Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the Friday Mashup! Who is ready to mash? You probably know, but we’re not talking about the kind of mashing you do with potatoes. Not at all. This kind of mashing means putting all of the great stuff you’ve sent us all week long into one place so that we can see it all at once. I’m not sure why it’s the same word as what you do to potatoes. But there you go. Diving in, then…

On Saturday, we asked you “If you could design any kind of bike to do anything, what would it look like and what would you have it do?” Here’s what you had to say:

Matthew said:

“If I could design a bike to do anything, I would design a bike to make me breakfast. I would sit on the bike and turn the pedals, which would turn a chain which would turn gears which would be attached to robotic arms that would crack eggs and shake salt and pour milk and sautee spinach. All the while, I would be getting my morning exercise. Also, the bike would do all my work for the day, so that after breakfast, I could watch movies with Robbi for the rest of the day. Also, the bike would do all of Robbi’s work for the day.”

Then he also said: I forgot to add that the bike would look like an otter because wouldn’t it be cool to have an otter in my living room?

All I can say is that this Matthew fellow sounds like a real winner. It seems virtually impossible that anyone else could come up with anything quite this insightful, revolutionary, and hilarious. I’m wondering if I should send him his trophy now? I suppose I ought to look at just a few of the other entries first.

Harry said:

“My bike is an underwater quad bike that can turn into a kayak. It goes very slowly because it doesn’t want to break and the passengers would like to see Shamu and sharks. The Angry Birds are the passengers, and they say: “Come on. We want to play! This is fun!!” I put super Vaseline on the bike so that it’ll explode to pieces. And then I will put all the pieces together and make a fast plane out of it, and then it’ll explode to pieces again. And then I will put all the pieces together and some super Vaseline and make a jet, and then it’ll explode to pieces.”

Immediately, I see that Matthew’s invention, as great as it may be, is nothing compared to the magnificent creation of Harry. A bike that can turn into a kayak that can turn into a plane that can turn into a jet? Move over, sliced bread! Am I the only one who had never heard about the special explosive properties of Vaseline? I mean, I’ve occasionally put that stuff on my dry and cracked lips? I had no idea that doing so put them at risk of exploding and turning into a jet! Thank you, Harry, for this critical information!

Here is a picture of Harry with his bicycle invention:

Harvey said:

My bike is a stunt bike.  It can do a lot of things.  It has a clock to go back in time to see the dinosaurs.  My bike can jump over 5 monster-sized buildings, 99 monster trucks, and one volcano all stacked up together.  It also has wings that takes me to outer space.

Man, I need to get me a bike like Harvey’s. My bike basically carries me straight along the ground. It has no time travel properties. It cannot jump over even one monster-sized building, and (to be fair) cannot even jump over even one normal-sized building. If I’m being really honest, I’m not sure it could even jump over a blueberry muffin. Maybe if it were one of those mini-muffins you sometimes get in the breakfast buffet at Motel Six. Yes, I think I can say that with confidence.

Alden sent us two drawings:

The first is of the whole family biking to the park.

Strong work, Alden, not just with the drawings, which are excellent, but with the writing, which is clear and straight and proportional. Gone are the days in which your A’s were three times the size of your L’s, which leaned dangerously close to your D’s, which were always backwards and far too close to your E’s, which sometimes looked more like backwards G’s, which were often not followed by the N’s needed to conclude your name (on account of the fact that you had run out of paper). And now you can write all these names. You’re growing every day. Excuse me for a moment while I bask in a wave of crushing nostalgia and weep into my handkerchief.

 Alden’s second is of Alden biking to Uncle Alex and Aunt Megan’s wedding. You can see all the people sitting in the stands to watch. I think she’s expecting them to get married in a baseball stadium or something.

What a timely drawing, as we are headed to Uncle Alex’s and Auntie Megan’s wedding TODAY. I am hoping that Alden’s smile will be just as broad and contented as it is in the drawing above on hours 5, 6, 7, and 8 of our upcoming eight-hour car ride. And during hours 3, 4, 2, and 1.

As for the baseball stadium, I think it’s entirely possible. Uncle Alex has a lot of friends. He is my brother, after all.

 Here is Alden doing her second drawing.

Here is a drawing from Kato:

Here is Kato on his Chicco Red Bullet bicycle. He started out writing that on the bike but ran out of room, and then the letters just randomly went wherever he could find a spot.

I think Kato is on to something. When it comes to writing, far too much emphasis is placed on putting the letters in a deliberate order. Think of how much easier (and more fun) my job would be if I could just put them in any order I wanted and WHEREVER I wanted. I could put some on the bookshelf, some in in the fridge, some into that little gap beneath the oven and the floor. It’s amazing how much we can learn from kids. Good thing I have three of them. I might someday have a chance of being really wise.

And here is Kato modeling his drawing.

Ah, Instagram. If only our whole lives could be filtered thus. Oh wait! It’s called delusion. And I think it’s problematic.

Here is a drawing from August.

August does not know much about drawing bicycles but nevertheless believes he does.

 Which makes August our resident expert on delusion. I asked him what he thinks of it, and he was surprisingly positive. Perhaps this is yet another piece of wisdom I stand to glean from my children?

Robbi tried to draw a couple of different bicycles.

She started with this one.

And then she colored it in.

But she wasn’t sure that she had drawn the best bicycle drawing that she could. And so she tried another.

In addition to featuring a bicycle, this illustration guest-starred a sloth.

Here’s the finished painting. You may currently bid for the right to own it over on Ebay.

Here it is, sitting on Robbi’s painting table.

I love seeing Robbi’s paintings next to her box of paints. I like to see where all the colors come from. Any shade that you can find in the painting shows up somewhere in those neat rows of colors. Robbi’s paints are from Japan. They are a special kind that you can’t buy in the United States—and can’t even buy online. Such is the majesty of these paints. Maybe you should plan a trip to Japan.

Here’s a drawing from Steve (The dad of Huck, who was named our castle expert a few weeks ago):

Steve wrote wrote: I love bikes. I think that the world would be a better place if everyone rode a bike more often. Especially sloths.

I also love overly complicated, silly solutions to non-problems. I.E. How to make a bike go without any effort at all for the rider? It is a silly dilemma that clearly exposes a severe lack of understanding of the questioner in all things important. Such a silly question deserves a silly answer: a motor bike!

To be fair, let it be known that Steve is a professional illustrator like Robbi.

Which is why his bike drawing is so excellent.

What is not accounted for in the above is his extraordinary sense of engineering. Why hadn’t someone thought of this previously. Put a MOTOR on a BIKE? It’s brilliant! Sorry, Steve, but I’m going to take your idea to my friends who know about motors, and together, we’re going to make a million bucks. Their names are Harley and Davidson and, for whatever reason, they wear leather pants. I’m leaving now.

Also, because Steve is a professional illustrator, he was able to use powerful image processing software to create an entirely different-looking version.

See how Steve’s already-awesome illustration becomes even more lovely and nostalgia-inducing due to the filters that make it appear well-used and worn? More delusion, I say. Of course this is not a “well-used” illustration because it represents an idea so stunningly new! As soon as I’m done inventing the motor bike, I think I might see if my friends Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper want to star in a movie about them.

And now, we’ve run out of submissions. Which means that now it is my pleasure to announce the Bobbledy Bicycle Expert…

Harry is the winner for his amazing invention, great photo, and stunning revelations on the power of Vaseline. But thanks to EVERYONE who sent us stuff this week. I can hardly wait to share next week’s theme with you. But, of course, I have to. But not for too much longer now.

Check back tomorrow for for more fun.