WeatherGirl’s Station

Another epic three weeks has come to an end and Lance Armstrong has won an incredible seventh consecutive Tour. Since they entered the Alps it’s been one nail biting thrilling stage after another.

As usual the Green jersey wasn’t decided until the final stage, cool to see Hushovd win. A shame they had to stop the timing due to the wet weather. Watching the Vinokourov/Leipheimer showdown would have been quite something.

My favourite ads this year have been the Trek Lucky 7 Scatch and Win, seeing poor old Bob get more and more desperate as he failed to win anything while Paul and Phil reel the prizes in has been quite a hoot.

Most annoying aspect of the Tour reporting - all the American reporters who keep describing Armstrong as the greatest cyclist ever. HE ISN’T! He’s a Tour de France specialist. Even Armstrong wouldn’t make this claim for himself. Eddy Merckx is the one cyclist who might be worthy of that title.

Main worry for next year’s cycling season - that OLN will treat the Tour as they are now treating the Vuelta, like total crap.

Current temperature 61F/16C

Every so often the ‘law and order’ crowd call for British policemen to be armed. I believe it is completely unnecessary and I think it can be taken as a matter of pride that the British are policed by consent. Guns are not needed on British streets.

Friday 22nd July we once again saw reinforcement of why this should remain so. In pursuit of the four men who attempted to explode more bombs in London on Thursday 21st July British police shot dead an innocent man.

This is not the first time this has happened. Something is clearly rotten in the way police officers are being trained. (There don’t seem to be too many occasions where shots are fired and the innocent victim is injured. They are always killed.) Surely in pursuit of the guilty information is of the utmost importance. The dead can tell you nothing.

Current temperature 79F/26C

Disappointing. With so much going for it you’d have thought that this would have been a great movie. Sadly not enough attention was paid to the script. There were moments of brilliance but not enough to make the experience enjoyable. Jolie’s charater was the most interesting and the wittiest.

Not worth the celluloid it was distributed on.

Current temperature 79F/26C

So George Bush has selected a candidate for the US Supreme Court. Given that white men are more than adequately represented on the court you’d think that he would have taken the opportunity to select someone who could add to the diversity of experience represented on the court. But, of course, Shrub did not have the gumption to ignore the dominant culture in DC. Another opportunity thrown away!

Until more women are nominated to the court there will not be adequate justice for the majority of the population.

Current temperature 79F/26C

After the initial shock, I’m getting used to being bald. Actually the fully leaded baldness didn’t really last long. (Check out how it looks here.) I was quite surprised at how fast my hair came back. Of course I still look fairly bare but I’m not quite so bald. There’s lots of gray in evidence, at least around my face. Sub Evil Boy said he’d like me to dye my hair when it grows back as he didn’t want both his parents looking old with gray hair!

So is this what George Bush thinks is an improved situation for the Iraqis?

Yes, I’m a little behind on my posts, so we’ve had nine stages of the Tour and I haven’t commented.

Actually, we haven’t finished watching Stage 9, there’s just been too much going on this weekend to keep up. Thankfully Monday is a rest day so we can finish the stage. (Once again Tivo comes to our aid!) Hopefully we can avoid any news reports on the results so we can watch unspoiled.

It has certainly been an interesting Tour so far. Armstrong catches Ullrich in the time trial, CSC almost beats Discovery in the team time trial, the peloton races at breakneck speeds (one suspects some riders will implode eventually), and the green, polkadot and yellow jerseys look like they are all up for grabs.

OLN’s coverage has been much better than their miserable Giro coverage but it sure sounds like Paul and Phil are doing commentary for two different media outlets, only occassionally coming together for their much loved witty banter. Is OLN not paying them properly for their services perhaps?

Love all those Bob Roll ads. You should definitely surf over to www.bobinthebuff.com for a quick looksee at him in all his glory. Go Bob!!!!!

Current temperature 73F/23C

Friday night we went to the East Side Park and watched the 13 finalists compete in the talent show final. It was a quite a mixture of performances ranging from stand up comedy through various dance forms, a Minnesotan steel drum group to singers of various genres.

Sub Evil Boy was on form and worked the crowd well getting much laughter to the lyrics of his songs and encouraging many to join in the chorus with him. Sadly he was not named as one of the top three but we loved his performance and the crowd clearly enjoyed it too.

This year we thought the judges did a great job, they had a hard task to try and select a top three and I think the three they chose were worthy of recognition. (Last year’s winner was amazingly offensive and we quite stunned by their selection.)

Current temperature 73F/23C

So for a while now I’ve been wondering what my head would look like without hair. (I suspect it’s all those movies where actors actually shave their heads for the role - some look really cool and others have really mis-shapen noggins. Made me wonder about my own head.)

Since I’m an artist it seemed appropriate to document all this and keep as much of my hair as I could to use for various projects.

The first task was to tie my hair up in a ponytail and take photos of my ‘before’ head.

Next Phi cut off my ponytail. It looks really cool, one end is a bundle of curls and the cut end curves away in a feathered fashion. I hope to make a special box to keep it in.

More pictures followed. I rather liked this stage. While from the back it looks strangely mutant, from the front it sort of resembles a bob cut.

I then cut off as much hair as I could using a pair of scissors. I caught these cuttings on a sheet of newsprint and they piled up in interesting patterns. I’ve been dying my hair red for a number of years so as I worked around my head the colour varied as I got closer and closer to my scalp.

Another round of photos followed. This was the ugliest stage. I looked like I’d had some sort of shock and my hair had fallen out in clumps. The colour was pretty spotty. Now I’d really committed myself to this project and had to go on. A quick trip to the hairdressers would not fix this!

Phi’s beard trimmer came out and Phi zipped off much of what was left of my hair.

More photos!

Lastly a disposable razor and shaving cream were utilised to get as bald a head as possible.

One last set of photos for today.

I was lucky to discover that I have a rather nicely shaped head, all curves and rounds. Not a bobble or oddly shaped bump in sight. Looking in the mirror is wierd as my face now looks too short and out of proportion. My scalp feels incredibly soft when rubbed with the grain but brush against the grain and it feels like sandpaper.

I’ve been out and about with my baldness but I’ve been wearing a sunhat to protect my skin so nobody has noticed.

Current temperature 75F/24C

We woke to news of bombs exploding in London. I spent the day listening to coverage on FiveLive the BBC site for breaking news and live sports reporting. As far as I know all our family and friends are safe.

For online news reports visit the BBC or NewsGoogle for a variety of sources.

I can’t imagine what the bombers were thinking. Haven’t these people heard of the Blitz or the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign? Those acts of terror didn’t dent British resolve either. I don’t see how this gets anyone anything other than uniting the British in their resistance to terrorists and solidifying Tony Blair’s resolve and position.

Current temperature 86F/30C (Heat Index 90F/32C)