Virizon [sic]

The following is the description of a party that someone I know got invited to on Facebook. I was really impressed by how educated the football team seems to be. Oh, and by 'Virizon', they mean 'Verizon'.

Its summer time, so we goin back on the roof-top. Above the Virizon Building on State Street. Come out and have kick it with us... No class or workouts on friday, so we will be gettin it all night long!

We got all the badgers there, past, future, and present. Bottles, Kegs, Music... you already know how we do. NFL Players will be in the building so its basically goin down.

Ain't shit else really hot on Thursday anyways, so lets get it! Church.

The Virizon building is on the corner of Gilman & State right across from Real Chilli and Triangle Market. See yall there.

How did they do that?

I've been thinking a lot about those old bikes with the huge front wheels recently. Nothing about them has ever really made any sense to me. It always seemed like the whole thing was designed to make riding the bike as difficult as possible. Why make the wheels so different in size? And who thought that would be a good idea? How does one go about getting on? What happens if you have to stop? And most importantly, with a wheel that big, how did your feet even reach the peddles? Well, I've done a little bit of reading and I think I have answers to all of those questions now.

1. The important thing here is that these bikes were made before anyone had thought to put a chain on a bike. I guess I knew that already, I just hadn't considered all of the implications of that detail. What this means is that the pedals are connected directly to the axel of one of the wheels. So, each turn of the pedals equals exactly one turn of the wheel. The bigger the wheel, the further you go on each rotation. The more distance you travel with each turn of the pedals, the faster you go at a specific rate of pedalling.

2. James Starley

3. There's a peg just above the back wheel to step on while you run the bike to get it going. Then you jump on top.

4. You don't stop. Or turn really. Fast stops meant going over the handle bars. The fact that your feet were connected to the wheel being turned, but not your body that was sitting on the frame, made turns mild at best.

5. Well, the diameter of the wheel could only be as big as your inseam. Or really the distance from the bottom peddle to the seat could only be as big as your inseam. A shorter crank shaft meant that you could have a bigger wheel, but a harder ride.


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A Delayed Cribshit

I've been promising Schwenn that my next blog topic would be The Cribshitters for about a month now. I've had a hard time figuring out what to say about them though. Sure, they're a Madison band with witty lyrics, a drummer in a lion mask, and a hot chick playing the tuba. But does that really do them justice? The answer is no. The 'shitters, like some odd synergetic conglomeration of leftovers, are truly more than the sum of their component parts. The following is how they were described by The Isthmus, Madison's alternative weekly paper:

Cribshitter is a fucked up mess of shit-ass shit. They play Twang Poop. If you want to know what they sound like, smack a snake in it's head with a wooden spoon while it is eating garbage. That is what they sound like. They might be giving away free buttons at the show. It all depends on if Jared can get his mom to give him the money she owes him (that stupid bitch).

That quote may not seem very informative, but it captures a certain apathetic joie de vivre that permeates the unique Cribshitter sound. Also, I suspect that as their song claims, hot sauce in your pussy really does make you loosey goosey. Sadly, they have no plans to tour in the near future.