SB488

Let me start off by saying this has nothing to do with bipartisanship.

Saturday was a sad day in Texas for cyclist as Gov. Perry vetoed Senate Bill 488 (aka The Safe Passing Bill). This bill would have made it law for any motor vehicle to give three feet of space between a cyclist and a vehicle while passing. The kicker is that this bill was not designed around cyclists but included runners, pedestrians, motorcyclists, children and highway construction and maintenance workers. With how much emphasis Texas puts on the safety of highway construction workers I would have thought that alone would push the bill through. This after two competitive cyclists were killed in Tulsa OK just a few weeks ago when they were hit by a drunk driver.

I can't tell you how many times I have gotten honked and yelled at for riding in a lane of traffic that I am well within my legal rights to be in. I have had many close calls from drivers that I can only assume were trying to give me a fright. Cyclists are no different than drivers in mentality, some of them are jerks that run stop signs and stop lights while many of them obey the rules of the road and are just out to have a good ride.

There are over 1,000 cyclists killed each year from being hit by a car in Texas. While I have been lucky enough to have never been struck by a car I do have a good friend that has. He was struck from behind by a car going 70mph. While he did escape with his life he suffered a broken back and has never fully recovered to be able to go back to the active life style he was used to.

Even though this bill was not passed, please give us room. On windy days that full lane is very needed commodity as between my bike and myself we come in well under 200 pounds and a gust of wind can change my path very quickly.

You can read the bill here.
The veto reason here.
Texas cycling laws here.

RunPee.com

I love watching movies. I would rather sit down to a bad movie then a good book when push comes to shove (Kati thinks I'm insane for some of the bad movies that I have sat through). I figure that if a book is really that good it will be made into a movie eventually anyway so why waste many hours on the couch reading when I can wait for the abridged 2 hour version in motion picture form?

But if you're like me, when you go to the theater, you sneak in a 20oz. soda with you as to not have to pay the outrageous prices at the concession stands. The idea is to try and make the aforementioned soda last the duration of the movie for two purposes. First, so that you have something to wash down the Hot Tamales that you also snuck into the theater and second, you think that if you drink the soda slowly then you will be able to last the entire movie without having to escape to the john. This second purpose, no matter how noble, never works. Soda has some strange chemical in it that somehow doubles the quantity swallowed when it hits your stomach. Don't ask me how, but trust me I've seen studies.

Now you're left with the dilemma of "When can I make a run for the loo?". If you had read the book prior to seeing the movie you might have a pretty good idea of when you can escape since you know, within reason, what is going to happen next. But if you know what's going to happen next then why did you just pay $10 to see the movie. That's like having someone tell you they are going to punch you in the snot box and then paying them to do so. But I digress. Back to the original question "When can I make a run for the WC without missing a key element of the plot?". Enter RunPee.com, where you can find the exact amount of time into a movie you can make a run for the can. The beauty of this it that it does so without ruining the movie. Example, if I wanted to know when to hit the head during the movie Up, I know that I could go at approximately 30 minutes in "when the doberman and the bulldog appear out of the bushes." No spoiler there. Although there is a little spoiler that can be unscrambled if you really need to know how long until you can go.

The other benefit that I have found to this website is that it is a great tell as to whether a movie is really worth your time at all. The more pee breaks you have the more likely that it's not. For example Drag Me To Hell and Star Trek each have six pee breaks, that equals down time or no progress in the plot and that's bad. But you can't use this as a fail safe plan since Hannah Montana: The Movie only shows one pee break point, the reason is that the entire movie is one long pee break, you're not going to miss anything by missing a minute or an hour of this movie.

So rest well knowing that someone out there is looking out for the little man.