Biking up that hill … with no problem
There is nothing like having similar circumstances continually reappearing to make me believe I am either a) the poster child for déjà vu, b) living a somewhat haphazardly written version of the movie Groundhog Day, or c) in a bit of a rut.
Today’s reoccurrence came through my recent Music-Coffee-and-Code-in-a-basement life. As I am beginning a new project using Windows Mobile I chose the New Project menu item and followed the appropriate step to create a new mobile project (yeah, I know, this kind of riveting storytelling keeps me alive … I will be unboxing Happy Meals soon …). The result of these straightforward and previously effective acts was a little tiny failure message and a very disconcerting beep (not your standard disconcerting beep either; this was a new and ugly beep).
The reason for said disconcerting beep and lack of new project was a problem that occurred as a result of the security in Internet Exporer 8. I found this while drinking my iced addiction and listening to the CBC Radio 3 track of the day: “The Prisoner” by D.O.A.
There is no way that I can listen to D.O.A. without a flood of memories that bring me back to struggling up some gruesome hill (I always tried to stop and look at the lake for its beauty and not because I could scarcely draw an unlaboured breath). My suffering and panting (I am gravity enhanced and prefer the ride down to the ride up any hill) would always camouflage the stealthy cranking of those riding behind until the gutteral refrain of “my old man’s a bum … uurgh” would appear in my left ear as I would be left trying in vain to dig down to find enough energy to grab the aerodynamic advantage of the rear wheel quickly spinning ever further ahead.
I never caught the wheel and I always knew I would hear the lyric. The very occasional time I managed to summit anything greater than an on-ramp without hearing the whizzing of passing tires and D.O.A. lyrics (it was sometimes worse … Tom Jones’s “it’s not unusual to be loved by anyone” can stay in a person’s head for hours) was a victory savoured at least until the next hill. Of course, the downhills were their own reward.
In celebration of finding a way around a tedious problem I am pouring myself a little more coffee (be careful filtering that stuff … it is very easy to drop the strainer into the coffee bowl and have to do it all over again and be forced to wait for a second straining) and putting D.O.A.’s Just Play It Over and Over five songs (one with Bif Naked doing some singing as well) on high rotation. The code mines were never better.
