn't count.

Anyway, just to show you how unfair this is, consider some loser who makes ten times less money than me:

("100K?!?  Loser!"--Some douchebag who just bought a condo in Williamsburg)

See that?  I have to pay $274 more than them!  That's just F-U-C-K-double-hockey-sticked up!  Do you have any idea how much I could stimulate the economy with almost three hundred extra bucks?  I was going to buy 30 spheres of Glace Luxury Ice for my morning cocktails!  Oh well, enjoy your recession.    At this point I may just pull a Gerard Depardieu and split for Belgium:

Monseiur Depardieu Depar-don't wanna pay more taxes--but at least he's wearing a helment.

Also, I'm sorry to report that my New Year's Day ride did not portend a successful 2013, and indeed it was downright ominous.  Obviously, cycling tradition dictates that you're supposed to take a New Year's Day ride, and obviously also your New Year's Day ride is a metaphor for the way plan to approach the coming year.  For example, some people get up early and ride their guts out with a bunch of other Freds, which represents wasted effort and the delusion that somehow things are going to turn out differently in 2013.  Meanwhile, other people--like me, for instance--slowly pick their way along straight paths by themselves because they're cautious, they fear change, they have no friends, and they realize that life is nothing but an inexorable creep towards some meaningless vanishing point:

(Whatever.)

Things were going well until about an hour in, at which point I suddenly exploded in an attack of hives.   I was so itchy I tried to capture a squirrel and put it under my jersey, which is what's commonly called an "Appalachian Backscratcher."  Unfortunately I was unsuccessful and had to go home, where I did the same thing with the cat.  (That's commonly called the "Single Person's Backscratcher."  Of course, I'm not single, but that's only because I don't do stuff like make my better half touch my hives.  How's that for relationship advice?)

Then, this morning, when I was vacuuming the pine needles from my Christmas Tree off the floor, the retractable cord on the vacuum returned to the canister with such speed that I was nearly killed by the whiplash of the plug.  Thank goodness I was wearing my vacuuming helment, and if only New York State didn't have such draconian gun laws I would have been able to shoot the vacuum in self-defense for good measure.  Still, I was so frightened that I simply left the rest of the needles on the floor, and I just tell the children that they're Santa's toenail clippings.

2013 should be a great year.

Speaking of riding bikes, you know how when you ride one of those bikes with the curved handlebars like they have in the Tour de France how you're not supposed to wear underpants but instead you're supposed to wear these stretchy tights like David Lee Roth in the "Jump" video?  Well, somebody representing the stretchy tight company Castelli sent me a whole entire Fred suit and you'll never believe what it says in the crotch:

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this chamois some time ago and I was delighted to discover that it's real.  "Viscous Comfort Zone" sounds like a euphemism for any number of salacious things, and I'm reasonably sure it's also what Mario Cipollini named his waterbed.  As if that wasn't enough, look what else it says above the "Castelli:"

I won't tell you on which body part Mario Cipollini sports a "Continuous Variable Thickness" tattoo, but I will tell you that it only says "Coss"--until he gets close to the "Viscous Comfort Zone."

By the way, if you're wondering if the "Viscous Comfort Zone" with it's "Continuous Variable Thickness" is comfortable, the answer is "Yes," especially in comparison to my Fred suit, which consisted of full-body long underwear with a throw pillow duct-taped into the crotch.  (That's called an "Appalachian Skinsuit.")

Meanwhile, in other marketing news, I'd like to introduce a segment I call "Wildcat Rock Machine's Bicycle Industry Trend Predictions For The Year 2013," and here's the theme music for that segment which I produced at incredible expense:

At $75,000 that video wasn't cheap, but hopefully it's tax-deductible.

Anyway, "Wildcat Rock Machine's Bicycle Industry Trend Predictions For the Year 2013" is all about predicting bicycle marketing trends for the year 2013, even though everyone already knows what those trends are going to be because they went to Interbike.  I, however, did not go to Interbike, nor do I pay any attention to it, so everything that happens this year is going to be News To Me.  Plus, the real pulse of the cycling industry beats on Kickstarter.  Last year, you may have noticed the big trend on Kickstarter was to build a better bike light.  Well, this year I predict it's going to be all about horns:

The inventor of the Orp Smart Horn alerted me to his fundraising efforts, and my favorite part of the video was where he said, "I think when they get Orp in their hands they're going to be really excited."  Perhaps, but will they be as excited if they get Orp in their hair?  Because that's something that can happen at the end of a date with Mario Cipollini.

Nevertheless, despite various claims that the horn is the key to rider safety, I remain unconvinced--though I do think that some sort of Bluetooth device that allowed you to connect with a driver's smartphone might work.  Ambiguous sounds probably won't keep that driver from drifting into your lane, but an "On your right, cocksucker!" emanating from their iPhone might just do the trick.  

No matter what, as a cyclist you'll never command as much attention as a driver's smartphone, so speaking through them is our only hope.