Dolly the sheep's got nothing on me

The lemming doesn't use Twitter. I have been dabbling around with blip.fm for possible use with a new Friday Beer, music, and pictures post, but I'm too wordy for Twitter, I can't get everything I need to say to fit in 140 characters. When I tried I failed miserably, ended up frustrated, and nothing got accomplished. Attempting Twitter could have easily been the source of the great blog dryspell of May 2009 which culminated in having to make excuses that I could not use as to why I had been gone. Just for fun though I do have some random searches which survey the twitterspace for any interesting happenings.

Today I saw a fun post from e2pii (Vanessa) that said,

"@bike_lemming Was this you? http://twitter.com/BikePortland/status/2005064009".

Assuming someone just assumed I have a Twitter account since I'm on the cutting edge of technology, I decided to go and have a look. After all, they did try to send it to me, and who am I to turn down possible good content?

The link sent by e2pii (Vanessa) was from Jonathan Maus of BikePortland and said,



"- Reader email: "My husband saw someone riding a bike in the center divider of I-5 north of the Marquam Bridge last night.""

Ironically although I am crazy, the crazed rider spotted was not me riding in the center divider of I-5 north of the Marquam Bridge. I'm a mountain biker by heart and admittedly when I can't get out to some buff singletrack I will take it anyway I can get it. Riding in the center divider was a little more adrenaline packed than I was up for last night however, even if I needed a little pick-me-up after missing the mark so badly on the chain lubing styles of nearly 50% of my 7 readers. But why did Vanessa think it was me? And more importantly, who is this mysterious Vanessa?

As I read more of Vanessa's posts, I noticed apparent "conversations" with bike_lemming. It was then that I realized I have been cloned. I don't know much about my clone except that he is Keith Banks, bike_lemming. As is probably par for the course, I don't remember being cloned and am probably glad that I don't. Nonetheless, this was good news to me as I could really use some help writing blogs once in awhile, even if only to give me ideas and warn me of my grammatical errors before someone makes me look silly.

While researching my clone, I was disturbed to find what must have been a dangerous glitch in the whole DNA duplication process. His first post is what sounded the alarm,

"cooking a pesto, feta, mushroom pizza, 7:47 PM May 11th from web".

Immediately I became worried. Pesto upsets my stomach and often mimics the symptoms of Montezuma's Revenge. If my clone can now ingest and even enjoy pesto, it's only a matter of time before he eats me and assumes my identity. Although this was disconcerting, I knew more research was needed to see if my clone is good or evil. Knowing that my clone is probably too clever to reveal anything about himself, I turned again to Vanessa (e2pii),

"@bike_lemming given that half the class is about your favorite thing, the derailleur.... maybe not so much. 9:59 PM May 14th from web in reply to bike_lemming"

Gulp... It is worse than I thought. My clone has snubbed the derailleur. Not only that, but it appears he voices his disdain of the derailleur in courting rituals to win over the ladies. I enjoy rocking a singlespeed on occasion, but without a derailleur I could never do cool things like climb the Blue Ridge Parkway, get to work in a timely manner without being all sweaty, or attend geared group rides where I get dropped and have to ride home in strange territory on my own. This can only mean one thing, my clone has evolved to a superior state and most surely will not tolerate the inferior DNA he was created from.

Needless to say, these days I wish I had eyes in the back of my head. I'm just waiting to be caught on some hill in my 39x25 granny gear by a strong one geared rider lazily rocking a 50x15, turning to say hi, only to unexpectedly get a pump in the spokes. For now the only thing I can do is follow my clone on Twitter with my failed account and watch for any telltale signs of my own demise. If you are my clone and reading this, shoot me an email and I'll send you out my password, I could really use some help on this blog some days.