Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Farting and screwing and candy

On Farting . . .
Every Wednesday morning I'm in a classroom for four hours learning how to better speak, read and write French. Bonjour. I took French right up to and including the first half of grade ten where I was abruptly booted from Mr. Chaison's class for answering every question in the Christmas exam with "Bonjour" . . . in red crayon . . . upside down on every blank line on the exam. True story. 
Fight the power! Adoloscent rebellion? Artistic difference? Stupidity? Who knows.

Fast forward twenty or so years and I am back in the classroom trying to learn French again. This time I want to be there. What have I learned? Bonjour. Somethings never change.

Today, one of my classmates brought in a few books that she brought at a flee market - mostly kids books - they're the best for learning basic French. I spotted this:

Ski De Fond = Cross Country Skiing
She was most generous and gave it to me.  I can now read  *pffffffffttt*  in French what interests me.  The real reason I was interested . . .

Fart = wax
"Farts et fartage" = Wax and waxing.  The translation makes sense, but it still cracks me up.   

The book even includes how to dress fashionably. How vogue!
Remember last week when I received some Mail Love from Chamois-Wow and the exciting contest that I was going to have?  Here it is:

1) Tell me the year that my new farty ski de fond book was published and I'll send you an XXCMAG.COM sticker.  As a bonus, I'll throw in one of my own stickers too.

OR
2) Tell me the name of the article on page 39 of issue #4 of XXCMAG (it's free to read on-line) and I'll send you an XXCMAG.COM sticker.  As a bonus, I'll throw in one of my own stickers too.

TS-8 with missing Ball Plunger Screw
On Screwing . . .
For Christmas I received some money to buy myself a truing stand.  I am ashamed to say that I've gone all these years without one.  I would have liked to get myself the shwanky danky Park T2 2.2 Professional Truing Stand, but Santa wasn't that generous and really, am I that professional?  The Park TS-8 Home Mechanic Truing Stand looked to fit the bill nicely.  

At a local bike shop I found one during the boxing week sales, but it was missing the Ball Plunger Screw for some reason.  The shop had it on display and the screw seemed to have gone missing, as well as the manual and box.  I asked for a discount on it and was surprised at the killer deal they gave me - it was a steal I tells ya!

So I call up Park Tool Co. and tell them what I'm missing and the details around the purchase and within a week they sent me the replacement part sans charge (see, "sans" . . . I am learning French).  Not only did they help me out quickly, they were uber friendly.  Pretty awesome on Park! I have a lot of Park tools and go to their website on a regular basis for repair help (cause I'm stupid).  Pretty solid company in my opinion.
*Truing stand review to follow sometime soon.*

On Candy . . . 
And finally this . . .

Sch-weet deal on pedals.
I must be on their e-mailing list cause I received this last night.  If you're in the market for new pedals, here's a deal from Speedgoat

11 comments:

dicky said...

Le Crank Brothers c'est poop.

the original big ring said...

mon ami, for 35 bones c'est poop is a good deal

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

"Crank Brothers-Speedgoat Limited Edition Candy Pedals"

-- those are junk. I used them once. They broke in a day.

the original big ring said...

Jeff, I don't mind you commenting here . . . but your rants?!? Come on! Keep it clean and respectful and to the point. I won't put up with you bad mouthing stuff that I value. You want to comment on inanimate objects, such as pedals, go ahead . . . but not on people, cultures, my job or shit like that.

Capiche?

Anonymous said...

no need to get emotional. Geeze, we'll send you some sweet french kisses.

Anonymous said...

I have great respect for your job. Its one of the toughest out there. But, why would you leave your previous teaching job. Teachers have it made. They don't get shot at, they don't have to be doctors, lawyers, nor stand in front of the stand. Its a tough job.

people, everyone talks sht. Depends on what. tit for tat.

french. I have relatives in quebec. they are the biased and bigoted people going. Partially because politicians ripped them up in the old regime. remember the FLQ. Its costly, 5 billion a year costly. You see hungry kids out there every day that could use that money!!!

the original big ring said...

as the French say, "Bite me!"

Kark said...

I like the red crayon story. a lot.

my journo pal (who is franco) "helped" a friend prepare for a verbal french assessment by coaching him to respond to every question with "j'aime les hotdog".

Seemingly unbelievable but the story has been confirmed by several involved.

the original big ring said...

J'aime les hotdogs et poutine . . . J'adores tres beaucoup.

Jeff, never you fucking mind why I left teaching. Stick to the topic of the blog post in regards to your comments. . This ain't a sounding board to listen to yourself ramble on about how fucking displeased you are with life and a place for you to publish your fucked up points of views and judgments.

Looks like I'm going to have to moderate comments for now on.

fabian said...

Crank Brothers pedals are the bomb! I got them on everything and as cheap as they are you can have backups for your backups.