Jim Carson

Today was the annual "Bike to Work Day," sponsored by one of my former employers. Lots of commuter stations were set up, three on my route to work, staffed by volunteers, usually bike shops in the area. (I have dropped many dollars at Issaquah Ski & Cycle and Montlake Bike Shop.) Since Clif Bar is a sponsor, they have samples of the one-ounce bars. The new twist this year is a Commuter Challenge where people commit to bike commuting eight times in a month.

I spent some time trying to sign up groups for the commute challenge. The general observation is everything's forbidden unless explicitly authorized. I spent a lot of time finding out if we can put up signs and get official buy-in from our transportation coordinator.

Still, we had 27 folks sign up, which is essentially three teams. Very few new riders, though, which I think is primarily a flaw in the Commute Challenge. A one-day bike to work thing is a much easier sell, but eight times over a month? That appeals primarily to people who are already doing it.

Turnout for Bike to Work Day at my company was not that great because a division within my current employer had rented out a movie theatre to see The Matrix: Reloaded starting at 9:00 a.m. I believe this diminished the turnout of people who might have otherwise biked as I saw only 7 bikes, including mine, in the bike cage. (I got up at 6:00 to make sure I'd get there, be able to shower, and do the theatre.)

Quick movie review: If you've seen the Empire Strikes Back, you've seen The Matrix Reloaded. Oh, sure, the special effects are 100x better, but the parallels between The Empire Strikes Back and The Matrix: Reloaded are interesting:

• The main characters:

  Character	The Matrix	Star Wars	Comments
  The boring hero	Neo	Luke Skywalker	Is it blasphemy to say Keanu can't really act? Not that Mark was a powerhouse, either.
  The hot chick	Trinity	Princess Leia	Mmmmm... Trinity in latex pants
  The charismatic hero we're really routing for	Morpheus	Han Solo
  The prophet	The Oracle	Obi-wan Kenobi
  The evil one in charge	The Architect	The Emperor
  His Interesting Henchman	Agent Smith	Darth Vader
  The underutilized character	Tank/Link, The Keymaster	Lando Calrissian

• The original movies were groundbreaking.
• Both sequels have better special effects, thanks in large part to a 10x budget.
• Both movies ended with the bad guys having the upper hand and as cliff-hangers. (At least with The Matrix, I only have to wait until November.)
• I was disappointed in each.
• Both introduced characters who could be very interesting, but were never adequately explored. For example, The Matrix: Reloaded has the ghostly twins. They're a lot like The Borg in that they're too powerful. The Empire Strikes Back introduced us to Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, who, in my opinion, was much more interesting than Luke Skywalker.