I read something on the Internet that said you should only have two bearings per shaft: one at each end. In the bike, there were two bearings at the front (and one at the back.) The logic is that if one bearing is good, two will be better—especially in situations where there's a lot of stress like this one. If you think about it further, though, this isn't such a good idea. If there is a a defect in one bearing, it will probably just nudge the shaft slightly and survive for quite a while. If you've got a second bearing in place that resists the slight defect, one of the bearings will get damaged from that resistance. Ultimately, a small defect in one bearing when there's two present will cause the destruction of both. I think that's what happened here.

The other bad news was that apparently Amis International went out of business. Their website DNS entries are valid until 2006, but all e-mail bounces, and a lookup on MapsOnUs found a phone number that matched the DNS entry and was disconnected. I'm pretty sure they went out of business.

Fortunately, there's a shop called Harris Cyclery who sells bearings of the right size. This time I think I'll just use the empty shell of one of the old bearings as a spacer and just install one. I mean, just take a look a that ball bearing that got split right in half ...

I imagine all that stuff is boring to some of you, so let me address the philosophers and bore the materialists ...

Consider this piece of wisdom a friend of mine sent my way: the gist is, if you're in a canoe in a river and heading for some rocks, you can try and paddle against the current, but you'll certainly lose to the forces of nature and probably hit the rocks. However, if you take a closer look, you'll see that the water flows around the rocks—following the current will steer you safely around.

Now I'm no fan of being on water in general—much less on moving water; even less on moving water with rocks—but this is one of those pieces of great metaphorical advice. I don't know its source, but I'm sure people will claim all forms of ancient wisdom and it's pretty likely to have been realized in more than one place. It pretty neatly explains fatalism and free will and the validity of both concurrently.

If you want to read a bit of political rambling on the gay marriage issue, I composed an Open Letter to the United States Government where I encourage the equal treatment of homosexuals in the eyes of the law. I thought I'd throw this in the middle somewhere ... skip it if this kind of thing really pisses you off and you don't want to be pissed off.

Anyway, spinning back a bit ... I got pretty affected by the Thursday Thinkers last week (The Place of Oral Storytelling in a High Tech Society featuring Chairman of the Freedom Trail Commission, Dr. David Anderson.) Although Dr. Anderson focused on the African history of oral storytelling and the resilience of that tradition (and, naturally, the people involved) to survive the virtually intolerable destructiveness of slavery. However, I found his pair of example stories to be absolutely fascinating. They conveyed complex ideas in society, largely through example—as through any good parable. My mind was spinning about the thought that all this guerilla theater, culture jamming, found art, and improvisational theater is just an attempt to fill the void created by the loss of good storytelling. Heck, even crappy movies are popular because they convey a story—something desperately craved by our society.

I thought I'd try my hand at it in my blog-esque editorial columns ... or whatever you'd call them. Well, maybe someday, I guess.

• Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London - Some kid spy movie to keep their minds off the world they'll be inheriting from our generation.
• Secret Window - A clever novelist who doesn't fully accept his success gets mired in a boring movie about some guy accusing him of plagiarism then generally freaking him out.
• Spartan - News to me ... I guess it's about the kidnapping of the President's daughter ... and—get this (and I hope I don't give anything away)—apparently it's part of a much larger plot! How fucking original!

• Katedra (The Cathedral)
• Mt. Head
• an excerpt from Mars and Beyond
• La course à l'abîme (The Ride to the Abyss)
• Parking
• Fifty Percent Grey
• Das Rad (The Rocks)
• Strange Invaders
• Rejected (which explains why the phrase "My anus is bleeding!" is so funny.)
• Billy's Balloon (which I assume is part of the package, although it may have been an Eastman House add-on)