I discovered there's a podcast of the monologues from A Prairie Home Companion, which makes for a nice 15 minutes of listening or so, if I'm not up to the comparative marathon of This American Life or Radio Lab. The broadcast from July 14th carries this little gem:

And they voted ten to four, not to do the senior class play, which went against everything they'd been brought up with, never to quit, never to quit, never, ever give up. And they found out then, the reason you *should* never quit, or give up, is because when you do, it won't make that big a difference to people. They won't notice. You think it's going to be a scandal, and it's not. You'll come home early from school for three or four days before your parents say, 'Weren't you in a play?'"

Sunday and yesterday I rode to San Luis Obispo and back; here's the photos It turns out that 18 hours was the right amount of time to thoroughly explore the place; it's got much more of the Southern California Disease than I originally thought, and a lot more chain stores and other things aimed at fratboys and their girlfriends. I did win four dollars on a lottery ticket, and made some friends in the bar closest to the hotel (if you run into Leslie, Kim and Laz, tell them I said hello). Here's the map of my route down (except that I bailed on route 46 because I was tired of riding for the day), and I took highway 1 home.

I'm not entirely happy with my new windscreen (it pushes the airflow over my head better than the stock one, but narrows it along the side so it buffets my shoulders), and I can't take more than about four hours a day on the stupid seat I've got. (It's sort of a nice seat, but I think it was custom-carved for the previous owner, a short woman with a butt very differently shaped than mine.)