19 Mar 2007

Okay, as some people might’ve realised I’m an Industrial Designer. Not a plumber, not a ‘framebuilder’, not someone who chuffs flux for fun, a Designer. You know, one of the guys that makes those pretty functional things you use every second of your life that gives you a sense of joy and purpose.

Yes, I’m joking.

However, no laughing matter is the SIX HOURS I spent today attempting to get my Mac Mail to work after downloading Mac OSX 10.4.9 last night.

For a guy that basically relies on e-mail more than he’ll care to admit (Just imagine me this Summer when we had two brown-outs and I had no computer, fan, or telly. I was no fun to be around.), having an e-mail black hole for most of the day - especially on a Monday when the e-mails pile up - is especially crappy. It’s even more crappy when after doing essentially no work all day, you then have to then catch up on e-mails when essentially you’d be done with that shit by 10am most days.

As per the popular Tv commercial……”NOT HAPPY, JAN!”

Anyway, that’s my dork-rant for the week. I promise.

Enough of the Dork-Rants, where’s mah bike?

Not much happening on the frame front at the moment. The Ethers have been delayed because of some quirks we had to work out in this new finishing process, (Note To Self : Next time don’t try to be smart, just make retro singlespeeds like everyone else) and most current builds are about a week behind schedule because it appears it took most suppliers a week to wake from their NAHBS coma and realise they had new orders.

Skype, Skype, Skype……buhKEK!

Yep, I finally pulled my finger out and get this Skype thing up and running 100%. We now have two phone numbers so check it out:

USA (San Francisco) +1 510 962 5535 (3pm-10pm, Sun-Thurs)
AUS (Melbourne) +61 03 9016 4276 (9am-5pm, Mon-Fri)

If you live in the US, you can now call us for the cost of a local call during the times 3pm til 11pm Westcoast time, Sunday thru Thursday. Weird, I know, but hey, I actually live in AUSTRALIA so staying awake during business hours in two timezones is kinda impossible. As a bonus though, you get to chat in the evenings while eating pizza and drinking beer, rather than calling us just during the day just as the boss turns the corner.

To christen Skype, I (inadvertently) spent nearly two hours talking to Lon Kennedy of Nova Cycles about bizniss, upcoming projects, and possible collaborations. This year is going to be pretty eventful and we’re hoping to drum up some work designing tubesets, graphics, braze-ons, and hardpoints. It’s easier when people know Thylacine Cycles is actually a design company and not just a seller of custom frames. Duh.
So yeah, fingers crossed we’ll be able to ride this buoyant scene a little and put back some cool design into the genepool…..what goes around comes around, and all that. Plus, I’m sick of Breezer dropouts and hydro guides that look like little turds someone stepped on. You’d think that would be motivation enough.
Anyhoo, it’s going to be an interesting rest-of-the-year with three major players - Nova, Pacenti, Paragon - all looking to up the ante and stay competitive, with more new tubesets being available this year than any year in recent memory, more interesting ways to tensions a chain, and more stupid retro five grand townies than ever before.

And you know what that means. It means more cool bikes for you, more interesting projects for us…..win, win, win.

Posted by warwick @ 7:34 am

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