How To Piss Money Away.

Before we learn to piss away money, its time for a King Tut update! The exhibit was excellent. There was some cool stuff there. I enjoyed it very much. I saw lots of stuff that I had seen in books, or on the TV, but never really thought I would see in real life. But then there it was, right in front of me. Behind some glass. It really was fantastic. If you get a chance to go - DO IT! Just buy the tickets and go. The exhibit will be in Chicago next, then it will go to Philly, then off to London. Even if you have to drive 100 miles to get to one of these places, it is well worth it. Trust me.

Now on to today's lesson. How to piss money away. Todays THEME SONG is by The Flying Lizards.

The first, and most important, step in pising money away is to get a wild hair up your ass to buy something. This wild hair can come from anyplace. Best Buy sale flyers. A store display. Someone else buys something and you see it. Froogle. Television. Radio. Billboards. You get the idea.

Once you get this wild hair up your ass, and you feel the urge to buy something, the WORST thing you can do is just stay at home and find reasons to be lazy. This is not a good way to piss money away. You have to nuture that wild hair, and make it itch even more by shopping for stuff.

Lets take this item for example.

This is a Specialized Hardrock Sport Disk bicycle. As you can see, it has front and rear disk brakes. It also has 21 speeds, a forged aluminum alloy frame, front suspension forks, alloy rims, stainless steel spokes, some sort of fancy gear shifting thingie, and quick release wheels and seat. The gear shifty thing has two levers the front gears, and two levers for the rear gears. To upshift, you simply click one of the levers once. To downshift, you use the other lever. The downshift lever has a longer throw than the upshift, so you can downshift really fast. Sweet huh?

I thought so. So I bought it. Now I have not had my ass on anything with less than 4 wheels since 1992. But did that stop me? Hell no.

Now what caused this? Well, at work I looked at a Target sale flyer and saw a 20 inch flat screen TV for $88. I did sort of "need" this TV, because the TV in my room was only 13 inches. A 20 inch upgrade would be nice I thought, and for $88 why the hell not? So I bought it. Anyway, while I was there I looked at the bikes, for some reason. I saw a cool looking full suspension bike with front disk brakes and rear calipers for only $150. Not bad for an aluminum frame bike.

I had a vision of me using the bike to excercise or something. Why, I might even ride the 15 mile Shark Valley loop in Everglades National Park!

But when I went home, I could not find anything about the bike on the internet. I used Google and Froogle. Nothing. I figured that meant the Target bike was crap, and a waste of money.

So I found a more expensive bike at Target. A Schwinn S40. I have heard of Schwinn before! This must be a good bike right?

Wrong. Once again, I found very little on this bike, other than I could get one free by going to some website and completing three offers from the sponsors.

But the wild hair was still up there! So I went to a real bike store. I found a really nice bike for $320. I was ready to buy it, but then it turns out the frame was a 20 inch. I need a larger frame. So the bike store said they could order me one of the $320 bikes. Great! Do it!

But it was not that easy. The XL bike frame was considered "oversize" and came with an extra $80 freight charge.

DOH! That was not exactly good. So I ask what they had in stock in a 21 or 22 inch frame.

Then I found the Specialized Hardrock Sport Disk in a 21 inch frame. It was a good fit. Yes, one inch does apparently make a difference. The bike store guy said that the 20 inch frame would not give me proper "extension" and that if I just raised the seat higher I would have to ride hunched over because the handlebars would remain where they were.

Anyway, when the dust was cleared, and I had bought the bike, a water bottle holder, a water bottle for the water bottle holder, and a cable lock I had spent a grand total of $509.71

Now, technically I have not pissed away any money yet. If I use the bike, it will be well worth it. The day I bought it (Wednesday) I rode it around a bit. After about 10 minutes, my ass was kicked. I had drank up all the water (the bike store guy said it was enough water for a 2 to 3 hour ride, or longer in cool weather). Yea right. My pulse was so high I had to go to a veternarian and hook up to a hummingbird heart monitor.

Today I rode it again. I rode for 10 minutes, and went 2 miles. According to my GPS, my max speed was 14.9 mph, my average speed was 10 mph. Towards the end of the ride my average speed was closer to 8 mph. Pretty slow. But my ass seemed to be less kicked.

My goal is to be able to ride for 30 minutes without any internal organs failing. Once I accomplish this, I will set another goal.