Gotta love American Apparel.

A comprehensive guide.

Five days a week, I drink coffee out of an automatic drip coffee maker. Mr. Coffee brand, even. And there’s nothing wrong with the coffee; as a matter of fact, it’s pretty good. I grind the beans the night before, set the timer, and there’s hot coffee waiting for me when I wake up. As we all know, coffee makes school possible.

Two days a week, though, there’s time to make a really great cup of coffee, so I do. I heat up water in a kettle, grind beans and use one of those manual drip coffee filters that sits on top of your cup. Pour hot water on the grounds, and the coffee flows directly into your cup!

I add half and half and a teaspoon of honey. And now I have a cup of coffee that tastes different than my regular 5-day-a-week coffee, and still gets the job done, and the only additional expense is the $2.50 manual drip thing.

There are plenty of other ways to do it, but for here and now, this is mine. You’re encouraged to leave other coffee suggestions in the comments.

Does anybody actually use iCal? I betcha anything that Gruber’s right and not even Steve Jobs uses it. Anyway, use this tutorial to keep your calendar accurate and not have your wife divorce you.

[iTunes link] Yngwie Malmsteen released a newish album Tuesday. It’s a best of his instrumental tracks from 1993 on. Two songs came from 2008′s Perpetual Flame record, the one with Tim Owens on vocals, and the only Malmsteen record I own. Then there’s a new song. A cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It, also with Owens on vocals. It’s the best that song has ever sounded.

The record, however, has an embarrassing cover. Wont somebody who loves him tell him he’s wrong?

[iTunes link] Maybe the best new Christmas song in years. Rivals what Rob Halford did this year.

The quick answer is easy: money. It’s cheaper to ride a singlespeed than some incredible carbon fiber road bike. But let’s dig a little deeper.

I own and ride a 24-speed mountain bike, and it’s my favorite bike because it’s my favorite kind of riding. I also own (but haven’t restored) a 1959 Peugeot road bike. Once I’m finished with it, it will be as close to original as possible, including all 10 gears.

But the bike I ride the most is my Specialized single-speed. It’s fantastic for a quick ride up to the store for cilantro, or even a 10-mile round trip out to Staples for pencils. What I like the most about it is that it’s always exactly the same as it was before, and requires to little maintenance.

The bike used to be a roughly 1994 Hardrock, which is what passed for a mountain bike back then. I found this bike laying in a field with grass growing up through it and bent wheels.

The two most important parts on a bike are the frame and the derailleur. Without a frame, you’ve got no bike; most other parts are scroungable, but you’ve got to have a frame to scrounge for. That is, you have to have a frame to build around. It does you no good to buy stems and cranks if you don’t know what kind of frame they’re going on.

The derailleur is important in that it’s the most delicate part of a bike, and also the most expensive. Which means when you find a bike laying in a field, the derailleur is almost always shot, and to replace it with a new one the quality of which will not make you break down every other week is prohibitive, especially for a bike you found in a field.

So take it off and save $80. You also save having to know how to adjust a derailleur, and having to buy a new gear-cluster because the one you’ve got is rusted to trash.  ¹ 

This deserves a little further explanation. First, if you’re me, you’re poor. You can’t afford to spend a ton of money on a bike, so when you find a bike with a sound frame sitting in a field, it’s really potential transportation. In addition, you’re not me, so you don’t know how to work on a bike properly, and have zero interest in bicycle maintaince. You just want to ride the thing. Well, like I said, a derailleur is the most delicate thing on a bike, and if you put one on your bike that’s been laying in a field for a year, it’s not at its best. A clunker derailleur is a great reason to stay off a bike, and most people will.

And that’s the main argument for a single-speed: money. I simply don’t think most people have money to blow on a quality derailleur, and a crap one will prevent you from riding.

However, the human body was not designed for sitting around or for driving every damn place, and so you should ride a bike! “But I want gears, there’s hills,” I hear you whine. Don’t be a wimp. Just pedal harder. Or get off and walk it if you must. (Or spend the $80 you’ll need to spend on a multi-gear drivetrain.) The stupid college kids can do it, you can do it, too.

The breakdown, in case you were wondering, is a little like this. Assume that you have to replace all the rubber and cables and brake shoes. Assume the saddle is either ok or you have a spare sitting around. Also assume that the wheels are sound.

Tubes and tires. I like Serfas Drifters; they’re basically road tires, but have a sort of negative-tread, which means limited off-roading is totally doable. My bike shop sells ‘em for $20 each. Two tubes are about $5.

Brake cables and housing. So cheap. $8 on the top end.

Brake shoes, front and rear. They’re cheap, and stopping is arguably the most important thing you can do on a bike. don’t try to scrape every last bit of life out of them; it might be your life that gets squeezed when they don’t stop you properly. $15.

A chain. Get whatever’s crazy cheap. If the bike shop has 9-speed chains on super sale, buy that one. It’ll fit, and since you’re not shifting, it wont matter anyway what kind of gearing it was made for. <$10.

The most expensive part is a chain tensioner. My local bike shop has one that I like a lot, but it’s $28 every time I have a project bike. You’re better off if you don’t need one, but if you do, you gotta have one.

Also, if the bike requires a freewheel, I have to spend about $15 on a freewheel, which is too bad. If the bike has a freehub, I can generally take the cassette apart, pick the cog I want, and use the spacers.

So all told, you’re looking at about $85 for a new used bike you found in a field. Plus labor. Thing to remember is you can’t get a quality bicycle new for $85. Not even from Target.

How to give a good gift? What is a good gift? Is it something you desperately want? Is it the thought that counts?

I say that good gift giving is a little more complex. First, it’s not the thought that counts. At least, it’s not just the thought that counts. If it were, all those horrible red sweatshirts with puff paint on them would be good gifts. After all, Aunt Muriel did put some thought and effort into them. Just not enough thought of the right kind.

How about something you want? That’s too easy. We’ve all got lists of stuff we would get if we were rich; is a good gift simply checking one of those things off somebody else’s list? I say no, because zero thought went into it, just money.

Let’s not even get into office gifts. Why do we bother? They’re a mockery of gift-giving. ¹  And a hell of a chore that nobody enjoys. I’d rather just leave work early and not look back.

I think it was my best friend and brother in law who best said what good gift giving is: it’s a gift that the recipient would not acquire for himself, but that he will love anyway.

One of the very best examples of this is a set of booze bottles he and my sister got me for a birthday one year. They’re very cool 1940′s styled bottles that one pours one’s booze into rather than pouring drinks from the plastic CostCo bottle they came in. I would never, ever, in a million years have bought them. The day of my birthday, I was disappointed to have received them. ²  And yet here we are, nearly ten years later, and I wouldn’t be without them, and still use and display them. Prominently.

The point is that good thoughts simply aren’t enough. There’s a related saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

The point is also that badass and/or expensive gifts aren’t enough. They have to be thoughtful and personal.

I don’t always hit the mark, but I know the mark is there, and I’m certainly aiming.

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