William pretends to not understand because he likes the attention he gets from belittling the interests of others.

Kinda sad.

What has happened to this forum?

I moderate other forums and I have, in the past, preferred this forum to any other.

I liked the way people wrote here (some great, unpretentious, natural writing here) and their zeal for fixed gear bikes.

I've noticed a number of people who I really admired, like absentr, have disappeared.

Gone away.

Well, maybe this forum has run its course.

Like I said, kinda sad.

Does anyone here remember when I fell on my bike, broke all those ribs and collapsed my lung?

The doctors punched a hole in my chest and put a tube in it to suck my lung back into shape.

I had tubes and wires going all over the place.

I asked for a computer and they gave me one, and I came here while the hospital, almost a living thing itself, sucked at my chest through a tube.
I couldn't hear the suction machine behind the walls going pocketa-pocketa-pocketa, but I could feel it inside me.

I felt so connected, to the hospital, the plumbing, tubing and wiring, and, through the internet, to friends on this forum.

Kind of a universal cosmic thing, y'know?

People hundreds and thousands of miles, even continents away, talked to me real time through the internet while the hospital suctioned out the air between the outside of my lung and the inside of my chest wall.

Not that I felt afraid or alone.

I just couldn't quite understand how I could get hurt so bad by something I loved so much.

I remember absentr took a bad fall that same month, during a race, and got hurt a lot worse than I did.

He recovered and built a bike with pink Phil hubs.

Didn't he?

Anybody remember that?

Well, the pendulum swings first one way and then the other.

Maybe this forum will swing back in a better direction.