the armstrong effect

it's really great and all that lance armstrong won his 7th tour de france and according to cnn his heart pump 2x more oxygen than mine does...fine...dandy. something that is not fine and dandy, is the influence he seems to have on people. one of my fellow bloggers, mr. fletcher austin mcmuffin astutely wrote that armstrong's first assault on the world was, "turning a crappy piece of plastic into a fashion icon." this is true. however there is a second, far more obnoxious trend that lance starts every year, cycling. yeah that's right. every year after the tour de france there's a group of people armed to the teeth with over priced nike, cycling acoutrement that take the streets.

since these people only bike about once a year, they suck. i can't tell you how many of these people have ended up under my tires. they refuse to use the bike lanes. they think they're just small cars. and they are so wrong. now i realize this may sound a bit odd coming from a girl who never learned to ride a bike, but i don't care. i don't place myself in situations that put me into oncoming traffic (unless i'm really shitfaced).

the point is (and yes there is one) is that i am uncomfortable with the amount of influence this man has over the american public. lance has even dropped the p-bomb. yeah politics. he wants to take all the money we're spending in iraq and put it towards cancer research. now i think it's a nice gesture, but all of it. seriously? maybe we should spend some of it fixing all the damage we did, or looking for alternate sources of energy. but whatever lance throws down we're gonna pick it up, because he's lance armstrong. if he said, "oh hey let's have national wacky hat day." everyone would be all over it.