Ride a bike? Quench your thrist and save @meltdowncomicsI dunno if this is gonna work like i think it should, mostly because i'm a caveman and bluntly strike the keyboard with my club, whilst listening to EPMD or Immortal. Because of the aforementioned, im gonna post a pic using my own methods, and not with the methods of simply pressing the "share" button on the meltdown site. If you want to know more about the picture, click on the link. This is going to be kind of a tirade, so get comfy if you plan on reading the whole thing.
This advertisement has 3 points in it i will be addressing individually. These 3 points add up to one concept that is awesome. (1!) ride a bike (2!) to a comic book store (3!) get rewarded/help an extremely noble cause.
First, ride a bike. This is what i'm talking about. Not go with a group, not race, not put on by some trendspeed fixie co-op. Ride. A. Bike. Cruiser? Great. Clapped out nishiki? Awesome. 42 pound motorcycle without an engine that will most likely kill you pedaling uphill. Rad. The bike is such an awesome invention and can benefit just about anybody across the board on an extremely wide spectrum that includes health, environmental improvement, and finance. I'm sorry, if you dont enjoy a good old fasioned bike ride, or dont think a bike can do anything for you, well, maybe you should give it a try. Not willing to give it a try? Grab a ticket and stand in line with the rest of the walking dead that refuse to think outside the box.
Second, comic book store. Brick and freaking mortar. Know where you can get a price better than 10 percent off? teh interwebz! Yes, that's right, you know what else this includes? FREAKING EVERYTHING! Now, am i saying shopping online is bad? No, i do it a couple times a month. Easy. However, i do try to make sure it is an item that is not offered by an actual person with an actual pulse that will actually force me to (.gasp.) interact with another flesh and blood human being. Now, maybe working at a bike shop i am extra sensitive towards this, because it astounds me how people's logic works in this department. I go online. I buy a bike. I take it to somebody who knows what they are doing to put it together. I dont know a freaking thing about it, including weather or not it will fit me or the necessary maintenance that it WILL (YES WILL) need. I break bike (probably because it was a bargain basement piece of crap). I take it to people who assembled it. The bike is either worthless or needs extra money thrown at it to fix it to the tune of at very least 55 bones. That slaps on an extra 120 dollars on top of the cost of the bike (65 to assemble it). Plus shipping. Plus future cost of maintenance. Lamesville. That's the lower end of the spectrum. The high end stuff gets super lame. I could literally go on for hours, but i will round it off with a little anecdote my pops told me. One time when he was first beginning to apprentice as a pipe fitter under my grandpa, the only thing you needed as an apprentice was a pipe wrench. My dad got a bargain basement wrench, not sure where from. His dad took the wrench and said "Where did you get this? How much did it cost you?" My dad explained that it was a bargain. Gramps said to him "Yeah, well whoever sold it to you probably didnt tell you, on this job, we can't afford to work with a bargain..." and he pitched the wrench. I really wish i would have gotten to know my grandpa.
Third. Help a noble cause, get rewarded for doing the right thing. I think people should be more conscious of what they buy/support. My sister in law told me that a fairly liberal area of lawrence boycotted a starbucks because they felt it was choking the business out of the 3 (yeah, i counted) nearby local coffee shops. It should also be mentioned that there was a GAP within a stones throw. Look, you vote with dollars and cents. If people PREFER starbucks, they're gonna go to where they think the product is better. I worked at a coffee shop in a town FULL TO THE BRIM (pun totally intended) with coffee shops including no less than 7 starbucks in a 4 mile radius. We've been out doing them, and Stell would out do 8 more in a 2 mile radius. Know why? The product is way better, also, see the second point. What bugs me is, the GAP went in, and nobody gave a crap. Ok, a coffee shop that is threatening 3 other local shops, or a place that gets clothes sewn by 4 year olds who get paid with a cool dip in the pool after their 19 hour shift. I'm going to go ahead and support the former over the latter.
Still on the third. This particular flyer gives the rider/comic reader a free tibetan tea. Now, i dunno if free tibet tea is a play on words for the free tibet movement, but im going to assume it is. What happened to the tibetan people sucks. Somebody should fight for them. Taking something that isn't yours and just saying "that's the way it goes" cuz you're bigger, sucks and it isn't right. Let me also say i can't put my mind on this plane because i would never be in that position. If somebody came to my apartment complex and said it was taken over by the local governmental municipality, i'd say very simply "Nope." If they came back, i would probably be taken out and shot as an example, like many people in tibet probably were. Death really is not that big a deal. Everybody dies. Everybody so far at least. If somebody said, you can live, but it will have to be on your knees as a victim, again, i would say "Nope." After my death, i would hope people would help those other victimized in my apartment complex, and fight to get it back to the way it was, however, i would definitely not be around to see how it panned out for them. I've lived a good life, if death came for me tonight, i could make peace with that.
