Took some time off last week to travel up to Seattle and see Rush. I’m an old drummer, which makes this sort of pilgrimage mandatory behavior. But I think taking the kids to a packed, three hour concert was a little off the wall, even by my standards. From what I could tell, they were the only seven-years-olds at the show, and they stayed awake the entire time (thanks partly to fire and explosions).

Probably bears mentioning that I didn’t just take the kids to a concert; I took the kids to one of the first concerts to be held in Washington state after they’d voted to legalize marijuana.

At first, I’d assuming this was just negligent, half-assed parenting on my part. After thinking about it a little more, though, I’m pretty sure it follows in a long line of sketchy but calculated parental decisions common to my family. That’s much on my mind this week, given the whole Thanksgiving thing. I’m thankful I had parents who were remarkably level-headed but sometimes chose to hang out with people who were not that way at all. See, exposing your kids to some massive doses of human stupidity–when done correctly–has a distinct preventative effect.

More on that later, but I’ve been away from bikes, too, and maybe that’s a good thing. While 650b mountain bike wheels and hydraulic disc brakes for drop bars continue to slouch their way toward the limelight, the here and now of bike high-techery has to be mind reading helmets that display your mood using LEDs. No, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

According to Treehugger.com, somebody has actually invented a bicycle helmet with LEDs that change color depending on your level of alertness and general happiness. As seen in the photo above, these lights ring your head and communicate–based directly on your brain’s activity–how you’re feeling. Finally, a way to express your mood through tiny lights that circle your head. I only hope someone finds a way to tie this technology into MonkeyLectric’s wheel lights.

How awesome would it be to have your mood translated into furious profanity and images of total destruction drawn in colorful lights right on your spinning wheels?

Some more updates this week on a bunch of stuff that’s probably semi-important to be, at least financially.