I spent the day working on an magazine article and then in the evening e and I watched Repo Man. How is it that I had not seen this movie before? If you have anything bad to say about Repo Man, you are no longer my friend. Okay, that's not true. But you're on probation.

Saturday

e and I "volunteered" at the Philly Craft Beer Festival. A friend of ours works at a local brewery and put us on the event staff list, but the entirety of the help he would allow us to provide was helping carry the empty kegs away at the end of the day. In return for that twenty minutes of light labour we got to spend eight hours drinking all the free draught beer we could stomach from microbreweries from around the US and Canada. The smoked porter from Stone Breweries was the winner of the day in my books. I also sampled heavily from the Unibroue table because, despite being a Canadian brewery, they had a much longer beer list at the show than I had previously seen. Maudite is still my favourite from them, but I would also happily drink myself unconscious on Trois Pistoles. We rounded out the night with more beer at the same friend's apartment and Talladega Nights, which was a amusing but not so much so that I would have been willing to watch it sober.

Sunday

The morning was spent lounging about, playing videogames, watching The Sopranos and generally recovering from the previous days excesses. We had dinner plans with one of e's coworkers, but she called us up a couple of hours before to ask if we wanted to go see Bon Jovi for free instead.

It was super fun. I generally look down on concerts with assigned seating, and the opening act was some American Idol runner-up, but JBJ made up for it all with extremely contagious enthusiasm. I certainly wouldn't call myself a Bon Jovi fan, but there's no denying that the man and his band are talented musicians and performers. And when it comes to live music, I'm unlikely to turn my nose up at anyone who is good at what they do and excited about doing it.

Today

The weather was unreasonably beautiful. I worked on my novel some and then took the motorcycle out for a zoom. As soon as e got home from work she saddled up her bike as well and we rode out to the Jersey shore. It's exciting to have bikes and be close enough to the ocean to be able to visit it on a whim.

But that brings us to the first request for assistance:

RFA - Motorcycle Theft

As some of you know, my motorcycle was stolen a few months ago. Two other nicer motorcycles than mine live on my block and are locked with only the most flimsy of locks. Upon buying my own, I followed their lead and soon paid for it. I called the cops and they took down my information, but didn't really seem to think there was much hope. Neither did I, but then my strange quasi-racist neighbour suggested we go cruising through the bad neighbourhoods nearby anyway.

"You can't go over there by yourself. That's a black neighbourhood and those motherfuckers will kill a white boy like you as soon as look at you," says R.G., my 60-year old black neighbour. "But if you're with me, it will be okay."

After about an hour of driving around, to my great surprise, we found my bike hidden behind a row house. There seemed no other reasonable course of action than to steal it back. R.G. played lookout for me and it went off without a hitch. I rode it directly to the shop and checked it in for an oil change and carb cleaning, more to get it off the street than because it needed it.

I called the cops and told them I'd recovered the bike. They stopped by the house to take a statement. I was a little concerned they'd give me shit for the vigilantism, but the policemen just shook his head and said: "No worries dawg. You did the right thing." (Word for word, that was his response.)

I gave him the address of the place I found it behind, but never heard anything else about it. Afterwards, I made a point of talking to the other bikers on the street and telling them about it. The consensus that the reason behind my bike having been targeted instead of theirs was twofold. First, there was the fact that my bike is light and doesn't have a locking steering column, making it easy to roll away once you cut the lock. Second, and perhaps more significantly, my bike is an enduro and would be of some value even as a dedicated off-road machine whereas with the other bikes a thief would have to part them out.

My current locking system is much more rigorous. A sturdy chain loops around a steel post and then goes through a U-lock which in turn goes through my rear chainring. Furthermore, I have a disc lock on my front brakes. Also, I have moved the bike to an area which is under camera surveillance (thanks to R.G.'s paranoia).

Despite all this, I noticed today that someone has made an attempt to cut through the chain. They didn't succeed, but they made pretty good progress. Of course, even if they do  manage to make it through, neither wheel will roll, so I'm not sure what their plan is (I consider it likely that they just haven't noticed or thought that far ahead), but still it bothers me. I reviewed the days tape with R.G., but it must have happened sometime earlier.

So the question is what to do next. One obvious solution would be to get theft insurance, but I can't find anyone who covers motorcycles against theft for less than a grand per year. My bike is only worth about fifteen bills, and I can't help but feel that a system that requires me to pay out the value of my motorcycle every year and a half is less than ideal. Not to mention the headaches involved in filing a claim if it does get stolen. Likewise, indoor parking in the neighbourhood runs 75 dollars or more per month.

I could replace the current chain (which is heavy, but was bought by the foot at the hardware store) with a hardened steel kryponite chain and check every day for signs of tampering. That would definitely make theft harder, but I know that no lock will stop someone that's determined enough. Not to mention the fact that just leaving it out there for them to try irks me. And even if we catch a theft attempt on tape, I doubt the police will take any real interest.

The only other cost-feasible option I can think of is rigging up a motion or proximity alarm. But I really feel like that system has no teeth unless it goes hand in hand with gun ownership and a willingness to escalate property disputes to potentially lethal violence. And that's not really my style.

Any ideas?

RFA: Mustard

This problem is much simpler, but no less important. Does anyone know an outlet from which one can mail order Colman's prepared mustard? I have searched Philadelphia high and low without success and the situation is growing desperate.