spokesNspin

In his book, The Affluent Society, Galbraith argues that most of our wants beyond the basics of food and shelter are created by the marketing department.

I am trying to be a more responsible and less consumption driven. But there are a few things I still would like. And true to Galbraith’s assertion I didn’t even know I wanted these things until somebody in a marketing department told me I did.  But it could be a virtue.  Over at Ecovelo they are arguing that I should buy a new bike in order to help the economy.  It is a civic duty.

I am currently trying to down size and simplify my life. In less than a year I will probably be moving to something smaller. I currently have five bicycles. Here is my current plan for the bikes.

Get rid of the two mountain bikes. Take my current commuter bike and convert it to a fixie. Then I want to get this bike for my every day get around machine:

It’s the Homer Hilsen by Rivendell.

They are spendy but they make very nice lugged steel frame bikes.  With this plan you see that I am actually down sizing by one bicycle.

I also think this calendar is really cool.

So if anyone is interested that is my Christmas list.  Don’t worry about the calendar I can probably get that myself.  Go ahead and put the bike under my Christmas tree.

It might be simpler to just give me a Rivendell gift certificate for the bike.  I wouldn’t want  to burden you with working on all the details regarding size and accessories.

Tags: consumerism

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 7:59 am and is filed under Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.