johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
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The one where I'm stranded, but it looks like every other day
I've been staying up too late every morning, so when the alarm goes off for me to watch the start of the tennis at 6 P.M., I telly myself I can watch the early matches on replay, and I roll over for a couple of more hours in the only warm room. Then I never watch the replays, instead watching new episodes of TV shows and spending too much time on cycling.
With Terriers gone, Fringe is the best-written show on TV. The Fairly Legal pilot spent a lot of time introducing characters and relationships. I hope it turns into more than a hot woman who lives on a sailboat (been on my bucket list since birth). The Spartacus prequel first episode had way fewer oiled up muscular guys, and various topless women popped up every 4 or 5 minutes. Four minutes in, they had their first decapitation - they like to show the neck as the head flies off.
I looked at my car, the hill, the snow and the forecast, and decided my car isn't moving any time soon. There's too good a chance that it would end up in the barrier or the building. If the forecast is right, maybe a week from today I'll go for it. Yes, I take responsibility for parking where I did, even though the back lot was full when I got back from the dollar store before going to bed the other day.
Lance's media network are still trying to help him get away with it. He's got people cranking out stories to brainwash casual fans that he's been out there saving lives for years, and my family had cancer, and I'm gonna get cancer, and that's way more important than him doing "steroids". It's not just the old cycling cronies that made money off of him in the day. His Livestrong.com is part of a pulp mill called Demand Media. They crank out high volume low quality articles. Google is trying to keep them out of searches. Anyway, they're trying to have a stock Initial Public Offering next week in the amount of one billion dollars. Lance is the big name associated with the company, and they've had writers cranking stuff out as "news" trying to convince the world to move along, there's nothing to see here.
Lance posted a tweet that's generated news stories all around the world, with no one checking the facts.
"Great to hear that @usada is investigating some of @si's claims. I look forward to being vindicated."
@usada isn't the US Anti-doping, it's someone in Tokyo with a rabbit head and question mark for their icon. The few journalists who have tried to contact the real USADA haven't heard any doubts about the Sports Illustrated story. In real life, Lance's lawyers complained last August that the USADA was making sweetheart deals with American cyclists, offering them immunity from things they may have done so they testify to the grand jury about him. Last Fall, the head of the USADA went along with the FDA's Novitsky to the Interpol office in France. They met with the French anti-doping agency, who wanted to turn over Tour de France samples and other evidence, a special French police force, ones from Spain and Italy, someone in anti-doping from Belgium. Do you really think a guy who knows everything that's going on is going to investigate stuff SI had multiple sources for, to "vindicate" him?
But that quote was picked up everywhere, and now people think it's happening, and he's innocent and saving lives. And that's a big part of the reason I can't ignore it right now. The guy's whole life is a lie. The lawyers apparently got Sports Illustrated to leave out documented stuff about hookers and cocaine. There was Livestrong stuff too. One guy on twitter spent months going through their paperwork, and says that the Foundation backed up the bike shop to buy a private plane, and they lease it and pay the jet fuel when Lance takes it to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, or Australia, or wherever. And the big reason to fly a private jet is because Customs don't care about what's in your luggage, which includes bikes and wheels and things. But he's gotten away with stuff for more than fifteen years, and told the world he never cheated, and some of us are afraid he'll get away with it again.
If you donate money you think will go to fight cancer, would you want it to pay for a private jet to ?Hawaii for two weeks so a guy can ride a bike and stay at a 5 star hotel in nice weather? And know that when he uses the word Livestrong, way more people go to the site that makes him money than the one for the charity?
Please keep your fingers crossed that some pizza place will deliver in the next couple of days, and that I have money to pay them. I got my electric bill by e-mail yesterday, and found out I owed for three months instead of two.
Have a great weekend.
5:46 a.m. - Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011
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