The Core Rat

31 January - Very cold morning but mostly dry, at first. Despite the fine weather collapsing completely in the afternoon a really great day on the roads today. I barely left the core for the entire day (just a very brief visit in the afternoon to collect the chairman of the rail board's prescription from a pharmacy on Yew St) but I was run off my wheels from woe to go. For the most part I was moving around really efficiently - lots of big wide circles and some very creative navigation made it very enoyable. Let it be said that when the energy runs out and entropy reigns as the universe comes to its ultimate end, Biker 313 did his bit to conserve his energy and keep the universe around for that instant longer. One little annoyment was when I went to drop off at 925 Georgia - got in the lift and was joined by one of the mailroom guys there - asked if he wanted to sign for it then, he said sure, but before I could hand it over the lift doors closed and I had to go up with him. That was fine - he signed and left the lift and I pressed G to go back down but of course the lift had already been called to keep on going up. Went up a few floors then went back down. Stopped on the mailroom floor where I could have gotten off before. Went back down to the ground and was just getting out of the lift when a page came through for me to go back upstairs to pick up. That, my friend, is a courier anecdote. Also bumped into a vagrant in the morning as I came off the road onto the footpath. It was a very light bump and I immediattly apologised but that wasn't enough for this gentleman who yelled at me for five minutes before demandingthe name of my company. He was getting very aggressive and I considered just walking away but then he probably would have vandalised my bike. So, I had to stand my ground, and hope that if he did throw a punch (which was looking a little likely) that i'd be able to throw one back. When the rain and wind came it was absolutely incredible - at some points it felt like I was stationary when I was rdingstraight into it. When we met up at the end of the day all of the couriers were soaked through and everyone's face was raw from the wind (i was very gladf that I didn't have a mirror because I could only imagine what I looked like). Also the ride back was absolutely agonising - I had thomas, one of the other bikers who lives up the road, keep me company at least, wich was very useful because I had hardly visibility with my fogged over glasses and the roads were packed with buses and trucks, who's own visibility was probably not so good either. Watched a DVD called 'The aristocrats;, which was basically, the story behind the joke with the punchline of 'The aristocrats'. As far as the structure of the joke goes its pretty basic and not terribly funny but all of the comedians who were represented each tried to outdo each other in creating their own versions and some of them were f**king hilarious (and some not so good). The basic joke is a guy walks into a talent agent and says that he's got an act. The agent tells the guy to give him the speil. The guy then gives a recitation of an incredibly offensive act. The agent is shocked and says, 'That's increidble, what do you call it?'; 'The Aristocrats'. I've got a pretty seemy mind at the best of times but some of the versions on this dvd were shocking. George Carlin and Billy connolly gave pretty predictable scatological jokes (basically, I s**t in my wife's mouth) but paul reiser and bob saget (full house!!!) were hell bent on the scat with incest theme. It all went on way too long but it was still a f**king hoot.